Ancient Macedonian calendar

Template:Short description The Ancient Macedonian calendar is a lunisolar calendar that was in use in ancient Macedon in the [[1st millennium BC|1st millennium Template:Sc]]. It consisted of 12 synodic lunar months (i.e. 354 days per year), which needed intercalary months to stay in step with the seasons. By the time the calendar was being used across the Hellenistic world, seven total embolimoi (intercalary months) were being added in each 19 year Metonic cycle. The names of the ancient Macedonian Calendar remained in use in Syria even into the Christian era.

Names

The names of the Macedonian months, just like most of the names of Greek months, are derived from feasts and related celebrations in honor of various Greek gods. Most of them combine a Macedonian dialectal form with a clear Greek etymology (e.g from Zeus; from Heracles Peritas ("Guardian") ; / from Xanthos, "the blond" (probably a reference to Heracles); from Artemis etc.) with the possible exception of one, which is also attested in other Greek calendars.

Description

The Macedonian calendar was in essence the Babylonian calendar with the substitution of Macedonian names for the Babylonian ones, and as such it paralleled the Hebrew calendar which is also lunisolar, and was used during the Parthian Empire too. An example of 6th century Template:Sc inscriptions from Decapolis, Jordan, bearing the Solar Macedonian calendar, starts from the month Audynaeus. The solar type was merged later with the Julian calendar. In Roman Macedonia, both calendars were used. The Roman one is attested in inscriptions with the name Kalandôn gen. calendae and the Macedonian Hellenikei dat. Hellenic. Finally an inscription from Kassandreia of about c. 306–298 Template:Sc bearing a month Athenaion suggests that some cities may have used their own months even after the 4th century Template:Sc Macedonian expansion.

Order	Greek name(s)	Transliteration	Approximate modern month	Remarks
1		Dios (Zeus)	October
2	Ἀπελλαῖος	Apellaiios	November	Also a Dorian month – Apellaiōn was a Tenian month
3	or	Audunaios or Audnaios	December	Also a Cretan month
4		Peritios	January	And festival of the month; Peritia
5		Dystros	February
6	or	Xandikos or Xanthikos	March	And festival of the month; Xanthika, purifying the army, Hesych
‡		Xandikos Embolimos	‡	intercalated 6 times over a 19 year cycle
7	or	Artemisios or Artamitios	April	Also a Spartan, Rhodian, and Epidaurian month – Artemisiōn was an Ionic month
8		Daisios	May
9	or	Panēmos or Panamos	June	Also an Epidaurian, Miletian, Samian, and Corinthian month
10		Lōios	July	(Homolōios) was an Aetolian, Boeotian, and Thessalian month
11		Gorpiaios	August
12		Hyperberetaios	September	Hyperberetos was a Cretan month
‡		Hyperberetaios Embolimos	‡	Intercalated only once over a 19 year cycle

‡ Months marked with a double-dagger include the word embolimos; they were only used occasionally for intercalation during each 19 year calendar cycle, in the manner described in the remarks.

Year numbering

Years were usually counted from the re-conquest of Seleucus I Nicator of Babylon, which became "year 1". This is equivalent to 312 BCE / 311 BCE in the Anno Domini year count of the modern Gregorian calendar. This practice spread outside the Seleucid Empire and found use in Antigonid Macedonia, Ptolemaic Egypt, and other major Hellenistic states descended from Alexander's conquests as well. Years can be abbreviated SE, S.E., or occasionally AG (Anno Graecorum).

See also

• Ancient Greek calendars
• Attic calendar