The following two posts were ones I made back at the beginning of February in response to the above by Agesilaos, but on recently re-reading this thread it appears that for some reason - probably technical - they didn't make it onto the site.........
Agesilaos Fri Jan 22 2016
I should not have to explain what you have said to you but.....
It is the height of arrogance to presume to tell me what I wrote, and what I meant by it. I write plain English, which you claim to speak and understand, yet evidently do not. In reality it is simply the ‘spin’of your ‘interpretation’that you refer to, and you do this not just to my writings but also everything else including original source material. All is seen through the coloured spectacles of your own convictions and opinion.
As you wrote to Taphoi in July 2011 [ Birth day/Death day thread] :
“It is an old and ineffective rhetorical tactic to tell an opponent what their argument is and then address the cuckoo rather than the real point;”-
which is also called the ‘straw man’ fallacy;
and also :
“One day I am sure you will read what people say and not what you wish they had said;”
...... and here you are doing just that ! Hoist on your own petard!
Agesilaos wrote
Xenophon wrote:
“The synchronous months of Alexander’s death ONLY prove that by 323, the Babylonian and Macedonian calendars had been made to co-incide – perfectly logical now that all belonged to a single Empire.”
Clearly means that you are placing the co-incidence of the two calendars between October 331 and June 323, as this is the only time, ‘that all belonged to a single Empire’. This is different from a position which merely says that they were aligned ‘before Alexander’s death’, ie there is only the terminus ante quem not your post quem.
It means no such thing. When I say ONLY and put it in capitals, it is to emphasise that the only thing proven is that by 323 these calendars became synchronous. The part after the dash is simply a comment, namely that a logical time for this to have occurred is sometime prior to 323, now that all belonged to a single empire. It means what it says, and not that I am necessarily “placing the co-incidence of the two calendars between October 331 and June 323”, though as I also explained there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that suggests this was the case. In future, please restrict your comments to what I actually say, not your ‘interpretation’ of it or what you wished I’d said, so that you may make petty criticisms..... Perhaps you would do well to remember your own advice........
Agesilaos wrote:
In fact,
As I emphasised, there is only absolute proof that by 323, the two calendars were synchronous.
May well not be the case. Had you read the Bennett link I supplied you would have found that the Greek term ‘deike’, which was formerly translated as ‘evening’ is more properly ‘late afternoon’, as specific as the ninth hour of daylight in Attica. This would mean that the date of the Diary, given by Plutarch, Alx 76.ix, as 28th Daisios for his death is a full day behind the date given by both Aristoboulos and the Astronomical Diary. It is not much of an alignment if it is 24 hrs out! No alignment means that the Macedonians probably adopted the Babylonian system of intercalations earlier than Alexander, something also indicated by the monthly alignment of the dates of Gaugamela 24 Ululu = late Hyperberetaios.
I had read all of Bennett long before you posted that link, and was well aware of what you refer to, which as you have written it above, is misleading and quite incorrect.. and another good example of interpreting material with a ‘spin’ to suit your argument of the moment.. You, apparently, have not read all, or you would have been aware of Bennett’s quite lengthy explanation for the (incorrectly) supposed discrepancy . Note that this is NOT between Babylonian and Macedonian dates which in fact agree, but between two apparently Macedonian dates, that of the ‘Diaries’ and that given by Aristobolus. I won’t quote it all – you can read his lengthy discussion yourself here, several paragraphs in:
http://www.tyndalehouse.com/egypt/ptole ... y_i_fr.htm
– but he concludes:
“This explanation allows us to reconcile the 28 Daisios of the Diaries with the Babylonian 29 Ayyaru, and to retain 28 Daisios as the correct Macedonian date of Alexander's death. The difficulty remains of explaining the discrepancy between the Diaries and Aristoboulos. These are apparently both Macedonian dates, and so we would expect them to be based on the same observation of the new crescent moon, even if they did use different conventions for the start of the day. (For this reason, Depuydt's suggestion (WO 28 (1997) 117 at 127) that Aristoboulos, who was at the centre of court life, was using the Babylonian day numbers because he was in Babylon, strikes me as quite unlikely.) Given the 36-hour difference, the reason for it can no longer be a simple matter of a difference in the convention used for the start of the day. [i.e. days beginning at sunset in one system and at dawn in another]
There is perhaps one possibility, suggested by A. B. Bosworth, From Arrian to Alexander, 167. Aristoboulos is said to have written his memoirs at the age of 84 (Lucian, Makrobioi 22). While his dates are unknown, this must certainly have been several decades after the event. He may well simply have been writing from a slightly faulty memory, or, in an age that did not value precision about dates, he may simply have meant to indicate that Alexander died at the end of Daisios. It is notable that Plutarch gives both dates close together without commenting on the discrepancy, and that Arrian regards Aristoboulos as confirming the Diary account.”
