2 - seely, 1888, the development of time-keeping in greece and rome

7/29/2019 2 - Seely, 1888, The Development of Time-Keeping in Greece and Rome

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J an. 1888.1 T IME -KEEP ING I N GREECE AND ROME. 25

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TI M E-K EEPING I N GREECEA ND ROME.BY F. A. SEEL Y , OF T H E U. S. PATENT OFF ICE .

I n niy room in the Patent Office there hangs a Connecticut clockof ordinary pattern and quite imperfectly regulated. I ts variationof perhaps half a minute in aday, however, g'ves me no concern,since, being connected by wire with the transmitting clock at theNaval Observatory, it is every day, at noon, set to accurate time. A ttlie moment of 12 o'clock there comes astroke on a little bell and,simultaneously, the three hands-hour, minute, and second-whetherthey may have gained or lost during the preceding 24 hours, fly totlieir vertical position. Immediately after I hear achorus of factorywhistles, sounded in obedience to the same signal, dismissing theworkmen to their mid-day meal. A t the same moment and con-trolled by the same impulse the ball, visible on its lofty staff fromall the ships in New Y ork harbor, drops, and the seamen comparetheir chronometers for their coming voyage. T he same signal issent to railway offices and governs the clocks on thousands of milesof track and determines tlie starting and stopping and speed oftheir trains. I t goes to the cities of the Gulf and of the Pacific aswell as to those of the A tlantic coast-noted everywhere as an ini-portant element in the safe, speedy, and accurate conduct of com-merce; and so the work of the regulating clock of tlie Observatory,sent out by means which note the minutest fraction of asecond oftime, is playing its important part in the economy of our century.I cannot follow it out in detail ;every one will do soto some extentin his own mind. But if we were to divide human history into erasaccording to the minuteness with which the passage of time is ob-served in tlie ordinary affairs of life we should find ourselves to havearrived, and very lately, in what might be called the eraof seconds.A t tlie opposite extreme is the period when tlie passage of dayand night reveals itself to the dullest intellect. Perhaps no savagepeople have ever been sodull as not to have noted more than this.W e can hardly conceive astate in which the brutal hunter did nottake note of the declining sun and observe that the close of the daywas approaching. The lengthening of his own shadow was an

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[Vol. I.always present phenomenon, and men must have observed shadowsalmost assoon as they became capable of observing anything. Butthis kind of observation went on for ages without airy attempt tosubdivide the day. and none but the great natural periods markedof fby sunrise and sunset were recognized.

Between this period, marked by the observation of the naturalday only, and that in which we live, there have .been many steps ofprogress, the very dates of which may in sonre caSes be quite dis-tinctly observed. We find an era where noon begins to be noted,and the natural day is equally divided by its observation. Thenwe find an era i n which either the entire day or its great naturalfractions are again divided into smaller fractions of rather indefinitelength, as isnow done by some savages andas was done in the earlieihistory of Greece and Ronre. Next to this conies the era in whichdefinite artificial fractions of the day are observed, which may becalled theera of liours. It was many centuries after this beforemen in the ordinary transactions of life counted their time byminutes, but the h i e when this began is quite distinctly marked.I would not say that these eras are contemporaneousin all nations,nor could I assert that they correspond closely with any recognizedstages in civilization and culture; i n fact, the observation of hoursof the ddy does not appear to obtain until civilization is reached,This is true however-men nieasure most carefully that which theyvalue iirost, and the value of time is enhanced just in proportion tothe multiplicity of the demands upon i t which the existing state ofsociety involves. 'The nian who has engagements at the bank, thecustom-house, his oivn warehouse or factory, and in a court-room,and a dozen or more individuals to meet, each of whom, perhaps,has similar pressing engagements, and then must reach an expresstrain at 4.30 in order to dine at 6 fifty miles away, must allot histime with the greatest care and measure it with the utmost minute-ness. To the savage, thesun rises and sets and rises again-oneday isas another;nothing presses but hunger, and that he endurestill fortune brings food. He needs no clock to tell him it is dinner-time, for it is always dinner-time when there is food. When peopletraveled leisurely by stage coach, walking up the hills to rest thehorses, stopping at the wayside inns to dine, and well content atthe close of the day if fifty or sixty miles had been covered, secondsof time and even ininutes were of little account;but when trainsare riin on a complex schedule, and for a whole season in advance

26 THE Abf E H I C A N A NTHKOPOLOGIST.


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Jail. 1888.1 TI.\IE-EEICPING I N GREECE -4SD 1LObII;. 27i t is set down at just what place each train must be at each momentof every day, and the safety of lives and property dependson exactadherence to the prescribed order, then the statioli clocks must beinvariable and synchronous and the conductors watch true to tliesecond. Civilization ismarked at every step of its progress by theiiiultiplicatioii of the varied relations between men, aiid since theimportance of time isenhanced by the same multiplication i t inayfairly be asked whether the accuracy with which time is observedi n ordinary life may iiot after all afford one of the most perfect in-dications of the social conditionof a people.The material is not gathered for a full discussion of a questionlike this, and I shall iiot occupy myself with i t, h i t as incidentalto and suggested by the topic I have chosen sonie light seem to bethrown on it by tlie attempt to place in their true correlation factsof history not hitherto brought together. I have proposed to my-self only a study of the growth of the coninion clock, noting thevarious steps in its develdpnient with referelice to their period inhistory and to tlie social conditions which inspired or deiiiaiidedthem as well as to tlie state of science and mechanic arts whichmade their consummation possible. The subject is too large for asingle paper, and I have therefore taken for present considerationthat part which relates to time-keeping among the ancient peoplesfrom whom we chiefly derive our civilization aiid to a period ofhistory which, by a sort of coincidence, practically teriiiiiiates withthe beginning of our era. My guide in this inquiry will be theprinciples in ewematics that inventions always spring from priorinventions or known expedients, and that they collie in response torecognized wants. It need not be repeated that these principlesfind copious illustrations in the progress of every art; bat tlie truthcannot be too strongly enforced that the progressof no art canbe intelligently studiedor thoroughly comprehended without keep-ing them in mind.The few barren and isolated facts that have been preserved to u sregarding time-keeping prior to about 600years agoare not enoughin themselves, however carefully collated, to constitute an intelli-gibleor coiisecutive history. But I need not say that no event isin fact isolated froin all others in cause and effect;and i f we can-not have direct light we niay look to the concurrent events of his-tory for side lights uponour ineager facts whichwill, perhaps, throwthem. into stronger relief than the direct narration of iinphilosoph-


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28 THE A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. I .ical historians. Hence, if I shall seem to any one to lean too muchupon the synchronisms and sequencesof history, it is not that I donot realize the possible fallaciousness of an argument which has noother foundation; but in the progress of inventions such sequencesare to be sought for. Invention responds to want, and the wantmay originate in some crisisor event having no apparent affinityincharacter with the want it engendered or the invention that sprangto meet it. And these are not mere accidents: they are the naturalcourseof what I venture to call the fixed lawsof eurematics. Atthe same time these laws do not necessarily always call for originalinvention, since importation of an invention already known else-where may equally supply the want, and historical crises are aslikely to lead to importation, where it is possible, as to invention.It is with these principles in view, and always looking for such sidelight as contemporaryevents can give, that I have attempted toframe the consecutive history of time-keeping, of which this paperis a part.

