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] Bpc: έβδομης [hebdómēs] FP: om. Bac. (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 nth 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?