The calendars are not in fact “24 hours out” at all, but to all intents and purposes in alignment. Since there is alignment, your rather poor argument evaporates altogether. Moreover, even if that were
not the case, there is no logical ‘link’ between the calendars being not-quite-aligned and Macedon adopting a Babylonian calendar ‘earlier’ – according to you in the 6-5 C BC! It simply does not follow.
Agesilaos wrote
Xenophon wrote:
“Samuel himself says that the alignment may have meant no more than ‘making permanent the relationships as they stood when Alexander took Babylon.’ Which means that the Macedonian calendar must have shared its system of intercalations with the Babylonian before Alexander took Babylon.”
That does not necessarily follow at all,....even if true it only shows synchronocity no earlier than 331, which may itself be co-incidental ....after all, both were lunar based calendars, and they worked by observations of the same moon!!
Oh dear, you clearly still do not get it. Every luni-solar calendar observed the same moon yet patently they were not in alignment. Despite your continual assertions to the contrary, both Athens and Macedon operated a Metonic system of seven intercalary years in each set of nineteen but each chose different years in which to use the intercalary years.
Why do you make these apparently fictional assertions without evidence? Even Merritt acknowledges that the majority of 19 year cycles at Athens are not Metonic (see ante in previous posts) – though I see you now restrict your assertion that Athens used the Metonic calendar to the presumed (by Merritt) 5 th, 6th and 7th cycles – the last of which is not at all Metonic. As far as I know, we have no direct evidence for the Macedonian calendar prior to the death of Alexander whatsoever, let alone where intercalary years and months occurred. As has been pointed out previously, if Alexander could inter-calate ‘ad hoc’ months, which he is recorded as doing on at least one occasion, the Macedonian calendar could not have been Metonic i.e. with fixed embolimic months.
There is absolutely no evidence whatever that Macedon used a ‘Metonic’ calendar , and your assertion is almost certainly false. The likelihood is that Macedon, like all other Greek states for which we have evidence operated a luni-solar calendar with ‘ad hoc’ intercalations in Philip and Alexander’s time.
Agesilaos wrote:
Weighting for a fairly even distribution of intercalary years there is a 1:972 chance of an alignment of intercalary years but the embolimic months are also synchronous which knocks the odds up to 1:11,664. Pretty remote then. Looking forward to the ‘rather important point’, I have missed.
Xenophon:On your own quoted evidence ( from Merritt’s “Athenian archons”), it is proven that Athens did not operate a technically ‘Metonic’ calendar, with its seven regular intercalary years, but rather continued to intercalate irregularly on an ad hoc basis, observationally. Of course, since all were observing the same moon, they were bound to align every 19 years, following the same lunar cycle, whether by ‘Metonic’ calculation or by actual observation, or even by just following ‘the formula’..
It seems your being ‘arithmetically challenged’extends to Probability theory too ! I don’t know how you came up with your figures since you didn’t explain the method, but the high numbers you came up with and the reference to “weighting for a fairly even distribution”implies you are using random numbers – which of course, if you are, would be completely wrong ! The 7 intercalary years in the 19 year lunar sequence are not random at all!
