1. Γαμίλιος or Ψυδρεύς (the spelling Γαμείλιος attested at Bouthrotos and also on the Antiythera Mechanism) = Nov./Dec.
2. Γαμίλιος or Ψυδρεύς = Dec./Jan.
3. Εὐκλεῖος = Jan./Feb.
4. Ἀρτεμίτιος (the spelling -σιος attested at Ambrakia and also on the Antikythera Mechanism) = Feb./March
5. Πάναμος = March/April
6. Φοινικαῖος = April/May
7. Ἁλιοτρόπιος = May/June
8. Ἀγριάνιος = June/July
9. Ἀπελλαῖος = July/August
10. Ἡραῖος = Aug./Sep.
11. Καρνεῖος (spelling Κρανεῖος only attested at Bouthrotos and on Mechanism) = Sept./Oct.
12. Μαχανεύς = Oct./Nov.

It should be noted that on p. 161 she also lists the months of Γελώιος, Δατυῖος, and Διονύσιος as attested at some of the colonies/cities closely related to Corinth.

So Lanotropios (which Alexander notes is not a certain reading) and Dodekateus are the ones that stand out on the Mechanism as differing from Trümpy’s reconstruction or other evidence, although Lanoptropios suspiciously resembles Haliotropios. Interesting to note that on Cabanes L’Épire 553,32, which is from Dodona, Cabanes reads λʹ Ἀ|[λιοτρ]οπίο[υ]. Could this be Λα|[νοτρ]οπίο[υ]?

From Trümpy p. 155, the only month other than Φοινικαῖος that is attested for Corinth is Πάναμος, but this is in Demosthenes’ De Corona 157, not at Corinth itself. Trümpy p.155, n.659 seems to say that this Πάναμος corresponds with Macedonian Λώιος and Athenian Βοηδρομιών and directs the reader to see page 332 of Paton-Hicks Inscriptions of Cos for the evidence. But then in her reconstruction on page 163 she makes Corinthian Πάναμος correspond with Athenian Ἐλαφηβολιών (March/April). It may be worth looking into why she does this.

The only other thing I can think to mention is that on IG II(2) 951 the month of Phoinikaios at Ambrakia is paired with the restored Athenian month of Thargelion at Athens. At a quick glance, I don’t understand why Thargelion was chosen for the restoration; it seems to me just about any month could be restored. I see, in fact, that Kirchner first restored Ποσιδεῶνος, but in the Corrigenda on p. 669 he cites Wilhelm Att. Stud. II SB. Wien. Akad. 1916, 23 for the supplement of Θαργηλιῶνος. Again, it may be worth looking into Wilhelm’s reasoning behind this.

Finally, with your new information it is obviously worth going back to the stone and lead calendars to see if some new readings might result. The only possibility that I see is on line one of the lead tablet. We have Ρ̣ΙΑΔ̣ with both the rho and delta dotted. We thought the final letter could be delta, upsilon, zeta, heta, or chi. But the tablet is very damaged here, and there may be damage interfering with the reading (cf. the horizontal damage in line 3). Now that I look at the nu in line 3, which is going in the same direction as the letter in question in line 1, I see the lower tip of it’s right vertical has a bit of an angle. Based on this, I think that [Ἀγ]|ρ̣ιαν̣[ίο] may be entirely possible.

I also see that I overlooked the month of hε[ραίο] as a possible restoration in line 3. So we might have:

[– – – – – – – – – – Ἀγ]-
ρ̣ιαν̣[ίο(?)· – – – – – – –]
[– – Ἀθάναι Πολ]ίαδι β-
ôν ⁝̣ hε[ραίο(?)· – – – –]
[– – – – – – – – – – – (?)] vac.

It’s worth noting that in Trümpy’s reconstruction, the month of Agrianios is before Heraios, with only the month of Apellaios intervening. The order of the possible restorations of Agrianios and Heraios on the tablet are thus consistent with her reconstruction if we assume the month of Apellaios was found in the missing portion between them. On Trümpy’s reconstruction, Heraios also occurs towards the end of the calendar, which is also consistent with the lead tablet (the vacat suggests we are at the end of the calendar).

Of course Heraios is not on the Mechanism and the Mechanism’s order of months is different, so this new possible reading of the lead tablet’s evidence throws a bit of sand in the gears as it were.

[ἐπὶ — — —]ρσίλα, Φοινικαίου,
[ἐπειδὴ Ν]ικάδας Ἀλεξάνορος Αἰγιεὺς
κτλ.

But of course this doesn’t add much to our knowledge other than indicating the survival of the month name into the Hellenistic period.

Thank you for this excellent post and especially for your link to your Nature article. By the way, the second link is available to the public without buying Nature and was very informative.

Yes, I think that ICor VIII 1,1 indicates that Phoinikaios was the first month of the Corinthian year, but of course as you say we do not know at what point in the year this fell. I see that Trümpy does not place it first, but Pauly-Wissowa does. What does Cabanes say? Obviously with your additional evidence, P-W is more likely to be right.

