The Attic calendar or Athenian calendar is the
lunisolar calendar
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the Ea ...
beginning in midsummer with the lunar month of Hekatombaion, in use in ancient
Attica
Attica ( el, Αττική, Ancient Greek ''Attikḗ'' or , or ), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and its countryside. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Se ...
, the ancestral territory of the
Athenian
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
polis
''Polis'' (, ; grc-gre, πόλις, ), plural ''poleis'' (, , ), literally means "city" in Greek. In Ancient Greece, it originally referred to an administrative and religious city center, as distinct from the rest of the city. Later, it also ...
. It is sometimes called the Greek calendar because of Athens's cultural importance, but it is only one of many
ancient Greek calendars.
Although relatively abundant, the evidence for the Attic calendar is still patchy and often contested. As it was well known in Athens and of little use outside Attica, no contemporary source set out to describe the system as a whole. Further, even during the well-sourced 5th and 4th centuries BC, the calendar underwent changes, not all perfectly understood. As such, any account given of it must be a tentative reconstruction.
Local focus
The Attic calendar was an exclusively local phenomenon, used to regulate the internal affairs of the Athenians, with little relevance to the outside world. For example, just across the border in
Boeotia
Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its lar ...
, the months had different names, and the year even began in midwinter. In Athens, the year began six months later, just after midsummer. Furthermore, while Greek months were supposed to begin with the first sighting of the
new moon
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse.
...
, it was determined locally and with a degree of variability. In many years, the months in the two communities would have more or less coincided, but there is no sign that they tried to keep the days of the month exactly aligned, as they would have seen no reason to do so.
The divide between these neighbouring calendars perhaps reflected the traditional hostility between the two communities. Had the Boeotians been speakers of an
Ionic dialect
Ionic Greek ( grc, Ἑλληνικὴ Ἰωνική, Hellēnikē Iōnikē) was a subdialect of the Attic–Ionic or Eastern dialect group of Ancient Greek.
History
The Ionic dialect appears to have originally spread from the Greek mainland ac ...
, the one spoken in Athens, there would have been overlap in the names of months. An example is the island of
Delos
The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are ...
, where the calendar shared four out of twelve month-names with Athens, but not in the same places in the year. There, even though the island was under some degree of Athenian control from around 479 to 314 BC, the year started, as with the Boeotians, at
midwinter
Midwinter is the middle of the winter. The term is attested in the early Germanic calendars.
Attestations
Midwinter is attested in the early Germanic calendars, where it appears to have been a specific day or a number of days during the winter ha ...
.
More than one calendar
Athenians lived under a number of simultaneous calendars that were used to fix days for different purposes. How much each calendar meant to individuals probably depended on how they lived. They may be set out as follows:
* A lunisolar festival calendar of 12 months based on the cycle of the moon and accommodating the solar year
* A
democratic state calendar of 10 arbitrary months
* An agricultural calendar of
season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
s using star risings to fix points in time
Festival calendar (lunisolar)
Intercalation
The year was meant to begin with the first sighting of the
new moon
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse.
...
after the summer
solstice
A solstice is an event that occurs when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly or southerly excursion relative to the celestial equator on the celestial sphere. Two solstices occur annually, around June 21 and December 21. In many countr ...
. Ideally, the solstice would occur toward the end of Skirophorion, the final month of the year.
The new year would then begin on the day after the first sliver of the new moon was seen (or presumed to be seen). However, because the relation of these two events, solstice and new moon, is variable, the date of the new year (in relation to a
Gregorian date) could move by up to a month.
This linking of solar and lunar years defines the calendar as
lunisolar
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the E ...
. Because 12 lunar months are approximately 11 days shorter than a solar year, using a purely lunar calendar (such as the
Islamic
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the mai ...
one) removes any relation between the months and the seasons, causing the months to creep backwards over the seasons. By tying the start of their year to the summer solstice Athenians forced the months to relate, with some elasticity, to the seasons.
In order to deal with the 11-day difference between 12 lunar months and 1 solar cycle, when it was judged that the months had slid back enough (roughly every three years), an extra month was inserted ("
intercalated"), leading to a leap year with about 384 days in it. The extra month was achieved by repeating an existing month so that the same month name was used twice in a row. The sixth month, Poseideon, is most frequently mentioned as the month that was repeated; however months 1, 2, 7, and 8 (Hekatombaiōn, Metageitniōn, Gameliōn, and Anthesteriōn) are also attested as being doubled.