There are three primitive formsof time-keeping instruments-the sun-dial, the clepsydra or water clock, and the graduated candle.The last playsno pgrt in the evolution of the modern time-keeper,and I shall pass it by without further notice, notwithstanding someinteresting historical associations connected with it. But the sun-dial was at the beginning the only time-keeper, and mans ideas,developing into wants, led to its greater perfection till these wantspassed far beyond what, with its limitations, it could supply. Itscontribution to the present stateof the art was not large, mechan-,ically considered, but i t was enough to create the demand forsomething better, and without this contribution the art could nothave been. The rude utensil which the Greeks called a clepsydrahad no resemblance to the perfected time-pieceof this century, butnothing in history is surer than that out oi it, by slow accretions,science and art, by turns mistress and handmaid, have producedthe masterpieceof both.

This history is. therefore, the history of a human want and of amechanical structure developed in response to it. But wants grow,and this has grown; and in tracing it we do not find it always inthe same likeness. Sonietimes the want of the moment is satisfied,and then i t appears in a novel and unexpected form, altered in itswhole complexion by that which has just appeased it. And as werecognize this Protean character, we need not suppose that the


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J an. 1888.1 T I M E - K E E P i H G I N GREECE .4ND ROME. 29Babylonian astrologer who made some improvement in a sun-dialhad asingle idea or purpose in common with those of a railwaymanager who last week connected his regulator by wire with theObservatory. W e trace our want in the development of institutions,in the creation of new demands upon time, in the growing com-plexity of human relations, in political crises, and we may deter-mine its character or intensity by the means used to supply it andthe generali ty of their adoption. T he story of the growth of theinstrument is inseparable from that of the growth of civilization.Wri ters on the history of the clock (and they are not few) havegenerally begun by a reference to the sun-dial as a Babylonian orChaldeaii invention. We can trace it no further, and have nomeans of determining when the invention was made. We learnfroni the Old Testament Scriptures that i t was known at J erusalemas early as seven centuries before our era, and the inanner of i tsmention indicates that in that city it was a novelty. K ing Ahaz,by whose name this dial is called, had introduced other noveltiesinto his capital on his return from Damascris, whither he had goneto make his submission to Tiglath-Pileser 11, K ing of Assyria; andit is not unreasonable to suppose that the dial had the same origin.However this may be, it was a graduated instrument, having degreemarks of some kind which showed the daily course of the sun. Wemay infer that it was at least of a Babylonian pattern, and it pointsto a remote period when a graduated dial indicating the time ofday by ashadow passing over it was known to Oriental peoples.T he suggestion that they de-rived it from Egypt is aguess only, based on the supposed earl iergrowth of Egyptian science. To such a guess might be opposed-the fact that in all the Egyptian monuments yet explored there isno hint of such an instrument.T he Assyrian monuments are equally silent;and the same specu-lation which attempts to account for the absence of all representa-tion of a sun-dial in the sculptures which have revealed to us somuch of the domestic life of the Assyrian people applies to Egyptalso. We may believe that it was not adevice generally known orcommonly used. V ery likely the knowledge of i t was confined tothe priests and magi, who were not only ministers of the religionof each country but the masters of its science. This device con-stituted a part of their mystery and was religiously kept from thepublic knowledge. I n support of this conjecture it may be said

Presumably it was their invention.


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30 THE A Y E K I C A X ANTHROPOLOGIST. [ O l .that the Phceniciam, who penetrated every land, dealt in everymerchantable commodity, and from their active commercial habitswere the very persons who would have found the useof a time-pieceniost valuable, do not appear to have known of any such instru-mentality; but the inner temples of Thebes and Babylon were notopen to those hardy mariners, and the exhumationsof Cyprus re-veal no more to 11sthan those of Nimroud and Memphis.It is scarcely profitable to grope in the darkness for the origin ofthe sun-dial;but certain facts are apparent and niay be briefly in-dicated. In Egypt and Assyria observation of the heavenly bodieswasapart of the religious cult. The regulation of the calendar be-longed to the ministers of religion. For the regulation of the cal-endar, which of course involved the deterniination of the lengthof the year, the recurrenceof the solstices must be noted; and thesecould only be noted by observation of the day when the shadowcast by the sun at noon was at its maximum or minimum. The ob-servation of shadows for the. determination of noon led (it couldscarcely be avoided) to their further observation during the entireperiod of the siin above the horizon, and, at last, to marking thesurface on which the shadow was cast by permanent lines dividingthe day into some kind of regular parts. All this might be done asa matter of scientific observation without conscious need of a time-piece.

The sun-dial took iiiany forms, and more than one of these mayhave been known to the Babylonians. The art of dialing involvedmathematical problems of considerable complexity, and the studyof this art very likely contributed to the knowledge of mathematicsthat the world possessed at that early period. The consideration ofthese forms is not germane to niy present purpose, which is for themoment only to show that long before the appearance of the sun-dialin Greece the instrument had been apparently perfected by the wisemen of the East.

Historians have agreed in fixing the periodof the introduction ofthe sun-dial into Greece in the latter part of the sixth century B. C .Herodotus says it was derived from the Babylonians, from whom healso declares the Greeks to have derived the twelve parts ( k i b r x u, +m f the day. Others, however, ascribe its invention to Anaxi-mander, who is said to have set it up in Lacedmnon. It is evi-dent that he need not have invented it, but might have brought itfrom some country where its use was already known. It is signifi-