We must remember that in any luni-solar system, in order to stay accurate, an intercalary month must be inserted some 7 times in the 19 year lunar cycle, roughly every 3 years, but maybe two or four. The Athenian‘Metonic cycle’ has fixed intercalary years, four every third year, and three every second year, and the pattern runs second, third, third, second, third, third, second years etc. An ‘ad hoc’ system is not random either, for an archon selecting which third years will be intercalary, and which second years, will in effect, generally have only two choices in each 3 year ‘set’ – either to intercalate the second year (which is done three times) or the third year ( done four times). [Exception that proves the rule: 4 or 5 times in around 350 years, the intercalary year is a fourth year] The first year cannot be selected because two intercalary years never occur one after another. So in a 3 year ‘set’ our hypothetical eponymous archon can select either the second or third year ( or very rarely the fourth year) which generally gives him a roughly 50-50 chance of coinciding with the regular Metonic cycle each 3 year set ( complicated by the fact that he can only select the second year 3 times, but roughly correct.) Thus a fairly high co-incidence is likely, and it is this which has fuelled the debate over ‘Metonic/not Metonic. Merritt and Pritchett debated the subject, sometimes vitriolically, for decades without resolving the matter, as you are aware.
Agesilaos wrote:
Xenophon:Except that in 330 BC and thereabouts, the island city of Cyzicus( as it then was) was technically part of Macedon, Alexander having taken it from the Persians in 334 BC.......
By the same token Babylon was part of Macedonia in 331!! LOL None of these conquests was counted as being ‘technically part of Macedonia’, which is amply demonstrated by their persistence as satrapal units and Macedonia’s continued use as a specific territorial term. Keep clutching at them straws.
Irrespective of whether or not you regard the Macedonian empire as Macedonia or not, the simple fact remains that the Babylonian astronomical diaries became known in Greece and Macedon within about a year after Alexander entered Babylon, as proven beyond doubt by the works of Callipus and Aristotle – and that is the point.
Agesilaos wrote:
Xenophon:I don't know what evidence you are referring to. Your assertion that the Macedonian and Persian/Babylonian calendars were aligned from the two very short periods of Persian ‘influence’ in the Days of Darius I and Xerxes has no evidence whatsoever, as previously pointed out and is an ‘ad ignorandum’ type argument, therefore illogical. The most likely form of calendar in Macedon, like all others in Greece, is a lunisolar one consisting of 12‘hollow’ 29 day months and ‘full’ 30 day months ( which type was decided by observation at the time). One pointer in this regard is its approximate equivalence with the Attic civil festival calendar of the time.....
BTW, the Persian calendar, at least circa 330 BC, was NOT the Babylonian lunisolar one [354 days aprox], but a solar one, probably Zoroastrian, of 365 days, as we are told in passing by Curtius [III.3.10 and III.3.24; also indirectly Diod XVII.77.6]
The evidence has been stated but just to repeat it yet again, it is the alignment of the Macedonian and Babylonian months throughout the reign, including prior to the capture of Babylon; the almost precise alignment at Alexander’s death, something statistically unlikely to have occurred purely by chance. The alignment does not seem to be absolute, however, making a calendric assimilation in 331-23 unlikely. If the alignment predates Alexander then the period of Persian vassalage is obviously the strongest candidate for the adoption of a Persian system, Bubares was the son-in-law of Amyntas so Persian ways were known to the court.
See above. The alignment is in fact absolute ( refer to Bennett) – in 323 BC. There is no evidence the alignment took place before Alexander entered Babylon, and the circumstantial evidence of when the Babylonian Astronomical diaries became known in Greece and Macedon – circa 330 BC suggests it occurred sometime after it, at a time when there was a need for a single calendar.
Agesilaos wrote:
Amyntas submitted to Dareios c512Bc and the control was broken by the Ionian Revolt of 499, that’s 13 years, full control was reasserted in 492 by Mardonios and lost after the defeat of Xerxes in 479, another 13 years; if these are to be characterised as ‘very short periods’ it is clear that the even shorter period of Alexander’s rule over Babylon, not even eight years(October 331 to June 323) ought not to allow any influence greater than these two much longer periods of direct occupation.
Your continued repetition of unevidenced assertions is really growing tiresome. There is absolutely NO evidence, zero, that Persia ‘controlled’ Macedon at any time beyond the two brief periods of invading armies ‘passing through’, and that very briefly. Nor is it uncommon for neighbouring states to make political alliances by marriage, perhaps on this occasion to cement an acknowledgement by an autonomous Macedon of Darius as “Great King” ( which would be purely nominal). That does not mean they adopt the neighbour’s calendar though ! To suggest so is so illogical as to border on farcical.
For an interesting discussion of relations between Macedon and Persia, see Eugene Borza’s “In the Shadow of Olympus: The Emergence of Macedon”, Chapter 5 in particular.
