Athenian Year

274 Pages·3.902 MB·English

by  Benjamin D. Meritt

SATHER CLASSICAL LECTURES
Volume Thirty'two
T he Athenian Year

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Benjamin D . M enü
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles · 1961
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles
California
Cambridge University Press
London, England
© 1961 by
The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 60-11528
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
The substance of this book, in somewhat different form, was
given in the series of Sather Lectures in Classical Literature at
the University of California in March and April of 1959. My
warm thanks are due to the Administration of the University
and to colleagues at Berkeley for the privilege of spending the
spring semester on the Berkeley Campus and for their unfailing
helpfulness and hospitality. One cannot have this close associa­
tion without feeling the inspirational pulse of a great educational
center, and without, I think, the humble realization that fortune
has been kind to allow participation, in some small measure, in
one of the great traditions of American classical scholarship.
My especial thanks must be expressed to the Chairman of the
Department of Classics, Professor Arthur E. Gordon, and to
Professors L. A. MacKay, W. Kendrick Pritchett, and W.
Gerson Rabinowitz. What I owe to Pritchett, in agreement and
in disagreement, every page of this book will testify. He and
Professor Otto Neugebauer, of Brown University, in their recent
book on The Calendars of Athens, have solved the thorny prob­
lem of dates at Athens κατ' άρχοντα and κατά 0e6v. If I have
not shared their other views, I confess my gratitude none the
less for this, and always for their clear and forthright presenta­
tion of pertinent calendrical evidence.
I acknowledge especially my indebtedness to Neugebauer,
with whom I have discussed many of the astronomical questions
raised by the study of the Athenian calendar, and to Professor
A. E. Raubitschek, of Princeton University, whose help has
been invaluable with the various scholia and their interpretation.
Miss Margaret Thompson, of the American Numismatic Society,
has most graciously put at my disposal the results of her study,
v
VI Preface
now in progress, on Athenian New Style Coinage. And in
Greece I have had the unstinted help and cooperation of Mar-
kellos Mitsos, Director of the Epigraphical Museum, and of
Christos Karouzos, Director of the National Archaeological
Museum. There has been no epigraphical text in Athens that
I needed to see and study that I did not see and study under
their kind dispensation, while the texts from the Agora, of
course, have always been readily accessible. Some of the epi­
graphical work, especially that with the new texts in Chapter IX,
was done while more general preparations were in progress for
the publication of discoveries in the Agora.
Recent studies have left the available tables of Athenian
archons in some confusion. The end, I fear, is not yet. But I
think it a useful service to present once more a thoroughgoing
table from the fourth to the first century. This appears in
Chapter XI, and is available as a new basis for the additions and
alterations which new evidence (or further study) may supply.
The rest of the volume will speak for itself. My claim for it
is not that it everywhere says the last word, but rather that it
makes some progress, and presents some new evidence and some
old evidence in a new light, in a controversial field.
Benjamin D. M eritt
Berkeley, California, May, 1959
CONTENTS
I The Reckoning of Time 3
II The First of the Month 16
III The Count of Days 38
IV The Logistai Inscription 60
V The Fourth Century 72
VI The Twelve Phylai 135
VII The Thirteen Phylai 167
VIII Coins and the Calendar 180
IX New Texts 192
X The Seasonal Year 202
XI The Sequence of Years 221
XII Conclusion 239
Inscriptions Studied or Emended 243
Index 247
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure
1. LG., II2, 339: the first seven lines facing p. 49
2. Suggested ends of lines 28-36 of the Logistai Inscription p. 63
3. Decree of 271/0 b.c. (Agora Inv. No. I 6259) following p. 194
4. Decree of 271/0 b.c. (Agora Inv. No. I 6731) following p. 194
5. Decree of 181/0 b.c. (Agora Inv. No. I 6765) following p. 194
6. Decree of 177/6 b.c. (Agora Inv. No. I 6166) following p. 194
ABBREVIATIONS
A. J. P. = American Journal of Philology
Abh. Ak. Berlin = Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der Wissen­
schaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse
Amer. Hist. Rev. = American Historical Review
Άρχ. AeXrlov — 'Apxa.ioXoyt.Kbv AeXrlov
Ath. Mitt. = Mitteilungen des deutschen archäologischen Instituts. Athenische
Abteilung
Athenaeum = Athenaeum, Studi Periodici di Letteratura e Storia dell’ Antiquitä
B. C. H. = Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique
B. S. A. = The Annual of the British School at Athens
Beloch, Gr. Gesch. = Karl Julius Beloch, Griechische Geschichte (second
edition, 4 vols., Strassburg, Berlin and Leipzig, 1912-1927)
Busolt-Swoboda, Gr. Staatskunde = Griechische Staatskunde von Georg Busolt,
dritte neugestaltete Auflage der griechischen Staats- und Rechtsaltertümer,
zweite Hälfte, — bearbeitet von Dr. Heinrich Swoboda (Munich, 1926)
C. I. G. = Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum
Cl. Phil. = Classical Philology
Cl. Quart. = Classical Quarterly
Cl. Rev. = Classical Review
Corpus — The definitive epigraphical publications of the Berlin Academy are
compendiously designated by this title
Dinsmoor, Archons = William Bell Dinsmoor, The Archons of Athens in the
Hellenistic Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1931)
Dinsmoor, Athenian Archon List = William Bell Dinsmoor, The Athenian
Archon List in the Light of Recent Discoveries (New York City, 1939)
E. M. = Epigraphical Museum at Athens (Inventory)
Frag. gr. Hist. = Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker
H. S. C.P. = Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
Hesperia — Hesperia, Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at
Athens
I. G. = Inscriptiones Graecae
Inscr. Delos = Inscriptions de Delos
J. H. S. = The Journal of Hellenic Studies
Meritt, Athenian Calendar — Benjamin Dean Meritt, The Athenian Calendar
in the Fifth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1928)
Meritt, Athenian Financial Documents= Benjamin Dean Meritt, Athenian
Financial Documents of the Fifth Century (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1932)
Mommsen, Chronologie = August Mommsen, Chronologie, Untersuchungen
über das Kalenderwesen der Griechen, insonderheit der Athener (Leipzig,
1883)
P. A. = Prosopographia Attica
Parker and Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology = Richard Anthony Parker
and Waldo Herman Dubberstein, Babylonian Chronology 626 b.c.-a.d. 75
(Providence, Rhode Island, 1956)
Pauly-Wissowa, R. E. = Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertums­
wissenschaft, Neue Bearbeitung (Stuttgart, from 1894), edited by Georg
Wissowa and others
Polemon = Πολέμων, ’Αρχαιολογιών TiepioSiKbv
Pritchett and Meritt, Chronology = William Kendrick Pritchett and Benjamin
Dean Meritt, The Chronology of Hellenistic Athens (Cambridge, Mass.,
1940)
Pritchett and Neugebauer, Calendars = W. Kendrick Pritchett and O. Neuge-
bauer, The Calendars of Athens (Cambridge, Mass., 1947)
R. E. G. = Revue des Etudes Grecques
Rev. crit. = Revue critique d’histoire et de litterature
Rh. Mus. = Rheinisches Museum für Philologie
S. E. G.= Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
S. V. F.= Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta
Sitz. Ak. Berlin = Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissen­
schaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse