these were completely reliable andfixed.^129 This may explain whykata theon
dates fade away from the beginning of thefirst centuryBCE.
- THE GREEK CALENDARS: POLITICS, TAMPERING,
PARTICULARISM, AND UNITY
The persistence of Greek calendars in AntiquityThe Greek civil calendars, lunar butflexible and controlled by political rulers,
appear to have lasted until the end of Antiquity. Epigraphic evidence reveals
at least that the archontic and prytanic calendars were still in use in Athens
until the third centuryCE, and references to intercalary months indicate that
these calendars had retained their lunar character.^130 Contemporary literary
sources confirm that the Greeks still reckoned a lunar calendar,^131 so that
their dates were always out of line with the Julian calendar.^132 It can be
(^129) For a possible example of use, by Roman-period lunar calendar users, of Julian dates as
stable and universal reference points, see the double-dated Macedonian inscriptions discussed in
Ch. 6 n. 8.
(^130) Follet (1976) 353–66, largely based on lists of gymnasiarchs and prytanies; the evidence
suggests that still in the 2nd–3rd cc.CE, intercalations did not follow anyfixed cycle. Although
this evidence is restricted to Athens, Follet argues (pp. 357, 365–6) that the Athenian calendar
had become dominant among all Greeks in the Roman period (and probably already earlier: see
Feeney 2007: 58). For evidence of a lunar calendar in 2nd- and 3rd-c.CEMacedonia, see Ch. 6
n. 8. 131
Galen (late 2nd c.CE) writes that‘in most of the Greek cities at present, and in all of them
in olden days’, the months were counted according to the moon (InHippocratis Librum Primum
Epidemarium Commentarii3, ed. Kühn, xvii/1. 21, cited in A. Jones 2007: 152). Censorinus,De
DieNatali22. 5 (written in 238CE), attributes a lunar calendar to Athens and‘most cities in
Greece’(see Follet 1976: 359). The comment of his contemporary Julius Africanus (see above, n.
94) reveals at least that in his day, Greek calendars were lunar. Other sources cited by Follet
(p. 358), however, are less convincing. Secundus of Athens (2nd c.CE), question 6, refers to the
moon as‘indicator of the festivals, cycle of the months’(óÅìåEïí ïæôHí,ìÅíHí IíÆŒýŒºåıìÆ),
but this may be an archaism. The account in Philostratus,Lives of Sophists2. 1. 10, of how a day
was suppressed from the Athenian calendar, may indicate that the lunar, archontic calendar was
still in operation in the 2nd c.CE, but certainly does not prove it. Much later, in the mid-4th c., the
emperor Julian writes (Hymn to KingHelios41, 155A–B) that all nations other than the Romans
and Egyptians have a lunar calendar; but again, Julian’s rhetoric can hardly be treated as
historically reliable.
(^132) So Plutarch,Romulus12. 2 (cited in Follet loc. cit.), possibly referring to his own day;
however, he may have in mind the calendars of Asia Minor that had adapted in the Roman
period to the Julian calendar (see Chapter 5) but whose months were not conterminous with the
Julian ones. Appian (CivilWar2. 149) gives the date of Caesar’s assassination as‘the day called
Ides of March, about the middle of Anthesterion’; since 15 March 44BCEfell actually in the last
quarter of a lunar month, this may suggest that the Athenian calendar was no longer lunar, but
aligned instead to the Julian calendar. However, it is more likely that Appian reconstructed this
date (for the benefit of his Greek readers) on the general assumption that the lunar month of
Anthesterion corresponded approximately to March, and therefore, that the Athenian equivalent
62 Calendars in Antiquity