Attic Calendar - Festival Calendar - Days of The Month

Days of The Month

The months were either 29 or 30 days in length, loosely in alternation, since the moon orbits the earth in roughly 29.5 days. However, rather than following a set scheme (along the lines of "Thirty days has September..."), the duration of each month was declared just before month's end in an attempt to latch the first of the following month onto the upcoming new moon. The short months of 29 days were known as "hollow" and those with 30 days as "full".

Each month was divided into three phases of ten days associated with the waxing moon, the full moon and the waning moon. The naming of the days was complex. The first day of the month was simply noumenia or new moon, a name used in virtually every Greek calendar. From there the days were numbered up to the 20th day. For the final third of the month the numbering turned around to do a countdown from ten to the last day. Only the middle phase had numbers for the days running higher than 10 and even these were often phrased as "the third over ten" and so forth. In the wings of the month, the numbered days ran 2-10 and then 10-2. Days in these sections were distinguished from each other by adding the participle "rising" and "waning" to the month name. In the centre of the month with its unambiguous numbering there was no need for this, though later the term "of the middling month" was used. The final day of the month was called hena kai nea, "the old and the new". Peculiar to Athens, this name presents the day as bridging the two moons or months. Elsewhere in Greece this day was usually called the thirtieth.

Rather than thinking of the month as a simple duration of thirty days, the three-part numbering scheme focuses on the moon itself. In particular the waning days 10-2 and the waxing days 2-10 frame the crucial moment where the moon vanishes and then reappears.

A date under this scheme might be "the third (day) of Thargelion waning," meaning day 28 of the month Thargelion.

To summarise the days with special names.

• The first day: noumenia, or new moon.
• The last day: hena kai nea, the 'old and the new'.
• The 20th day: "the later 10th". The Attic month had three days named the 10th (equivalent in a straight sequence to the 10th, 19th, and 20th days). These were distinguished as
  • day 10: the 10th of the rising month
  • day 19: the earlier 10th
  • day 20: the later 10th

This strange juxtapositioning of the two days called the tenth, the earlier and the later, further highlighted the shift into the moon's waning phase.

When a month was to last 29 instead of 30 days (a 'hollow' month), the last day of the month ("the old and new") was pulled back by one day. That is to say, the "2nd day of the waning month" (day 29 in straight sequence) was renamed as month's end.