Posts by Eikadistes

Quote from Don

Quote from Cassius

Should lend itself to color variations if the similarity gets too confusing! I probably won't switch but I do like it too!

That's a good idea. At least natural colors like hues of red, yellow, blue, etc.

What do you think, Eikadistes ?

I'm into it! Let me see what I can do.

Quote from Don

Quote from Kalosyni

By my counting then, the 20th (which would be the 2nd 10th) would fall on the last day of a visible waning crescent.

Wouldn't the "earlier tenth" (20th) look like the moon on the above charts on Dec. 13 or 14th? The Noumenia seems to have started when the "first sliver" of the new moon was visible.

That's what I determined (approximately the geometry of my current profile picture).

Kalosyni I believe the picture you shared is a waning crescent just a few days away from a new moon, which should occur on the first and last days of the month (assuming it began on a new moon and is 30 days long).

This makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for the sources!

So, as you demonstrated, we have found a documented disagreement between scholars going back at least decades regarding the form of the word "seventh" that was used after Γαμηλιῶνος (Gamēliônos) in Diogenes' manuscript. The form of "seventh" will indicate whether or not the author was using "seventh" as a gloss to inform the read which month it was, versus making a point to identify the individual date of the month on which Epicurus was born.

That works for me! Given that the scholars from whom most other academics pull have acknowledged that this is an on-going debate that has not been conclusively resolved, I think it is appropriate to question the prevailing translations of "seventh day" and propose that not only is "seventh month" just as possible, but it is more consistent.

I think I just want more evidence that μηνὸς Γαμηλιῶνος ἑβδόμῃ should be translated to something like "the seventh month of Gamelion" instead of the traditional "month of Gamelion's Seventh."

I do see a number of reasons that support this hypothesis. The former solves our birthday discrepancy. Apollodorus of Athens could have used the word "seventh" as a gloss to to clarify which month on the Attic calendar corresponded with "Gamelion" because there were dozens of dissimilar calendars in the ancient world and informing the reader which sequentially-numbered month they were in helps provide context. Hundreds of years later, I imagine biographers, living under different calendar systems, would have found approximations more useful than exact calculations. Early authors ran the same risk of having lost things in translation just as we are now. Similarly, for readers' sense of context, it would have been less helpful to know the date of an unknown time of year, than to know the time of year but not the date.

At the same time, Apollodorus of Athens could have chosen to write an ancient greek numeral instead of the name of the number (I believe "Z" for the numeral "VII" or "7"), or he could have placed the words μηνὸς (mēnós) "month of" and ἑβδόμῃ (hebdómēi) "seventh" together. He was also only born 90 years after Epicurus died, and lived in Athens, so he and his readers would have been familiar with the Attic calendar, and a descriptive gloss may have been unnecessary. Having lived just a century earlier, I imagine that Epicurus' exact birthdate would have been recorded. Given that Apollodorus recorded Socrates' birthdate, who lived 300 years before him, it seems like he could have easily verified Epicurus', particularly given his popularity and the availability of documentation.

Then again, it seems weird to me that 7's would be used so repetitively. It seems more likely that Epicurus' birthday fell on the Twentieth celebration than it does that he was born in the seventh day, of the seventh month, seven years after Plato. Though, I suppose that, too, could have been a coincidence, and such a coincidence is worthy of writing about, so maybe instead of just including the month (and/or date), Apollodorus of Athens also included the Plato fact for rhetorical emphasis. Of course, that may have, itself, been an exaggeration made with a poetic license.

Still, if that is the case, and he was born on Gamelion 7, I think it begs an answer to the question of "Why did Epicurus adopt the the celebration date of the pre-existing cult of the Twentieth when he could have used his birthday?" Nearly every day of the Attic month is holy on some level, and has some symbolic meaning, and we already discussed the Attic symbology of the Seventh. It seems to me that Epicurus having been being born on the 20th is what makes the Twentieth significant, sort of like being born on a February 29th of a Leap Year.

This is why I am still split on what I see as being an unknown.

I'm not convinced by the author's argument. In fact, I can't really locate the author's argument.

Quote

“ἑβδόμῃ [hebdómēi] is Huebner’s conjecture. Long’s apparatus gives: ἑβδόμη [hebdómē] B^pc: έβδομης [hebdómēs] FP: om. B^ac. (But see Usener’s apparatus on B, Epicurea, 366.)"

