Gregorian calendar that is universal currency today. As distant inheritors of
the Egyptian calendar, we naturally have more affinity with it than with any
other ancient calendar.
This said, the Egyptian calendar also attracted praise among the ancients,
especially the ancient Greeks. Thus Herodotus (fifth centuryBCE), who pro-
vides us with the earliest comprehensive account of the Egyptian calendar:
As to human matters, they [the Egyptian priests] all agreed in saying that the
Egyptians by their study of astronomy discovered the year and were thefirst to
divide it into twelve parts—and in my opinion their method of calculation is
better than the Greek; for the Greeks, to make the seasons work out properly,
intercalate a whole month every other year, while the Egyptians make the year
consist of 12 months of 30 days each and every year intercalatefive additional^2
days, and so complete the regular cycle of seasons (Histories2. 4; Sélincourt
2003: 96).Herodotus seems to commend the Egyptian calendar as superior to the Greek
not because of its arithmetical simplicity, but rather because of its greater
conformity to the seasons. This was strictly inaccurate, since the Egyptian
calendar drifted from the seasons at the rate of one day in four years, a
discrepancy which Herodotus may not have been aware of. But even if he
was aware of it, he may still have considered the Egyptian calendar more
stable, in relation to the seasons, than the calendars of the Greeks, which often
fluctuated as a result of irregular intercalations. Thisfinds explicit expression
in thefirst-centuryBCEaccount of Diodorus Siculus, who similarly emphasizes
that the Egyptians‘do not intercalate months or suppress days as most of the
Greeks do’.^3 Effectively, what was being praised by these authors was the
Egyptian calendar’sregularity.^4
Another reason for praising the Egyptian calendar, among Graeco-Roman
writers, was its alleged astronomical foundations (alluded to already in
(^2) Or better,‘supernumerary’(ðÜæåî ôïF IæØŁìïF). In later sources (e.g. the Canopus decree ll.
44 – 5, to be discussed below), the standard Greek term becameKðƪüìåíÆØ, i.e. additional or
‘epagomenal 3 ’.
Diodorus Siculus 1. 50. 2. According to him, the Egyptian year counts 365¼days; this must
be a reference to the Alexandrian calendar, instituted under Roman rule towards the end of
his life (20sBCE), in which a sixth epagomenal day was added every four years (discussion of this
calendar will be left to Ch. 5). Another passage (1. 44. 4) suggests that Diodorus was writing this
part of his work before the Roman annexation of Egypt in 30BCE, which appears to rule out the
possibility of a reference to the Alexandrian calendar; however, the words‘and a quarter’(ŒÆd
ìÝæÆò ôÝôÆæôïí) may be a later scribal addition, or even a later addition by the author himself.
Diodorus’statement that unlike the Greeks, the Egyptians‘do not intercalate months or suppress
days’—without mention of intercalation of days—seems to suggest that Egyptians do have in
common with Greeks the intercalation of days. This might be on account of the intercalation of
the sixth epagomenal day; alternatively, Diodorus may be thinking of thefive epagomenal days of
the pre-Roman Egyptian calendar, which could reasonably be construed as an intercalation
(Diodorus 4 ’text is therefore not internally contradictory,paceBomhard 1999: 28–9).
As noted long ago byWeill (1928) 46–8. See similarly Macrobius,Saturnalia1. 12. 2.
126 Calendars in Antiquity