ChronicleThe Roman calendar set the official
and the religious basis of the 12-month year,
which lasted 355 days until
The Julian calendar was introduced.

Short review

Caesar's Julian calendar was based on
mathematical and astronomical calculations
Greek world, where Egyptian and
Babylonian models. Caesar's successor, Augustus,
demonstrated his extensive erudition,
installing large public solar panels in Rome
a clock that used an obelisk as a hand.
Here is the Roman passion for eastern astronomy
merged with the assumption that the board
Augusta was predetermined by the divine cycle.

Sundial

Time and calendar

The Roman year was governed by calendars that
determined the days suitable and not suitable for
social activities, religious holidays And
other events. There was also an 8-day weekly cycle,
which was on public display
calendars were designated by letters from A to H. Over time
time this civil calendar began strongly
diverge from the natural solar year. Julius
Caesar corrected this by making 46 B.C. 445 days and
then introducing the Julian calendar, which was founded
on precise astronomical calculations and still
used Orthodox Church.

Time and calendar (2)

The Julian calendar was not enough
accurate and gave an error of 1 day in 128 years. In 1582
the vernal equinox has moved back by (1582325)/128 = 10 days. Because of the importance of this holiday
for the Christian world the Catholic Church was
I am convinced of the need for calendar reform.
The next Pope who came in 1572 was Gregory
XIII carried out a calendar reform on February 24, 1582.
(all Christians were commanded to count October 5
1582 - October 15). The calendar began to be called
Gregorian.

Time and calendar (3)

The Romans, like the Greeks, dated events by years
board of consuls (in turn, the Greeks -
magistrates). The exact date could also be indicated,
which was counted from the founding of Rome in 753 to
AD To determine time, both night and day were
divided by 12 equal hours. Because
the length of the day depended on the date and
geographical latitude, in different seasons and in different
In some places the clocks were also of different lengths in solar
Mediterranean.

Year numbering

In Ancient Greece every year in every city
had its name after the chief official
this year - in Athens according to the first archon, in Sparta
according to the first ephor, etc. Also the names of the months in
each city had its own.
When the Romans replace the Greeks, they will have everything
same: years are not numbered, but are designated by names
officials(“to the consulate of such and such”).

Chronological tables

Present chronological
the tables that they had
Greeks and Romans, had the appearance
long lists of names - how
telephone books. For example,
“Into the archonty of Kalliad... in
Archonship of Eufin... in
Archonship of Herondas."

Time

The Greeks imagined time as moving
in one place - like the starry firmament, which
revolves above the world equally and unchanged.
For the Greek, progress, if it existed, was once
in the immemorial beginning, under the titan Prometheus, and after
this life seemed eternal, stable and
unchanged throughout the years similar friend on a friend.

Facts lie

Information where they write: “The Greeks so honored the Olympic
games that were calculated according to the Olympics” is erroneous. Because Some kept track of the time for the Olympics
Greek historians to keep track of a long series of events.
But it was their armchair invention, and nothing more. None
document, there were no such dates in any inscription. The Greeks did not lead
chronology for the Olympics, they did not keep any
chronology. The years seemed to be scattered in their minds
motley motionless scattering.

At the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. Greece, which consisted of separate city-states (polises), was under the cultural influence of many countries of the East. The ancient Greeks colonized neighboring islands and coasts from Asia Minor to southern Italy and even the northern shores of the Black Sea. And those of them who sailed, and those who were engaged in agriculture, needed certain knowledge, they needed a calendar,

To carry out agricultural work in a timely manner, the ancient Greeks coordinated their lives with the change of seasons, with the visible annual movement of the Sun across the sky. That is why it is already evidenced in the poems of Homer (8th century BC) that the ancient Greeks had the concept of a solar year, although... there is no evidence that they used solar calendars at that time. We can only say that already somewhere in the 9th century. BC e. The ancient Greeks knew how the appearance of the starry sky changed in rhythm with the changing seasons. This annually recurring change in visibility separate groups They used stars and constellations in everyday life as a kind of solar calendar.