I'm honestly not sure what this means. The authors sentence structure is so badly fragmented with colons and abbreviations and differently-formatted citations, I mean ... this is an example of an academic who needs to be held to task in writing complete sentences with nice subjects, objects, and verb for the sake of clarity.

For my own comprehension, do you think they are indicating the following?

The following is my attempt to paraphrase the author: "Numerous translators differ about the spelling of the ancient Greek word for 'seventh' as presented in the original text. The difference in translation could be the difference between 'the seventh month of Gamelion' versus 'the month of Gamelion's seventh'. One authority says hebdómēi. Another says hebdómē. Yet another says hebdómēs. As it turns out, I agree with the interpretation that lends credence to the proposition that 'the seventh' is an adjective that describes "the month" and not a noun indicating 'the n^th sequential day'".

(I HATE it when scholars mix citation formats mid-text as though it isn't wildly obfuscating. Do they expect their readers to speak ancient Greek and can read Usener in Latin without a problem?)

I think I'm just having a tough time accepting this because I hate the way the author writes.

I see how "the seventh" can be seen as a descriptive gloss meant to elaborate upon "the month". At the same time, I can just as easily see it as being "the seventh", especially because the noun is in its nominative form, whereas "Gamelion" is in its genitive form, indicating to me that "the seventh" is the object and not "the month".

I'm further suspicious by this reasoning, which I see as being incomplete:

He suggests that "Apollodorus is now known to have given dates by month and day only for Socrates (F 34) and Plato (F 37), successive days, with religious connections, and mythical, according to Wilamowitz (Aristoteles und Athen, i. 190), and by month only otherwise for Boethos (F 53)." How is this known? By whom? If he gave the days of Socrates and Plato, would it not be reasonable to assume that he would do the same for Epicurus, another Hegemon?

Quote from Kalosyni

This is slightly off topic, but wondering ...since they used a lunar calendar...what phase of the moon would it be on the evening of the Twentieth, on each month?

Months of the Attic calendar were supposed to begin with New Moons.

The 20th would usually host the beginning of a waning gibbous moon:

Do we have access to Apollodorus of Athens' Chronicles (Χρονικά, Chronika) that identifies the date of Epicurus' birth?

I can only find the phrase from Diogenes Laërtius who employs the phrase μηνὸς Γαμηλιῶνος ἑβδόμῃ.

μηνὸς (mēnós) – genitive singular: “month of”

Γαμηλιῶνος (Gamēliônos) – genitive singular: “Gamelion’s”

ἑβδόμῃ (hebdómēi) – nominative singular: “Seventh”

"μηδὲν ἄλλο ἢ σαφήνειαν ἀπαιτεῖν. καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἐπιστολαῖς ἀντὶ τοῦ Χαίρειν Εὖ πράττειν καὶ Σπουδαίως ζῆν.

Ἀρίστων δέ φησιν ἐν τῷ Ἐπικούρου βίῳ τὸν Κανόνα γράψαι αὐτὸν ἐκ τοῦ Ναυσιφάνους Τρίποδος, οὗ καὶ ἀκοῦσαί φησιν αὐτόν, ἀλλὰ καὶ Παμφίλου τοῦ Πλατωνικοῦ ἐν Σάμῳ. ἄρξασθαί τε φιλοσοφεῖν ἐτῶν ὑπάρχοντα δυοκαίδεκα, ἀφηγήσασθαι δὲ τῆς σχολῆς ἐτῶν ὄντα δύο πρὸς τοῖς τριάκοντα. Ἐγεννήθη δέ, φησὶν Ἀπολλόδωρος ἐν Χρονικοῖς, κατὰ τὸ τρίτον ἔτος τῆς ἐνάτης καὶ ἑκατοστῆς Ὀλυμπιάδος ἐπὶ Σωσιγένους ἄρχοντος μηνὸς Γαμηλιῶνος ἑβδόμῃ, ἔτεσιν ὕστερον τῆς Πλάτωνος τελευτῆς ἑπτά. ὑπάρχοντα δ' αὐτὸν ἐτῶν δύο καὶ τριάκοντα πρῶτον ἐν Μυτιλήνῃ καὶ Λαμψάκῳ συστήσασθαι σχολὴν ἐπὶ ἔτη πέντε· ἔπειθ' οὕτως εἰς Ἀθήνας μετελθεῖν καὶ τελευτῆσαι κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον ἔτος τῆς ἑβδόμης καὶ εἰκοστῆς καὶ ἑκατοστῆς Ὀλυμπιάδος ἐπὶ Πυθαράτου ἔτη βιώσαντα δύο πρὸς τοῖς ἑβδομήκοντα. τήν τε σχολὴν διαδέξασθαι Ἕρμαρχον Ἀγεμόρτου Μυτιληναῖον. τελευτῆσαι δ' αὐτὸν λίθῳ τῶν οὔρων ἐπισχεθέντων, ὥς φησι καὶ Ἕρμαρχος ἐν ἐπιστολαῖς, ἡμέρας νοσήσαντα τετταρεσκαίδεκα. ὅτε καί φησιν Ἕρμιππος ἐμβάντα αὐτὸν εἰς πύελον χαλκῆν " <https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/Βίοι_φιλοσόφων/Ι#p15>