Earlier, you merely asserted Persian “influence”, now you claim Persia “controlled” Macedon and it was under lengthy periods of “direct occupation”? I have asked you several times for evidence of this, which you have singularly failed to produce. This is just a totally unevidenced and completely false assertion, which you keep repeating despite its proven falsehood. Let me remind you what I wrote as recently as 4 Jan on this thread:
It is correct that Alexander I of Macedon acknowledged Darius as ‘Great King’[Herodotus V.17], but Macedon was not conquered or subjugated. We have discussed this ‘Persian influence’ before, and I will quote here what I wrote on the ‘Taktike Theorioi’ thread p.14 Sept 14:
“
Indeed the evidence is that, like Sherlock Holmes dog that did not bark in the night, Herodotus does NOT say that Macedon became subject to Persia at all, but says Alexander I bribed the 'search party' after the murder.[Herod V.17 ff]. Later Herodotus records that in 491 BC, while in Macedonia, Darius' general Mardonius "added the Macedonians to the list of Darius' subjects." which can only mean they were a new conquest, not the crushing of a revolt by existing vassals. Mardonius was attacked in Macedon and forced to retire to Asia (mostly due to natural disaster to his fleet)[H.6.42 ff]. Macedon became subject to Persia again briefly in 480-479 BC when it was over-run by Xerxes army.”
So Macedon was very briefly subjugated by Darius’ General Mardonius in 491, and then they withdrew [more or less immediately], and again briefly by Xerxes in 480-479 before again withdrawing. Agesilaos is a trifle forgetful, for the Behistun inscription, completed c. 519 BC, would have to predict the future to claim Macedon (!), and indeed Darius only claims the “Yauna”[Ionian Greeks], making no mention of Macedon ( otherwise referred to as ‘Yauna Takabara’) until his tomb inscription at Naqsh-e-Rustam after his death in 486 BC, when he does boast sovereignty - though in actuality he had none.
Against these two very brief periods of ‘Persian influence/control’ we have overwhelming ‘Greek influence’ over centuries – language, culture, ethnicity [of the upper classes at least] etc. The ‘balance of probability’ therefore comes down heavily in favour of Greece, and it is very likely that like the rest of Greece, Macedon used a luni-solar calendar, with inter-calary months added on an ‘ad hoc’ basis as needed.”
Agesilaos wrote:
The more so since Macedonia had, like most of the Greek mainland been subject to orientalising influence since the sixth century BC. She had gone so far as to adopt an Anatolian burial practice – kline burials – evidence for which has been found in late fifth century tumuli at Vergina (see ‘Couched in Death’, Elizabeth P Baughan, University of Wisconsin Press, 2013 part available here
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZV1 ... th&f=fals
That the Mediterranean world, including Greece, absorbed cultural influences from further east (“orientalising influences”) through trade etc is well known, yet no Greek state adopted Persian/Babylonian calendars. There is NO evidence that Macedon did either. The adoption or otherwise of kline burials, or any other cultural aspects imported from the East, like political marriages referred to, bears no relation to the type of calendar in use !!!!
Agesilaos wrote:
If you have some equivalences between the Macedonian calendar and the Athenian, do share them if not kindly stop relieving yourself into the wind.
Ah, Agesilaos ‘Coprostom’ sinks to offensive references to human waste yet again!
I am always encouraged when he does so, for insults and foul language are a sure sign that his arguments are lost, and he knows it, and resorts to bad language as a result!! The fact that both are luni-solar, and that Athenian and Macedonian months can be roughly equated/equivalenced (e.g. by Arrian) is manifest evidence, even though they are not synchronous.
You have also made a crass error, Greek calendars were not 12 months long every one had intercalary years of 13 months as, indeed did the Babylonian and Persian and Elamite (the latter three having been unified by Dareios, though possibly not the date of New Year). So a clear factual error and no point at all.
Your desperation to criticise anything and everything is showing! There is no “crass error” or “factual error”. We have been discussing calendars and inter-calary months for some time and it is not necessary to spell this fact out every time a post is made, because it is obvious from the general discussion. This is particularly ironic coming from you, who ‘forgot’ to count inter-calary months in his countback of Alexander’s reign, leading to arithmetical error!
Agesilaos:It is the continued alignment of the months in the Macedonian and Babylonian/Persian calendar over decades and at different times of the year that points to an actual adoption of the superior system by Macedon before 331.
