apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 70 1
connects this imperial birthday in some way or other with the first day
of the month ([/At]av
koI ttjv avrrjv veav vovfxlrjVLav ttjv tov Katjcrapoi;
yeviOXiov, eKeivr] t€ 7ravT[a)v J r;Tts ecrrtv Trpo ii/vea KaXav8wv
['OKTw/b'ptW Trpo'jTepov Tuix-qdrj k.t.X.). Its coincidence with the
commencement of the magisterial offices is easily explicable, since the
year in these parts began about the autumnal equinox. The connexion
of the imperial birthday with the first
day of the month is not made
clear owing to the mutilation of the context but
; light
is thrown upon
the structure of the calendars of Proconsular Asia. The lacunce
it
by
are filled in here, as I find them in Boeckh but it is a question whether
'0/cTw/ptwv is right in this place,
since the reference seems to be to the
monthly recurrence of ix Kal. What else then can the SeXroypa^r/yua
of the proconsul Maximus have been, but the table giving his newly constructed
solar calendar, of which the central idea was the commemoration
of Augustus' birthday If so, we have evidence that its publication
was followed up by a decree of Asia adopting the calendar and conferring
honours on its author. As the Bithynian, Cretan, and Cyprian
calendars are framed on the same principle, these provinces must have
followed the example of Proconsular Asia.
But is it
possible to fix the precise year when the proconsul Maximus
introduced this change of calendar Usener answers in the affirmative.
In A.u.c. 746 (-B.C. 8) a decree of the Senate changed the name of the
month Sextilis into Augustus (Censorin. de Die Natal, xxii. 16). The
general desire had been to confer this name on September, during
which month his birthday fell; but they acceded to his own wishes that
it should be given to SextiUs which had witnessed his greatest achievements
and honours {Dion Cass. Iv. 6, Sueton. Octav. 31, Macrob.
Saturn, i. 12. 35). Usener supposes that the action of Maximus, who
was an intimate friend of Augustus, followed immediately on this decree
of the Senate and therefore places his proconsulship in a.u.c. 746, 747.
This indeed is possible for the
; prescribed interval of five years (see
above, p. 656) was not rigidly enforced at this time, as we find from
the case of Gallus who was consul a.u.c. 746 and proconsul a.u.c. 748,
749 (see Waddington Pastes p. 94 sq). But the inference is too hasty.
Waddington (jb. p. 98) has given reasons why
it could not well be later
than A.u.c. 749, 750, and no greater precision is attainable. The Nys^an
inscription (see above, p. 682) shows that the new calendar was in full
use four years later (a.u.c 753).
This view seems to me to be strongly confirmed by another consideration
which appears to have been overlooked. It has been mentioned
already (p. 681) that the Cyprian calendar is constructed on the