I would like to see the original fragment from Apollodorus of Athens if it is available.

Recognition that the ancient Greek phrase τῃ προτέρᾳ δεκατῃ (“the early tenth”) refers to “the twentieth” seems to have been acknowledged by Stephen White, the most recent translator of Diogenes Laërtius with whom I am familiar (2021):

“'Out of the revenues we have given Amynomachus and Timocrates, they are to set aside portions, in consultation with Hermarchus and so far as possible, for the sacrificial offerings for my father, my mother, and my brothers, and for conducting the customary birthday feast for us every year on the twentieth of gamelion, and likewise for the gathering of our fellow philosophers held on the twentieth of every month in memory of us and Metrodorus. they are also to join in celebrating the feast day for my brothers in Posideon; and they are to join in celebrating the feast day for Polyaenus in Metageitnion, just as we have done.'” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers translated by Stephen White)

Nearly everyone else from Gassendi to Mensch seem to overlook this nuance.

Quote from Don

http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/…2.Gamelion.html

Gamelion 7 is January 28.

That was my initial take, but I firmly believe that's now wrong in light of the misinterpretation of Apollodorus' reference in Diogenes Laertius per Alpers, Lewis, and others. Epicurus was not born on Gamelion 7. He was born in the 7th month of the Attic calendar, Gamelion. Apollodorus doesn't give a day.

According to the website, Gamelion 20, 2nd year of the 700th Olympiad, will be Feb. 10/11, 2023.

That explains it. I was one day off in my calculation due to a moving day.

I'll have to go back and check my numbers and revise the chart.

(Edit: My error in calculation was in adding a +1 to the date of every 20 Gamelion entry. All of the other columns were accurate. I am currently reviewing my BCE dates to make sure they are still accurate given measuring inconsistency).

Quote from Cassius

28 Jan 2023

-------------------

We have quite a long thread but scrolling back to Nate's chart this is not one of the proposed solutions, or is it?

This is the number Don originally came up with in the original post, but I did not, and I do not know how he did. I calculate that Gamelion 20 this year is the 227th day of an Attic year that began on June 29-30th 2022 with an extra month of Poseideon, so I believe the Gamelion 20 this Attic year will fall on February 11-12th 2023.

Though, I am curious, because if I'm missing something, my chart is based on limited information.

Quote from Don

Trying to pin down an exact Julian date in modern times for an event that took place 2,000+ years in the past is fraught with danger. In some ways, it's a "how many angels can dance on a pin" question. Even saying something like "Julius Caesar died on March 15" because he was assassinated on the Idēs of "March" is, at best, a rough approximation and convenient shorthand.

[...]

With the intercalated days and missing lists of Archons and the ancients' adding in days when the needed/wanted, it is well nigh impossible to say "this ancient event happened on March 15 and simply could NEVER have happened on March 14 or 16 in 44 BCE!! Furthermore, in 2022, that date exactly corresponds to March 16!!" It can't be done. Like I said, I think this is a fascinating, intriguing, enjoyable intellectual exercise, but there's no way - to my mind - that anyone is going to be 100% iron-clad *right* in these calculations.

Ultimately, I agree with Don that it is almost impossible to nail down any ancient dates with confidence. The Attic calendar was not meant to be an objective measurement of time, but simply a day-to-day, month-to-month tool that was regularly changed to accommodate the needs of the populace.

