Ancient Greek Calender

[Berserk Monk]

I have to write an essay for my Greek culture class about cunning and guile in Greek myth. One of the points I want to make is how Penelope undid her weave to stall the suitors. She did it for three years and according to our calendar that'd be approximately 1095 day, the number of times she did it, of course, our calendar is based off the Julian calendar. So, around the time the Odyssey was written, how many days were in the Greek calender?

[Kneenibble]

I don't mean to sound snarky, sir, but is the number of days in a year not very nearly constant no matter how you divide it up in months? Or are you looking for fineness? - like, differences within a day or two?

[Chunklets]

I have to write an essay for my Greek culture class about cunning and guile in Greek myth. One of the points I want to make is how Penelope undid her weave to stall the suitors. She did it for three years and according to our calendar that'd be approximately 1095 day, the number of times she did it, of course, our calendar is based off the Julian calendar. So, around the time the Odyssey was written, how many days were in the Greek calender?

Well, we're back into the depths of early Greek history here. The calendar was almost certainly lunar, so a year probably came to about 354 days. However, to keep things in line with the solar year (so that the seasons tended to occur during the same months every year), the Greeks would add an extra month every couple of years or so.

If you google "Athenian calendar" or "Attic calendar," you should find some interesting links, possibly with proper external references as well. However, our earliest knowledge of the Athenian calendar dates to at least a couple of centuries after Homer, so it's a bit of a stretch to say it's the one with which Homer was familiar.

Now, if it was the Roman calendar, I could spout off to you practically ad nauseam about it... :smallsmile: