attempted, but, as such a proceeding would at once derange the adjustment between the civil lunar year and the solar year, it seems very questionable whether it was ever adopted. A plan for uniting the advantage both of a solar and lunar adjustment was proposed by Meton in the archonship of Apseudes, a year before the commencement of the Peloponnesian war. So much as this follows from the notice of Diodorus (xii. 36), but there seems no authority to assume, as some have done, that this famous cycle of nineteen years, the Enneadecaeteris, which has continued in use for some purposes to the present day, was formally adopted by public authority at once. In the year 432 B.C., the summer solstice fell on the 13th day of the Attic month Scirophorion (the 27th of June), and, the new-moon synchronizing with it, there was an error of 13 days between the natural and the conventional commencement of the month Hecatombæon, the first of the Attic year. This point of time Meton proposed to make the epoch of his cycle. Instead of the previous methods of intercalation, he suggested as the basis of his scheme a series of 235 months of 30 days each, the result of intercalating a second Poseidon seven times, viz. in the third, fifth, eighth, eleventh, thirteenth, sixteenth, and nineteenth years of the Enneadecaeteris. This would give 7050 days, i. e. 110 days too much; as the number of days in nineteen years, according to his computation, amounted to 6940, reckoning the solar year at 365 days, 6 hours, 18 minutes, and 57 seconds. Now, according to the old method of striking out one day from every alternate month, 117 or 118 days would have had to be struck out, which would make the cycle 7 or 8 days too short. Meton therefore struck out every 63rd day throughout the period, which days were called μépai taipéopo, and the months which by their extrusion were shortened were denominated koîλat, to distinguish them from the others, which were designated Anpes as containing their full complement of 30 days. The following table, which is taken from the Appendix to Clinton's "Fasti Hellenici," vol. ii. p. 338, will exhibit to the eye the Metonic scheme, and it is not unlikely that what was really done by Meton in the archonship of Apseudes was to set up some such table engraved on stone or brass, in a frequented part of the city or the vicinity, for public criticism. MONTHS. Hecatombæon Metagitnion YEARS OF THE CYCLE. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 18 42 30 39 39 27 15 21 74 18 The utility of this table is very great. It contains within itself a correction of the difference between the conventional and the natural new moon, which at no time in the whole nineteen years can exceed twenty-six hours, and at the expiration of the cycle is only about seven hours and a half. But, although it thus commends itself to understanding critics, the apparent irregularity of the length of the months (no one of which in the course of the nineteen years was always of the same magnitude) no doubt gave dissatisfaction to those citizens who were accustomed to the old "rule of thumb," which made the months alternately πλήρεις and κοίλαι. And although the inequality of the civil and lunar months was, as has been said, limited by it, yet within this limit it increased much more rapidly than under the old system. Thus, in the very first year of the cycle, at the beginning of the month Boëdromion, the civil new moon would be nearly a day (i. e. 22h. 32m.) behind the natural new moon, reckoning a lunation at 29d. 12h. and 44m.; it is really nearly three seconds longer. At the beginning of Mæmacterion, the difference would be only diminished by 1h. 28m., but this correction would continue steadily till the beginning of Elaphebolion in the second year, when the inequality would have diminished to 9h. 20m. But, Munychion and Thargelion being full months in that year, the inequality would be increased again by the beginning of Scirophorion to 19h. 8m. Then the diminution would again recommence, and at the beginning of Mæmacterion in the