The Greeks in Bactria and India c9.s2.187

c9.s2.187

Two things however seem certain, and one is the enormous success of that great invention the Seleucid calendar, which swept Asia; it was the first attempt on a comprehensive scale to reckon time from an Era, a fixed event (in this case Seleucus’ return to Babylon in October 312 B.C.), instead of by the regnal years of kings or by annual magistracies in cities. The Macedonian or Syrian form of the calendar, with the Macedonian months, began 1 Dios (October) 312; Babylonia had a form suited to her own year, with the Babylonian months, which began on her New Year’s Day, 1 Nisan (March–April) 311.¹ The Seleucid calendar was adopted in many countries; beside the Seleucid Succession states, like Characene,² Elymais,³ Adiabene,⁴ Osrhoene,⁵ it was used in Bithynia and Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia, Judaea, Nabataea, and Palmyra;⁶ to some extent it was used in Parthia; its fortunes in India will be noticed later (p. 359). As the Macedonian months were lunar months, any system of lunar months could be fitted to the new calendar; Babylonia, Judaea, and Osrhoene used the Babylonian months, Armenia, Cappadocia, and perhaps other country districts besides Kurdistan,⁷ used the Persian. It used to be taken for granted that, where the names of the Macedonian months occur, the Macedonian form of the calendar was in use, but recently it has been strongly argued that the calendar in use at Seleuceia was a mixed form, with the Macedonian months but the Babylonian year, and that this, and not the Macedonian form of the calendar, was the form used by Seleuceia on the Parthian coinage which she minted;⁸ and this view might perhaps be supported by the fact that at Nineveh later the Macedonian months were fitted to yet another year, the Roman.¹ The question cannot be discussed here; but whatever the case as regards Seleuceia in Babylonia, it seems incredible that the Seleucid foundations generally should have used anything but the form used by their Macedonian creators, while it was certainly the Macedonian calendar beginning in October 312 which the half-Seleucid kings of Bactria, as was natural, took to India (p. 47 n. 2).