exceptionally, the entries are dated according to the Egyptian civil calendar—
which, unlike Greek lunar calendars, wasfixed and fairly compatible with an
annual star calendar^114 —and festivals are also mentioned by name; thispara-
pegmais thus considerably more calendrical than the example above. But the
integration of the civil calendar, festival dates, and astronomical events would
only have been possible in Egypt, and should thus be regarded as uncharac-
teristic of Greekparapegmata.^115 A different dating method is used in the
perhaps contemporary Greekparapegmatext appended to Geminus’astro-
nomical work, where the entries are dated according to a rather original
zodiacal calendar (where the year is divided into twelve zodiacal signs of 29–
32 numbered days); thus each entry begins with the day of the zodiacal sign
and (where necessary) the zodiacal sign’s name.^116 This zodiacal calendar is
not known to have been used elsewhere; it can only be regarded as a‘calendar’
in the limited context of this specificparapegma.^117 Most Greekparapegmata
are otherwise devoid of any calendrical features. As in the example cited above,
the days that are continuously listed are not structured (e.g. into‘months’),
named, or numbered. Greekparapegmatawere thus not calendars, either in
form or in function.
The purpose of Greekparapegmatawas probably mainly didactic. The
information that they provided about astronomy and the weather, besides
satisfying intellectual curiosity, would have assisted farmers, sailors, and a
whole range of other professionals to work out their daily and annual sche-
dules.^118 But it has also been suggested thatparapegmatawere used by city
magistrates in places like Athens and Miletus (whereparapegmataare thought
to have been publicly erected) for aligning the civil (or‘festival’) calendar with
the seasons and the solar year. Knowledge of the summer solstice, for example,
which appears at least in some versions ofparapegmata, would have helped
designed in the 5th c.BCEby contemporaries of Meton such as Euctemon (so Hannah 2005: 59–
70; cf. A. Jones 2007: 154–60).
(^114) The length of the Egyptian year—on which see Ch. 3—was 365 days, thus very close to the
sidereal year (i.e. the period of full revolution of the stars) of approximately 365¼days.
Nevertheless, since the Egyptian calendar receded from the sidereal year by about one day in
four years, the Egyptian dates in this 115 parapegmawould soon have become obsolete.
A similar scheme is later adopted in another literary parapegmatic text from Egypt,
Ptolemy 116 ’sPhaseis(2nd c.CE): Lehoux (2007) 17, 161, 261–309.
Geminus,Elem. Astr., appendix (Aujac 1975: 98–108, with notes in 157–68); Lehoux
(2007) 226–39 (and for this early dating 157–8); partial citation in Hannah (2005) 60.
(^117) As similarly argued by Lehoux (2007) 70–84. A small number of dates‘according to
Dionysios’cited in Ptolemy’sAlmagestseem also to belong to a zodiacal scheme in use by
Alexandrian astronomers for a short period in the 3rd c.BCE: A. Jones (2006) 285–9, (2007)
160 – 4.
(^118) See in general Lehoux 2007, and Hannah loc. cit. Latinparapegmata, by contrast, tend to
be more calendrical: see Ch. 6.
58 Calendars in Antiquity