Ancient Greek calendars

Ancient Greek calendars were used by different city-states to keep track of time. Most of these calendars started in autumn or winter, but the Attic calendar began in summer. The Greeks knew about dividing the year into twelve lunar months, which added up to 354 days. Each city-state had its own special calendar based on the moon and important religious festivals.

Each day of the month was linked to a different important figure or god, like Apollo, who was honored on the seventh day. The names and start months of these calendars changed from place to place. Some areas did not even name their months, just calling them the first, second, or third month. Scholars also used a system called the Olympiad, which marked time by the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games.

It wasn't until the second century BCE that many Greek calendars began using numbers for month names. This change helped make things more uniform across different regions rather than making the calendars less religious. Important information about these calendars comes from places like Delphi, where many documents recorded events such as the manumission of slaves and used both local and Delphian dating systems.

Calendars by region

Different cities in ancient Greece had their own ways of keeping track of time. Most of these calendars started in the autumn or winter, but one special calendar from Athens began in the summer.

The Greeks knew about dividing the year into twelve months based on the phases of the moon. Back then, they did not add an extra month to keep their calendar in line with the seasons, so their year had only 354 days.

Attic

Main article: Attic calendar

The Attic calendar, also called the Athenian calendar, is one of the best known. It had twelve months with twenty-nine to thirty days, similar to our calendar today. Sometimes, they added a thirteenth month to keep the festivals matching the seasons. They also added extra days to align festivals with the moon’s cycle.

Festival calendar

Main article: Attic calendar

In the festival version, months were named after the main festival of that lunar cycle. The years were also named after the leader, called the eponymous archon, who served that year.

Months with thirty days were called Full months, and those with twenty-nine days were Hollow months. This was because the lunar cycle is about 59.06 days for two cycles.

Civil calendar

The Athenian calendar also had a civil calendar that tracked time in periods called prytanies, when different groups of people served on the council. These months were thirty-six or thirty-seven days long, split into six and four groups, making a ten-month calendar. This calendar helped track money in the Assembly. Because the number of groups changed, this calendar also changed over time. People used different calendars for different events.

Further information: Antikythera mechanism

Information about the Elian calendar is limited. Most of what we know comes from a scholar named Pindar, but his work can be hard to understand. One fact that is known is that the Elian calendar may have started at the winter solstice, but this is debated. Many regions, like Athens, started their year in the summer when the Olympic Games were held, and Elis might have done the same.

The Laconian calendar shared many months with the Spartan calendar, suggesting they might have used a similar system. However, there isn’t much information about the days in the Laconian calendar.

Locris was divided into two parts: Eastern Locris and Ozolian Locris. Eastern Locris had very little information about its calendar, but we know that nearby towns had different calendars. Ozolian Locris broke free from Aetolia and had its own calendar starting in the second century BCE. Most of what we know about Ozolian Locris comes from Delphi.

Skarpheia months

• Aphámius – Άφάμιος
• Ermáuios – Έρμάυιος
• Phúllikhos – Φύλλιχος

Thronion months

• Itṓuios^{[check spelling]} – Ἱτώυιος ^{[check spelling]}
• Hippeíos – Ἱππείος

The months in Ozolian Locris were often just numbers.

Main article: Ancient Macedonian calendar

Evidence for the Rhodian calendar comes from many inscriptions. We know all the month names and the number of days, but not the exact order. The Rhodian calendar is studied almost as much as the Athenian calendar.

‡   Pánamos Embólimos was the 13th month added to realign the lunar months with the seasons, but it was placed between the 6th and 7th months, not at the end of the year.

The Thessalian calendar was similar to those of nearby areas. Months were split into two halves called πρώτη and δευτέρα ἑξάμηνος. The order of months was figured out from ancient inscriptions. Though Thessaly had different month names from nearby regions, they counted days in similar ways. The Thessalian calendar became standardized only in the Roman era.