This is confirmed by the advice that the poet Hesiod (8th century BC) gave to rural workers:

“Begin the harvest when the Pleiades are rising, and the plowing when they are about to set. When Sirius is overhead, cut down trees. Arcturus appears in the evening - prune the vines. Orion and Sirius go to the middle of the sky - pick the grapes. Fifty days after the solstice, goods can be transported by sea for sale... With the setting of Orion and the Pleiades, the year is completed.”

As you can see, the beginnings of specific field work are clearly compared here with the view of the starry sky. In particular, the sickle should be taken up during the first morning (heliac) rising of the Pleiades (for the time of Hesiod at the latitude of Greece this is around May 12 according to the modern calendar), when the Pleiades sets at dawn (early November), it is time to plow. At the end of February, when the star Arcturus rises from the sea in the evening, it is necessary to prune the vines, etc.

Moments of morning and evening sunrises and sunsets of several of the most remarkable stars, at the latitude of Athens in 501 BC. e. and 300 AD e. are given in table.

Table. Rising and setting of “calendar” stars at the latitude of Athens according to the Gregorian calendar

	BC e. (-)	Evening	Morning	Evening	Morning
Alcyone
Betelgeuse
(α Orion)
(α Bootes)

It is easy to see that due to precession, the visibility conditions of specific stars and their groups are constantly changing. Therefore, in our time, Hesiod’s advice can no longer be used...

“...In days and months - with the Moon”

As the ancient Greek scientist of the 1st century noted. before. n. e. Geminus in his “Elements of Astronomy”, the Greeks had to make sacrifices to their gods according to the customs of their ancestors, and therefore “they must maintain harmony in years with the Sun, and in days and months with the Moon.” Indeed, in their business and social life the Greeks used lunisolar calendars. The names of the months of these calendars usually came from the names of the festivals celebrated in the corresponding month. Thus, in the first month of their calendar, the Athenians solemnly sacrificed one hundred bulls - a “hecatomb”, which is why the month was called Hekatomveon. On the first day, civil servants took up their positions; on the 12th day there were holidays dedicated to the god Chronos, who personified time. On the seventh day of the third month - Voidromion - a holiday was celebrated in honor of Apollo Voidromius - “who helps in battle with a cry”, and the day before the Greeks honored the dead. In the month of Pianepsion, on the 7th, the Greeks celebrated the festival of grape bunches, on the 10th-14th - the women's festival, on the 28th in every fourth year there were hephaestias accompanied by a torchlight procession - festivals in honor of Hephaestus - the god of fire and blacksmithing, the next two days and were the holidays of blacksmiths. On the eighth month - Anfestirion - there was a holiday of the beginning of the bottling of new wine ("small Dionysia"), and the corresponding event, the "Feast of Flowers" was called Anthestiria. Marriages took place in the month of Gamilion.

The Athenian and Macedonian lunisolar calendars were the most famous. The first of them, in particular, was used by Greek astronomers, the second became widespread in the East after the conquests of Alexander the Great. Here is an approximate correspondence between the months of the Athenian (left), Macedonian and our calendars:

According to some sources, the ancient Greeks originally began their year around the winter solstice. Then its beginning was moved to the summer solstice, since at this time meetings usually took place at which officials were elected.

The ancient Greeks' day began at sunset and consisted of night and the following day. The days of the month were divided into three decades (this division was already found in Hesiod). The first 10 days were simply counted - from the first to the tenth, the next 9 were called “first”, “second”, etc. with the addition of the words “after ten”, the remaining days were counted in the reverse order: “ninth from the end of the month”, “eighth from the end of the month”, etc. The 30th day was called “old and new”, and the previous 29th was “preliminary”; in a month of 29 days, it was excluded from the count.

The name of the 30th day has a deep meaning. To them, the Greeks, in counting days, seemed to “break away” from observations: they considered the next day to be the 1st day of the new calendar month, regardless of whether the crescent Moon was visible in the sky or not (after all, in the fall at the latitude of Athens it can be seen only on the third day after the conjunction ).

