calendar at the time when it was adapted to the Julian year. This should help us
to determine when the Cappadocian calendar was Julianized. The Persian
Zoroastrian New Year is known to have coincided with (Julian) 12 December
in 65– 62 BCE; but although this is precisely when Cappadocia became a Roman
client kingdom following Pompey’s campaigns in the East, this cannot be
when the Cappadocian calendar was Julianized, since in this period the Julian
calendar had not yet been instituted.^91 By the time the Julian calendar was
instituted, in 46BCE, the Cappadocian (or Persian Zoroastrian ) New Year had
receded to 9 December; in subsequent years, it would have continued reced-
ing.^92 We cannotfind, therefore, a suitable year for the adaptation of the
Cappadocian to the Julian calendar with 12 December as its New Year.
Nevertheless, it may be possible to explain this New Year date on the
assumption that the Cappadocian calendar was adapted to the Julian calendar
almost as soon as the latter was instituted. A sixth epagomenal day would have
been added in thefirst Julian leap year, i.e. in December 44BCE(see Table 5.4),
so that the Cappadocian New Year remained at 9 December during the years
44 – 42 BCE. From this point onwards, the relationship with the Roman/Julian
calendar would have remained the same (with the New Year on 9 December),
as a sixth epagomenal day was added in every Roman leap year, which in this
period occurred every three years. But then, when Augustus reformed the
Julian calendar and suspended all leap years between 8BCEand 4CE, the
Cappadocians would have continued intercalating every three years, thus
adding a sixth epagomenal day in 5, 2BCE, and 2CE. This may have been a
mistake, or a deliberate show of independence vis-à-vis Augustus.^93 In any
event, these extra leap years retarded the Cappadocian calendar by three days
(in relation to the Roman calendar), so that by 2CE, the New Year fell on 12
December. In 4CE, when Roman leap years were reinstated, the Cappadocians
followed suit and returned to adding a sixth epagomenal day each time a
Roman leap year occurred, from now onwards every four years. In this way,
the Cappadocian calendar became permanently synchronized to the Julian
calendar with the New Year on 12 December. This suggested scenario is of
course conjectural, but a plausible explanation of the Cappadocian New Year.
A scenario such as this would imply that the Cappadocians were thefirst to
adapt to the Julian calendar, even though Cappadocia in this period was only a
client kingdom of Rome.When the Julian calendar was instituted, Ariobar-
zanes III was in the last years of his reign. He had been installed as king of
Cappadocia by Pompeyc.62BCE, and sided with Pompey during the Roman
(^91) The suggestion that already then the Cappadocians might have adjusted their calendar to
the solar year of 365¼days is anachronistic, as noted already by Kubitschek (1915) 102.
(^92) In 44– 42 BCEit would have been 8 December, etc. I am assuming the Persian Zoroastrian
calendar as expounded by de Blois (1996), for which see Ch. 4. 1, and the Roman calendar as
actually reckoned in this period, set out in Table 5.4. 93
Cappadocia was then ruled by the strong-minded Archelaus I (36BCE– 18 CE).
270 Calendars in Antiquity