IrregularityThe ability of politicians to tamper with the calendar by intercalating or
suppressing days and months raises questions about the regularity of ancient
Greek calendars, their conformity to lunar phenomena, and their alignment to
the seasons. The question of the regularity of the Athenian festival calendar
(and by extension, of other Greek calendars) was subject to an intense and
protracted controversy during the entire second half of the twentieth century
between the American scholars Pritchett and Meritt.^27 Pritchett was of the
view that Greek calendars were frequently disrupted through arbitrary or
erratic management, often at the expense of conformity with the moon.
Deviation from a true lunar calendar meant that the 1st of the month was
not necessarily anything near the new moon, nor the 14th or 15th anything
near the full (Pritchett 1947: 242–3). Epigraphic evidence confirmed, in his
view, that the archontic calendar at Athens could remain disrupted over very
lengthy periods (Pritchett 1999; 2001: 1–40). Meritt, his older colleague,
argued on the contrary that the festival calendar was fundamentally regular,
and that instances of political tampering and of calendar irregularities, which
may be attested in literary and epigraphic sources, could be dismissed as
merely exceptional.
This controversy has remained unresolved, although scholars now tend to
lean in favour of Pritchett (e.g. A. Jones 2007: 165 n. 2); to some extent the
controversy is insoluble, as for reasons that will be later explained, it is partly a
matter of perspective. However, it is important to point out that whilst we
have positive evidence of calendar disruption in Greece through most of the
Classical and Hellenistic periods (sixth–first centuriesBCE), calendar regularity
is more difficult to prove. Evidence of calendar disruption can be found, for
example, in the island of Samos, where a third-centuryBCEinscription lists no
less than four embolismic (i.e. intercalary) months in a single year. In a well-
regulated lunar calendar, never more than one intercalary month would be
allowed in any given year.^28
(^27) The bibliography is lengthy and somewhat repetitive, and need not be listed here
(a selection of significant works can be found in the References).
(^28) Michel (1900) 738–9 no. 899 (cited in Samuel 1972: 120–1, Trümpy 1997: 78–80). The four
embolismic months appear consecutively, at the end of the year. This demands an explanation.
Unless it was part of some major calendrical reform (as when Julius Caesar artificially prolonged
the year 46BCEby 90 days: see Ch. 4)—for which we have no evidence—we must assume that
some or all of the four embolismic months were compensating for a long period where
insufficient or no intercalations had been made; alternatively, they were making up for months
that had been suppressed in the same year, or they were made up by month suppressions in the
following year. This is difficult to verify, as the inscription (and list of months) is not complete. It
may be noted, however, that the month of Artemision, attested in another inscription from
Samos (Hallof 2000 no. 169; see Samuel and Trümpy, loc. cit.), is not listed in this present
inscription. By analogy with the calendar of nearby Miletus, where the same month-names occur
32 Calendars in Antiquity