394 TIME-KEEPING IN GREECE AND ROME. 



and suiuiiier in our latitude, wliicli is nearly that of Athens, seems to 

 us to be plainly discernable ; but if we could divest ourselves of our ac- 

 quired knowledge and of our means for keeping time, and put ourselves 

 in the place of the Greek of 600 b. c, we should probably fail to ob- 

 serve the fact except very dimly. 



Accurate division begins with the observation of noon, and we have 

 seen pretty clearly when this began in Greece. The next step in sub- 

 division consists in dividing the day into quarters by dividing equally 

 the periods before and after noon. This division was at least known to 

 the Greeks, but I see no evidence that it was in common use; nor in 

 fact does it appear that they in daily life made use of close sub-divisions, 

 until Eoman influences prevailed and the Eoman divisions of the day 

 were adopted. 



In Rome the division of both the day and night into four watches re- 

 sulted naturally from the military character of her people and remained 

 in use down to the latest period. These divisions of the day corre- 

 sponded with what were afterwards the third, six, and ninth hours, and 

 it was customary for one of the subordinate officers of the prnetor to 

 proclaim them. They had also a three-part division corresponding to 

 that of the Greeks. 



Artiiicial means of measuring time came to the Romans so much later 

 than to the Greeks that great improvements had been wrought in them. 

 Science had gone so far in Egypt and Sicily that sun-dials were con- 

 structed for particular latitudes ; but it is not clear that, as at first in- 

 troduced, they were graduated. The same sub-division of the day into 

 four watches that has just been noticed might obviously give the first 

 suggestion of such graduation by bisecting the angle between the noon- 

 mark and those of sunrise and sunset. As a closer sub-division was re- 

 quired the Romans appear to have taken one already known in Egypt 

 and better adapted to the latitude of Thebes and Memphis than to that 

 of Italy. This was the division of the day and night into twelfths 

 (which varied in their length as the seasons changed) and is commonly 

 known as the Roman system. Before intimate relations began between 

 Rome and Egypt, Greece had already been annexed and the same sys- 

 tem was introduced there, as also in Palestine, and wherever the Roman 

 eagles penetrated. This division adapted itself perfectly to the older 

 one already in use in Rome and its adoption was natural. The only 

 change in the sundial that it involved was a further sub-division of the 

 spacing. Being an improvement that cost nothing and could be 

 adopted without any radical changes in the habits of daily life, it was 

 one to commend itself to the people, who were slow to change; and when 

 a few years later, in the middle of the second century B. c, Hippar- 

 chus proposed the division into equinoctial hours, the same as used 

 now, the proposition met no welcome. This accurate and convenient 

 system did not adapt itself to the established notions of the times, and 

 the Roman hours secured a firmer and firmer grip, resulting, as I am 