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J an. 1888.) T I M E -K E E P I N G I N GR EECE AND ROME. 31cant that Anaximander and Anaximenes (to whom some writersascribe the honor of the invention), were both fellow citizens andpupils of Thales of Miletus, and that the date of this introductionsynchronizes with the extensive and intimate acquaintance betweenEgypt and Greece, which, commencing in the reign of Psammeti-chus, reached i ts culmination under Amasis, the fourth king of thatdynasty, and in which the people of Miletus bore the most promi-nent part. Under this last king, whom they assisted in throwing offthe yoke of Assyria, Greeks swarmed in the Egyptian court, filledher armies, manned her fleets. They passed to and fro continually;Greek philosophers pursued their studies in Egyptian schools: andwho shall say how many of the secrets of art and science found theirway at that time from the land of the Pharaohs to the spirited andversatile people just emerging from barbarism across the Mediterra-nean ? Surely, if under such conditions anything of Egyptian ori-gin or likely to have been in Egyptian possession is found to havemade its appearance among the Greeks, we need not speculate as tohow it got there.I t does not appear that the sun-dial was introduced to the Greeksin any perfected form. On the contrary, it was at first a mere staffor pillar (pu$m),destitute of any graduated dial which could indi-cate the passage of an hour or any definite fraction of a day. Thelength of the shadow, measured in feet, determined the time forcertain regular daily duties, as ashadow six feet long indicated thehour for bathing and one twelve feet long that for supper. M oreaccurate and convenient forms were perhaps known to philoso-phers; but, if so, they did not come into common use. This sini-ple device was sufficient for the simple habits of the people. Thetwelve parts of the day of which Herodotus speaks had no meaningto the A thenians, who had no word meaning specifically an hour;and as late as the time of Alexander, the old system seems to havebeen followed. This kind of observation, i t may be remarked, wasperfectly feasible i n the shadow of zn Egyptian obelisk, which maypartly account for the absence of the instrument from other monu-ments of that country. Asa matter of history, an obelisk at Romewas actually used for a sun-dial in the time of Augustus.We learn from this history at what period and in what stage ofprogress the Greeks first had the idea of measuring time. If weassociate it with the period of Solon, the A thenian law-giver whodied about 5 7 0 B. C ., we may form some idea of the condition of


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32 THE A8f E R I C A N AXTHROrOLOl i IST. [Vol. I.the people of Athens from the character of his legislation and themiseries he attempted to mitigate. The Greeks had written lan-guage and they had literature-Homer, Hesiod, Sappho. They hada system of weights and measures and a coinage. They were pro-lific in political ideas. Rut the period just previous to Solon w smarked by the tyranny of the oligarchs, the severity of whose leg-islation gave the term "Draconian" ts significance, by widespreadpoverty, by slavery, by the declineof agriculture and industry, andby the unceasing war of factions. Athens was emerging from suchconditions as these, under the reign of Pisistratus, at the momentwhen the Milesian philosopher is said to have introduced thesun-dial. We may conceive that the conditions were not favorable tothe general adoption of any novelty of this character, but it isno-ticeable that this period was followed immediately by one of demo-cratic ascendency under the constitution of Cleisthenes, in whichthe naval power and commercial importance of Athens were vastlyaugmented, and which continued without interruption until his in-vincible phalanxes laid all Greece at the feet of Philip of Macedon.It was during this era of maritime vigor, of commercial pros-perity, and of dominating influence at home and abroad, thatAthens achieved that splendor in art which has made her a beaconlight for all subsequent peoples and ages; and in this period time-keeping in common life had its first development. But the sun-dial isan instrument of limited capacity; however perfected, i t wasvalueless in the hours of night and i n the days of cloud and stormthat even sunny Greece does not always escape. But, more thanthis, it was incapable of indoor use; and in the outgrowth of insti-tutions under democratic ordef and among a litigious and volublepeopleanew and singular want had arisen demanding some meansof checking time which, from its limitations, the sun-dial could notsupply. With her other arts, that of oratory had developed inAthens; but every orator was not a Pericles, and whatever mayhave been the merits or defects of their performances the ipordi-nate length of these was too great a tax on the tribunals. It there-fore became necessary to limit and apportion the time of publicspeakers i n the courts, and to do this equitably some practicalmeans of iddicating time was necessary. Hence arose the de-mand for another instrumentality whose origin and hiitory are nowto be traced.


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J an. 1888.1 T IME-KEEP ING I N GREECE AND ROME. 33It is proper to pause for a moment here to note a distinction be-tween two kinds of instruments used to measure time. A contin-

~I OU Snstrument like a clock, which marks off the hoursof the dayand night as they pass successively away, is what iscalled in com-mon language a time-keeper ;but there is a class of instrumentswhich do not keep the record of continuous time, but are usedonly for the checking of brief periods j such an instrument is theglass by which the seaman observes his log or the cook boils hereggs. To such instruments, for the want of a better term, I givethe name time-checks, to distinguish them from time-keepers. Theiruse isquite distinct from thatof observing the time of day, and yetit is apparent at once that, by careful attendance, as by turning thehour-glass at the moment when its last sand has run out, the time-check may be made to perform the office of a time-keeper. Theallusions of ancient writers and of some modern ones to devicesof these two classes are sometimes misleading and confusing be-cause this distinction has not been kept in view. I t is particularlyimportant in the study of the clepsydra, which is originally a time-check only, while the sun-dial isa true time-keeper.The clepsydraor water clock, in its simplest form, is traced byhistorians no further than Greece, about 430 B. C ., in the time ofAristophanes, whose familiar references to it show its use for certainpurposes to have been common.I confessI have been far from satisfied with stopping at this half-way house in seeking for the origin of this instrument. I havesought further, and what I have found, if conclusive of nothing, isat least suggestive.If, taking our lives in our hands, we could step on board aMalay proa we should see floating in a bucket of water a cocoanutshell having a small perforation, through which the water by slowdegrees finds its way into the interior. This orifice isso propor-tioned that the shell will fill and sink in an hour, when the manon watch calls the time and sets it afloat again. This device of abarbarous, unprogressive people, so thoroughly rude in itself, I con-ceive to be the rudest that iearch of any length can bring to light.I t is in all aspects rudimentary. One can scarcely conceive of any-thing back of it but the play of children, and, as a starting pointfor this history, it is much more satisfactory than what is disclosedin the polished ages of Greece. There is nothing in itsstructure, ifwe were to consider that only, to prevent it from being a survival

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34 T H E A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST. [ V O I . 1.of an age long antecedent to the use of metal. The protolithic agemight have originated it if wecan conceive that protolithic mancould have had use for it.

Leaving our piratical fsiends, to whom weareso much indebted,and passing to their not remote neighbors in Northern India, wefind the rude cocoanut shell developed into A copper bowl. Its ope-ration is the same, but the attendant, who stands by and watches themoment of its sinking, now strikes the hour on the resonant metal.It is easy to see-in fact it would be difficult to doubt-that thishas been an improvement on an apparatus like that of the Malayand the natural result of improvements in other arts, eminentlythat of metal-working. I t is more enduring; more perfectly ac-complishes its purpose, and is in the precise direction that im-provement on the ruder appliance might be expected to pursue.

Passing from Southern Asia to a people geographically remote, Inext observe the water clock in use up to this day in China. Wefind the metal vessel with its minute perforationas before, but ithas undergone a radical change in respect to its manner ofuse. I tis now filled and the water flows from it in drops. Obviouslyenough the flight of time might be indicated by merely observingwhen the vessel has emptied itself and then refilling it, which, aswill presently appear, was exactly the simplest Greek and Romanclepsydra and diffqs in no mechanical respect from the ordinarysand glass.

