any of a variety of dating systems used by the several city-states in the time of classical Greece and differing in the names of their months and in the times of beginning the year. Each of these calendars attempted to combine in a single system the lunar year of 12 cycles of phases of the moon, totaling about 354 days, and the solar year of about 365 days. Generally, three extra months were intercalated in every period of eight solar years. This practice, which was adequate to keep the calendar roughly in step with the seasons, seems to have been in force as early as the 8th century BC. Months, each of which contained either 30 or 29 days, began with the new moon. The Greek calendar that has been most studied, the Athenian, customarily began its year with the first new moon after the summer solstice.