The meaning which I give to the words is the most strict and literal possible: “The Argeians, having set out on the 26th of the month before Karneius, and _keeping that day during the whole time_, invaded the Epidaurian territory, and went on ravaging it.” By “during the whole time” is meant, during the whole time that this expedition lasted. That is, in my judgment, they kept the twenty-sixth day of the antecedent month for a whole fortnight or so; they called each successive day by the same name; they stopped the computed march of time; the twenty-seventh was never admitted to have arrived. Dr. Thirlwall translates it (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 331): “They began their march on a day which they had _always_ been used to keep holy.” But surely the words πάντα τὸν χρόνον must denote some definite interval of time, and can hardly be construed as equivalent to ἀεί. Moreover the words, as Dr. Thirlwall construes them, introduce a new fact which has no visible bearing on the main affirmation of the sentence. The meaning which I give may perhaps be called in question on the ground that such tampering with the calendar is too absurd and childish to have been really committed. Yet it is not more absurd than the two votes of the Athenian assembly (in 290 B.C.), who being in the month of Munychion, first passed a vote that that month should be the month Anthestêrion; next, that it should be the month Boêdromion; in order that Demetrius Poliorkêtês might be initiated both in the lesser and greater mysteries of Dêmêtêr, both at once and at the same time. Demetrius arrived at Athens in the month Munychion, and went through both ceremonies with little or no delay; the religious scruple, and the dignity of the Two Goddesses being saved by altering the name of the month twice (Plutarch, Demetrius, c. 26).