It is noteworthy that the ancient Greeks honored one or more gods to whom that day was dedicated on each day of the month. In Athens, in particular, the first and last day of each month was dedicated to Hecate - a goddess who was first considered the patroness of human affairs, later - the goddess of ghosts, nightmares, the mistress of shadows in the underworld, sometimes identified with the moon goddess Selene. The 1st day of the month was also dedicated to Apollo and Hermes, the 3rd, 13th and 23rd days to Athena. Three last days Each month were considered unlucky, they were dedicated to the dead, as well as to the underground gods.

In Geminus we also find some information about the structure of the ancient Greek lunisolar calendars: “For business and social life, the duration of the monthly period was rounded to 291/2 days, so that two months were 59 days.” The calendar year consisted of 12 months. To agree on duration civil year with the solar one, according to Geminus, “the ancients inserted an additional month (in Athens this was usually the winter Posideon) every year.” This means that the Greeks at that time used trietheride, the most primitive two-year lunar cycle. How long this lasted, how the Greeks brought their lunar calendar into agreement with the solar one, is unknown.

Another piece of evidence about ancient Greek calendars comes from Herodotus (484-425 BC): “The Greeks inserted a month into every second or third year for the sake of (corresponding to) the seasons.” Apparently, here we are already talking about the use by the Greeks of an 8-year cycle - octaetheride, which was allegedly introduced in Greece by the poet and politician Solon (640-560 BC) in 593 BC. e.

In fact, information about the reform carried out at that time is very contradictory. Plutarch (46-126) says this about Solon: “Noticing the inequality of the month and the fact that the movement of the Moon does not agree with either the setting or the rising of the Sun, but often on the same day the Moon catches up with the Sun and moves away from it, he decreed call this day “old and new,” believing that part of this day before the conjunction (of the Moon with the Sun) belongs to the expiring month, and the rest to the beginning.”

The writer Diogenes Laertius (1st half of the 3rd century BC) limited himself to the statement that Solon ordered the Athenians to count days by the Moon. According to the philosopher Proclus (410-485), before Solon, the Greeks did not even know that lunar months were not always 30 days long.

Apparently, Solon coordinated the calendar with the Moon by inserting additional days, and perhaps not by the Sun, throwing out the intercalary month to bring the beginning of the lunar year to the summer solstice. It is possible, of course, that he actually introduced octaetheride. Embolism years were the 1st and 3rd years of the odd and 2nd year of the even Olympiad.

It would seem that, observing the phases of the same Moon, the same neomenia, the townspeople of different policies would have to begin counting the days in months from the same days (another thing is that the months themselves could be called differently). But this was precisely not the case. Partly, apparently, because the octaesteride system was not universally accepted at that time, and it still “worked” poorly. As a result, as Plutarch noted, there was no agreement between individual calendars regarding the counting of days in months. Let's limit ourselves to just one example. Describing one of the events of the war of 431-421. BC e., Aristotle’s student Aristoxenus (however, more than a hundred years later) wrote that at that time “the tenth day of the month among the Corinthians corresponded to the fifth day among the Athenians and the eighth according to some other calendar.” Apparently, this particular day corresponded to the 7th or 8th day of the moon, but in Athens the calendar was two or three days behind the changing phases of the moon, while in Corinth it was ahead of it...

One can therefore understand the enormous enthusiasm with which in 432 BC. e. During the Olympic Games, the discovery of the astronomer Meton was welcomed. Meton derived a relationship connecting the tropical year with the synodic month, and also calculated and compared on special tables the change in the annual rising and setting of stars with the change in the phases of the Moon in a 19-year cycle. These tables were carved on stone slabs and installed in city squares for public viewing. This stone calendar was called parapegma.

Praise for parapegma

The word “parapegma” itself means “to attach”, “to stick”. But what relation it has to calendars was established only in 1902, when fragments of such a parapegma were found during excavations of a theater in the city of Miletus (a former Greek colony on the southwestern coast of Asia Minor). One of its fragments is shown in Fig.