Various cycles were in existence for working out exactly which years needed to add a thirteenth month. A nineteen-year cycle, the
Metonic cycle
The Metonic cycle or enneadecaeteris (from grc, ἐννεακαιδεκαετηρίς, from ἐννεακαίδεκα, "nineteen") is a period of almost exactly 19 years after which the lunar phases recur at the same time of the year. The recu ...
, was developed in
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
by the astronomers
Meton
Meton of Athens ( el, Μέτων ὁ Ἀθηναῖος; ''gen''.: Μέτωνος) was a Ancient Greece, Greek mathematician, astronomer, list of geometers, geometer, and engineer who lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. He is best known for ...
and
Euctemon
Euctemon ( el, Εὐκτήμων, ''gen.'' Εὐκτήμωνος; fl. 432 BC) was an Athenian astronomer. He was a contemporary of Meton and worked closely with this astronomer. Little is known of his work apart from his partnership with Meton and ...
(known to be active in 432 BC), could have been used to pattern the insertion of leap years to keep the lunar and solar years aligned with some accuracy. There is, however, no sign that any such system was in fact used in Athens, whose calendar seems to have been administered on an ''ad hoc'' basis.
Names of months
The first function of this calendar was to set the days for the
religious festival
A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar. The science of religious rites and festivals is known ...
s. In a
county fair
An agricultural show is a public event exhibiting the equipment, animals, sports and recreation associated with agriculture and animal husbandry. The largest comprise a livestock show (a judged event or display in which breeding stock is exhibit ...
role, they encompassed a much broader range of activities than the word "religious" suggests and were central to the life of the city.
The Athenian months were named after gods and festivals. In this the calendar differed from the
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
n models that lie behind all Greek lunar calendars. In the
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of c ...
ian and
Babylonian prototypes, for instance, the months were named after the main agricultural activity practised in that month. Many
Athenian festivals
The festival calendar of Classical Athens involved the staging of many festivals each year. This includes festivals held in honor of Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, and Herakles. Other Athenian festivals were bas ...
had links with different stages of the agricultural cycle, such as festivals of planting or harvest. It perhaps added to the need to keep
lunar
Lunar most commonly means "of or relating to the Moon".
Lunar may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Lunar'' (series), a series of video games
* "Lunar" (song), by David Guetta
* "Lunar", a song by Priestess from the 2009 album ''Prior t ...
and
solar calendar
A solar calendar is a calendar whose dates indicate the season or almost equivalently the apparent position of the Sun relative to the stars. The Gregorian calendar, widely accepted as a standard in the world, is an example of a solar calendar.
T ...
s roughly aligned, though this was not always achieved. The farming year, however, was not the primary focus of the calendar.
At Athens month 6, Poseideon, took its name directly from the god
Poseidon
Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...
. More commonly, the god appears in the form of a cult title. (A cult title is the name or aspect under which a god was worshipped at a particular festival.) Examples are Maimakterion, named after
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D ...
("the rager") and Metageitnion, after
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
as helper of
colonists
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settle ...
.
Of all of the months, only the eighth, Anthesterion, was named directly after the major festival celebrated in its month, the
Anthesteria. While the month-naming festivals of Pyanepsia, Thargelia and Skira were relatively important, some of the grandest celebrations in the life of the city are not recognised in the name of the month. Examples are the
Great Dionysia
The Dionysia (, , ; Greek: Διονύσια) was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the sec ...
held in Elaphebolion (month 9) and the
Panathenaia
The Panathenaic Games ( grc, Παναθήναια) were held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece from 566 BC to the 3rd century AD. These Games incorporated religious festival, ceremony (including prize-giving), athletic competitions, a ...
are only indirectly recognised in Hekatombaion (month 1), named after the ''
hekatombe'', the sacrifice of a "hundred oxen" held on the final night of the Panathenaia. More often than not, the festival providing the month name is minor or obsolete. For instance, the second month, Metageitnion, is named after a cult title of the god Apollo, but there is no trace of a festival bearing the name. The same goes for months 5 and 6, Maimakterion and Poseideon.
