This chapter compares different temporal regimes developed by the Seleucids and Ptolemies. Kosmin suggests that the Seleucids created a new “historical field” when Seleucus proclaimed a new epoch of Babylonian history and called the year of his conquest of Babylon year 1. The Babylonian historian and priest Berossus, despite writing a history of pre-Seleucid Babylonia, situated himself in the new world of the Seleucids. Yet in Egypt the Ptolemies continued reckoning with traditional regnal years, showing their subordination to traditional uses of historical time. But there were changes, too. Greek regnal years started with the anniversary of the king’s accession, oaths were sworn by the divinized royal members and Demotic dating formulae used the eponymous priests of the royal cult. All this established the Ptolemaic dynasty as a unit and a method of structuring time in its own way. Manetho and Berossus took over dynastic history, creating thirty dynasties up to the Macedonian conquest. The Ptolemies created a neue Zeit, but the Seleucids were more revolutionary. In both empires the local elites and populations participated in shaping the new politics of time.

Darius I overcame rebellions and seized the throne of Babylon, but cuneiform scholarship continued and developed; religious practices did not change, nor did the great buildings on the citadel. The zodiac scheme came into use. The Achaemenid king took Babylonian royal titles and promoted the worship of Marduk for local purposes. Xerxes broke the continuity. Following an uprising, a purge led to the ending of many archives. The province of Babylon was divided in two. Subsequent Achaemenid kings continued to treat Babylon with reverence. Alexander the Great defeated Darius III, entered Babylon, retained the Persian satrap, and moved treasure from Susa and Ecbatana to Babylon. He was recognized as a god. Lack of sons at his premature death precipitated a civil war from which Alexander’s commander Seleucus emerged to take the throne jointly with his son Antiochus. The derelict ziggurat was demolished, but temples and rituals, chronicles and astronomical diaries, continued as before. Aramaic was widely used, and fewer texts were inscribed in cuneiform. Interest in the fall of Assyria and of the Babylonian empire is apparent in Greek literature. Famous scholars include Berossus and named astronomers. Parthians invaded and eventually ended the dynasty.