We are now requiring that new registrants confirm their request for an account by email. Once you complete the "Sign Up" process to set up your user name and password, please send an email to the New Accounts Administator to obtain new account approval.
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.
Well said! You've stated that in a better, clearer, and more succinct way! 
Gamelion, 2nd year of the 700th Olympiad
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.
Honestly, I'm not as concerned with the floating Julian date as I am with nailing down Gamelion 20. And that's confirmed to my satisfaction. In light of that, celebrating annually on January 20 makes the most sense to me since that gets closest to the spirit of Epicurus's Will because (and I'm stating these as facts but anyone is welcome to contest if they like):
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.
But don't misunderstand me! I think it's a fascinating exercise, and I fully support the idea of celebrating a movable observance of Epicurus's Birthday annually. I think that's a very cool exercise, and that's why I've "accepted" the Hellenic Month Established Per Athens website calculations as "good enough" for me on that count:
HMEPA: Hellenic Month Established Per Athens temporary
It's at least used by a modern Hellenic pagan group to celebrate their festivals, so if they are confident to use it for their re-constituted religion, I'm happy to use it for my purposes.
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.
For me, January 20 is the best date to celebrate the Founder's Birthday that respects the ancient tradition in keeping with Epicurus's wishes as set down in his will. We could honor his wishes and establish a custom for modern Epicureans by observing the Annual 20th on that date.
(1) For commemoration purposes it makes sense to honor the decision of the Epicureans to celebrate on the nearest 20th (Jan 20) but that
... honor the decision of *Epicurus*... 
Oh, and due to the fact that Metrodorus would have been appointed Epicurus's successor had he not died before Epicurus, it makes sense to me that Epicurus wanted to share a commemoration day with him. It seems that Epicurus losing Metrodorus would have been (to Epicurus) akin to the Garden losing Epicurus himself.
There's this, too:
Understanding the Birthday Paradox – BetterExplained
Or it could even have been that Metrodorus had his birthday on a different month's 20th. Hard to tell.
Oh, and due to the fact that Metrodorus would have been appointed Epicurus's successor had he not died before Epicurus, it makes sense to me that Epicurus wanted to share a commemoration day with him. It seems that Epicurus losing Metrodorus would have been (to Epicurus) akin to the Garden losing Epicurus himself.
Can we confirm that Apollodorus was Diogenes' only source for original Epicurus' birthdate?
That's the only reference he gives:
He was born, according to Apollodorus in his Chronology, in the third year of the 109th Olympiad, in the archonship of Sosigenes,26 on the seventh day of the month Gamelion,27 in the seventh year after the death of Plato.
***
(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?
It seems to me that the evidence points to Epicurus actually being born on Gamelion 20 and that was the reason the 20th was chosen as the monthly assembly date, too. I don't think it is coincidental. I think that's the reason it was picked.
Now, whether Metrodorus was also born, or died, or was born *in* Gamelion or some other reason being why the two were both commorateted on the *monthly* 20th, there's no way to tell for now. But, from all evidence I see, Gamelion 20 was an annual celebration with remembrance offerings for the *actual* birthday of Epicurus. And that was what Piso was being invited to by Philodemus.
LOL! Mystery solved to, I think, my satisfaction!
In the short note by D.M. Lewis:
Two Days
Author(s): D. M. Lewis
Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Dec., 1969), pp. 271-272
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/707723
Accessed: 27-11-2022 13:19 UTC
Lewis, along with Alpers, is cited in that French paper. Lewis lays out an easy, elegant solution to the multiple dates problem: Gamelion 7, 10, 20.
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!
The Gamelion 10 date is simply a misinterpretation of πρότερα δέκατη in the Greek as we've been going over and is corroborated by multiple sources now.
Gamelion 20 is Epicurus's Birthday. The "customary" in the Greek is now interpreted by me (and others) to refer to the fact that it was customary to celebrate his birthday annually with certain rites and ceremonies, but that the commemoration of himself and Metrodorus was monthly and used as the regular assembly of his students and members of the school.
All this makes the most sense of all this conflicting data. I'm convinced.
