three calendars).^125 For this purpose, however, it would have been unnecessary
to reckon a whole separate calendar (and all the more so, to use it for dating
inscriptions); new moon sightings would have sufficed entirely. It seems more
likely, as others have suggested, thatkata theondates represented a common
calendar—purely lunar, and thus not specific to any one city—of which the
purpose was to facilitate commerce and other relations between cities where
calendars could otherwise differ considerably (Dunn 1998: 223–4, 229). This is
especially evident in inscriptions involving more than one city. Thus, an early
third-centuryBCElaw inscription from Eretria (Euboea) decrees that theatrical
performers who wish to sign contracts should present themselves at another
city, Chalcis, on the 20th of the month Apaturionkata theon. Since the law
was addressed to all the cities in the island of Euboea, which reckoned different
calendars independently, it was necessary for a common date to be given.^126
Similarly, a treaty between Messenia and Lakedaimonia inc.140BCEuses a date
kata selenen, evidently because only this date was common to both parties.^127
As a true lunar calendar, thekata theoncalendar would have been consid-
erably more regular and reliable than the politically controlled calendars of the
cities. But if it depended, as is widely assumed, on lunar observations such as
new moon sightings, this calendar would not have been completely standard
orfixed. Inasmuch as new moon visibility depends on geographical coordi-
nates, atmospheric conditions, and observational skills, it would have been
virtually impossible for the new moon to be sighted everywhere on the same
day. Likewise, if astronomical schemes were used (rather than lunar observa-
tion), the existence of a single, standard scheme cannot be assumed. Even if
intended to be common, the extent to which thekata theoncalendar was
reckoned everywhere exactly in the same way remains therefore uncertain.
Epigraphic evidence declines sharply after the second centuryBCE, but the
phrasekata theonwas sufficiently well known in the Greek world in thefirst
centuryCEfor Philo of Alexandria to use it.^128 In Philo’s period, however, the
need forkata theondates would have greatly declined, as other common
calendars—in particular, the Julian calendar and its derivatives (see Chapters
4 – 5)—were now available in Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean, and
(^125) Pritchett and Neugebauer (1947) 18–20; regarding their theory that the New Year was
strictly regulated by the new moon, see above, n. 35. 126
IGxii/9. 207, ll. 59–61: see Pritchett (2001) 93–4.
(^127) Pritchett (2001) 91, citing Dittenberger (1915–24) iii, no. 683, ll. 44–6. The purpose of the
use ofkata selenendates in other sources, e.g. the Stymphalos law (above, n. 122), is less clear.
(^128) Philo,Decalogue96, as correctly read by Pouilloux (1964).Why Philo uses this phrase in
this context is a little unclear. In this passage, he states that whereas the Jews observe the seventh
day of the week as holy, the Greeks observe thenoumeniakata theon(1st of the lunar month).
However, the festivals at Athens (and presumably elsewhere in Greece) are known to have
followed the archontic calendar, thus often deviating from the true lunar calendar (see Aris-
tophanes,The Clouds, 615–26, cited above); whilst among the Greeks of the former Seleucid
Empire, by the 1st c.CEcalendars had become solar.
Calendars of AncientGreece 61