Yet again, this an unevidenced assertion. Please produce evidence that Macedonian and Babylonian months were in any form of alignment prior to 331 BC, let alone over decades. If you cannot, then please don’t make such unsupported and incorrect assertions, when there is zero evidence for same.
Agesilaos wrote:
Had you not simply dismissed the previous discussion of the Persian calendar’s direct correlation with the Babylonian as definitively demonstrated by the triple dating of the Beihistun Monument, you might have avoided yet another schoolboy error. Dareios’ monument proves beyond any doubt that Persia used exactly the same Luni-solar calendar as Babylon, in which no year had 365 days, (354 and 384). It is not at all difficult to explain the statements of Curtius and Diodoros, however, as there are at least two well-known calendars in the ancient world which did have 365 days; the Egyptian Civil Calendar and the Roman. Curtius and Diodoros are both Roman historians and they are both using an Egyptian source (Kleitarchos). This emerges clearly when actually looking at the references.
Speaking of “schoolboy errors”, the Beihistun monument does NOT “definitively demonstrate”, or prove “beyond any doubt” a“direct correlation” between the Persian calendar and Babylonian calendar, any more than the rough equivalence between Athenian and Macedonian months, or modern ones, proves “direct correlation” between them ( e.g. the probable date of Gaugamela as Athenian 26 Boedromion, equivalent to modern 1 October.) That is a completely illogical argument. All it really shows is that both Persian and Babylonian were apparently luni-solar at that time. And this is not merely my opinion only. For example, Stern in “Calendars in Antiquity”P.170 points out:
“
The similarity of the Old Persian calendar to the Babylonian calendar in the 6 C BCE is most evident in the trilingual Behistun inscription, where the same days of the month are recorded for Old Persian months in the Persian and Elamite texts as the Babylonian months in the Akkadian text. These exact equivalences, however, cannot be taken at face value: they only mean that the Akkadian translators of the Elamite or Old Persian texts believed both calendars to be identical, or assumed so for translation convenience. In reality, even if both calendars were lunar, there could have been substantial differences between them, in terms of when the lunar month began and when intercalations were made.”
He then goes on to relate how later, in the 5 th century, the two calendars may have‘merged’, rather as the Macedonian and Babylonian ones did later in Alexander’s time, which can be established from the’Persepolis Fortification and Treasury tablets’, but see footnote 11 P.171 for uncertainties in this regard.
Agesilaos wrote:
Diod XVII 77 vi
In addition to all this, he added concubines to his retinue in the manner of Dareius, in number not less than the days of the year and outstanding in beauty as selected from all the women of Asia.
Curtius III 3 x
…and they were followed by365 young men in scarlet cloaks, their number equalling the days of the year (for, in fact, the Persians divide the year into as many days as we do).
Curtius III 3 xxiv
Next came the carriages of the 360 royal concubines…
Diodoros gives no number but equates the concubines to the number of days in a year, which it is clear from Curtius was given as 360, an Egyptian year minus the ill-omened epagonal days, no other system has 360 days. Curtius is explicit that the day count he uses for the ‘scarlet-cloaked youths’ is Roman falsely glossing what he found in his source. Nothing Zororastrian here, just a careless Roman gloss. Did you even look at the quotes, or were they just plucked from a footnote?
I don’t know why one would interpret Cutius in that fashion.. There is no “Roman gloss”, for Curtius is specifically comparing the Roman calendar with the Persian one, stating both have the same number of days : “..…and they were followed by 365 young men in scarlet/crimson cloaks, their number equalling the days of the year (for, in fact, the Persians divide the year into as many days as we do).”
As to Zoroastrian calendars, as Taquizadeh points out in “Old Iranian Calendars” :
“
There is also an older reference to the Persian year in a short notice by Quintus Curtius Rufus, a historian of the first century AD and biographer of Alexander the Great, from which it may be inferred that the Persian year in his time did not differ from the Zoroastrian year of later centuries. This author declares that "The Magians used to sing a native song. There followed the Magians 365 young men clothed in purple (crimson) mantles equal in number to the days of the year. For with the Persians too the year is divided into the same number of days. The Persian year as we know it in the Islamic period was, in fact, a vague year of 365 days, with twelve months each of thirty days, with the exception of the eighth month, which had thirty-five days or, rather, thirty days plus another five supplementary days, or epagomenae, added to it.”
