Note 87 — Chapter IX · THE EUPHRATES FRONTIER AND THE PARTHIANS. (continued 2)

Whence these names of the months come, is not clear; they first appear in the Assyrian cuneiform writing, but are not of Assyrian origin. In consequence of the Assyrian rule they then remained in use within the sphere of the Syrian language. Variations are found; the second month, the Dios of the Greek-speaking Syrians, our November, is called among the Jews Markeshvan, among the Palmyrenes Kanun (Waddington, n. 2574b). We may add that these names of the months, so far as they came to be applied within the Roman empire, are adapted, like the Macedonian, to the Julian calendar, so that only the designation of the month differs, the year-beginning (1 Oct.) of the Syro-Roman year finds uniformly application to the Greek as to the Aramaean appellations.