If we want to celebrate the spirit of Epicurus's Will, we should celebrate his birthday on January 20 every year.
If we want a movable feast, we use Eikadistes 's calculations using the online calendar.
By Zeus, I'm finding some REALLY good stuff in French and German academic papers. It looks to me like Epicurus's birthday was accepted as Gamelion 20 since at least 1968 in a paper by Karl Alpers, "Epikurus Geburtstag"
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24813898
That paper is cited by a French paper in 2016
Déniz Alcorac Alonso. Offrandes funéraires à Thespies : les ἐνπορίδια « sacrifices par le feu » dans IThesp. 215. In: Revue des Études Grecques, tome 129, fascicule 1, Janvier-juin 2016. pp. 63-83.
DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/reg.2016.8399
Offrandes funéraires à Thespies : les ἐνπορίδια « sacrifices par le feu » dans IThesp. 215 - Persée
I'm still digging around for how Gamelion 7 fits in, and I'm trying to compile all these corroborating papers and evidence. This may take a little longer than I thought! My utter lack of fluency in French and German doesn't help!
So, while I am definitely not the first to connect τῃ προτέρᾳ δεκατῃ to the 20th, it's heartening to see the corroborations start to line up!
We could also email Christos Yapijakis and ask him
What exactly are we asking him? And that's not meant to be snarky (I see it could be read that way).
This would also imply that the "annual celebration of the 20th" referenced in philodemus's poem as the invitation to Piso was, in fact, the *annual* celebration of the 20th was in fact the one celebrations Epicurus's Birthday on Gamelion's 20. That resolves the "annual" vs "monthly" conundrum with that poem!
I will say I am absolutely gobsmacked that no one - academic or lay person - picked up on that "the earlier tenth" before. I've seen some translations use "first Tenth" and similar words, but everyone I've seen simply feels that implies "the tenth day of Gamelion." But it's right there in the Greek in a complete dative phrase. I stand resolved that that equals the 20th.
At the risk of self-horn-tooting, am I the first person to bring this up?? I find that hard to believe but I'm not seeing any evidence to contradict that. If anyone sees a flaw in my interpretation of others who've said it and gone unnoticed, please let me know!
I'd be happy to talk about the "earlier tenth" discovery if Nate would expand on his multi-year calculations
I'm hoping to write a quick paper to summarize the "earlier tenth" findings as well as a couple related items. I'll either post here or on the website.
I guess part of the question is "What is 'it'?" Does 'it' mean "our best and most accurate calculation of the day of birth" or "the day we should schedule a group celebration?"
Sometimes I even wonder what the "most accurate calculation" really means. Does it mean the day of the year in which the planets today are most closely configured around the sun in the same positions as they were at the time of Epicurus' birth?
Exactly! It is almost impossible under any definition to pinpoint an exact date correlation between an ancient event and the modern Julian calendar. The best we can do with something like Epicurus's Birthday is to respect the spirit of the Will. Those two papers I posted get at the highly complicated exercise calculations like that would be.
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?
Nope.
From what I can see now, Epicurus made provisions in his Will to celebrate his birthday on the 20th day - "the earlier tenth" - of his birth month, Gamelion, as was "customary." From Eikadistes 's research, it appears Gamelion typically occurs from mid-January through mid-February. Celebrating annually on Feb. 20 seems too late to say it's in Gamelion. It doesn't seem to me there's anything American or Greek or German or any other nationality to the calculations. To me, January 20 would be the closest we could come in modern times to celebrate the spirit of his Will.
I didn't see the modern Epicurean annual symposium in Athens in February was chosen for his birthday, but I may have missed that. And, with all due respect to being located in the land of his birth, the modern Greeks have no lock on any kind of authority within modern efforts to bring Epicurus's philosophy back to a living philosophy. I certainly respect their scholarship and efforts, but even in ancient times the school seems to have been somewhat decentralized also by Roman times.
