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maios II, ruled without competitors, from. Samarkand to Damascus. No prince in the sphere of his influence dared yet to assume the royal title: neither the Achaemenidae ruling in Persis57 nor Attalus of Pergamum nor Ariaramnes of Tyana,58 nor Diodotus of Bactria, to which province the Parni belonged. But the official date is not necessarily the authentic one. When a Hellenistic ruler succeeded in gaining the sovereignty, the symbol of which was the royal title, he often antedated the initial year of his kingship. For instance, in the second century B.C. the kings of Pontus computed their regnal years from 336 B.C., when their reputed ancestor Mithridates was established as governor of Cius, although the dynasty had not assumed the royal title before Mithridates III, brother-in-law of Seleucus II.59 The Arsacids followed the same patterns. But when and why did they choose 247-6 as the initial year? The Arsacids used the Babylonian form of the calendar, the year starting in spring (Nisanu I),60 while the Seleucid administration and Greek cities began the civil year in the fall. The fact shows that the Arsacids initiated the counting of their regnal years very early, before they came under the influence of Macedonian colonies, in a native environment where the months had been counted in the Babylonian manner since the introduction of the standard calendar by the Persians. In fact, we are told that "Arsaces was proclaimed first king" in the city of Asaac,61 an obscure road station in Astauene, in the upper Atrek valley, that is, in Hyrcania.62 Now, the capital of the Arsacids, before the expansion under Mithridates I, was Hecatompylos in Parthia.63 Still earlier, in the latter

57. Newell, EM, p. 161. According to W. Andreas apud Nyberg (see n. 42), p. 483 the title of these princes was "fratarata," that is, "governors." The current translation of the (Aramaic) legend on their coins is "Fire-Priests."
58. Regling, Zeitschrift für Numismatik, 1930, p. 4.
59. Cf. V. Latyshev, Inscr. Ponti Euxini 1, (2 ed. 1916), p. 402. On a fictitious era in Bithynia, Robert, Études Anatoliennes, 1937, p. 231.
60. Welles, Royal Correspondence, 1934, no. 75: The Parthian royal letter of 17 Audnaeus 268 is received in Susa in the year 333 of the Seleucid Era. The difference between two datings being 65 years, it is evident that while the Greek city of Susa calculates from the fall 312, the Parthian chancellery computes from the spring 247. Cf. McDowell, Coins from Seleucia on the Tigris, 1935, p. 148. The subjects of the Arsacids kept, of course, their traditional calendars. See, e.g. a Pahlavi document in Aramaic characters from year 300, that is 53-4 A.D. apud Nyberg, Le Monde Oriental, 1923, p. 182. This evidence makes somewhat unlikely a recent hypothesis ascribing to Mithridates II, in 121 B.C. the introduction of a vague year of 365 days (see H. Lewy, JAOS, 1944, p. 199, n. 27).
61. Isidorus, Mansiones Parth. II :

    , and Euseb. Chron. ad Olymp. 133: . On Isidorus' sources cf. , p. 53. On Fire-temples cf. now A. Pagliaro in Oriental Studies in Honour of C. E. Pavry, 1933, p.384. Erdmann, Das iranische Feuerheiligtum, 1941, is inaccessible to the writer. On the temple in Nisaea. cf. A. V. W. Jackson, Zoroaster, 1899, p. 98, and 0. Hansen, Zeitschr. Deutsch. Morgenl&aunl;nd Ges. 1938, p. 98. New archaeological material is presented by Ghirshman apud G. Salles, Rev. des Arts Asiatiques, 1942, p. 1.
62. Gutschmid (see n. 44), p. 31 has supposed that Arsaces, before his invasion of Parthia, had established his power in Asaac, in 250 B.C. But the region of Astauene, with the city of Asaac, was a district of the (Seleucid) satrapy of Hyrcania. Cf. Ptol. VI, 9; Tarn, pp. 3 and 232. Now, Hyrcania was conquered by Tiridates after the occupation of Parthia. On the other hand, it is unlikely that under Antiochus II, a rebel should be able to establish his sovereignty in a town which was a station of the royal road linking Syria with the Far East.
63. Cf. Debevoise (n. 44), p. 15. The site is not yet identified. Cf. Erich F. Schmidt, Flights over Ancient Cities of Iran, 1940, p. 38.

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