Attic Calendar - Local Focus of The System

Local Focus of The System

The Attic calendar was an exclusively local phenomenon, used to regulate the internal affairs of the Athenians and with little relevance to the outside world. For example, just across the border in Boeotia not only did the months have different names, but the year began in mid-winter. In Athens the year began six months later, just after mid-summer. Furthermore, while Greek months were supposed to begin with the first sighting of the new moon, this was determined locally and with a degree of variability. In many years the months in the two communities would have more or less coincided, but there is no sign that they tried to keep the days of the month exactly aligned: they would have seen no reason to do so.

The divide between these neighbouring calendars perhaps reflected the traditional hostility between the two communities. Had the Boeotians been speakers of an Ionic dialect, like that spoken in Athens, there would have been overlap in the names of months. An example of this is the Ionian island of Delos, where the calendar shared four out of twelve month names with Athens, but not in the same places in the year. There, even though the island was under some degree of Athenian control from around 479 to 314 BC, the year started, as with the Boeotians, at midwinter.