392 TIME-KEEPING IN GREECE AND ROME. 



As formerly, in Greece, the clepsydra came to supply the deficiencies 

 of the sun-dial, so history repeated itself in Rome. Pliny ascribes its 

 introduction to Scipio Nasica in the year of Eome 595 (158 b. c). Of 

 the form of this clepsydra we have no knowledge, but it was no longer a 

 mere time-check, such as was used in the Athenian courts, but a true 

 time-keeper, capable of indicating continuously the hours both of day 

 and night. Tliere were many adopted for this purpose, as will pres- 

 ently be shown. In Pompey's third consulship (52 b. c), he introduced 

 the custom of apportioning the time of orators in the courts by the 

 clepsydra, after the Greek fashion. The decline of Roman oratory has 

 been attributed to this restriction, which, after all, seems to have left 

 the speaker a fair amount of time. Pliny says : "I spoke for almost 

 five hours, for to the twelve clepsydne of the largest size which I re- 

 ceived, four were added." Some read twenty in place of twelve, which 

 seems to be the preferable reading, and out of it we get some idea of 

 the time consumed by one discharge of the vessel. If twenty-four 

 clepsydras is " almost five hours," it appears likely that the discharge 

 was at the rate of five to the hour ; and this helps us to better under- 

 stand Martial's epigram to a tedious lawyer who had been permitted to 

 exhaust the clepsydra seven times. It makes something less than an 

 hour and a half; but the orator's mouth was as dry as his discourse, 

 and he drank copiously, whereupon the witty poet suggests that he can 

 satisfy his thirst and his audience at once by drinking out of the 

 clepsydra. 



In Eome at this period the use of the clepsydra, in the form both of a 

 time-check and time-keeper, was quite general, — not as the house clock 

 is common to day — but generally known, and serving to regulate the 

 hours of business and pleasure. Men of means had them in their houses, 

 and slaves were kept whose special duties were to watch them and re- 

 port the hour. Idlers meeting in the market-place or forum accosted 

 each other with " Hora quota est,''^ by way of opening conversation, as 

 tbey now comment on the weather or compare watches. Generals took 

 the water-clock with them to the field and relieved the watch by it dur- 

 ing the hours of night. An allusion by Caesar has been the source of a 

 curious misconception, that he found this instrument in use among the 

 Britons at the time of his invasion. Evidently referring to the phenom- 

 enon now so familiar of the Arctic night he says some had reported that 

 at Mona the night at the winter solstice lasted for a month. " Our in- 

 quiries," he continues, " did not confirm this, but by careful measure- 

 ments ex aqua we saw that the nights were shorter than on the conti- 

 nent." To draw from this the conclusion that the early Britons had 

 water-clocks is about as if we were to infer from the Signal Service 

 observations at Point Barrow that the Eskimos of that region were 

 found in jiossession of the thermometer. 



Greece too had by this time fallen under Roman rule, and the clep- 

 sydra as a time-keeper was well known in Athens. The most eminent 



