382 TIME-KEEPING IN GIIEECE AND ROME. 



declares the Greeks to have derived the twelve parts {duwl^ey.a ijlpea) of 

 the day. Others however ascribe its inventiou to Anaxiinander, who 

 is said to have set it up in LacedsBmon. It is evident that he need not 

 have invented it, but might have brought it from some country where 

 its use was already known. It is significant that Anaximander and 

 Anaximenes (to whom some writers ascribe the honor of the invention), 

 were both fellow-citizens and pupils of Thales of Miletus, and that the 

 date of this introduction synchronizes with the extensive and intimate 

 acquaintance between Egypt and Greece, which, commencing in the 

 reign of Psammetichus, reached its culmination under Amasis, the 

 fourth king of that dynasty, and in which the people of Miletus bore 

 the most prominent part. Under this last king, whom they assisted in 

 throwing oft" the yoke of Assyria, Greeks swarmed in the Egyptian 

 court, filled her armies, manned her fleets. They passed to and fro 

 continually ; Greek philosophers pursued their studies in Egyptian 

 schools ; and who shall say how many of the secrets of art and science 

 found their way at that time from the land of the Pharaohs to the 

 spirited and versatile people just emerging from barbarism across the 

 Mediterranean ? Surely, if under such conditions anything of Egyptian 

 origin or likely to have been in Egyptian possession is found to have 

 made its appearance among the Greeks, we need not speculate as to 

 how it got there. 



It does not appear that the sun-dial was introduced to the Greeks in 

 any perfected form. On the contrary, it was at first a mere staff* or 

 pillar [yvcoiiM'j)^ destitute of any graduated dial which could indicate 

 the passage of an hour or any definite fraction of a day. The length 

 of the shadow, measured m feet, determined the time for certain regu- 

 lar daily duties, as a shadow 6 feet long indicated the hour for bathing 

 and one 12 feet long that for supper. More accurate and conv^enient 

 forms were perhaps known to philosophers ; but if so, they did not 

 come into common use. This simple device was sufficient for the sim- 

 ple habits of the people. The twelve parts of the day of which Herod- 

 otus speaks had no meaning to the" Athenians, who had no word meaning 

 specifically an hour ; and as late as the time of Alexander, the old system 

 seems to have been followed. This kind of observation, it may be re- 

 marked, was i)erfectly feasible in the shadow of an Egyptian obelisk, 

 which may partly account for the absence of the instrument from other 

 nioiniments of that country. As a matter of history, an obelisk at 

 Kome was actually used for a sun-dial in the time of Augustus. 



We learn from this history at what period and in what stage of prog- 

 ress the Greeks first had the idea of measuring time. If we associate 

 it with the period of Solon, the Athenian law-giver who died about 570 

 B. c, we may form some idea of the condition of the people of Athens 

 from the character of his legislation and the miseries he attempted to 

 mitigate. The Greeks had written language and they had literature, — 

 Homer, Hesiod, Sappho. They had a system of weights and measuresj 