Still, I would like to know how you guys (and Panagiotis) came up with January 28th 2023.

Quote from Cassius

That should take care of our needs and we can leave for further discussion the burning question of whether our birth sign friends would consider Epicurus to have been a Capricorn, Aquarius, or Pisces!

I've been thinking, it's like expressing today as "the evening of Sagittarius the 6th, Super Bowl 61."

.. and, for the record, all dates in Aquarius correspond with the range of possible dates for Gamelion Eikas.

Scholarship seems to reinforce my findings that Oympiad 109, Year 3, Gamelion 20 = January 24-25th 341 BCE.

“He was born on the twentieth of the month of Gamelion (24 January 341)⁷⁴ […] ⁷⁴The debate over the exact date of his birth was definitively resolved by Alpers 1968.” (Algra, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy 43)

“Date of the birth of Epicurus, according to Apollodorus […] that is, under the seventh archon from the archon of the year of the death of Plato, Theophilus. The tenth of Gamelion however, January 14, and the twentieth, January 24, are also assigned as the dates of birth.” (Origines Kalendariæ Hellenicæ; or, the history of the primitive calendar among the Greeks, before and after the legislation of Solon, Volume 2, 97; 1862)

Quote from Don

The Gamelion 7 is from Apollodorus, cited by Diogenes. However, it has been demonstrated that the only month & date birthdays Apollodorus gives are for Socrates and Plato. He gives Epicurus's as occuring in Gamelion with a gloss notation of 7 in the text. Gamelion is simply noted as the **7th month** of the Athenian calendar! It's not a date!

Can we confirm that Apollodorus was Diogenes' only source for original Epicurus' birthdate?

I am curious – if we can demonstrate that Epicurus' actual birthdate is only every attributed to Gamelion 20 (and that the 7th and 10th are misinterpretations) is it the case that (a) we have no record of the actual date of Epicurus' birth and that we only have attestation to the ceremonial celebration with friends? Or (b) was he, coincidentally, born on Eikas?

I'm still in the process of reviewing.

The first 4 columns just organize the data Don shared: http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/calendars/700.html.

I added together the fourth column with the second column to create the values in the fifth column; I used this online date calculator to generate the values: https://www.timeanddate.com/da…d&ay=&am=&aw=&ad=197&rec=

There may be more intricacies to their calendar than I am aware, so I'm investigating the system in more depth and confirming the work I've already done. I'll probably have more updates.

Quote from Kalosyni

Quote from Nate

Oh wow, thank you for pointing that out. So those dates don't corellate with the Attic calculations?

That is correct. I suspect that the dates of PSEP's event are determined according to logistical needs rather than symbolic ones. For sure 02/10/17, 02/06/16, and 02/07/15 do not correspond with the same date on the Attic calendar.

Quote from Kalosyni

So then it rarely fell on or near February 20th?

Based on my calculations, that is correct: Gamelion 20 never fell later than February 19th*, and also, there are never more than two consecutive February Gamelion 20s in a row, from one year to another.

We'll see how long this lasts ...

(Edit: the text was reverted to "February 341 BCE", which we have emphatically demonstrated is NOT accurate).

Quote from Cassius

Maybe it would be a good idea to somehow annotate those column headings in case perhaps someone cuts and pastes the table and it gets separated from the text.

Great idea! I added a few annotations to clarify the columns.

Quote from Kalosyni

Are you all saying it should be January 20th?

Is anyone else concerned that we might end up creating a special "American" Epicurean annual celebration which would be on a very different date than what is currently happening in Athens?

Yes, I think celebrating Epicurus' Ceremonial Birthday (Gamelion 20) on January 20th is the way to go for anyone using the Julian calendar. Furthermore, it is the case that in 1987, 1998, 2006, 2017, 2025, 2036, and 2063, Gamelion 20 actually did/does fall on January the 20th, so there are a handful of days when Greeks who practiced according to the Attic calendar, and modern Twentiers who practice with the Julian calendar would have simultaneous celebrations.

Kalosyni, I note that while the Panhellenic Symposium of Epicurean Philosophy (PSEP) is held in February, it occurs on different days every year. For example, this year it was held on the 19-20th. In 2017, it was the 10-11th. In 2016, it was the 6-7th. In 2015, it was the 7-8th. These dates do not correspond with a consistent date on the Attic calendar.

