The Hollow Month At Athens

Abstract(1) Metageitnion in 407/6 was made a hollow month while still retaining δευτερα φνoντo by the omission of a day after δεℵάτη υστερα, undoubtedly ενάτη φνoντo (pp. 230-2). (2) Skirophorion in 407/6 was made a hollow month while still retaining by the omission of a day between and It can be affirmed with great probability that the omitted day was actually (pp. 232-3). (3) Mounichion in 407/6 was planned as a hollow month while still retaining and omitting a day earlier than This was almost certainly (pp. 234-5). (4) Pollux, VIII 117, unequivocally retains in a hollow month (pp. 220-1). (5) A double tradition in Pollux (Ms. B) gives the calendar count for a hollow month without omitting (p. 220). (6) The Roman calendar, which did not omit pridie Kalendas, in its shorter months was modeled on the Athenian calendar which did not omit in a hollow month (p. 224). (7) The scholion of Proklos on Hesiod, Works and Days, line 814, shows that the count of days which caused confusion at the end of the month by omitting the next to the last day is not Athenian. It contradicts the scholion on line 765 (as transmitted) which is corrupt in saying that in the Boiotian calendar the next to the last day was omitted by the Athenians. The evidence of Moschopoulos (ca. A.D. 1300) who depends on this passage is also discredited (pp. 224-6). (8) The scholia vetera on the Clouds of Aristophanes give the count of days in a hollow month without omitting The omitted day was where the backward count began (pp. 221-3). (9) Solon is said to have introduced backward count in the last decade of an Athenian month. If is omitted in a hollow month the true value of every day with backward count is falsified (pp. 219-20). (10) It is questionable that 'hollow' (ℵoλo) can properly describe a month that has only the next to the last day omitted, the 28th out of 30 (p. 223). (11) Comparison of two calendar equations in I.G. II2, 338 and 339 of 333/2 B.C. shows that Metageitnion was a hollow month, but that the omitted day came earlier than was not omitted (pp. 229-30). (12) The calendar of 303/2 gives to Skirophorion an unnecessarily complex final two days unless is retained as the 28th day (pp. 227-9). (13) Aristophanes would not have used to alleviate the worries of Strepsiades in the Clouds if a hollow month had been available with this day missing to make his fears more pressing (p. 240). (14) The εℵάδε were the 20th and 21st days of every month. No other days were so named (pp. 235-9). The literary and the epigraphical evidence, especially the new evidence from the Choiseul Marble, combine to make an unassailable case that was not the omitted day in a hollow month in Athens. In evaluating the literary evidence the testimony of the scholia vetera and the explicit statement of Pollux of the second century outweigh the one scholion of Proklos of the fifth century which has to be emended even by those who rely upon it. Evidence from other sources outside Athens (except for Rome) has no bearing on the Athenian calendar and is not here discussed 70).