Talk:Hellenic calendars

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The year on Delos and in Boiotia, one for a long time Athens' subject and the other always Athens' neighbour, began midwinter and not midsummer, just like the modern calendar, so the opening sentence of entry needs adjusting. (sources given in Richard Hannah, Greek & Roman calendars, P73) Flounderer 12:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The calendars of cities of Phokis, Delphi aside, also started in midwinter. The Spartan and Macedonian months started with the autumnal equinox. Catherine Trumpy's recent book on Greek months also contradicts this entry. The description of heliacal rising is incorrect, as the wikipedia entry shows. When you take out the midsummer start for all calendars then the follow-up on Minoan influence is clearly unsustainable, so a re-write from scratch may be necessary.
I'd be willing to re-write some of this, but it's difficult to write a generic hellenic calendar entry, particularly when compared to the Attic calendar entry. Perhaps a brief entry on the lunar nature of the calendar ref Aristophanes, the problems of intercalation ref Herodotus and Geminus and on parapegmata with links to other entries would be better. Realistically whatever I write will need addition, which I suppose is what wikipedia's about.
Robert Hannah's book is very good isn't it? --Alunsalt 21:47, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Aside from this issues of correctness pointed out above, some of this is incomprehensible and requires a retelling of the story to make it more logically palatable... Stevenmitchell 01:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A truly awful paragraph, one for the AGES. Somebody PLEASE put it out if its MISERY!

This article on the Hellenic calendars is so badly written, it literally makes my TEETH HURT. Let's give these "sentences" (term loosely used) a go, shall we? --

The month in which the year began, as well as the names of the months, differed in the dif­ferent countries of Greece, and in some parts even no names existed for the months, they being dis­tinguished only numerically, as the first, second, third, fourth month, &c. In order, therefore, to acquire any satisfactory knowledge of the Greek calendar, the different states must be considered separately.

"In some parts even no names existed"...evil portent of muck to follow.

"Differed in the different countries??" ...jeez louISE...let's see -- were the folks living there DIFFIDENT? Or is that too DIFFICULT to work out..?? Lord.

"...no names existed for months, they being distinguised..." OUCH!! PLEASE GOD, STOP NOW...you just broke about 18 different rules of style, grammar and syntax in ONE FREAKING SENTENCE. STOP IT!!

Ah, Wikipedia. Where anybody can write authoritatively on anything!! Ain't it great? Now, where's that shortcut for Encarta hiding? (I disown and of course have no knowledge of ANY style or grammar errors in my OWN comments, of course! ;-)...or would that be "grammatical" errors...? hmmmmm...too many ellipses...

69.118.234.2 (talk) 15:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

the text was from Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (right at the top of page 223) [1] 62.1.165.96 (talk) 19:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)