The calendars of the
Ionia
Ionia () was an ancient region on the western coast of Anatolia, to the south of present-day Izmir. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian ...
n cities of
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
(along the western coastline of modern Turkey) often share month names with Athens. For instance, at
Miletos
Miletus (; gr, Μῑ́λητος, Mī́lētos; Hittite transcription ''Millawanda'' or ''Milawata'' (exonyms); la, Mīlētus; tr, Milet) was an ancient Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in a ...
four of the same month names were in use, namely Thargelion, Metageitnion, Boedromion and Pyanepsion, and the last of these even occupied the same position as month four in both communities. Traditionally, these Ionian cities were founded by colonists from Attica (perhaps around 1050 BC). It may be then that the Athenian month names refer to a festival schedule some hundreds of years out of date.
=List of months
=
The correlation suggested here between the Athenian months and those of the modern (
Gregorian) calendar is loose, and, in some years, it might have been off by over a month.
Days of the month
The months were 29 or 30 days in length, loosely in alternation, since the moon orbits the earth in roughly 29.5 days. However, rather than following a set scheme (such as the popular rhyme "Thirty days hath September..."), the duration of each month was declared just before month's end in an attempt to latch the first of the following month onto the upcoming
new moon
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse.
...
. The short months of 29 days were known as "hollow" and the ones with 30 days as "full".
Each month was divided into three phases of ten days associated with the waxing moon, the full moon and the waning moon. The naming of the days was complex. The first day of the month was simply ''noumenia'' or new moon, a name used in virtually every Greek calendar. From there the days were numbered up to the 20th day. For the final third of the month the numbering turned around to do a countdown from ten to the last day. Only the middle phase had numbers for the days running higher than 10 and even these were often phrased as "the third over ten" and so forth. In the wings of the month, the numbered days ran 2–10 and then 10–2. Days in these sections were distinguished from each other by adding the participle "waxing" and "waning" to the month name. In the centre of the month with its unambiguous numbering there was no need for this, though later the term "of the middling month" was used. The final day of the month was called ''henē kai nea'', "the old and the new". Peculiar to Athens, this name presents the day as bridging the two moons or months. Elsewhere in Greece this day was usually called the 30th.
Athenian festivals were divided between the 80 or so annually recurring celebrations and a set of monthly holy days clustered around the beginning of each month. They were often the birthdays of gods, the Greeks thinking of
birthday
A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person, or figuratively of an institution. Birthdays of people are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with birthday gifts, birthday cards, a birthday party, or a rite of passage.
Many relig ...
s as a monthly rather than a yearly recurrence. Every month, days 1–4 and 6–8 were all sacred to particular gods or divine entities, amounting to some 60 days a year:
*Day 1:
New Moon
In astronomy, the new moon is the first lunar phase, when the Moon and Sun have the same ecliptic longitude. At this phase, the lunar disk is not visible to the naked eye, except when it is silhouetted against the Sun during a solar eclipse.
...
,
Noumenia The Noumenia (, lit: new moon) is the first day of the lunar month and also a religious observance in ancient Athens and much of Greece (cf. Attic calendar).
History
The Noumenia was marked when the first sliver of moon was visible and was held ...
.
*Day 2: Agathos
Daimon
Daimon or Daemon ( Ancient Greek: , "god", "godlike", "power", "fate") originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and of later Hellenistic religion and philosophy.
The wor ...
*Day 3:
Athena
Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of ...
's Birthday
*Day 4:
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
,
Hermes
Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orato ...
,
Aphrodite
Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols include ...
and
Eros
In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; grc, Ἔρως, Érōs, Love, Desire) is the Greek god of love and sex. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire").''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', The Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. In the earli ...
*Day 6:
Artemis
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Artemis (; grc-gre, Ἄρτεμις) is the goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, nature, vegetation, childbirth, care of children, and chastity. She was heavily identified wit ...
' Birthday
*Day 7:
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
's Birthday
*Day 8:
Poseidon
Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as a ch ...
and
Theseus
Theseus (, ; grc-gre, Θησεύς ) was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. The myths surrounding Theseus his journeys, exploits, and friends have provided material for fiction throughout the ages.
Theseus is sometimes describe ...
Monthly and annual festivals were not usually allowed to fall on the same days so every festival month had an opening phase with exactly recurrent practices and celebrations while in the body of each month was a unique schedule of festival days.
A parallel function of this calendar was the positioning of the perhaps 15 or so forbidden days on which business should not be transacted.
Rather than considering the month as a simple duration of thirty days, the three-part numbering scheme focuses on the moon itself. In particular the waning days 10–2 and the waxing days 2–10 frame the crucial moment where the moon vanishes and then reappears.
