258 History of Nature. [BoOK VII. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

 When Barbers were first at Rome. 



THE next Consent of all People was to entertain Bar- 

 bers; but they were later among the Romans. The first that 

 entered Italy came from Sicily, in the 454th Year after the 

 Foundation of Rome. They were brought in by P. Ticinius 

 Mena, as Varro reporteth: for before this they were un- 

 shorn. The first that took up the practice to Shave every 

 day was Scipio Africanus : and after him cometh Divus 

 Augustus, who always used the Rasor. 1 



CHAPTER LX. 

 When was the fast Dial. 2 



THE third Consent of all Nations was in the observation of 

 the Hours ; and this was grounded upon Reason : but at 

 what Time, and by whom this was Invented in Greece, we 

 have declared in the Second Book ; and it was late before 

 this came up at Rome. In the Twelve Tables the East and 

 West alone are mentioned ; after some Years the Noon was 

 added, and the Consul's Officer proclaimed Noon when, 

 standing at the Hall of the Council, he beheld the Sun in 



the Greeks Hermes, found out the first letters ; but these appear, from 

 his subsequent remarks, to have been what we now term hieroglyphics. 

 It may be the phonetic characters, of which Pliny ascribes the invention 

 to Meno the Egyptian ; but it is probable that they are all much more 

 ancient. Wern. Club. 



1 Slaves and servants were not permitted to be shaved. The Egyp- 

 tians were the only people who universally used the rasor. Wern. Club. 



2 Lumisden has some observations on the Roman method of measur- 

 ing time. " I do not conceive," he says, " how a sun-dial or any other 

 instrument could point out the various hours, as time was computed by 

 the ancient Romans. The time the earth takes to revolve once round its 

 axis, or the space between the rising of the sun till its next rising, which 

 makes a day and a night, divided into twenty-four equal parts, we call 

 hours. Now, the Romans divided the day and the night into twenty-four 

 hours. Twelve of these, from the rising of the sun to its setting, con- 



