Attic Calendar - State Calendar

State Calendar

As Ionians, the Athenians had always been divided into four tribes. Although these tribes were never abolished, one of the key reforms at the creation of democracy after 506 BC was to distribute citizens under a new system of ten tribes. This was to try to ensure even participation across the whole community. From this point on ten became a kind of hallmark number for the democracy, as so much citizen activity was done through the ten tribes. (For instance, the 10 generals leading the 10 regiments, the 10 sets of public arbitrators, the 10 treasurers of the Delian league, and so on.)

This decimal ordering extended to the creation of a supplementary calendar with ten months. Each year each tribe contributed 50 members to the council of 500 (boule) that played an important role in the administration of the city. For one tenth of the year each tribal fifty was on duty, with a third of them in the council chamber at all times as an executive committee for the state. Their period of office was known as a 'prytany' or state month.

In the 5th century this calendar was sun-based using a year of 365 or 366 days and paying no attention at all to the phases of the moon. One likely arrangement is that the ten prytanies were divided between six months of 37 days followed by four months of 36 days. This would be parallel to the arrangement in the 4th century, given below.

From several synchronised datings that survive it is evident that the political and the festival years did not have to begin or end on the same days. The political new year is attested 15 days out either way from the start of the festival year. This system is known from the 420s; whether it had been in place from the beginning of the ten month system is not clear.

However in 407 BC the two calendars were synchronised to start and end on the same days. Hereafter as described in the 4th century Constitution of the Athenians the civic year was arranged as follows:

• months 1-4 lasted 36 days (39 in leap years?)
• months 5-10 lasted 35 days (38 in leap years?)

In years where an extra month was intercalated into the festival calendar, the political months were probably lengthened to 39 and 38 days, a method that would have maintained the balance between the tribes. Evidence, however, is lacking.

These political months had no name, but were numbered and given in conjunction with the name of the presiding tribe (which, as determined by lot at the expiry of their predecessors' term, gave no clue as to the time of year). The days too were numbered and here with a straightforward sequence, running from 1 to the total number of days for that month.

One of the main roles of the civic calendar was to position the four assembly meetings that were to be held each prytany. Where possible, assembly meetings were not held on festival days, including the monthly festival days clustered at the start of each month. As a result, the meetings were bunched slightly toward the end of the month and made to dodge especially the larger festivals.

A date under this calendar might run "the 33rd day in the 3rd prytany, that of the tribe Erechtheis." This is the style used in Athenian state documents (surviving only as inscriptions). Sometimes, however, a dating in terms of the festival calendar is added as well.