Rice. Fragment of the ancient Greek calendar-parapegma

Here you can see the inscriptions arranged along the lines, to the left of which, as well as between them, there is a row of holes, in total there are 30 of them on the right column. To better understand the principle of operation of this calendar, let’s number all the holes, putting numbers in front of the lines (there are none on the monument). The inscriptions say the following:

1 O The Sun in Aquarius 2 O Leo begins to set at dawn and Lyra sets O O 5 O Swan sets at evening dawn OOOOOOOOO 15 O Andromeda begins to rise in the morning at dawn O O 18 O Aquarius the middle rises 19 O Pegasus begins to rise in the morning at dawn O 21 O Centaur sets entirely in the morning 22 O Hydra sets entirely in the morning 23 O Whale sets at evening dawn 24 O Arrow sets, bringing the time of Zephyr (spring) O O O O 29 O Swan sets entirely at evening dawn 30 O Arcturus rises at evening dawn

An analysis of these inscriptions shows that we are talking about a change in the visibility conditions of the rising and setting of stars in Greece during the passage of the Sun through the constellation Aquarius. The left side of the table obviously spoke of similar phenomena occurring thirty days earlier. It can be assumed that there were a total of six such tables and each was “scheduled” for 61 days. The duration of one year in the Metonic cycle is on average 6940:19 = 365.26 days. During this time, Meton believed, the Sun passes through 12 zodiacal constellations, staying in each of them for 365.26:12 = 30.4 days.

So, on parapegma the civil lunar-solar calendar was compared with changes in the appearance of the starry sky throughout the solar year and with the corresponding change in seasons. Let us try, following Meton, to “use” the fragment of parapegma at our disposal. Let us assume that in the year that we take as the initial one (let us call it the first year of the cycle), the new moon (or neomenia) took place at the moment when “The Swan sets entirely at dawn”, corresponding to hole 29. Insert a pin with number 1, into the next hole (30) - with number 2, etc. These will be the calendar numbers of the lunar month of a given year. Likewise, after 29 and 30 days, the same pins will be installed on other tables (including the left side of the parapegma and the upper part of the right side). Thus, the change in the appearance of the starry sky (not so clearly striking!) will be compared with a clearly visible phenomenon - a change in the phases of the Moon. Somewhere on one of the tables it will be recorded on what date and which lunar month “In the morning the Pleiades rise”, announcing the time of harvest...

After 12 lunar months, the same new moon will occur 11 days earlier. Therefore, in the next, second year of the 19-year cycle, the same month will begin when the “midpoint of Aquarius rises” - hole 18 (= 29-11). Consequently, all the pins with the numbers of days must be moved in the holes 11 positions back. In the third year of the cycle, the beginning of the month moves another 11 days back (on this fragment of the parapegma it will be at hole 18-11 = 7). Accordingly, we rearrange all the pins with the numbers of days. Over these two years, the beginning of the month has moved back by 11 11 = 22 days. Therefore, in the third year an insertion of the 13th month will be made. As a result, the pin with the beginning of the month in the fourth year will move 30-11 = 19 days forward - into hole 7 + 19 = 26. In general, the numbers of the holes in this parapegma fragment, corresponding to the beginning of the lunar month in subsequent years of the 19-year lunar cycle, can be written down in the form of a plate:

After 19 years, the cycle repeats itself completely. The following is interesting here. The parapegma fragment has holes corresponding to 30 days. Meanwhile, as can be seen from the tablet, if the Metonic cycle were perfectly accurate, the new moon could occur only on 19 of them. These days can be somehow distinguished, for example, by gilding the corresponding holes and writing near each of them in gold numbers the number of the year in the 19-year cycle, in which the lunar month is counted from this hole (corresponding to a certain position of the stars in the sky!). If this is done, then it’s okay if the pins fell out of the hole while transporting the parapegma, or if inquisitive boys rearranged them as a joke at night. Remembering the year number in the 19-year cycle, we will immediately find places (holes) for the first numbers of months, after which it is not difficult to establish all the others.

