TIME-KEEPINU IN GREECE AND ROME. 387 



that up to the period when his history cuds, 478 B. c, it was not 

 known. Fifty or sixty years later, when Aristophanes was writing- his 

 comedies, it was absolutely familiar in Athens. The interval named 

 seems short in acconntiug for so radical a change in the habits of a 

 people as is implied by the general introduction of such an appliance; 

 and yet, if we ask ourselves as to the condition of the electric tele- 

 graph or the sewing-machine fifty years ago or of the telephone ten 

 years ago, it need not startle us to conceive that a versatile people like 

 the Greeks were capable of as swift changes in their habits of life, as 

 these inventions have induced in ours. That this epoch saw more than 

 one change in Athens, in the aspect of the city, in the habits of the 

 people, and above all in their advance in culture and refinement and 

 the arts of peace, we may be sure when we remember that it includes 

 all the years of Pericles' administration. It includes also the aban- 

 donment by Sparta, always unprogressive, of the leadership of the 

 Greek commonwealths, and with this abandonment the removal of the 

 reactionary influences hitherto a clog to the enterprise and prosperity 

 of Athens and of all Greece. 



In the absence of data on this subject it srems not unreasonable to 

 believe that the knowledge of the clepsydra, vhich was widely spread 

 among Oriental peoples, was introduced int3 Athens from the East 

 during — or at the termination of — the second Persian war; and if we 

 choose to surround its introduction with the halo of romance, it is not 

 hard to conceive that these useful devices of civilization were gathered 

 up among the spoils of Platu^.a or washed ashore with the wrecks of 

 Salamis. A more commonplace and not less likely conjecture would be 

 that the instrument was already becoming known in the Creek colonies 

 of Asia, and perhaps even in Athens herself, through intercourse with 

 the Persians and other Oriental peoples. It came into common use in 

 obedience to the want, not of a time-keeper, which was already supplied, 

 but of a time-check, — a want created by the conditions of A_thenian so- 

 ciety which I have already described, and which the only known time- 

 keeper could not satisfy. 



If the increasing burden and tediousness of litigation led to the en- 

 actment of a statute restricting and apportioning the time of speakers 

 in the courts, and providing this means for its regulation, it is easy to 

 sec? that the use of such means must become at once familiar. I have 

 found no trace of such enactments, but that strict ordinances existed 

 there is no doubt. We know that the time of speakers was carefully 

 proportioned to the importance of the case; and trials of importance 

 enough to have the time apportioned were known as rrpoq udtup, while 

 those of trifling importance, in which perhaps no lawyer appeared, 

 were known as «vro ImJutoc;, two terms which may be freely rendered 

 wet and r/n/, the dry case being as it hai)j)ens most quickly (lisi)osed of. 

 In a case of great moment to the State, involving a charge of faith- 

 lessness in an embassy, each party was allowed 10 amphora', or about 



