Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

vn] Date of Olympic Festival 225
The Games were held alternately in the Elean months
Apollonios and Parthenios— probably the second and third months
of the Elean year, if we may suppose that this, like the Delphic
and Attic years, began about midsummer. The interval between
two celebrations was alternately 49 and 50 months. This fact
shows that the festival cycle is really an octennial period (ennae-
teris) divided into two halves—a period which reconciles the
Hellenic moon year of 354 days with the solar year of 365^ 1 . Ac-
cording to the document preserved by Comarchos, the reckoning
is made in a peculiar way, which seems to call for explanation. It
starts from the winter solstice. Take the first full moon after the
solstice— this will fall on January (Thosuthias) 13 2—and count
8 months. This will give the full moon (Aug. 22, 776 = Ol. i.) of
Apollonios (Aug. 8—Sept. 5) as the central day for the first
celebration. The next will fall four years later, after fifty months,
at the full moon (Sept. 6, 772 = Ol. ii.) of the month Parthenios
(Aug. 23—Sept. 21). Forty-nine months later we shall be again at
the full moon of Apollonios (Aug. 23, 768 = Ol. hi.), and so the
cycle recurs.
The singular plan of starting the whole reckoning from the
winter solstice seems to indicate that the year at Elis, as at Delos
and in Boeotia and probably also at Delphi and Athens, formerly
began in winter ; and this circumstance at once suggests that the
single combat of the young and old eniautos-daimons may have
originally belonged to the season of midwinter— the season at
which the Roman Saturnalia were ultimately fixed 3 .
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