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to\n e)niauto/n. I. The Problem of the Calendar. The difficulty of all calendars is to reconcile a lunar and a solar system of reckoning; by the former the year consists of 354 days, by the latter of about 365 1/4. (The exact figures are: days hours min. sec. a lunation ... ... ... ... 29 12 44 3 a lunar year ... ... ... 354 8 48 36 a solar year ... ... ... 365 5 48 48.) The calendar had to be regulated (1) in order to secure the proper recurrence of feasts (hence month-names are often taken from festivals; cf. Curtius, G. H. ii. 23 f. for the connexion of Delphi and the calendar). (2) To regulate civil procedure. Two problems arise: (a) to adjust the civil month to the motions of the moon; (b） to adjust the lunar month and the solar year. II. Greek Solutions. The Greeks adopted a lunar reckoning, making the months alternately of 30 and 29 days; this was arranged by Solon (cf. Plut. Sol. 25, and L. and S. s. v. ἕνος). It is said that he tried further to rectify the error thus arising from the shortness of his year (which was only 30 x 6 + 29 x 6 = 354 days), by inserting an intercalary month every other year (διὰ τρίτου ἔτεος, for which phrase cf. 37. 2 διὰ τρίτης ἡμέρης, and iii. 97. 3). H. here and in i. 32. 3 definitely asserts that this was the Greek system in his day. Others, however (e.g. Stein), argue that H. has misunderstood the system; an intercalary month every other year would give 738 days in two years, instead of 730 1/2. Hence they argue that the real system in H.'s time was to introduce three (not four, as H.) intercalary months in every period of eight years; this would give a fairly accurate result, i.e. 354 x 8 + 90 = 2922 = 8 x 365 1/4. This seems really to have been the arrangement in H.'s own day; but the date of its introduction is uncertain. Unger argues (I. Müller, Handb. der klass. Alt.-Wiss. i. 569-70) that the eight-year period existed from quite early times, at any rate from the eighth century, as is shown by myths and customs (Plut. Mor. 418), and (presumably) that the three intercalary months in each period are also early; Solon may have used this system. The calendar was further adjusted by Meton in Periclean times, who introduced a nineteen-years' cycle. For a brief account of the whole subject cf. Abbott, Outlines of Gk. Hist. pp. 10 seq. III. Egyptian Solutions. The Egyptians were the first people who definitely adopted a solar year of twelve months with thirty days in each; this began July 19 (according to the Julian calendar), i.e. 1st of Thoth according to the Egyptian, which was about a month in advance of the real solar year. On this day Sirius (Sothis) is first visible in the morning, in the latitude of Memphis (cf. ἄστρων). This coincides with the beginning of the rise of the Nile (19. 2 n.). Five days were added (ἐπαγόμεναι) at the end of the year. So far H. is right; but he quite fails to grasp the methods by which the Egyptians tried to reconcile this year of 365 days with the real solar year of 365 1/4 days (roughly) (cf. ὁ κύκλος . . . ἐς τὠυτὸ παραγίνεται). This is not surprising, as scholars are not agreed even now as to their methods. Brugsch says they had anticipated the Julian calendar, and to every fourth year added an extra day, i.e. making it a leap year. Certainly J. Caesar was said to have derived his calendar from Egypt (Dio Cass. xliii. 26). This view seems to be a mistake. Ptolemy Euergetes (238 B.C.), by the decree of Canopus, tried to introduce this (i.e. the Julian) system, but in vain. The Egyptians, however, recognized that their common year and the real year (the ‘Sothic year’) did not agree, and that the ‘common year’ grew later and later; hence the calculation of the ‘Sothic period’ (κυνικὸς κύκλος) of 1,460 years (= 1,461 ‘common years’), at the expiration of which the mistake had rectified itself (1/4 day per year for 1,460 years = a year of 365 days). The first ‘Sothic period’ is said to begin 4241 B.C. (but cf. App. X, § 2). Hence the date of the arrangement of the calendar is fixed for this year, ‘the first certain date in the world's history’ (Meyer, i, §§ 159, 195-7). Cf. also B. M. G. pp. 182 seq. for a short but clear account of the Egyptian calendar. The five ‘extra days’ can be traced on the monuments as far back as the 6th Dynasty.
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