But in the days when the Chinese were a progressive people anddeveloped inventionsforwhich Europe had many centuries to wait,this water clock advanced far beyond the crude thing we have beenconsidering. It would seem that the problem was to increase itsusefulness by subdividing the unreasonably long, intervals requiredfor the complete emptying of the vessel. If thjswasdone by mark-ing graduations on the insideo f the vessel and sonoting the declineof the level the difference in its rate could not fail quickly to makeitself manifest. The solution of this problemi not obvious at first,was found in soarranging the vesse1 that it should discharge intoanother, where the indication wv,oudbe read in the rise of thesur-face, and contriving to hold the water in the upper vessel at acon-stant level. This was done by employing a third source, fromwhich there was a constant flow into the first equal to its discharge.As the head in the middle vessel is thus.niaintained constant, therise in the lowest is made uniform. Another radical improvement


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J an. 1888. 1 T INE -KEEP ING IN GREECE AND ROME. 35enhancing the practical util ity of the device was the arrangementof a float on the surface of the water in the lowest vessel. Uponthis was an indicator or hand which, in its rise. traveled over anadjacent scale, and so gave a time indication visible at a distance.To show what progress this structure implies in the developmentof the mechanical clock it is worth while to glance a moment at theessential elements of such an instrument. Reduced to its lowestterms a clock consists of three elements only. These are a motor,or sourceof power, represented in our clocks by a spring or weight;an escapement, or ameans by which the stored power in the motoris let off at a measured rate; and a: dial, which is but the means bywhich the rate at which the power is let off is made visible to theeye. I n this Chinese water clock we discover all these elements.Water, acted on by gravity, is a familiar form of motor; the smallperforation through which it slowly trickles drop by drop is a trueescapement, doing in its place just what our complicated mechaiiismsare doing in theirs; and, rude as it may appear, it is one whichmechanicians of our time are not ready to dispense with. T hevisual indication isgiven by the rise of the float, causing the pointerto pass over the scale. Going backward from this Chinese clockwe perceive, but less distinctly, the same elements in the Indianand M alay devices, in which the operation is reversed. I n thesethe weight of the vessel, held up by the resistance of the water inwhich it floats, is the power; the perforation admitting the waterby sl owdegrees is the escapement, and the only indicator is thevisible sinking of the vessel itself.T he three devices described correspond in the degree of theirperfection with the conditions of art and culture among the peoplesto which they belong; and, as these conditions appear to have beenunchanged for a long period, we hazard little in assuming that theydate from a reinote epoch. A description of the Hindoo instru-ment appears in a Sanscrit work on astronomy in which it is adoptedfor astronomical observations, and Chinese writers do not hesitateto ascribe the invention to Hwang-ti, who flourished, according totheir chronology, more ihan twenty-five centuries before our era,and its later improvement by the introduction of the float to DukeChau fourteen centuries later.I n describing these three devices in the order in which I haveplaced them I donot mean to be understood as intimating that theyhave followed the same order in respect to the time of their develop-


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36 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. I .melit nor that they have been transmitted from one people to anotherin the same order. I have, for convenience, proceeded from thelowest form to the highest; but it may well be.true that the lowerwas an adaptation from the higher, fitting it for coarser needs, andso being in a certain sense an improvement. Consideration of thelines of commerce might, in fact, lead to the suspicion that theMalay got his notions from the Chinese, since they must for manycenturies have sailed the same waters and been in frequent contact.

Writers on this subject, whileattributing to the Chaldeans the invention of the sundial, do notgenerally accredit them with the knowledge of any other instrumentfor measuring time. But if we may take as an authority SextusEmpiricus, who wrote near the end of the second century of ourera, they had, as he tells quite minutely, the same device and usedit in their astronomical observations. ( hey divided, says thisauthor, the zodiac into twelve equal parts, as they supposed, byallowing water to run out of a small orifice during the whole revo-lution of a star, and dividing the fluid into twelve equal parts, thetime answering for each part being taken for that of the passageofa sign over the horizon. I nfact the division of the zodiac into twelve signs seems to requireanieans of measuring the passage of time at night, and this fact andthe story just quoted tally with the conclusion that an instrumentof the common generic character borne by all the forms I havedescribed was known among widely distinct peoples of Asia beforethe dawn of European civilization.

Such an invention is not likely to be lost by political changesbile supremacy in the exact sciences is maintained. We knowthat down to the Medo-Persian conquerors of Babylon each suc-cessive dominant race adopted, as has often happened in history,the dress, the manners, and the arts of the conquered;and we neednot doubt that this instruinent was in use in the Persia11 Empirewhen its sword first crossed that of the Greeks.

No record exists of the introduction of the clepsydra into Greece.We might infer from the absence of all reference to it by Herodotusthat up to the period when his history ends, 478 B. C ., it was notknown. Fifty or sixty years later, when Aristophanes was writing hiscomedies, it was absolutely faniiliar in Athens. The interval namedseems short in accounting for so radical a change in the habits of apeopleas is implied by the general introduction of such an appli-

But we may come further west.

I see no reason for doubting this.


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J an. 1888.1 TIME-KEEPING IN GREECE AND ROME. 37ance; and yet, if we ask ourselves as to the conditioii of the electrictelegraph or the sewing-machine fifty years ago or of the telephoneten years ago, it need not startleus to conceive that aversatile peoplelike the Greeks were capable of as swift changes in their habits of lifeas these inventions have induced inours. That this epoch saw morethan one change in Athens, in the aspect of the city, in the habitsof the people, and, above all , in their advance in culture and refine-ment and the arts of peace, we may be sure when we remember thatit includes all the years of Pericles's administration. I t 'includes,also, the abandonment by Sparta, always unprogressive, of theleadership of the Greek commonwealths, and with this abandon-ment the removal of the reactionary influences hi therto a clog tothe enterprise and prosperity of A thens and of all Greece.I n the absence of data on this subject i t seems not unreasonableto believe that the knowledge of the clepsydra, which was widelyspread among Oriental peoples, was introduced into A thens fromthe East during or at the termination of the second Persian war;and', if we choose to surround its introduction with the halo of ro-mance, it is not hard to conceive that these useful devices of civi l-ization were gathered up among the spoils of Platza or wiishedashore with the wrecks of Salamis. A more commonplace and notless likely conjecture would be that the instrument was already be-coming known in the Greek colonies of Asia, and, perhaps, evenin A thens herself, through intercourse with the Persians and otherOriental peoples. I t came into common use in obedience to thewant, not of a time-keeper, which was already supplied, but of atime-check-a want created by the conditions of A thenian societywhich I have already described and which the only known time-keepei could not satisfy.I f the increasing burden and tediousness of litigation led to the en-actment'of astatute restricting and apportioning the timeof speakersin the courts, and providing this means for its regulation, it is easy tosee that the use of such means must become at once familiar. I havefound no trace of such enactments, but that strict ordinances existedthere is no doubt. We know that the time of speakerswascarefullyproportioned to the importance of the case; and trials of iniport-ance enough to have the time apportioned were known as npos EJwp,while those of trifling importance, i n which, perhaps, no lawyerappeared, were known as bao 6J aros: two terms which may be freelyrendered wet and dty, the dry case beingas it happens most quickly


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85 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST. [lo. I .disposed of. I n a case of great moment to the state, involving acharge of faithlessness in an embassy, each party was allowed 10amphorz, or about 50 gallons of water. Nothing, however, seemsto be known of the actual length of time indicated by this quantityof water. A passage in Aristotle gives some idea of the form of theclepsydra as comnioiily used; t was a spherical bottle with itsminute opening at the bottom and a short neck at the top, intowhich the water was poured. The running out of the water at thebottom could be stopped by closing this neck. I n using the wordbottle I do not mean to imply that this clepsydra was of glass.Glass vessels of a suitable size could not be made at that period.

