Diodorus Siculus, Library, Book XII, Chapter 36

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In Athens Meton, the son of Pausanias, who had won fame for his study of the stars, revealed to the public his nineteen-year cycle,³ as it is called, the beginning of which he fixed on the thirteenth day of the Athenian month of Scirophorion. In this number of years the stars accomplish their return to the same place in the heavens and conclude, as it were, the circuit of what may be called a Great Year; consequently it is called by some the Year of Meton. [3] And we find that this man was astonishingly fortunate in this prediction which he published; for the stars complete both their movement and the effects they produce in accordance with his reckoning. Consequently, even down to our own day, the larger number of the Greeks use the nineteen-year cycle and are not cheated of the truth.⁴ [4]

In Italy the Tarantini removed the inhabitants of Siris,⁵ as it is called, from their native city, and adding to them colonists from their own citizens, they founded a city which they named Heracleia.

1 433 B.C.

2 The Straits of Kertch; the kingdom included all the territory about the Sea of Azof.

3 According to Philochorus (Schol. to Aristoph. Birds 997) what Meton set up was a sundial, on the wall of the Pnyx.

4 Meton certainly was too good an astronomer to have spoken of "stars." This Metonic Cycle was designed to adjust the lunar year, which all the Greeks used, to the solar year. Its scheme called for the intercalation of seven lunar months in the nineteen years. Modern computation shows that 235 lunations are 6,939 days, 16.5 hours, and 19 solar years are 6,939 days, 14.5 hours. An inscription from Miletus reveals that in 432 B.C. the summer solstice, which is the beginning of the solar year, fell on the 13th day of the month Scirophorion, the date given by Diodorus for the beginning of Meton's 19-year cycle. See B. D. Meritt, The Athenian Calendar in the Fifth Century, p. 88.

5 On the gulf of Tarentum.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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Cross-references to this page (12):
- Harper's, Meton
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), HERACLEIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), MAGNA GRAE´CIA
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), SIRIS
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TARENTUM
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), THU´RII
- Smith's Bio, Callippus
- Smith's Bio, Lana'tus
- Smith's Bio, Maceri'nus
- Smith's Bio, Meton
- Smith's Bio, Seleucus
- Smith's Bio, Spa'rtacus
Cross-references in notes from this page (1):
- Aristophanes, Birds, 997
Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (6):
- LSJ, ἀνακυκλ-ισμός
- LSJ, ἀποκατά-στα^σις
- LSJ, δεισι^δαιμ-επτά
- LSJ, ἐνι^-αυτός
- LSJ, πρόρρ-ησις
- LSJ, προγρα^φή

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