Thucididean time-reckoning and Euctemon's seasonal calendar - article ; n°1 ; vol.85, pg 17-52

B. L.Vanderwaerden, W. W.Kendrickpritchett

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Bulletin de correspondance hellénique - Année 1961 - Volume 85 - Numéro 1 - Pages 17-52
36 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: BULLETIN_DE_CORRESPONDANCE_HELLENIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1961
• Nombre de lectures: 50
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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W. Kendrick Pritchett
B. L. Van der Waerden
Thucididean time-reckoning and Euctemon's seasonal calendar
In: Bulletin de correspondance hellénique. Volume 85, 1961. pp. 17-52.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Pritchett W. Kendrick, Van der Waerden B. L. Thucididean time-reckoning and Euctemon's seasonal calendar. In: Bulletin de
correspondance hellénique. Volume 85, 1961. pp. 17-52.
doi : 10.3406/bch.1961.1574
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/bch_0007-4217_1961_num_85_1_1574K. PRITCHETT AND Β. L. VAN DER WAERDEN 17 W.
THUCYDIDEAN TIME-RECKONING
AND EUCTEMON'S SEASONAL CALENDAR
1. Thucydides and Athenian Time-Reckoning
Σκοπείτω δέ τις κατά τους χρόνους και μη των έκασταχοΰ ή αρχόντων ή άπό
τιμής τίνος την άπαρίθμησιν των ονομάτων ες τα προγεγενημένα σημαινόντων
πιστεύσας μάλλον, ου γαρ ακριβές έστιν, οις και άρχομένοις και μεσοΰσι, και
δπως ετυχέ τω, έπεγένετό τι (Mss. text of Thuc. 5.20.2) (1). Classen
gives the sense of the passage as follows: « Man muss sie nach den
(natiirlichen) Zeitabschnitten sich bemerken und nicht nach der Zâhlung
der Namen der Personen, welche an jedem Orte entweder als hochste
Obrigkeit oder von einer Wiirde zur Bezeichnung der Ereignisse dienen,
weil man das fur zuverlàssiger halt : denn es ist das ungenau, da ja sowohl
im Anfang, als in der Mittc und zu welcher Zeit sonst in ihrer Amtsfiihrung
sich etwas ereignete ». Thus Thucydides described his method of reckon
ing time within the year, and his criticism of other methods.
Scholars have thought that the method adopted by Thucydides was
a faulty one. Typical is the comment of R. W. Macan : « From our present
point of view it were better had Thucydides carried his Atticism into his
chronology, boldly and systematically dating events by Attic years,
months, and days of the month. He... missed his great chance and devised
instead a chronology for the war based upon its intrinsic duration and
seasonal division into summers and winters » (2). This passage of Macan
is quoted with approval by F. Jacoby (3).
What were the types of time-reckoning available to Thucydides?
We restrict our consideration to four methods used in Athens, since the
calendars of other city-states would have presented similar problems.
(1) A. W. Gomme (Commentary on Thucydides, 3 [Oxford 1956], p. 685) both transposes
the ες τα ... σημαινόντων phrase and alters to τη απαριθμήσει. Whatever changes may be
required in the text of the first sentence of Thuc. 5.20.2, that of the second, which is critical for
our study, has never been questioned.
(2) Cambridge Ancient History, 5 (Cambridge, 1927), p. 403.
(3) Fr. Gr. Hist., Illb, Suppl., Vol. II (Leiden, 1954), p. 17. 18 W. K. PRITCHETT AND Β. L. VAN DER WAERDEN
A. Prytany calendar, which has been known variously as the senatorial,
conciliai·, or bouleutic calendar. This calendar counted dates according
to the ten prytanies of each boule, or council. In 1947, Pritchett and
Neugebauer suggested that in the fifth century the prytany year was
divided into prytanies which had a fixed number of days (1). So far
as we can judge from the four-year period 426/5-423/2 in financial records
where restoration is not a factor, each prytany year was made up of 366 days
in which the number of days in each was as follows: Prytanies I-
VI=37 days each; Prytanies VII-X=36 days each. As has long been.
recognized, the first day of the prytany year in this period did not coincide
with the first day of the festival calendar ; so this calendar was, so to
speak, tied neither to sun nor to moon. One prytany-year was distinguished
from another by giving the name of the official who was secretary in the
first prytany, for example Inscriptiones Graecae, I2, 324, lines 5-6 : έπί
της βουλής, fj Μεγακλείδης πρώτος έγραμμάτευε. This calendar, which is
the one most frequently met with in Athenian inscriptions of the fifth
century, was never used by Thucydides. Dates therein would have been
understandable only to those provided with a list of the first secretaries
of the Athenian boule and familiar with the scheme for Attic prytany-
years.