fourth year, the inequality would be reduced to 7h. 54m. Again, it would receive a sudden addition from the circumstance of Posideon and Gamelion in that year being full months, and at the beginning of Anthesterion would amount to 17h. 42m., from which point the reduction would recommence afresh. If the two first months, and also the two last of the Enneadecaeteris be abstracted, the remainder is made up of eleven cyclical periods of twenty-one months each, in every one of which the first twenty are alternately kola and Apes, while the twenty-first is always pns. The operation, therefore, of Meton's corrective system may be easily conceived by observing that the inequality of 22h. 32m., existing at the beginning of Boëdromion in the first year, is corrected by a bimestral amount of 1h. 28m. during the first twenty months of these smaller cycles, while every twenty-first month the aggregate correction of the twenty months is suddenly diminished by 11h. 16m., or more than seven-tenths of its amount. Nevertheless the balance tends to diminish the inequality, and in the seventh of the smaller cycles the civil month, instead of being behind the natural month, slightly precedes it, so that, at the commencement of Metagitnion in the thirteenth year, the conventional new moon would be 1h. 16m. before the natural one, in spite of the retardation. The mechanism which had hitherto served to correct the inequality would now begin to increase it at a more rapid rate. The civil new moon of Elaphebolion in the fourteenth year would be 1h. 28m. + 14h. 40m. (= 16h. 8m.) before its proper time, that of Poseideon in the sixteenth would be 19h. 32m. too early, that of Metagitnion in the eighteenth would be 22h. 56m., and that of Munychion in the last year of the cycle would come 26h. 20m. too soon. Here, however, a change would again take place. Thargelion in the nineteenth year was made by Meton a full month, the whole number of 110 days having been already excluded, and therefore the third day in it was not taken as a μépa éέapéopos. By this means a rapid retardation took place, so that the civil new moon of Scirophorion, the last month in the Enneadecaeteris, came only 3h. 48m. too soon, and that of Hecatombæon at the beginning of the second cycle of nineteen years only 7h. 28m. too late. ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΥ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΩΝ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΗ. ΕΥΤΕΡΠΗ. succeeds father. Cassandane ΤΕΛΕΥΤΗΣΑΝΤΟΣ δὲ Κύρου παρέλαβε τὴν βασιληίην Καμ- 1 βύσης, Κύρου ἐὼν παῖς καὶ Κασσανδάνης τῆς Φαρνάσπεω θυγα- Cambyses τρός τῆς προαποθανούσης, Κῦρος αὐτός τε μέγα πένθος ἐποιήσατο Cyrus his καὶ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι προεῖπε πᾶσι, τῶν ἦρχε, πένθος ποιέεσθαι· His mother ταύτης δὲ τῆς γυναικὸς ἐὼν παῖς καὶ Κύρου Καμβύσης, Ιωνας μὲν daughter of Pharmaspes. καὶ Αἰολέας ὡς δούλους πατρωΐους όντας ἐνόμιζε, ἐπὶ δὲ Αἴγυ πτον ἐποιέετο στρατηλασίην, ἄλλους τε παραλαβὼν τῶν ἦρχε καὶ δὴ καὶ Ἑλλήνων τῶν ἐπεκράτεε. 1 Psammitichus's pro Οἱ δὲ Αἰγύπτιοι, πρὶν μὲν ἢ Ψαμμίτιχον σφέων βασιλεῦσαι, 2 ἐνόμιζον ἑωυτοὺς πρώτους γενέσθαι πάντων ἀνθρώπων· ἐπειδὴ δὲ Anecdote of Ψαμμίτιχος βασιλεύσας ἠθέλησε εἰδέναι οἵτινες γενοίατο πρῶτοι, to ἀπὸ τούτου νομίζουσι Φρύγας προτέρους γενέσθαι ἑωυτῶν, τῶν discover δὲ ἄλλων ἑωυτούς· Ψαμμίτιχος γὰρ ὡς οὐκ ἐδύνατο πυνθανόμενος the oldest πόρον οὐδένα τούτου ἀνευρεῖν, οἳ γενοίατο πρῶτοι ἀνθρώπων, ἐπιτεχνᾶται τοιόνδε· παιδία δύο νεογνὰ ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων 1 δούλους πατρωτους. See note 476 on i. 141. 2 ἐπὶ δὲ Αἴγυπτον. The thread of the narrative is resumed in the beginning of Book III., the whole of this one being taken up with a description of Egypt, and a history of the dynasties down to the invasion of Cambyses. These were Ionians and Æolians, as ap- 4 Ψαμμίτιχον. The MSS vary between 5 γάρ. Gaisford, with the majority of the MSS, has dé. But these words are 3 καὶ δὴ καὶ Ἑλλήνων τῶν ἐπεκράτεε. continually interchanged by transcribers. what was nation. |