Unfortunately I do not know of any other good evidence for any other month names at Corinth.

In reading the supplemental notes in your article in Nature, I see on page 17 (p. 19 of the PDF), that you and your co-authors write “The testimony for the Syracusan calendar is regrettably slight; such as it is, it offers obstacles to equating the Syracusan with the Corinthian calendar. First, a month name beginning ‘Apo-’ appears to be attested in a single inscription; this has been restored conjecturally as Apollonios, a month name found on the Tauromenian calendar, but not in the Corinthian. Not much weight can be assigned to this doubtful reading.”

I was just wondering whether this evidence really presents much of an obstacle for attributing the mechanism to Syracuse? Ἀπέλλων is the Doric, generally earlier, spelling of Ἀπόλλων, so one can easily imagine that some cities prefered to make the name of the month in this god’s honor more explicit by giving it a more modern-sounding designation, or a spelling that was more pan-Hellenic, and maybe the inscriber at Syracuse made a simple error.

By the way, Nancy Bookidis and Ron Stroud recently published in Hesperia 73 (2004) a pottery fragment that was found on Temple Hill with the spelling Ἀπέλλωνι (partly restored — I don’t have the article with me). A drawing of the pottery fragment is in one of the old excavation notebooks, but the fragment itself is lost. They argue that this inscription was inscribed on a vessel that was dedicated to Apollo and thus provides further support for the belief that the large Temple on Temple Hill is that of Apollo. Of course this isn’t of much help for you, but it does remind one of the fact that the month Apellaios was probably so named because in that month there was a large festival in honor of Apellon/Apollon.

My interest in this is somewhat remote: I have been working with several colleagues on the inscriptions on the bronze plates of the Antikythera Mechanism, c. 100 B.C., and we recently published a preliminary (i.e. more or less complete but not conforming to epigraphic conventions) transcription of a calendar inscribed on one of the dials, which I identified as the Corinthian calendar.

The publication is dowloadable:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7204/pdf/nature07130.pdf (main article, very telegraphic as is Nature’s style)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7204/suppinfo/nature07130.html (supplementary notes–this is the real presentation of the evidence)

We are now working on a fuller “epigraphic” publication of these inscriptions, hence the enquiry.

Most of the comparison evidence for the Corinthian calendar is from inscriptional evidence from Corinthian colonies in Epirus and thereabouts, and doesn’t provide good evidence for the order of months and the beginning of the year. (The most recent discussions are in Trümpy’s monograph on Greek calendars and in Cabanes’ first appendix to the new vol. 2 of CIGIME.) The text from the mechanism does give us the order and starting month, the months in order being:

1. Phoinikaios
2. Kraneios
3. Lanotropios [there may be some question about the precise reading for this one]
4. Machaneus
5. Dôdekateus
6. Eukleios
7. Artemisios
8. Psydreus
9. Gameilios
10. Agrianios
11. Panamos
12. Apellaios

A trickier question, not directly answered by the Mechanism’s inscriptions, is the alignment of the months and the year start with the seasons, though I think there are good arguments for situating the year start, Phoinikaios, in mid to late autumn.

I was aware of the Corinthian inscription with Phoinikaios (this is the only inscription from Corinth I know of with a month name attestation) but I hadn’t bothered to look it up, but now I see from your discussion that there is a consensus that Frag. A with the Phoinikaios is the beginning of the text. So I’m curious whether, from the nature of such documents, that would tend to support, or be supported by perhaps, the identification of Phoinikaios as the first month of the year? I should add that there is no question of it being so for the mechanism’s version of the calendar, but one might allow for the possibility that year starts might change over several centuries or from one locality to another.

And by any chance does anyone know of any other *Corinthian* evidence for the Corinthian calendar’s composition or structure besides this one text?

το̑ι Ἀσσκλαπιο̑ι θύεν βο̑-
ν ἔρσενα καὶ ℎομονάοις
βο̑ν ἔρσενα καὶ ℎομονάα-
ις βο̑ν θε̄́λειαν.

There are several others but not from the Peloponnese.

Here he’s referring to the spelling of βoν for βοῦν on the lead tablet. I don’t yet know the answer to that question, but obviously it may have a significant bearing on dating the lead tablet (and possibly the stone calendar by extension). For now I’ll just note that LSJ at the end of the their lemma on βοῦς state that “βοῦς (from βωύς, Skt. gaús) acc. βῶν (Skt. gām) are old forms: stem βωϝ- βοϝ-, cf. Lat. (Umbr.) bos, etc.” (my emphasis).

Just an addendum: I recently realised that Eran Lupu in his book Greek Sacred Law actually anticipated several of the comments I made previously about your text (see pp. 65-66 with n.332 especially); I thought you might like to include that in your eventual note on the subject of the multiple piglets.
Best wishes,

Mat