......so it seems it was not just Egyptian calendars that had 360 days plus 5 epagonal days for a total of 365, and Curtius is quite correct, and it is you who would appear to be mistaken.
As usual you are prepared to continue with a clearly fallacious position re-Meritt despite his own statement. He mentions that the opinion you wish to foist on the forum as his actual conclusion, sprang from his attitude to dates ‘kata theon’ in 1964. Luckily the relevant article is available on JSTOR –
Athenian Calendar Problems
Benjamin D. Meritt
Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association
Vol. 95 (1964), pp. 200-260
http://www.jstor.org/stable/283790?seq= ... b_contents
Wherein it is clear, and explained at length that Meritt is only discussing ‘kata theon’ dates, and ‘The phrase occurs in Athens only (so far as texts are preserved) between 195/4 and 95/3 BC, and makes its appearance, or is plausibly restored in, only 13 of these 101 years.’ P 233. Since we are concerned with dates given by Aristoboulos d.c. 280 and Kleitarchos f. 290’s, probably, neither working in Athens the relevance of a comment on the interpretation of the ‘kata’theon’ calendar (Meritt thought it was calculated according to ‘Metonic Principles’, Pritchett that it was governed by observation’ Meritt changed his mind and it is the ‘kata theon’ calendar he describes as not Metonic ie not the result of that system’s calculations).
Yes, I would agree that by putting together several of Merritt’s papers, it is clear he is conceding that the later ‘Kata Theon’calendar is not Metonic, and that is what he was referring to, but nevertheless even Merritt, with his propensity for claiming as much is ‘Metonic’as possible only claims 6 [fifth,sixth,eigth,ninth,seventeenth and eighteenth] from 21 cycles are supposedly Metonic. Since we are concerned with Alexander’s time that includes the 5th (commencing 347 BC) and 6th ( commencing 328) which Merritt reckons Metonic. Let us not take Athenian chronology any further, but leave it to Merritt ( who died in 1989) and Pritchett (died 2007 aged 98), and their interminable debate.
The relevance of Athens calendar is only this illogical assertion you made on 24 Dec, page 7:
“
Yet the Greeks had been aware of Babylonian astronomy much earlier, Meton introduced his 19 year cycle in 432BC clearly based on Babylonian models which Darius I had accepted in his reform of the Achaemenid calendar (certainly by 503 BC). This may well have been used in Macedonia from this time too, since the Kingdom was heavily influenced by, if not under the control of, the Persian Empire at the time.”
Problems with this are:
1. So far as can be determined, Athens ( nor any other Greek state) did not adopt Meton’s calendar as its civil/festival calendar, but largely continued an ‘ad hoc’ system.
2. Persian “influence” was minimal, and there is no evidence that Macedon adopted a Persian or Babylonian calendar at that time, and Persian “control” was of very short duration, limited to two brief invasions.
3. Even if Merritt was right that the Athenian calendar was ‘Metonic’ at the time of Philip’s death/Alexander’s accession, it tells us nothing about contemporary Macedon’s calendar – of which, as you have acknowledged elsewhere on the forum, we have little or no knowledge. To suggest that Macedon had already adopted the Babylonian/Metonic calendar is therefore just another illogical ‘ad ignorandium’ argument.
Agesilaos wrote:
For the period with which we are concerned he is clear that the Athenian calendar followed the Metonic cycle,
.....according to Merritt, but other scholars such as Pritchett take a different view. The sequence of having to inter-calate every 3 years or so, for a total of 7 in a 19 year cycle is characteristic of all luni-solar calendars, whether they inter-calate ‘ad hoc’, or on a regularised Babylonian/Metonic system. As Planeaux says:
“How closely the Epynomous Archons came to follow Meton’s new scheme also remains debated.”
That’s two crystal clear statements by Meritt of his position that the calendar was ‘Metonic’, by all means carry on repeating your disinformation, everyone else can see straight through it.
See above – Merritt tended to ‘see’ Metonic cycles rather more frequently than there really were, and other scholars disagree and debate the matter to this day.....as you well know, having carried on a ‘chronology debate’ with Taphoi on the Birth day/Death day thread. ( so you have an advantage in having rehearsed this chronological argument before in that thread). You have changed your tune decidedly to suit your current argument.
