The Athens calendar

"This man has achieved the truth with regard to the prediction of the phenomena of the starry sky, for the motions of the stars and the changes in the weather are completely consistent with his data;so most Greeks before my time enjoy his 19-year circle. .. "

So wrote about the Methon historian Diodorus in the I century. BC.e. And in fact, the new calendar system was developed by Methone to the smallest detail, including such an important part of it, as a rule of alternation of complete and empty months. As Gemin testifies, it consisted in the fact that all the months for 30 days were theoretically considered, then the days of the 64th, 128th, 192nd, 256th, etc.( that is, every 64th,th day).To find out the number of incomplete months( for 29 days), it was enough to multiply their total number by 30 and divide the result by 64. The months were incomplete, which after multiplying their serial number from the beginning of the cycle by 30 and dividing the result by 64 gave the remainder less30. If the remainder was more than 60, then both this and the preceding month had 30 days.

And yet it seems that the ancient Greeks either did not understand the essence of Meton's discovery, did not learn to use it, or deliberately abandoned it. In particular, just nine years after Meton "put into action" his kalen-dar-parapegma, a comedy by Aristophanes "Clouds" appeared on the stage of Greek theaters. That's what the clouds say to the Athenians, who are trying in vain to order the counting of the days on the Moon:

Studies have shown that both directly after the discovery of the metonic cycle, and a hundred years later, and in the middle of the III century.n.e. Greeks used a less accurate 8-year cycle. .. And to somehow still coordinate their civil calendar with the Moon, they sporadically added to the month or threw out of it one or two days. There is ample evidence that even after Meton, the difference in the numbers of the month for different lunar calendars reached even 8-10 days. ..

It turns out that the 19-year cycle was inappropriate for the Greeks, because it was inconvenient to determine the time of their most important holidays, which, on the contrary, fit comfortably in the 8-year cycle: the Olympic Games - every 4 years( i.e., twice in 8 years), the Pythian games at Delphi - once every 8 years( the fact that in two four-year periods the numbermonths was not the same, 49 + 50, there was no special role here), in Athens inIn general there were five holidays, repeated four years later. This is why many outstanding Greek astronomers after Meton( including Evdoks and Eratosthenes) sought to perfect octaetherid, developing, in particular, the 16- and 160-year cycles, although all these attempts were a step backward compared with the Meton cycle. That's why the Roman writer Censorin in 238 AD.e.noted that even in his time the 8-year cycle remained the most popular among the Greeks. ..

The result is known: if we talk about the IV-I centuries. BC.the Athenian calendar, and at this time, when the lunar year dominated the whole of Hellas, was subject to such fluctuations that at the present time, apparently, there is not even an opportunity to establish the true course of the Athenian time of the 3rd-1st centuries.to p. X ".Specifically, about the Athenian calendar, the prominent specialist in chronology E. Bikerman( USA) writes: "Even in the second century. BC.e.the addition of the months was made so randomly that in two years, one after another, there could be additional months. .. In practice, the days were excluded and included arbitrarily. The main reason for this adjustment of the calendar was that most religious festivals were fixed in the official calendar. "And here "the Athenians could rename the month of Munichion first to Anteterion, and then to Boadromion, to enable Demetrius Poliokret( this distinguished military leader who later became the ruler of Macedonia, captured Athens in 307 BC-IK) inthe time of his short stay in the city to get acquainted with the small( celebrated in Antesterion) and the large( celebrated in Boadromion) Eleusinian mysteries. "Therefore, at last: "It is possible to compare the Athenian date with the Julian date only in exceptional cases. ..".

In the Macedonian calendar of Alexander's times, insertions of the 13th month seemed to have been made once every three years, but there were no clear rules for this. This is what the ancient Greek historian Plutarch( about 46-126 AD) tells us in Alexander's Life. Before the start of the battle of Alexander with the Persian king Darius III under Granik( 334 BC) a new month had to come, Decios, which was regarded by the Greeks as unhappy. To get out of the predicament, Alexander decided. .. to insert an additional 13th month, that is, to repeat the month again Artemisios. Of course, "after this" he could not but win the battle. ..

And yet it is surprising that such it is necessary to talk about the calendars of the people who gave the world outstanding astronomers: Aristarkh of Samos, Hipparchus and Ptolemy. .. However, with.290 to 90 years. BC.e.in general there is little information about the ancient Greek calendar. They are almost not preserved for the reconstruction of the calendars of large eastern cities, conquered by Alexander.

"Free octaethide"

In 86 BC.e.the Greeks lost their political independence. After this, no corrections were made to the calendar and the beginning of the year became "floating" in relation to the months of the Julian calendar. In fact, usually the Athenian New Year, the first day of the month of Hecatomveon began in July( and even sometimes in late June).But in the first millennium AD.e.the later the author who described the Athenian calendar lived, the farther from July the beginning of the year was with him. Thus, according to Plutarch( end of the 1st century AD), the Athenian New Year began around August 1, in the III-IV centuries.n.e.its beginning began to move by September and even October, and in the 9th-10th centuries, by January. Writers of the same XIV-XVI centuries. Identify the month of Hecatomveon with April. Thus, for fifteen hundred years the beginning of the year of the Athenian lunisolar calendar has shifted from the summer solstice to the vernal equinox.

This is exactly the case when the 8-year cycle is not consistent with the annual movement of the Sun in the sky, since every 157 years the octaetheri with respect to the solar year is 30 days late. And if the "floating octaetherid" was admitted in 84 BC.e., and the beginning of the year then occurred around July 1, then about 73 AD.e.it happened already on August 1, about 235 on September 1, 392 on October 1, 554 on November 1, 711 on December 1, etc., and finally, in 1344.- on the 1st of April.

In many cities of the Middle East and after accepting the Julian calendar, the Macedonian names of the months were kept. However, if the usually lunisolar year of the Macedonian calendar( 1 Dios) began in September, close to the autumnal equinox, in the solar( Julian) calendars, the beginning of the year in most cases turned out to be closer to the winter solstice or even for it. For example, Ephesus 1 of Dios was fixed for September 23, but in Damascus it happened on October 18, and in Antioch and Constantinople-on November 1.It follows that in the last two cities, before the adoption of the Julian calendar for about 200 years, free octaetridate was used. Later, however, in Constantinople the Macedonian names of the months were replaced by Roman ones.

By the way, the custom of keeping the ordinal account of the days in the month from 1 to 30( 31) came to us through Constantinople from Antioch.

In general, as you can see, the ancient Greeks had their calendar suited. It is known that in Athens it was also used in the VI.n.e., and in the Byzantine Empire, until the end of the VII century.n.e., ie, for 600 years after the introduction of the Julian calendar. Moreover, in the XIII century. Byzantine historian George Pachimeres proposed to replace the names of the months of the Julian calendar with the corresponding names of the Ancient Greek. Already on the eve of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire( 1453), another Byzantine historian Georgy Pleton suggested generally returning to the lunisolar calendar with the beginning of the year from the new moon, which would have been close to the winter solstice. Such projects arose in connection with the inaccuracy of the Julian calendar.