Other scholars in the field of Athenian chronology have held that the
lengths of prytanies were highly irregular, and that the number of days in
one prytany-year was not necessarily the same as in another in the fifth
century, as well as in subsequent centuries. If this were true, it would have
been all the more reason why Thucydides would have avoided such a
calendar. One recent effort to show that the lengths of prytanies were
irregular must be rejected because it fails to recognize the fact that single
dates in terms of the festival calendar were kaV archonla. One cannot,
therefore, take three dates in the year of the archonship of Pythodelos,
for example, and assume that we can determine the interval of days between
these dates by use of the festival calendar alone. Nor can we use intervals
so determined to prove anything about the lengths of prytanies. The fallacy
of this method, .which is still used in the publication of new inscriptions
from the Athenian Agora, has been pointed out by Pritchett, Bulletin de
Correspondance Hellénique 81 (1957), pp. 271-272, 300-301. As a practical
and instructive test of the fallaciousness of this method, we would invite
any interested scholars to take the preserved kaV archonta dates of the
second century (2), and to attempt to determine the lengths of prytanies
therefrom.
On the other hand, there are ten sure, and three other likely, cases
where the lengths of prytanies can be definitely proved : Prytanies 1, 2 and
(1) Calendars of Alberts (Cambridge, Mass., 1947), chap. VI.
(2) See the tables in Pritchett and Neugebauer, Calendars of Athens, p. 15, to which add
the dates given in BCH 81 (1957), p. 279, note 5. TIME-RECKONING AND EUCTEMON's SEASONAL CALENDAR 19 THUCYDIDEAN
3 of 425/4 b. c, Prytany 10 of 423/2 b. c: IG, I2, 324; Prytanies 6 and 8
of 408/7 b. c: IG, I2, 374 ; and Prytanies 1, 2, 5 and 6 of the year 329/8 b.
c: /G, II2, 1672. In addition, all scholars seem to have accepted the
evidence of IG, I2, 304A as giving the length of Prytanies 8, 9 and 10 for
the year 410/9 b. c. In each case, the of the prytany accords with
the rules based on Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 43.2.
One other piece of evidence has been adduced against the rules of
regular prytanies: namely, that dates in the true lunar, or kata theon,
calendar of the second century b. c. differ by one day from the prytany
dates in two of the some twenty examples where the two dates are preserv
ed side by side in the same document. We must point out that, to the contrar
y, one could hardly ask for better evidence that the prytany calendar
was regular when it is admitted that in eighteen examples, the kata theon
dates establish a regular prytany calendar for these years and the remainder
a difference of but one day. If the prytany calendar wTas fixed, one must
expect that dates in a lunar calendar, based on observation, and hence
not determined in advance, would show slight variation. Thus, if one finds
that the 28th day of a prytany is equated with the 27th day of a lunar
month, this equation signifies no more than that the first day of the pry
tany fell on the 30th of the preceding month. The former was determined
in advance; the latter was not, for it depended on observation. If the lunar
month had been observed to be of only 29 days, the two calendars would
have had the same numerals. The evidence of the kata theon equations
establishes the regularity of the prytany calendar.
B. Festival calendar, which has also been termed the religious, civil,
or archon's calendar. The festival year began with Hekatombaion 1 and
was divided into 12 or 13 months. The year of 354 ±1 or 384 ±1 days
determined the length of time the various archontes held office, including
the eponymous archon, who gave his name to the year.
Thucydides' criticism of the use of the festival calendar has never,
possibly, been fully appreciated. In the well-known passage cited at the
beginning of the article, he states that time-reckoning by the religious
calendar was not precise, and he indicates that an exact point would be
left uncertain in such a mode of reckoning. The difficulty was in giving
time within the archon's year (1). Gomme lias commented on this passage,
« It might be thought that Thucydides could easily have avoided this
(1) F. Jacoby {Fr. Gr. Hisl., Illb, Suppl., Vol. 1, p. 19), following E. Schwartz (Das Ge-
schichlswerk des Thukydides [Bonn, 1919], p. 317), seems to miss the force of the second sentence
in 5.20.2 when he writes : « The first war, reckoned in natural years, lasted almost exactly (that
is, not quite) ten years, but the άπαρίθμησι,ς των ονομάτων from Pythodoros in 432/1 to Alkaios
in 422/1 B. C. amounts to eleven archons' years. It is on account of this discrepancy that Thu
kydides rejects the use of official years... » But it was Thucydides' point that if he used the mode
of reckoning by any magistrate's term of office, he could not indicate with accuracy any event
which occurred at some exact point within that year. 20 W. K. PRITCHETT A