I will say I haven't seen anywhere else that has picked up on the "earlier tenth" in the Greek text. Even the Society had the tenth in a write up about Epicurus's Birthday:
On the Occasion of the Birth of the Hegemon | Society of Friends of Epicurus
That is VERY impressive, Eikadistes ! I certainly can't argue with any of your calculations, and, with that, I would concur that Jan. 20 seems to be a preferable *customary* date to celebrate Epicurus's birthday as set out in his Will.
From the articles below, it seems the Athenian calendar was much more fluid than we are accustomed to.
Some of that is laid out in this paper:
And this:
IMO for the word "σύνοδος" the appropriate word in english is "session" i.e. a period devoted to a particular activity.
"Session" could work for the reasons you pointed out.
I would prefer a word that gets at the "bringing together" implied by the syn- in synodos. Something like "meeting" or "assembly." "Synod" is too imbued with Christian connotation.
Here's the Etymology Online entry for the word synod:
late 14c., "ecclesiastical council," from Late Latin synodus, from Greek synodos "assembly, meeting; a coming together, conjunction of planets," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + hodos "a traveling, journeying; a manner or system (of doing, speaking, etc.); a way, road, path," a word of uncertain origin (see Exodus). Earlier in English as sinoth (early 12c.). Used by Presbyterians for "assembly of ministers and other elders" from 1593 to c. 1920, when replaced by General Council.
That's an excellent find, Don that I think definitely explains the discrepancy.
Thanks, Eikadistes . That means a lot coming from you!
I wanted to share a couple words that struck me in that section of the Will too. The translation runs:
for the meeting of all my School held every month on the twentieth day to commemorate Metrodorus and myself according to the rules now in force.
This sounds so sterile to me, so I looked at the text. There we can find:
ὥσπερ καὶ εἰς τὴν γινομένην σύνοδον ἑκάστου μηνὸς ταῖς εἰκάσι τῶν συμφιλοσοφούντων ἡμῖν εἰς τὴν ἡμῶν τε καὶ Μητροδώρου <μνήμην> κατατεταγμένην.
συμφιλοσοφούντων ἡμῖν (symphilosophountōn hēmin) something literally like "our (not my) fellow "lovers of wisdom"/philosophers" That seems warmer than "school"
σύνοδον (synodon) from sym "with" (as in "sympathy", same sym- as above) + hodos "path, way" This is the word "synod" we know from Christianity. This is the "meeting" in the translation, but I like the connotation of "coming together with others on the path/way."
Those two words for me provide much more color to Epicurus's last will than the usual dry translation.
OMG! Okay, I went and looked at the Wikipedia article that I think is the one Joshua looked at and saw (emphasis added - LOOK at the 20th!!):
To summarise the days with special names.
- The first day: noumenia, or new moon.
- The last day: henē kai nea, the "old and the new".
- The 21st day: "the later tenth". The Attic month had three days named "tenth" (equivalent in a straight sequence to the 10th, 20th, and 21st days). These were distinguished as
- 10th: "the tenth (of the month) waxing"
- 20th: "the earlier tenth" (i.e. waning)
- 21st: "the later tenth" (i.e. waning)
This strange juxtapositioning of the two days called the tenth, the earlier and the later, further highlighted the shift into the moon's waning phase.
SO τῇ προτέρᾳ δεκάτῃ τοῦ Γαμηλιῶνος is NOT "the tenth of Gamelion". It's "the 'earlier tenth' of Gamelion" meaning the 20th!! He's saying right there in his will that his birthday was *customarily* celebrated on the προτέρᾳ δεκάτῃ "the earlier tenth" - the 20th! - of Gamelion! There aren't three dates! There are only two:
Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, πρότερος
It was right there all the time and it all lines up!
So we could include a celebration of Epicurus's Birthday on the 20th of Gamelion which is Feb 10/11, 2023, or decide *by custom* to celebrate it either at the 20 January or 20 February since the 20th in his will was also *by custom.* The Jan 20 or Feb 20 would definitely be in the spirit of his will.
So, his will then says to me that his birthday was celebrated only on the "first tenth" or 20th of Gamelion, but the school met every 20th to commemorate both Epicurus and Metrodorus.
Okay, I think I've planted my flag on this hill. 