A date under this scheme might be "the third (day) of Thargelion waning", meaning the 28th day of Thargelion.
To summarise the days with special names.
* The first day: ''
noumenia The Noumenia (, lit: new moon) is the first day of the lunar month and also a religious observance in ancient Athens and much of Greece (cf. Attic calendar).
History
The Noumenia was marked when the first sliver of moon was visible and was held ...
'', or new moon.
* The last day: ''henē kai nea'', the "old and the new".
* The 21st day: "the later tenth". The Attic month had three days named "tenth" (equivalent in a straight sequence to the 10th, 20th, and 21st days). These were distinguished as
**10th: "the tenth (of the month) waxing"
**20th: "the earlier tenth" (i.e. waning)
**21st: "the later tenth" (i.e. waning)
This strange juxtapositioning of the two days called the tenth, the earlier and the later, further highlighted the shift into the moon's waning phase.
When a month was to last 29 instead of 30 days (a "hollow" month), the last day of the month ("the old and new") was pulled back by one day. That is to say, the "second day of the waning month" (the 29th in straight sequence) was renamed as month's end.
State calendar
As Ionians, the Athenians had always been divided into four tribes. Although the tribes were never abolished, one of the key reforms at the creation of
democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose gov ...
after 506 BC was to distribute citizens under a new system of ten tribes to try to ensure even participation across the whole community. From then on, ten became a kind of hallmark number for the democracy, as so much citizen activity was done through the ten tribes. (For instance, the 10 generals leading the 10 regiments, the 10 sets of public arbitrators, the 10 treasurers of the Delian league and so on.)
This decimal ordering extended to the creation of a supplementary calendar with ten months. Each year, each tribe contributed 50 members to the council of 500 (
boule), which played an important role in the administration of the city. For one tenth of the year, each tribal fifty was on duty, with a third of them in the council chamber at all times as an executive committee for the state. Their period of office was known as a '
prytany
The ''prytaneis'' (πρυτάνεις; sing.: πρύτανις ''prytanis'') were the executives of the '' boule'' of ancient Athens.
Origins and organization
The term (like ''basileus'' or ''tyrannos'') is probably of Pre-Greek etymology (pos ...
' or state month.
In the 5th century, the calendar was solar-based by using a year of 365 or 366 days and paying no attention at all to the phases of the moon. One likely arrangement is that the ten
prytanies were divided between six months of 37 days followed by four months of 36 days. That would be parallel to the arrangement in the 4th century explained below.
From several synchronized datings that survive, it is evident that the political and the festival years did not have to begin or end on the same days. The political new year is attested 15 days either way from the start of the festival year. The system is known from the 420s; whether it had been in place from the beginning of the ten-month system is not clear.
However, in 407 BC the two calendars were synchronized to start and end on the same days. Hereafter as described in the 4th century ''
Constitution of the Athenians'' the civic year was arranged as follows:
* Months 1–4 lasted 36 days (39 in leap years?)
* Months 5–10 lasted 35 days (38 in leap years?)
In years with an extra month
intercalated into the festival calendar, the political months were probably lengthened to 39 and 38 days, a method that would have maintained the balance between the tribes. Evidence, however, is lacking.
In the Macedonian period (307/306 – 224/223 BC), with twelve tribes (and the prytanies), evidence shows that the month and the prytany were not coterminous and that, in general, the six first prytanies had 30 days and the last six had 29 days and that in an intercalary year, the 384 days are equally subdivided. (Meritt, 1961: Ch.VI)
In the Thirteen Phylai period (224/223 – 201/200 BC), it would be expected that in an intercalary year prytanies and months must have been fairly evenly matched and that in an ordinary year, the conciliar year was made up of three prytanies of 28 days followed by ten prytanies of 27 days, but there is strong evidence that the first prytany had usually 27 days. (Meritt, 1961: Ch.VII)
The political months had no name but were numbered and given in conjunction with the name of the presiding tribe (which, as determined by lot at the expiry of their predecessors' term, gave no clue as to the time of year). The days were numbered with a straightforward sequence, running from 1 to the total number of days for that month.
One of the main roles of the civic calendar was to position the four
assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
meetings to be held each
prytany
The ''prytaneis'' (πρυτάνεις; sing.: πρύτανις ''prytanis'') were the executives of the '' boule'' of ancient Athens.
Origins and organization
The term (like ''basileus'' or ''tyrannos'') is probably of Pre-Greek etymology (pos ...