Indeed on Sun July 17 2011you posted:
“Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Athens operated according to the Metonic cycle, that is an invention of Merrit and Dinsmoor (not the metonic cycle itself, of course just its use in Athens) to support their fixed festival calendar theory; it seems that there were no rules for intercalation at Athens, although it must have happened; the intercalary months we have evidence for move all over the calendar. Nor is there a 'kata theon' dating for 264 the earliest being 196, so Merrit it working purely on his own discredited theory. Pritchett and Neueberger's more sensible (IMHO) opinions are neatly summarised here”
.....and on July 21:
“What this actually shows is that the Athenians were not operating your mythical Lunar Regulated Calendar, nor a regular Metonic system all they worried about was having seven intercalary months in a nineteen year cycle so that the seasons did not get too out of line.”
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/pr ... _81_1_2374
Which reference is to one of Pritchett’s papers refuting Merritt. This the opposite of what you now assert here in this thread, notwithstanding that nothing new has arisen in the meantime !!!
Even Merritt acknowledged that there was much uncertainty, saying after his archon list: “There are many problems still in the above list”. That uncertainty is one of the reasons why I don’t care to hold chronology debates, especially with someone who contradicts himself in his views. It smacks altogether of yet another “argument for argument’s sake”, and you trying to show cleverness by being ‘Devil’s advocate’, for something you don’t actually believe, as you have done before. This hypocritical type of argument merely damages your credibility, making it hard to believe anything you post.
Agesilaos wrote:
As to your appeal to Planeaux, had you understood what he wrote and it is not complicated you would have found that once the Prytanny year was tied to the beginning and end of the Festival year it was absolutely fixed. This occurred in 407 BC, once more obfuscation, or plain ignorance, or maybe you think Aristoboulos had aTime-Machine?
I only used Planeaux as an example of use of terminology [the ‘civil calendar’], and the fact that his article is interesting. In any event, try reading Planeaux again! What he actually says about the ‘Conciliar’ year and Festival/civil year is:
“
On the other hand, when scholars begin to examine equivalencies between the Athenian Seasonal, Civil and Conciliar Calendars, the problems become exponentially more complex. Established synchronisms between the Athenian Seasonal and Civil Calendars and their Julian equivalents exist only in the broadest form, because of the haphazard process of intercalation (even after the introduction of the Metonic Cycles)."
....and.....
“
The Ancient Athenians only loosely followed it. The actual date of Hekatombaion1, that is, the 13th or14th New Moon in succession from the start of the previous year, could occur anywhere from as early as mid-June to as late as mid-August the following year. Thucydides, furthermore, also remains notoriously loose at referencing seasons during his account of the Peloponnesian War.
In addition, with the single exception of the Summer Solstice, no such equations exist for the Conciliar Year. Prytany 1,1 fell consistently, more or less, during the first week of July (prior to 407 BCE), but the Conciliar Year might begin anywhere from mid-Thargelion to late-Hekatombaion.
With the absence of any computations on interest for specific loans, moreover, the exact length of any subsequent Bouletic Month within any given year remains unknown.”
...and see also Pritchett’s paper referred to above for some of the complications.
Looking forward to the BIG point still waiting for my factual errors too.
The point you missed was in Bennett’s work, namely that Macedonian ( and later Seleucid) regnal years were post-dated. ( And it is not just Bennett who recognised this).You missed it a second time despite my pointing you to it and quoting Bennett!
Xenophon wrote Jan 18 :
“As Christopher Bennett states:
“
However, it is clear that the list uses a convention that annexes partial years, and that the partial year annexed is normally the remainder of the year in which the king died, even though it was often recorded that the reign ended part way through the year -- i.e. that the reigns are postdated.”
...and his tables here show:
http://www.tyndalehouse.com/egypt/ptole ... yry_fr.htm
... see also T Boiy ‘Between High and Low’ pp 85 ff”
As to your factual errors, just look at any of my posts, including the one under reply! Not only do you make factual errors, but your ‘method’ is to just continually repeat them, like a stuck record – witness your claim that Macedon adopted a Babylonian calendar in the 6th/5th C BC, despite there being zero evidence for this.
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
When you think about it, free choice is never free!