217
agricultural prediction; the answer lies in the spiritual realm’ (Aveni, 1979: 63). A
farmer could simply look to the weather and test the soil with his finger to know
when best to sow; he could look at his ripening crop to know when to harvest; he did
not need to consult star charts. But festivals of ploughing, sowing and harvesting
articulate both the agricultural and the religious year. The particular association of
the Pleiades, the Hyades, Orion and the Bear/Wagon with agricultural activities that
we have just seen, may go deeper still in ancient Greek society. The great agricultural and religious festivals of Demeter and Persephone in Athens occurred, not
surprisingly, at times significant to agricultural activity. These festivals took place
within fixed months of the Athenian festival calendar (Mikalson, 1975). However,
this calendar was not a solar one like ours is, but a lunisolar one, tied to both lunar
and solar phenomena, like the Jewish religious calendar or the Asian calendars or
the New Zealand Māori calendar today. This means that in any given year in antiquity, we cannot usually tie a given Athenian date to a given modern equivalent. (We
say ‘usually’ because on very rare occasions it is possible to pin down a date if it is
related to a phenomenon like a lunar or solar eclipse, which we can date independently of the ancient calendar.)
Because of the wandering character to the Athenian calendar, even with the periodic insertion of an intercalary month, it is practically impossible to be precise
about when in terms of our calendar an event in the past took place. But we can be
sure of the season, and as a result we can see that the festivals held in honour of the
agricultural goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, occurred not only at significant
moments in the agricultural cycle, as we would expect, but also at astronomically
significant times. As Efrosyni Boutsikas has pointed out (Boutsikas, 2017), the
Proerosia or Proarktouria, a festival in honour of Demeter and Kore, celebrated in
anticipation of a successful harvest, was—as its name indicates—celebrated at the
time of the heliacal rising of Arcturus. A calendar from Thorikos places the Proerosia
in the Attic month of Boedromion (Parker, 1987; Hannah, 2005: 66), and so somewhere between (roughly) mid-September and mid-October, which suits well the
heliacal rising of Arcturus, as this took place around 21 September (Julian) in this
period. A sacrificial calendar for Eleusis has the festival being celebrated on 5
Pyanepsion (it is assumed), which would correspond to sometime in late October
(Dow, 1968).
7 Euktemon’s Parapegma
In comparison with Hesiod’s nine observations of star phases, 42 observations of 15
stars or star-groups survive from the late fifth century BCE data-set attributed to
Euktemon, which we find incorporated in later Hellenistic and Roman collections
of star observations, the parapegmata (see Lehoux, 2007 on these diverse tables of
star and other data). Whether Euktemon’s parapegma originally recorded more, we
have no way of knowing now (see Lehoux, 2007). So large an increase in star observations may have resulted from a desire to secure the placement of seasonal, and
The Stars in Ancient Greece
agricultural prediction; the answer lies in the spiritual realm’ (Aveni, 1979: 63). A
farmer could simply look to the weather and test the soil with his finger to know
when best to sow; he could look at his ripening crop to know when to harvest; he did
not need to consult star charts. But festivals of ploughing, sowing and harvesting
articulate both the agricultural and the religious year. The particular association of
the Pleiades, the Hyades, Orion and the Bear/Wagon with agricultural activities that
we have just seen, may go deeper still in ancient Greek society. The great agricultural and religious festivals of Demeter and Persephone in Athens occurred, not
surprisingly, at times significant to agricultural activity. These festivals took place
within fixed months of the Athenian festival calendar (Mikalson, 1975). However,
this calendar was not a solar one like ours is, but a lunisolar one, tied to both lunar
and solar phenomena, like the Jewish religious calendar or the Asian calendars or
the New Zealand Māori calendar today. This means that in any given year in antiquity, we cannot usually tie a given Athenian date to a given modern equivalent. (We
say ‘usually’ because on very rare occasions it is possible to pin down a date if it is
related to a phenomenon like a lunar or solar eclipse, which we can date independently of the ancient calendar.)
Because of the wandering character to the Athenian calendar, even with the periodic insertion of an intercalary month, it is practically impossible to be precise
about when in terms of our calendar an event in the past took place. But we can be
sure of the season, and as a result we can see that the festivals held in honour of the
agricultural goddesses, Demeter and Persephone, occurred not only at significant
moments in the agricultural cycle, as we would expect, but also at astronomically
significant times. As Efrosyni Boutsikas has pointed out (Boutsikas, 2017), the
Proerosia or Proarktouria, a festival in honour of Demeter and Kore, celebrated in
anticipation of a successful harvest, was—as its name indicates—celebrated at the
time of the heliacal rising of Arcturus. A calendar from Thorikos places the Proerosia
in the Attic month of Boedromion (Parker, 1987; Hannah, 2005: 66), and so somewhere between (roughly) mid-September and mid-October, which suits well the
heliacal rising of Arcturus, as this took place around 21 September (Julian) in this
period. A sacrificial calendar for Eleusis has the festival being celebrated on 5
Pyanepsion (it is assumed), which would correspond to sometime in late October
(Dow, 1968).
7 Euktemon’s Parapegma
In comparison with Hesiod’s nine observations of star phases, 42 observations of 15
stars or star-groups survive from the late fifth century BCE data-set attributed to
Euktemon, which we find incorporated in later Hellenistic and Roman collections
of star observations, the parapegmata (see Lehoux, 2007 on these diverse tables of
star and other data). Whether Euktemon’s parapegma originally recorded more, we
have no way of knowing now (see Lehoux, 2007). So large an increase in star observations may have resulted from a desire to secure the placement of seasonal, and
The Stars in Ancient Greece