. If possible, assembly meetings were not held on festival days, including the monthly festival days clustered at the start of each month. As a result, the meetings were bunched slightly toward the end of the month and made to dodge especially the larger festivals.
A date under this calendar might run "the 33rd day in the 3rd prytany, that of the tribe Erechtheis", the style used in Athenian state documents (surviving only as
inscription
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
s). Sometimes, however, a dating in terms of the festival calendar is added as well.
Manipulation
The Attic calendar was determined on the ground, month by month and year by year, in the light of immediate concerns, political or military. It was in the control of
magistrate
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...
s, who were not
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
s. How heavyhanded the interference was is controversial. Some scholars believe that if a festival date fell on a day needed for an
assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
meeting, an extra day could be inserted by simply repeating the same day name.
There is clear evidence that it was done later. In Athens in 271 BC, just before the Great
Dionysia
The Dionysia (, , ; Greek: Διονύσια) was a large festival in ancient Athens in honor of the god Dionysus, the central events of which were the theatrical performances of dramatic tragedies and, from 487 BC, comedies. It was the sec ...
, four days were inserted between Elaphebolion 9 and 10, putting the calendar on hold. Presumably, it was to gain extra rehearsal time for the festival with its performances of
tragedy
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy ...
and
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
. A similar story comes from the 5th century BC but at
Argos
Argos most often refers to:
* Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece
** Ancient Argos, the ancient city
* Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Argos or ARGOS may also refer to:
Businesses
...
: the Argives, launching a
punitive expedition
A punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a political entity or any group of people outside the borders of the punishing state or union. It is usually undertaken in response to perceived disobedient or morally wrong behavio ...
in the shadow of the holy month of Karneios when fighting was banned, decided to freeze the calendar to add some extra days of war. However, their allies rejected the rearrangement and went home.
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
' ''Clouds'', a comedy from 423 BC, contains a speech whose complaint is brought from the moon: the Athenians have been playing round with the months, "running them up and down" so that human activity and the divine order are completely out of kilter: "When you should be holding sacrifices, instead you are torturing and judging." A situation is known to have applied in the 2nd century BC, when the festival calendar was so out of sync with the actual cycles of the moon that the
lunisolar
A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures, combining lunar calendars and solar calendars. The date of Lunisolar calendars therefore indicates both the Moon phase and the time of the solar year, that is the position of the Sun in the E ...
date was sometimes given under two headings, one "according to the god", apparently the moon, and the other "according to the
archon
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
", the festival calendar itself.
Seasonal calendar
A third calendar regulating Athenian lives was solar or seasonal. As such, it was fundamental for seasonal activities like farming and sailing. Within the broad divisions of the seasons, it relied on star risings and settings to mark more precise points in time. Star risings are the days when particular
star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...
s or
constellation
A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.
The origins of the e ...
s that have been below the
horizon
The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether i ...
during hours of darkness first appear after sunset. Different star risings were keyed to various farm tasks, such as when to harvest:
Hesiod
Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...
in the ''Works and Days'' urges the farmer to harvest when the
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...
rises (an event which elsewhere is set to mark the end of spring). Such a system was part of general Greek tradition, but fitted to local geography and conditions. Hesiod also uses the rising of
Arcturus
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Arcturus is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Boötes. With an apparent visual magnitude of −0.05, it is the third-brightest of th ...
to mark the ending of winter and marks the start of Spring with the coming of the sparrows.
The
season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pol ...
s were not viewed by Greeks as dividing the year into four even blocks but rather spring and autumn were shorter tail sections of the overarching seasons, summer and winter. The divisions could be formalised by using star risings or settings in relation to the
equinox
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
es: for instance, winter is defined in one medical text as the period between the setting of the
Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...
and the spring.
The older tradition as seen in Hesiod's ''Works and Days'' was extended by astronomical research to the creation of star calendars known as ''
parapegma
An almanac (also spelled ''almanack'' and ''almanach'') is an annual publication listing a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other ...
s''. They were stone or wooden tablets listing a sequence of astronomical events, each with a peg hole beside it. Lines of bare peg holes were used to count the "empty days" between what were taken as the significant celestial events. Often set up in town squares (
agora
The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...
s), the tablets put the progression of the year on public display.