A perennial herbaceous plant that blooms in early spring, before the leaves bloom. The flowers are large, broadly bell-shaped, light purple, at the beginning

Ancient Greek calendar

At the beginning of the first millennium BC. e. In ancient Greece, lunar-solar calendars began to be created, and each polis (city-state) had its own calendar system. Despite their similarities, each calendar had its own peculiarity and was somewhat different from all the others. The year was divided into 12 months, each of which began with neomenia. To communicate with the seasons, an additional 13th month was periodically inserted.

In different cities of Greece, the months had their own names, but the most widespread were the Athenian names, namely:

The approximate correspondence to our months is indicated in brackets.

The year most often began with the month of the summer solstice, which at that time fell on hecatombeon (July).

In leap years, a second Poseideon was inserted as the embolismic month; sometimes the additional month was the second scyrophorion.

At different times, embolism years alternated in different ways. So, in the VI century. BC e. in some places in Greece, octaetheride was used, in which 3 out of 8 years were leap years - the 2nd, 5th and 8th years of the cycle.

The most popular calendar in Greece was developed by Meton. In 432 BC. e., during the festivities dedicated to the 86th Olympiad, a parapegma was installed in the center of Athens - a stone slab with holes into which pins were inserted indicating the numbers of the current month. Near the holes there was a text carved on stone indicating upcoming astronomical phenomena, such as the rising and setting of certain stars, the position of the Sun in the constellations and other phenomena.

Further improvement of the Greek calendar is associated with the names of Kalippus and Hipparchus, which we discussed in the section on the mathematical theory of lunar and lunisolar calendars.

Chronology. In Ancient Greece until the middle of the first millennium BC. e. events were dated by the names of officials. Thus, in Athens, the years were counted by the names of eponyms - heads of executive power (archons) responsible for the correctness of the calendar.

In the 4th century. BC e. Pan-Hellenic chronology spread through the Olympiads. The history of this chronology is as follows. Sports games were widely developed in Ancient Greece. Since 776 BC. e. In the city of Olympia, once every 4 years, games took place, which took on the character of large public celebrations. Based on the location where they were held, they were called Olympic. The Olympic Games were timed to coincide with the beginning of the year, but since this time was not associated with a specific date due to the abundance of calendar systems, before the games, messengers had to be sent to all cities to notify the population about the upcoming celebrations.

The Olympic Games became so integral to the life of the ancient Greeks that they began to count time according to the Olympiads and conventionally dated the beginning of their era to July 1, 776 BC. e. It is believed that the first Olympic Games took place on this day.

The chronology of the Olympiads was first used in 264 BC. e. by the ancient Greek historian Timaeus, and this count continued for about seven centuries. Although in 394 AD. e. Emperor Theodosius I abolished the Olympic Games; the calculation of time according to the Olympics was used somewhat later.

In chronology for Olympiads, years were designated by the serial number of the Olympiad and the number of the year in the four-year period. Thus, the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the naval battle in the Strait of Salamis is dated by the numbers “75. 1", which means "the first year of the 75th Olympiad".

The conversion of these dates to our calendar is made using the formula

A = 776 - [(Ol - 1) × 4 + (t - 1)],

where A is the required date, O1 is the number of the Olympiad, (t is the number of the year in the Olympiad.

The Battle of Salamis took place in the first year of the 75th Olympiad. Let's convert this date to our calendar.

Substituting the values ​​O1 = 75 and I = 1 into the formula, we get

A = 776 - [(75 - 1) × 4 + (1 - 1)1 = 480.

Indeed, the Battle of Salamis took place in September 480 BC. e.

If the expression in square brackets in this formula were equal to 776 or greater, then 775 would have to be subtracted from it. In this case, we would get the year of our era.

The astronomical thought of the ancient Greeks from distant eras developed in the scheme of the lunisolar calendar; They counted the days in civil life according to the moon, from new moon to new moon; their calendar numbers thus showed only the age of the Moon. But with that scientific realism that characterizes Greek culture, with that soulful “surprise” with which the Greeks approached nature, they quickly learned that astronomical observations should reveal the connection between the phenomena of the starry sky and the movement of the Sun and that the calendar should reflect this connection. From the 8th century BC e. they knew the eight-year period (octoetheris) - an instrument, as we know, a very primitive one. By the time of Solon the legislator (around the 6th century BC), the corrected octoetheride was in effect in Attica; each period was lengthened by ½ day. Consequently, from two such periods it turned out:

2.922 · 2 + 3 = 5.847 days = 198 lunar months = 16 solar years.