The familiar associationof this devicewith the courts is shown inmany ways. Aristophanes throughout his comedies is in the habitof using the wordclepsydra asasyiionym for court of justice, and inahumorous passage in 5% Wa.cjfthe impossibility of conductinga trial without it is quite forcibly set forth, by the introduction, tosupply its place, of a vessel intended for l ess refined purposes. I nfact, SSwp became a synonym for time. We find Demosthenescharging his opponent with talking t v r6 ?,ti@ Marc, #


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J an. 1888.) T I M E -KE EP ING IW G R E E C E A N D R O J lE . 39coast of the M editerranean, such as Tarenturn, .4grigentum, andSyracuse. With kindred people, similar culture and needs, andwith unceasing commercial intercourse, there is no reason to doubtthat whatever was in common use in the mother cities found itsway to them also. I t was in A lexandria that in the shape of whatis appropriately termed the water clock the clepsydra attained itshighest development, in the inventions of Ctesibius, who is placedby some writers in the third century B. C. and by others with moreprobability in the second. I reserve these inventions also for thelatest epoch in this history, to which they seem more properly tobelong, and will now pass to Rome.their proficiency in certain arts and avigorous and extensive mari-time commerce, possessed any artificial means of indicating time.I f they had, it could hardly have failed to come into use among theRomans, whose relations with them for centuries were close, evenif generally hostile. But it was not ti ll a late period, long afterEtruria had been crushed under the successive assaults of her north-ern and southern enemies, that any device of this character wasknown to the people of Rome.Indeed, the condition of society and of the arts in Rome at thatera was not such as to require any reckoning of the time of daybeyond the observation of sunrise and sunset. I n the twelve tables,which date from the middle of the fifth century B. C., noon also ismentioned. But the facts that history has preserved to us showthat the Romans of that time were a thoroughly rude and almostbarbarous people. I t was not till two centuries later than this, inthe year of Rome 485 ( 268 B. C.), that silver coinage was firststruck. Pliny says that barbers were first introduced about the Sametime, and that till then the Romans had gone unshorn. Cicerosays the arts which had reached some degree of perfection in E truriawere even allowed to retrograde. Hesays the Romans had someknowledge of arithmetic and land surveying, but they could notimprove their calendar and were not even in condition to erect acommon sun-dial. As t i the state of commerce and agriculture weare told that in the fourth century of Rome private enterprisewas soinadequate to the provisioning of the city that state commissionerswere placed i n charge of it.It would seem that Rome was at that period a capital, populousindeed, but without arts or sciences, without industries, and without

There is no reason to believe that the Etruscan people, with all '


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40 THE AMERICAX ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. I .cultivation. War was the only trade and plunder the only sourceof public 06 private revenue. For the civil purposes of such apeople the natural divisions of time were all that were necessary.They marked the periods for toil and repose and that was enough.

These were a ruder people than those of Athens in the time ofSolon; but if they had less of culture they had less of tyranny andless of intestine warfare to contend with at home than had theGreeks, and they were always reaching out, widening their domain,absorbing neighboring peoples, and making each in its turn add tothe strength and glory of their capital. Whatever the art and scienceof the subdued nations could contribute to the prosperity of Romecame by the enforced levy of the conqukror.

The time system of early Rome was, like everything else, of therudest character. Growing out of their military habits and adaptedto them, it divided the day and night each into four watches, theperiodsof which must have been roughly determined by observationof the courses of the sun and stars. In the city, according to Pliny,noon began to be accurately observed some years after the publica-tion of the law of the twelve tables. Theacccnsus watched for themoment when, from the Senate House, he first caught sight of thesun between the Rostra and the Graeco-Stasis, when he proclaimedpublicly the hour of noon. From the same point he watched thedeclining sun and proclaimed its disappearance.. Authorities differ as to the date of the introduction of the sun-dialinto Rome. Pliny attributes i t to the consul L. Papirius Cursor,who set it up at the temple of Quirinus. This has been supposed tobe a trophy from the Samnite war, but, as the Saninites were a ruderpeople even than the Romans, that seems scarcely credible. Varro,as reported by Pliny, gives a clearer story, that the first public sun-dial erected in Rome was fixed upon a column near the Rostra in thetime of the first Punic war by the Consul Valerius Messala, and addsthat it was brought from the capture of Catina. The date givenby Varro, 491A. U. C., corresponds to 262 B. C., and is about 30years later than that ascribed by Pliny to the dial of Cursor. ASasource for this instrument Sicily, with her Greek arts and refine-ments, is much more probable than the rude Samnite people, and,with real appreciation of Plinys frankness, we may accept the storyhe quotes from Varro in preference to his own.

What were the social conditions in Rome at this period, themiddle of the third century before our era? I t needs scarely more


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J an. 1888. 1 T I M E - K E E P I N G I N GREECE A ND ROME. 41than a glance at a chronological table to see that it was a period ofswift advance from the primitive rudeness that has been described.I n the year 283 B. C. Etruriaand herallies, hitherto perpetual foes toRome, were totally defeated at the Vadimonian Lake, and about 265B. C. Etruscan independence disappeared forever, simultaneouslywith the subjugation of all Italy. The whole peninsula her own,Rome reaches out b-yond. The Grreco-Egyptian monarchy, thenat the very height of its power and magnificence under PtolemyPhiladelphus, seeks her alliance. TheGreek cities across the Adriaticcourt her favor. She pushes her conquering arm across into Sicily,which, i n 241 B. C., becomes a Roman province, followed a littlelater by Corsica and Sardinia. No longerpnitra inferpnrcsamongthe warring tribes and nations of Italy, she has sprungasif at a singlebound into her position as one of the great powers of the world.

