CHAP. XIII. THE QUARTER DAY. 375 



crobiiis * actually affirms that * Julius Caesar derived 

 from the Egyptian institutions the motions of" the 

 constellations, concerning which he left some very 

 learned papers, and also borrowed from the same 

 source the mode of regulating the extent of the 

 year with the course of the Sun.* In another 

 place he says, ' Caesar, imitating the Egyptians, the 

 only people acquainted with all divine matters, at- 

 tempted to regulate the year according to the 

 number required by the Sun, which completes its 

 course in 365^ days.' 



Had this been due to the care and skill of 

 the Roman astronomers, the Romans would, with 

 their usual vanity, have informed us of a fact, they 

 could have had no object in concealing, and which 

 they would have been proud to acknowledge. 

 But the regulation of the Roman year awaited 

 the conquest of Egypt : and the uniform mode of 

 calculating the extent of the annual revolution, 

 adopted by the Egyptian priests, hinted the pro- 

 priety of employing an Egyptian mathematician, 

 to settle the errors which, through time and the 

 neglect of the Pontiiices, had been suffered to ac- 

 cumulate in the year of Numa. 



"It does not appear whether the Egyptians omit- 



xvii. p. 561.) " They (the Egyptians) do not divide their year according 

 to the course of the Moon, but of the Sun ; and to the 12 months, each 

 of 30 days, they add five days at the end of the year. But to make 

 up the complete sum of the whole year, which has an excess of a por- 

 tion of a day, they put together the whole sur[)lus of each year, until it 

 makes a whole day. All which calculation they attribute to Ilermes." 

 And in another place (xvii. p. 554.) he states, that they had the same 

 knowledge in the early time of Plato and Euiloxus, when the year was 

 unknown in (ireece. Vide supra, p. 15. cl scq. 

 * Macrob. Saturn, i. 18. 



B B 4 