This ratio gives a completely acceptable result for the Moon; but the solar year turns out to be equal to a day, that is, a day longer than the Julian year. Consequently, for every 16 years, the solstices - the year for the ancient Greeks began with the summer solstice - were shifted back in the calendar by 3 days; The error is obvious, even with all the difficulty of the corresponding observations. But already in the 5th century. Meton achieved significant improvement. “This man achieved the truth regarding the prediction of the phenomena of the starry sky, for the movements of the stars and changes in the weather are quite consistent with his data; therefore, most Greeks before my time use its 19-year circle,” wrote the historian Diodorus in the 1st century. BC e. That meteorological or climatological predictions went hand in hand with astronomical predictions among the ancient Greeks is one of the characteristic features their general worldview, their knowledge of nature was based on purely observational material, without any admixture of astrology. In what calendar form was it clothed?

The annual circle of the Sun is divided into 12 equal parts(dodecatemorium), for 12 signs of the Zodiac; the origin of this division is a special question, very complex and not of interest to us now; for the ancient observer it was significant that the change of annual sunrises and sunsets of stars and - he thought - changes in weather (episemasia) occur at certain moments of the Sun's passage through its circle; Therefore, from observations, zodiac tables are constructed, in which both phenomena are described according to 12 signs. It is clear that it is enough to compile such tables for 365 days of the year; then all that remains is to reconcile them with the counting of days in the civil lunar year and make this data publicly available - Greek science was never locked in temples and was not caste-based. To observe the solstices, Meton erected his steles (columns) and instruments on the Pnyx in Athens, right next to the public assembly square, and everyone could definitely see his parapegmas, that is, calendars carved on stone.

For a long time, archaeologists did not understand how these calendars could be arranged; After all, it’s impossible to put 6,940 dates of a 19-year circle on a stone, repeating 19 rounds of the Sun in all the signs of the Zodiac. Only in 1902, during excavations of a theater in Miletus (in Asia Minor), fragments of such a parapegma were found; from them, an ingenious solution to this technical problem, found by the Greeks, immediately emerged. In Fig. 9 shows one of the fragments of the monument; a series of inscriptions arranged along lines is visible on it; to the left of the lines, as well as between them, there is a number of small holes; there are a total of 30 of them on the right column - which is shown above by the Greek letter Λ; Let's number all these holes, putting numbers in front of the lines for clarity that are not on the monument.

Rice. 9. Ancient Greek adjustable calendar

The translation of the inscription reads as follows:

1 ♦ Sun in Aquarius

2 ♦ The lion begins to set at dawn and Lyra enters

5 ♦ The swan sets in the evening dawn

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

15 ♦ Andromeda begins to rise in the morning at dawn

18 ♦ Aquarius midpoint rising

19 ♦ Pegasus begins to rise in the morning at dawn

21 ♦ Centaurus sets entirely in the morning

22 ♦ Hydra enters entirely in the morning

23 ♦ The whale sets in the evening dawn

24 ♦ The arrow sets, bringing the time of Zephyr (spring)

29 ♦ The whole swan sets in the evening dawn

30 ♦ [Arcturus] rises at the evening dawn

We see that this is a perfectly preserved zodiac table for 1 month, precisely for the time the Sun passed through the sign of Aquarius. In our modern calendar, the Sun enters this sign (longitude 300°) around January 22; from here it would be easy, using the numbers placed in front of the lines, to determine the calendar dates of all other predicted phenomena. But now we must completely forget this solar dating; the Greeks did not know it. In their lunar calendar, the entry of the Sun into any of the signs jumped from date to date according to the years of the circle, as shown in 6. The eight-year period and the Metonic circle, type A. But here the holes in the stone come to the rescue: if you know what date of the lunar calendar The Sun enters the first sign in a given year, then it is enough to put pins with consecutive dates in all the holes, both at the lines and between the lines, alternating months of 29 and 30 days according to the rules of the lunar calendar; then each of the rows of the table, i.e., each phenomenon, will fall on a very specific date of the lunar year; everyone will immediately see which numbers the important and interesting phenomena nature. Thus, they finally found out the previously mysterious meaning of the word parapegma and its connection with the verb meaning “to attach”, “to stick in”. It was a nationally adjustable calendar.