The absorption of Magna-Graecia and Sicily brought under h,erdominion for the first time a cultured people and populous cities,filled with and habituated to Grecian art and the appliances ofrefinement and luxury, and the sun-dial of Catina is but one instanceof what was borne away to embellish the Imperial City. Doubt-less the fame and wealth of the capital offered strong inducementsto the skilled artisans of dismantled Tarentum, while the captivesof Agrigentum may, in their turn, have contributed in no smalldegree to her industrial population.

The colonists planted by thousands far and wide over the con-quered territory of Italy formed a sturdy rural population-a strongreliance in peace and war. And the great highways built for theinarch of the legions, and hitherto scarcely resounding but to theirarmed tread, nowbecame the arteriesof asteady and growing traffic.The needs of a circulating medium in her domestic and foreign tradewere ill supplied by the copper coins she had struck hitherto andthe products of various foreign mints that had cometo her with herother acquisitions, and, in 258 B. C., she began to coin silver of herown. Carthagenian jealousy of her aggressive rivalry led to thenecessity of mainthning a fleet, and, after some disasters, to mari-time supremacy.The ten years preceding the first Punic war, saysDr. ThomasArnold, were probably a time of the greatest physical prosperitywhich the mass of the Roman people had ever seen, and it is inthis very decade, with enlarging industries, with a growing com-merce, with multiplying complications in public and private busi-

6


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42 THE A MER I C AN AN THROPOLOG I ST . [Vol. I .ness, that Rome stepped from the spring time of her history into hervigorous summer, and with this step time-keeping began.TheCatanian sun-dial was no mere gnomon suchas had been in-troduced into Greece three centuries earlier: Greek science andgenius had been at work on it, and i t was an improved instrument,constructed for a particular latitude, and that 5 south of Rome.Rut there was no science yet in Rome to detect its imperfections,and, in spite of them, for ninety-nine years it servedas the regulatorof time for the city. Scarcely credible as it may seem, it was not,therefore, till about a century and a half before the Christian erathat Rome possessed her first accurate time-keeper in the form of asun-dial constructed especially for her own latitude, which was setup at the instance of the Censor Marcius Phillippus. Meanwhiledials of imperfect construction had become common in the city; Ocommon, indeed, that, as new inventions nowadays afford materialfor the American paragrapher, they becanie the happy source ofquips and epigranis. Thus Plautus, in what I admit is rather aliberal version:

When I was young, no time-piece K ome supplied,But every fellow had his own-inside ;A trusty horologe, that-rain or shine-Neer failed to warn him of the how-to dine.73cn sturdy Romans sauntered through the Forum,Fat, hale, content; for trouble neer came oer them.But now these cursed dials show their faces,All over K ome, in streets and public places;And men, to know the hour, the cold stone question,That hasno heart, no stomach, no digestion.T hey watch the creeping shadows-daily thinner-Shadows themselves, impatient for their dinner.Give me the good old time-piece, if you please,Confound the villain that invented these!

A s formerly, in Greece, the clepsydra came to supply the defi-ciencies of the sun-dial, so history repeated itself in Rome. Plinyascribes its introduction to Scipio Nasica in the year of Rome 595( 158B. C.). Of theformof this clepsydra we have no knowledge, butit was no longer a mere time-check, suchas was used in the Atheniancourts, but a true time-keeper, capable of indicating continuouslythe hours both of day and night. There were many hdopted forthis purpose, as will presently be shown. In Ponipeys third con-sulship ( 52 B. C.), he introduced the custom of apportioning the


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J an. 1858. 1 TIBIK-REEPISG I N GREECE . iND HOJIIC. 43timeof orators in the courts by the clepsydra, after the Greek fshi on.T he decline of Roman oratory has been attributed to this restric-tion, which, after all, seems to have left the speaker a fair amountof time. Pliny says: spoke for almost five hours, for to tlietwelve clepsydrz of the largest size which I received, four wereadded. Some read /we@ in place of fwelve,which seems to be thepreferable reading, and out of it we get some idea of the time coti-sumed by one discharge of the vessel. If twenty-four clepsydra isalmost five hours, it appellrs likely that the discharge was at therate of five to the hour ; and this helps us to better understandM artials epigrani to a tedious lawyer who had been permitted toexhaust the clepsydra seven times. I t makes something less thanan hour and a half; but the orators mouth was asdry as his dis-course, and he drank copiously, whereupon the witty poet suggeststhat he can satisfy his thirst and his audience at once by drinkingoi:t of the clepsydra.I n Rome at this period the use of the clepsydra, in the form bothof a time-check and time-keeper, was quite general-not as theaouse-clock is comnion to-day-but generally known and serving toregulate tlie hours of business and pleasure. Men of means hadthein i n their houses, and slaves were kept whose special dutieswere to watch them and report the hour. Idlers meeting in themarket place or forum accosted each other with Hornquota cst,by way of opening conversation, as they now comment on theweather or compare watches. Generals took the water-clock withthem to the field and relieved the watch by it during the hours ofnight. A n allusion by Caesar has been the source of a curious mis-conception, that he found this instrument in use among the Britonsat the timeof his invasion. Evidently referring to tlie phenomenonnow so familiar of the A rctic night he says some had reportedthat at M ona the night at the winter solstice lasted for a month.Our inquiries, he continues, did not confirm :his, but by care-ful measurements ex aqua we saw that the nights were shorter thanon the continent. To draw from this the conclusion that the earlyBritons had water-clock; is about as if we were to infer from theSignal Service observations at Point Barrow that the Eskimos ofthat region were found in possession of the thermonieter.Greece, too, had by this time fallen under Ronian rule, and theclepsydra as a timekeeper was well-known i n Athens. T he mosteminent instance of it, probably, for all time, was in the Tower of the


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44 THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. 3.Winds, which, fifty years beforeour era, was erected in the marketplace in that city. A running stream kept at a constant level thewater in an upper vessel, the discharge from which raised a float ina lower one, like that in the Chinese water-clock before described.This was the public time-piece of Athens, and its indications couldalways be compared with those of the sun-dials on the frieze of theoctagonal building by which i t was enclosed. At the top of theroof was a weather-vane in the form of a Triton, who pointed withhis trident towards the prevailing wind. This institution served forAthens the combined purpose of a Naval Observatory and a WeatherBureau.With time-keepingso generally observed, and with a fair degreeof accuracy secured by means of mechanical contrivances, this his-tory closes, but in reciting it I have omitted or only incidentallytouched upon the growth of the idea of dividing the day into hoursand the mechanical elaboration of what, in its perfected form, isproperly termed the water-clock. These elements, in the completehistory, are too important to be omitted.

Since we are only concerning ourselves with time-keeping incommon life, we need not go back to Egypt or Babylon, wherethere is no evidence that it was known except to the initiated few.Whatever ideas are conveyed to us by the twelve divisions of theday known to the Babylonians, or by the graduated dial set up bythe Hebrew king in his palace, it is evident that if the Greek phi-losophers derived from their Eastern contemporaries any notions ofcommonor doiiiestic time-keeping, these failed to take root i n theirsoil until Greece, by her own progress, had prepared it to receivethem.

