that corresponds to a modern sense of utility. The calendars of Athens are a valu-
able caution against such assumptions.^122 Athens simultaneously ran two calendars
without reconciling them. The first was the archon’s calendar, which regulated the
festivals and divided the year into twelve lunar months, with an extra month being
intercalated usually every other year. This calendar had a notional relationship to
the true phases of the moon, so that “the beginning of the month approximated the
appearance of the new lunar crescent.”^123 Second-century b.c.e.inscriptions,
indeed, regularly give two dates, one “according to the archon” (katÆ a[rconta),
and one “according to the god” (kata; qeovn): here the date “according to the
archon” is that of the festival calendar, while the date “according to the god” is a
designation according to the actually observed phase of the moon.^124 Adjustments
were sometimes made to the archon’s calendar to bring it into closer relation to the
actual lunar phases, usually by adding one or more days.^125 In addition to this fes-
tival lunar calendar, with its reasonably close but varying relationship to lunar
phases, democratic Athens maintained a calendar based on the organization of its
council, the boulhv. This council was composed of representatives of the ten tribes,
each of which took turns serving as “presidents,” prutavnei", of the council; their
period of officiating was called a “presidency/prytany” (prutaneiva), and the pry-
tany calendar was therefore divided into ten units, not twelve months.^126 Until the
fourth century b.c.e.the festival calendar and the prytany calendar began and
ended on different days, and inscriptions can give dates from both of them.
From the fifth century b.c.e.onwards Athens certainly had at its disposal all the
astronomical knowledge necessary for creating a calendar that would be in har-
mony with the natural seasons, and that could harmonize these differing systems
into a united solar and civil calendar. Yet the sophisticated astronomical models of
the time were not even used as a control for the different civil calendars, let alone
as a template for a new calendar altogether.^127 It has even been argued that the pry-
tany calendar was in fact run as a 365/366-day solar calendar for an extended
period in the late fifth century.^128 It is all the more striking, then, that the city did
not take what might strike a modern observer as the natural step of perpetuating a
reformed single civil calendar on this “accurate” model; instead, the prytany’s
solar calendar was abolished toward the end of the fifth century. There are various
possible explanations as to why this happened, but all the explanations concern
internal and external political ideology, not astronomical considerations.^129 What
appear to moderns to be criteria of accuracy and utility are very considerably less
important than relationships between council and archon, or between metropolis
and allies.
A Calendar That Measures Time. 195