This system would have been fundamental to an individual's sense of the advancing year, but it barely intersected with the festival or state calendars. They were more civic in character and required managing to maintain their coherence with the year of the seasons. The seasonal and
sidereal calendar, on the other hand, was immune to interference so
Thucydides
Thucydides (; grc, , }; BC) was an Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been dubbed the father of "scientifi ...
could date by the rising of Arcturus without having to wade into the confusion of disconnected city-state calendars.
[Thucydides, 2.78.2.]
Dating events
The modern calendar, as well as regulating the immediate year, is part of a system of chronology that allows events to be dated far into the future and the past so a given date includes day, month and year.
By contrast, the Attic calendar had little interest in ordering the sequence of years. As in other Greek cities, the name of one of the yearly magistrates, at Athens known as the eponymous
archon
''Archon'' ( gr, ἄρχων, árchōn, plural: ἄρχοντες, ''árchontes'') is a Greek word that means "ruler", frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem αρχ-, mean ...
, was used to identify the year in relation to others. The sequence of years was matched to a list of names that could be consulted. Instead of citing a numbered year, one could locate a year in time by saying that some event occurred "when X. was archon". That allowed the years to be ordered back in time for a number of generations into the past, but there was no way of dating forward beyond ordinary human reckoning (as in expressions such as "ten years from now").
There was, for instance, no use of a century divided into decades. A four-year cycle was important, which must have helped structure a sense of the passing years: at Athens, the festival of the
Panathenaia
The Panathenaic Games ( grc, Παναθήναια) were held every four years in Athens in Ancient Greece from 566 BC to the 3rd century AD. These Games incorporated religious festival, ceremony (including prize-giving), athletic competitions, a ...
was celebrated on a grander scale every fourth year as the Great Panathenaia, but that was not used as the basis of a dating system.
As both narrowly local and cyclical in focus then, the calendar did not provide a means for dating events in a comprehensible way between cities. A dating system using the four-yearly
Olympiad
An olympiad ( el, Ὀλυμπιάς, ''Olympiás'') is a period of four years, particularly those associated with the ancient and modern Olympic Games.
Although the ancient Olympics were established during Greece's Archaic Era, it was not until ...
s was devised by the Greek
Sicilia
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
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, demographi ...
n historian
Timaeus Timaeus (or Timaios) is a Greek name. It may refer to:
* ''Timaeus'' (dialogue), a Socratic dialogue by Plato
*Timaeus of Locri, 5th-century BC Pythagorean philosopher, appearing in Plato's dialogue
*Timaeus (historian) (c. 345 BC-c. 250 BC), Greek ...
(born c. 350 BC) as a tool for historical research, but it was probably never important on a local level.
See also
*
Ancient Greek astronomy
Greek astronomy is astronomy written in the Greek language in classical antiquity. Greek astronomy is understood to include the Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek, Hellenistic civilization, Hellenistic, Greco-Roman, and Late Antiquity eras. It is not ...
* Other
ancient Greek calendars
Various ancient Greek calendars began in most states of ancient Greece between Autumn and Winter except for the Attic calendar, which began in Summer.
The Greeks, as early as the time of Homer, appear to have been familiar with the division of th ...
* The
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
,
Julian, &
Byzantine calendar
The Byzantine calendar, also called the Roman calendar, the Creation Era of Constantinople or the Era of the World ( grc, Ἔτη Γενέσεως Κόσμου κατὰ Ῥωμαίους, also or , abbreviated as ε.Κ.; literal translation of ...
s, which succeeded them
* Attic Calenda
Date Converter
References
Sources
*Burkert, W. ''Greek Religion''. Oxford, 1985.
*Dunn, F. M. ''Tampering with the Calendar'' (''Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik''), 1999, p. 123, 213–231.
*Hannah, R. ''Greek and Roman Calendars: Constructions of Time in the Ancient World''. London, 2005.
*Meritt, B. D. ''The Athenian Year''. Berkeley, 1961.
*Mikalson, J. D. ''The Sacred and Civil Calendar of the Athenian Year''. Princeton, 1975.
*Planeaux, C.S. ''The Athenian Year Primer: Attic Time-Reckoning and the Julian Calendar''. Washington D.C. 2021.
*Pritchett, W. K. and O. Neugebauer. ''The Calendars of Athens''. Athens, 1947.
*Samuel, Alan E. ''Greek and Roman Chronology'', Muenchen: Beck'sche, 1972
*''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 2nd edition, 1996: Calendar, Meton, Euctemon, Time reckoning, Birthday.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Attic Calendar
Obsolete calendars
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
Lunisolar calendars
*