Spooky

[charamei]

Okay, so I've finally got around to working out the date my novel starts on:

1. Rolled a d10 for the prytany. 4th prytany; we'll say the first day because that's easiest.


2. First day of the fourth prytany = 108 days after Hekatombion 1, the start of both Athenian calendars. This translates to roughly Boedromion 19 in the Athenian religious calendar.


3. From the late fifth century BC onwards, Hekatombion 1 fell on the Julian calendar's July 1, so Boedromion 19 translates to October 16*.


4. Add thirteen days to make up the discrepancy between the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and that's... October 28, 396 BCE.

Which is tomorrow. Like I said: spooky.

It's also about halfway through the ten-day celebration of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which is Very Interesting Indeed. I had a feeling those were going to play some part; now I've got some new ideas as to exactly what part they play.

Mostly, though, I'm a little creeped out by the idea that my novel starts tomorrow XD

* Beeewaaaare the Iiiiides of Octoooober...!

Comments

[charamei]

Heh.

I'm a little glad that it didn't work out to November 1, at least, although then I remember that there's enough variance in the dates and calendars (and my maths: oops) that it could just as easily be. That's even before getting into questions like 'Did the Athenians add intercalary months or not?' and 'Is that the Julian calendar pre- or post- 45 CE?' (I assumed post, mostly because I have no effing clue what the Romans did to fix the pre-45 CE calendar. It's about 30 days added at seemingly-random intervals throughout the year so as not to muck up their festival timings.)