centuries (and not in Egypt).^167 It appears on its own in this later period in
Greece (e.g. Argos, Corinth, Crete, Macedonia),^168 Asia Minor (Miletus,
Sardis, Bithynia),^169 Syria,^170 and Palestine (Scythopolis-Beth Shean, Samaria,
Negev).^171 It is clear from the epigraphic record, however, that the adoption of
the Julian calendar in this period was slow, inconsistent, and uneven.^172
It was not until the end of Antiquity, therefore, that calendar diversity
finally gave way, in the Roman East, to the single imperial calendar that had
prevailed, almostab initio, in the western parts of the Roman Empire. The
Julian calendar was later to become standard in the Byzantine Empire, but in
the Near East its impact was only short lived: for in the seventh century and
later, the Islamic lunar calendar began to compete with it as official calendar of
the new Near Eastern empire.
4 THE BABYLONIAN CALENDAR IN
THE SASANIAN EMPIREIn thisfinal section I shall consider the fate of the Babylonian calendar beyond
the borders of the Roman Empire, in the eastern and southern parts of
Mesopotamia that were ruledfirst by the Parthians and then by the Sasanians.
Although, under the Parthians, the Babylonian calendar ceased to be used as
the official imperial calendar (they used instead the Macedonian calendar),^173
(^167) Julian dates on their own appear earlier in the texts of imperial rescripts (e.g.AE2006:
1403b, from Alexandria in Troas, 134CE;AE2001: 1949, from 2nd- or 3rd-c. Salamis in Cyprus;
see also, much earlier, the Roman date in the Greek text of thesenatus consultuminscribed in
Priene in 135BCE,I. Priene41 =AE2007: 1428), but these inscriptions are presumably not
representative of local usage. There are still, however, some rare exceptions: a Julian date appears
exceptionally in 238CEin Maximianopolis (Trachonitis, southern Syria: Meimaris 1992: 353 no.
40; see also ibid. 323), and earlier still in Axos (Crete), in a dedication of the 1st or 2nd cc.CE(AE
1999: 1743).
(^168) Argos:AE2003: 1623–4. Corinth: Samuel (1972) 188 n. 1. Crete:AE2002: 1632–3.
Macedonia:SEG49. 829, afloor mosaic with Julian month-names from Thessalonika, dated to
thefirst half of the 5th c.
(^169) Miletus and Sardis: Samuel ibid. Bithynia:AE2003: 1652.
(^170) e.g. an inscription from Nîh
:a (Beka valley) dating from 539CE, in Rey-Coquais (1967) no.
2945; and of contentious late-Roman date, Ameling (2004) iii. 46 171 – 7 (Syr30).
In Scythopolis there are several 6th-c. inscriptions, e.g. thefloor mosaic of the monastery
of the Lady Mary: see Meimaris (1992) 83–4, 86 no. 17. Samaria:AE1994: 1780 (exact
provenance unknown). Negev (southern Palestine):AE1996: 1573.
(^172) Meimaris (1992) 42–5. Thus among the Negev inscriptions inAE1996: 1573 is dated
February (541CE), but later no. 1572 is still dated Panemos (570CE). A similar inconsistency is
found among the north-west Syrian mosaic inscriptions of the same period, in Rey-Coquais
(1996).
(^173) See above, near n. 42. Babylonian and Macedonian calendars were similar (except for their
month-names), but as I have argued above, not identical. By the 1st c.BCE, indeed, the Parthians
had made an extra intercalation in the Macedonian calendar.
294 Calendars in Antiquity