Additionally, while the ceremonial celebration of Epicurus Birthday (on mid-Winter Eikas) sometimes falls in February, it falls in January more often than February. According to my calculations, Epicurus' birth year (Year 3 of the 109th Olympiad, which corresponds with Summer 342 BCE to Summer 341 BCE) would host Gamelion 7 on January 11, 341 BCE and would host Gamelion 20 on January 24, 341 BCE). Either way, during the year of Epicurus' birth, both Gamelion 7 and Gamelion 20 fell in the Julian month of January, so I respectfully disagree with the PSEP (and Wikipedia).

I am curious which Attic Year it is that the PSEP considers to be "the first ceremonial celebration of Epicurus' Birthday". It probably was not until 310 BCE or later that the annual celebration of Epicurus birth date (Gamelion 7) was re-oriented toward the celebration of mid-Winter Eikas (Gamelion 20) because this represents the beginning of friendship with the Lampsacus crew who would go on to carry his torch; Gamelion 20 of that year fell on February 11th 310 BCE.

I believe these calculations are accurate, if I've understood everything presented so far (which I definitely may not have, but the attempt at making a chart at least revealed some interesting patterns about the Attic calendar).

For one thing, I found that I was born on the 23rd day of final month of Skirophorion, Day 377 in the 3rd year of the 691st Olympiad. For another, I found that, while my Julian birthdate fell within the final month of Skirophorion, it often falls in the following Attic month of Hekatombaion, the first month of the ancient Greek year.

The same seems to be the case with Eikas, which falls from mid-January to mid-February.

A sincere curiosity I found is the following: of those years where my Julian birthdate (July 8th) begins the ancient Greek year (Hekatombaion 1), it turns out that Gamelion 20 corresponds with January 20th (or within one day of it).

Those Gamelion 20s that correspond with our January 20ths were marked red below to denote their coincidence.

Based on the shifting patterns of the Attic calendar, the 20th of Gamelion can come as early as Day 196 and as late as Day 228. Specifically, it falls on either Day 196, 197, 198, 199, or Day 226, 227, 228, depending on the year. (The years on the Attic calendar have varying lengths, some containing 355 days, some containing more than 380).

There is a cycle that occurs every 19 years where a set of dates nearly restarts. For example (from the bottom, below), Gamelion 20 in 2065 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2046.

Gamelion 20 in 2064 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2045.

Gamelion 20 in 2063 falls one day earlier than Gamelion 20 in 2044.

Gamelion 20 in 2062 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2043.

Gamelion 20 in 2061 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2042.

Gamelion 20 in 2060 falls one day earlier than Gamelion 20 in 2041.

Gamelion 20 in 2059 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2040.

Gamelion 20 in 2058 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2039.

Gamelion 20 in 2057 falls on the same Julian date as Gamelion 20 in 2038.

Gamelion 20 next year (2023) falls on the same date as Gamelion 20 in 2004; and so on ... every 19 solar years.

The earliest 20th of Gamelion on the Julian calendar JANUARY 14-15th (approx.)

The latest 20th of Gamelion on the Julian calendar: FEBRUARY 17-18th (approx.)

I'm sure there are other patterns to be found as well. Regardless, I think I have come to the conclusion that I will look to January 20th to both celebrate the monthly practice of Eikas as well the annual Birthday of Epicurus.

My calculations may not be completely accurate (I did 80 years of my lifespan and then quit proof-reading).

Based on Don's original source: http://www.numachi.com/~ccount/hmepa/

This was my resource to determine the date of Eikas: https://www.timeanddate.com/date/dateadded…aw=&ad=197&rec=

These measurements correspond with the following scholarship:

“He was born on the twentieth of the month of Gamelion (24 January 341)⁷⁴ […] ⁷⁴The debate over the exact date of his birth was definitively resolved by Alpers 1968.” (Algra, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy 43)

“Date of the birth of Epicurus, according to Apollodorus […] that is, under the seventh archon from the archon of the year of the death of Plato, Theophilus. The tenth of Gamelion however, January 14, and the twentieth, January 24, are also assigned as the dates of birth.” (Origines Kalendariæ Hellenicæ; or, the history of the primitive calendar among the Greeks, before and after the legislation of Solon, Volume 2, 97; 1862)