(A) The demands made by service on the Boule and the jury panels may be deduced from the following exclusions from an ordinary year of 354 days.

1. (1) Annual festival days: normally no sittings of the Boule, jury courts or Ekklesia (Ar. Thesm. 78–80, [Xen.] AP 3.8, schol. Ar. Wasps 660–3, Lys. 26.6): at least 75 days.

2. (2) Monthly festival days: normally the Ekklesia did not meet, but the Boule did. These were days 1–4 and 6–8 of each month – that is, 84 in a year, but 9 coincided with annual festival days: 75 days.

3. (3) ‘Impure’ days or days of ill omen: days involving the purification of the polis – by the rites of the Plynteria (Thargelion 25) when the garments of Athena's statue were washed, or by the hearing of homicide cases by the Areiopagos Council to rid the polis of the pollution of murder. The Areiopagos Council could judge homicide cases only on the 27th, 28th and 29th days of each month but would presumably not have done so on the major day of the Panathenaia (Hekatombaion 28) nor on the day of the Theogamia (Gamelion 27): of the somewhat less than 36 days thus available, perhaps about 15 might be postulated as ‘impure’ in any year. These days were probably not used by the Boule or by courts or by the Ekklesia. See Mikalson (1975A) 19–27.

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