The divisions of the day known to Homer were three: +s, forthe period from sunrise till noon j ,uCUO:, +UP, for mid-day; andh'lq, for afternoon till sunset. These divisions were employed inGreece to the latest period and long after others more exact werein use. Even with our nice observance of time we have similargeneral expressions for parts of the day, such as morning, mid-day,afternoon, and many others often having only local use.If the Babylonian '(welve parts"of the day were made knownto the Greeks, as Herodotus tells us, it was a knowledge for whichthey had no use at that period. With the introduction of the gno-mon they began to observe time more closely, but they hadno namesfor its arbitrary divisions.


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J an. 1888.1 T I M E - K E E P I N G I N GREECE AND RO ME . 45When the shadow was six feet long i t was time to bathe; when

twice that length it was time to sup. It is not even certain, to mymind, that they clearly appreciated the varying length of the day.There is no possibility of setting a summer and winter day side byside and comparing them, and the difference between them canonly be determined by some means of measuring time quite dis-tinct from observation of the sunor shadows. The great differenccbetween the days of winter and summer in our latitude, which isnearly that of Athens, seems to us to be plainly discernable; but ifwe could divest ourselves of our acquired knowledge and of ouriiieans for keeping time, and put ourselves in the place of the Greekof 600 B. C., we should probably fail to observe the fact exceptvery dimly.

Accurate division begins with the observation of noon, and wehave seen pretty clearly when this began in Greece. The next stepin subdivision consists in dividing the day into quarters by dividingequally the periods before and after noon. This division was at leastknown to the Greeks, but I see no evidence that it was i n commonuse; nor, in fact, does it appear that they, i n daily life, made useof close subdivisions until Roman influences prevailed and the Romandivisions of the day were adopted.I n Rome the division of both the day and night into four watchesresulted naturally from the military character nf her people andremained in use down to the latest period. These divisions of theday corresponded with what were afterwards the third, sixth, andninth hours, and i t was customary for one of the subordinate officersof the praetor to proclaim them. They had alsoa three-part divi-sion corresponding to that of the Greeks.

Artificial means of measuring time came to the Romansso muchlater than to the Greeks that great improvements had been wroughtin them. Science had gone so far in Egypt and Sicily that sun-dialswere constructed for particular latitudes;but it is not clear that,as at first introduced, they were graduated. The same subdivisionof the day into four watches that has just been noticed might obvi-ously give the first sugge&on of such graduation by bisecting theangle between the noon-mark and those of sunrise and sunset. Asa closer subdivision was required the Romans appear to have takenone already known in Egypt and better adapted to the latitudeofrhebes and Memphis than to that of Italy. This was the divisionof the day and night into twelfths (which varied in their length as


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46 THE A M E R I C A S ASTH ~OY OJ ,OGI ST. pot. I .theseasoiischanged) and is commonly known as the Roman system.Before intimate relations began between Rome and Egypt, Greecehad already been annexed and the same system was introduced there,as alsoin Palestine and wherever the Roman eagles penetrated. Thisdivision adapied itself perfectly to the older one already in use inRome and its adoption was natural. The only change in the sun-dial that it involved was a further subdivision of the spacing. Beingan improvement that cost nothing and could be adopted withoutany radical changes in the habits of daily lifeit was one to commenditself to a people who were slow to change; and when, a few yearslater, in the middle of the second century B. C., Hipparchus pro-posed the division into equinoctial hours, the sameas used how , theproposition met no welcome. This accurate and convenient systemdid not adapt itself to the established notions of the times, and theRoman hours secured a firmer and firmer grip, resulting, as I aminclined to believe, in oneof the most remarkable instancesof retard-ation of invention that history records. It was not until Europe hademancipated herself from slavery to this most awkward of time sys-tems that modern time-keeping became possible. For many cen-turies invention was, as it were, thrownoff the scent by the necessityof converting the regular and uniform motions which could be givento mechanism into means for displaying the ever-varying hours ofthe Roman system.

The word hora, proposed by Hipparchus to express thesedivisions of the day, was adopted in its new sense by Greeks andRomans simultaneously and has ever since held its place i n all thelanguages of Europe. In fact it was used in two senses: in itssignificance of the varying Roman hour i t could not be employedto define exact intervals of time; when employed for that purposei t expressed exactly what we express by it now- the twenty-fourthpart of a civil day. The passage in Pliny I have quoted is not in-telligible unless the word hour s employed in this sense.

Enough was said in the early part of this paper to show the line inwhich the clepsydra developed, ,the water clock at Canton and thatin the Tower of the Winds at Athens beiiig examples of it in a fairlyperfected state asa time-keeper. Invention had succeeded i n givingto the rising pointer a regular motion and adapting it well.to itspurpose. Other advances were made in it, and of these it remainsto speak. Improvement, handicapped by the clumsy Rcmian hours,found in this fact a stimulus to ingenuity. To adapt it to indicate


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J an. 1888.1 TI M lS-J ;ERPING I N G R E E C E A X D IWME. 47these hours one rude scheme was to reduce the capacity of the vesselfrom which the water flowed by coating it with wax in the wintertimk. The orifice remaining unchanged i t emptied more quickly.The wax was gradually removedas the days lengthened. Of course,the same instrument could not serve for both day and night. Lessclumsy means for regulating the flow, as by adjusting the size of theorifice, were afterwards invented. One of these involved the paageof the water through a hollow coneor funnel, i n which was an inte-rior cone capable of adjustment for each day i n the year ;,another,invented by Ctesibius, left the water flow, and consequently the riseand fall of the float, coiistatit, but included an automatic device bywhich the graduated scale over which the marker traveled waschanged daily.

This difficulty in adapting the clepsydra to keep Roman time isprecisely the same that the early Dutch navigators met with on theirintroduction of the clock into Japan, where the division of the dayis into ten hours of varying length. The plan they adopted isa clumsy one, but of the same character as that of Ctesibius, sincethey did not attempt to alter the rate of the clock, but attachedmovable indications to the dial so that they might be changed withthe season. One of these clocks is in the possession of the Bureauof Education, agift from the Japanese Government after the Cen-tennial Exposition of 1876.

