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NOTES ON SELEUCID AND PARTHIAN CHRONOLOGY

I. Seleucid Era

 

The reckoning known as the Seleucid Era originally was the counting of regnal years of Seleucus.1 Co-regent of his father since 292 B.C., Antiochus I continued after the death of Seleucus I, in 28 1, the numbering of his regnal years. His/ successors continued the counting. The reason for this computation was, probably, a technical one. Seleucus I adopted the Babylonian calendar, based on nineteen-year cycles of intercalation with a fixed year's beginning, at Nisanu 1, which fell around the spring equinox, late March or early April. But for the Macedonians (as well as for Greeks, generally) the civil year coincided with the regnal year.' Thus New Year's day corresponded to the change
ABBREVIATIONS IN THE NOTES

ABA-Annual of the British School at Athens
AJSL-American Journal of Semitic Languages
AM-Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung
AP-Altertümer von Pergamon
IP-Inschriften von Pergamon JA0S-Journal of the American Oriental Society
Newell, EM-E.T. Newell, The Coinage of the Eastern Seleucid Mints, 1938
Newell, WM-E.T. Newell, The Coinage of the Western Seleucid Mints, 1941
Parker and Dubberstein-R. A. Parker and W. H. Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 B.C.A.D. 45, 1942
RE-Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie des klassischen Altertums
REA-Revue des Éudes Anciennes
REG-Revue des Études Grecques
Séleucides-E. Bickerman, Institutions des S&aecute;leucides, 1938
Skeat-T. C. Skeat, The Reign of the Ptolemies, Mizraim, VI, 1937

    Tarn-W. TV. Tarn, The Greeks in Bactria and India, 1938

1. Cf. Séleucides, p. 205.
2. There was no Macedonian New Year's day independent from the regnal year. A later author says that Hyperberetaios was "for the Macedonians the last month of the year" (Zenobios, VI, 30, in Corpus Paroemiogr. Graec., ed. Leutsch and Schneidewin, I, p. 171) But the reference bears upon the Macedonian variety of Julian -year under the Roman Empire. Likewise, the initial date of the provincial era of Macedonia: 1 Dios-October 15, 148 B.C. (cf. Tod., ABA, 1919-27, p. 56) is reckoned backward from Julian evidence and has no bearing upon the lunar calendar of the Macedonian kingdom. The sacral year ended in Macedonia in the spring, when the annual lustration took place in the Xanthikos. Cf. Baege, De Macedonum Sacris (Diss. phil. Halenses, XXII, 1913), p. 323. Accordingly, the intercalary month was a (second) Artemision, in the spring (P. Oxyrch. XVII, 2082).

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