238 plixy's natural histoet. [Book "VII. 



pim had gone down from the Msenian column"^ to the prison. 

 This, however, could only be done in clear weather, but it 

 was continued until the first Punic war. The first sun-dial 

 is said to have been erected among the Romans twelve years 

 before the war with Pyrrhus, by L. Papirius Cursor, ^^ at 

 the temple of Quirinus,'^ on which occasion he dedicated it 

 in pursuance of a vow which had been made by his father. 

 This is the account given by Fabius Yestalis ; but he makes 

 no mention of either the construction of the dial or the 

 artist, nor does he inform us from what place it was brought, 

 or in whose works he found this statement made. 



M. Yarro"'^ says that the first sun-dial, erected for the use 

 of the public, was fixed upon a column near the Rostra, ini 

 the time of the first Punic war, by the consul M. Yalerius 

 Messala, and that it was brought from the capture of Catina, 

 in Sicily : this being thirty years after the date assigned to 

 the dial of Papirius, and the year of Eome 491. The lines in 

 this dial did not exactly agree with the hours -^^ it served, 

 however, as the regulator of the Roman time ninety-nine 

 years, until Q. Marcius Philippus, who was censor with L. 

 Paulus, placed one near it, which was more carefully ar- 

 ranged : an act which was most gratefully acknowledged, as 

 one of the very best of his censorship. The hours, however, 

 still remained a matter of uncertainty, whenever the weather 



'^ This column is supposed to have stood near the end of the Forum, on 

 the Capitoline Hill. It Avas C. Msenius (in whose honour it was erected) 

 who defeated the Antiates, and adorned the Forum with the "rostra," or 

 beaks of their ships, from which the "rostrum," or orator's stage, took its 

 name. His statue was placed on the column. He was consul in b.c. 338. 

 See B. xxxiv. c. 11. 



'2 Hardouin supposes that this event took place in the consulship of Pa- 

 pirius Cursor, a.u.c. 461, b.c. 292. According to the commonly received 

 Chronology, Pyrrhus came into Italy, b.c. 280, twelve years after the con- 

 sulship of Papirius Cursor. — B. 



'^ According to Censorinus, in his treatise, De Die Natali, it was difficult 

 to decide which was the most ancient dial in Eome ; some writers agreeing 

 with Pliny, that it was the one in the Temple of Quirinus, others that in 

 the Capitol, and others the one in the Temple of Diana, on the Aven- 

 tine.— B. 



'* Marcus conjectures, that this account of the dial was contained in the 

 work of Yarro, De Rebus Humanis, referred to by Aulus Gellius, B. iii. 

 c. 2, but not now extant. — B. 



''^ Owing to the circumstance of the dial having been adapted to thf 

 latitude of Catina, now Catania, about four degrees south of Rome — B. 