Question about internal structure the Metonic circle among the Greeks has not yet been finally resolved by chronologists; for 19 years it is necessary to insert 7 embolismic months (12 · 12 + 7 · 13 = 235); the ancients did not leave any precise description of the structure of the cycle in relation to the order of their placement. It is now generally believed that the 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th and 19th years of the circle were embolic. Taking into account that the average solar year in this system is equal to months, the reader can easily construct a table of the distribution of errors at the beginning of each of the lunar years, as was done for the 8-year period or for the free lunar calendar.

The introduction of the Metonic circle is associated with the famous astronomical observation reported by Ptolemy: “The summer solstice, which was observed by Meton and Euktemon, is given in the records under the Athenian archon Apseida, on the 21st day of the Egyptian month Phamenoth in the morning.” The dating translation and historical data very accurately determine the day of observation: it is June 27, 432 BC. e. But from the table of equinoxes it is easy to check that the solstice was 432, June 28, at 2 hours, counting the day from noon, Athenian time (Athens 1½ hours east of Greenwich). Consequently, Meton's observation was erroneous by no more than 1½ days - a good result for that era. The first day of the first Metonic circle is placed on the first neomenia after this solstice, which gives July 16, 432 BC. e., following most chronologists.

11.01.2016

The ancient Greek calendar is a calculation system that was used in Ancient Greece and neighboring states in the first millennium BC. Currently, this calendar is not used. Any wall calendars familiar to us, desk calendars, desk calendars and pocket calendars represent the Gregorian calculus system, adopted several centuries later than the Hellenic one.

What is the ancient Greek calendar

The solar-lunar calendar, which was used by the ancient Greeks, was created taking into account astronomical cycles. The year consisted of 12 months based on the lunar cycle. Each month contained 29 or 30 days, the year was equal to 354 days. Approximately every three years, another month was added.

The ancient Greek calendar was corrected several times. A cycle of 8 years was introduced, in which an additional month was inserted in years 3, 5 and 8. The 8-year cycle was first introduced in Athens in 594 BC, the idea belonged to the politician and poet Solon. About 50 years later, the astronomer Meton proposed using a more precise 19-year cycle, which had 7 intercalary months. The new style took quite a long time to be introduced; Later they decided to abandon its use.

Features of use

The inconvenience of the ancient Greek system was that in each city the inhabitants used their own calendar and their own names for the months. Usually they coincided with the names of the holidays that were celebrated that month.

In theory, each new moon was supposed to give rise to a new month, but in practice this did not happen every time, which caused confusion and forced the use of terms such as “lunar new moon” and “civil”. Thus, the astronomical calendar diverged from the social one.

Confusion also arose at the beginning of the year. According to the Athens calendar, the first new moon after the summer solstice was considered the beginning of the year; according to the calendar of the city of Thebes (Boeotian calendar), the year began after the winter solstice. The Boeotian calendar was the closest to the modern Gregorian system.

The Pan-Hellenic chronology was based on traditional Greek sports competitions - olympic games. Competitions were held every 4 years in the city of Olympia and took on the character of national celebrations. The opening of the games was timed to coincide with the beginning of the year. The beginning of the ancient Greek chronology dates back to the year of the first Olympic Games.

The euphonious names of the Hellenic months - Poseidon, Hekatombeon, Elaphebolion, etc. - are now almost forgotten. People use the Gregorian calendar, which is more accurate from an astronomical point of view and easier to use. This system of calculating time is firmly established in the public consciousness. Each of us uses calendars - it is an accessible and useful device.

The printing industry has achieved unprecedented development in recent decades. Today, printing calendars has become a quick and relatively inexpensive activity.