[ 4^6 ] 
the form of this dial was, is unknown ; but it may 
not be improbable, that it was copied from the Baby- 
lonians, as that prince feems to have been curious 
and fond of exotic cuftoms. This was about the 
year before Chrift/24. and, confequently, 166 years 
before Babylon was taken, and 114 before Anaxi- 
mander was born. 
I call this a dial, in compliance with cuftom, and 
for want of a better term to exprefs it by ; tho’ it 
was, probably, nothing more than a gnomon eredted 
perpendicular to the plane of the horizon ; and ferved 
not only for diftinguifhing the different parts of the 
day, but in a rude manner, likewife, the times of the 
folftices and equinoxes. For the ingrefs of the Sun 
into the four cardinal points might be thought, by 
the aftrologers, to have been of as much consequence, 
in refolving genethliacal questions, as knowing the 
time of the day : I fay the time of the day ; becaufe 
the hours marked out, by instruments of this kind, 
were not equable, or equinodtial hours, but popular ; 
being longer or Shorter, in any aligned place, accord- 
ing to the different feafon of the year. 
1 5 years , it fhould be, I will add to thy life 10 years ; the fhadow 
going back, to denote this, only io maaloth. For as the Babylonian 
and Jewifh day confided only of 12 hours, it is highly probable, 
that, on thefe kind of inl’fruments, there were no more than 12 
maaloth. The fhadow, therefore, could not go back 15 maaloth ; 
nor, confequently, agreeable to the rule before laid down, perti- 
nently reprefent the addition of 15 years. It was to this divifion of 
the day into 12 parts that CrafTus alluded, when he faid to king 
Deiotarus, c Quid hoc rei eft, duodecima jam tibi tantum non in- 
‘ Hat hora, b novam nihilominus urbem atdilicare pergis ? ’ Cal, 
Rhodigin. p.318. 
2 
IIow 