But improvements in the clepsydra such as have been described,notwithstanding the ingenuity and mechanical skill they displayed,are of little consequence to us. since they were not towards theaccomplishment of the final result but away from it. 'The actualsteps towards the modern clock appear to be these: First, the em-ployment of the ordinary rack and pinion device. If we are rightin attributing the invention of gear-wheels to Archimedes, this ap-plication could not have been made earlier than the middle of thethird century B. C. (287 to 212). It is attributed to Ctesibius, who,for many reasons, as I have said already, is placed a century laterthan this. A series of teeth, commonly called a rack, was attachedto the side of the rod,-which was supported by the float, andhad heretofore served only as an index. Fixed on a horizontalshaft above the vessel was a small toothed wheel, with which thetoothed rack engaged, and which was, therefore, caused to turn bythe riseof the float. On this shaft was a pointer attached like the.hour-hand of a clock and traveling over a similar dial. To make


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45 THE : \L IERICAN APITHROPOLOGIST. [VO I . I .this hand completea circuit in 12or 24 hours is, obviously, only aquestion of the proportion of parts. The next step forward dis-pensed with the rack and pinion and really was in the line ofgreatersimplicity. I n place of the toothed wheel a grooved pully wasused, over which passedacord from the float, being kept tight bya weight at tlie other end. The halid remained on tlie wheel shaftas before, and with tlie gradual rise of the float, traversed the dial.

We have reached the point where we may say 6prcsto,chmtge,and behold, a clock springs into view, for it is instantly apparentthat with this structure it is no longer the water that advances thehand; water is not the motor iiovv. The weight is the motor,and its fall is retarded by the float, which only permits its descentas fast as tlie rise of water i n the vessel permits its own rise. Wehave an actual weight clock, with what we must be content to regardas a water escapement; it is far enough from our perfected time-piece, but i n respect to its essential elements i t differsin but one,and henceforth tlie problemof the clock is only that of escapements.But we need not expect i t to be solved at once. It will be centu-ries before the actual problem will be recognized, so great is tlieobscurity with which tlie Roman time system has beclouded thesubject.

The goldenage of Roman literature is here, but she has yet to see the greatestextent of her empire and tlie suniniit of her own magnificence. Along line of Caesars will come, base and noble alternating. Herdecline will follow her glory;her palaces are to be plundered bybarbarous northern invaders; her empire is to be shattered; out ofher vast domain new peoples and nations and empires scarcely lessmighty than her own are to spring, wvliile she herself sinks to thepaltry dinicnsions of a village. Her polished speech shall die frommens lips, but the rude dialects of her provinces, mingling with tlieuncouth tongues of illiterate Franks and Goths, shall develop intonew languages, in time to becomeas perfect vehicles of thought astheir original. New forms of government and of social order shallspring from her laws and institutions and philosophies;and fromthe hills of credulous and despised Judea is to burst anew religion,before whose bright beams the perpetual fires of Vesta shall paleand the whole train of Olympian gods vanish like the mist. Butamongst these unconceibed changes, and through the storins thatshall sweep away and the cataclysms that shall engulf all the objects

Ihere isa long and mournful perspective before us.


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J an. 1888.1 TIME-KEEPING IN GREECE A ND ROME. 49oi her pride and. glory and reverence, there shall still endure whatshe cared least for-constant in all their inconstancy-the Romanhours.The problem of improving the time-keeper is one with whichclo'istered scholars and mechanicians will not cease to contend, butthe barrier that Rome has set. up will continue to baffle their in-genuity; and when thirteen centuries shall have passed since Hip-parchus in vain urged the advantages of the equinoctial system andCtesibius strove to solve the riddle of Roman time by some prac-tical mechanism, we shall still find Bcrnarrio Monachrrr recordinghow the monks of Cluny perplexed their pioussoulswith the old,old question, and how the good sacristan must needs go out intothe night to learn-from the stars-if it were time to call thebrethren to prayer.

DISCUSSION.The above paper, read be.fore the Anthropological Society ofWashington April 5 , 1887, was discussed by Messrs. PI ERCE,MASON, HOMPSON,LISS,BLODGETT,MALLEKY,nd BABCOCK.Prof. MASONeferred to a simple time-check used by a Chinesephysician. I t was a joss-stick broken so as to have several angles.The doctor set fire to one end and instructed his pat?ent to takehis first dose when the fire reached the first angle, another when it

reached the second, and so on.Mr. A. H. THOMPSONpoke of a rude timepiece which he hadseen among the Zufiis. I t was a plate set in the wall of a hut oppo-siteahole in the other wall. When the sunlight coming throughthe hole fell upon the plate the Zufiis knewthat it was time to plantcorn.Mr. DORSEYeferred to the divisionsof time from sunrise to sun-rise observed among certain Indians in Oregon. These Indianshave about forty naines for different parts of the day and night.Mr. BLODGETT, eferring to the speaker's doubt whether theRomans appreciated the difference in the length of the days at dif-ferent seasons of the year, remarked that it is an old saying thattime is measured by events. While small variations in the lengthof the day might not be detected, it is hardly conceivable that anypeople who had sufficient advancement to have occasion to passover the same areas in different seasons should not observe that7


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50 THE A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST. [Vol. I .such an act a going to a distance for fuel or for water could notbe repeated so many times in the short days as in the Iong oiies.Any action whose rate became somewhat habitual, as the movementof an army, the carriage of burdens, or the performance of agri-cultural tasks, would formabasis of comparison that would be forcedon the attention of the actors. When beastsof burden were usedtheir movements would eriiphasize the difference between the longand the short days. Even in our day time in Oriental countriesis measured by the gait of the camel.

Col. MALLERYemarked that the marching of armies and thehauling of produce do not ordinarily take pIace in the winterseason.

TheIndians who lived here used to go over to the Patuxent river tohunt and fish at all times of the year. It is hardly conceivable thatthey did not observe how much longer they could travel beforedark in summer than in winter.

Mr. BABCOCKaid that hunting was pursued at all seasons.

CURIOUS VAR IETY OF BLOOD REVENGE.-British Consul Plumacherreports the following type of vendetta among the Goajira Indiansliving on the extreme northwestern part of Venezuela. By thepayment of the compensation of tears and blood any injurymay be condoned-not the aggrieved one, but his relatives,especially thoseon the mothers side, demanding the blood money.Ifan Indian accidentally injure himself, his mothers family imme-diately demand of him thepayment of blood, on the theory thatas his blood is also their own he has no right to shed it withoutcompensation. The relatives of the father claim the payment ofctear~,which is not so large. Even the friends who witnessedthe accident are entitled to pay for their grief. The amount ofpayment depends on the injury. A trifling cut of the finger callsfor a little corn or something of equal value; aniore serious grief isahaged with a sheep or acow. If the injured party is too poorhe must beg from hut to hut, and no one will refuse to contribute.If an Indian borrows a horse from a friend and is thrown or injuredthe owner must pay, since the accident would not have happenedif he had not lent the animal. If a man is injured by his ownanimal he himself must compensate his relatives. The seller of anarticle is responsibleforthe results of its misuse. If a person shouldbe wounded or lose his life in attempting to kill another the lattermust pay blood and tear money in the same manner as if he hadbeen the aggressor. Should a child die in the absenceof oneof itsparents the absent one maydemapd from the other payment for thetears supposed to be shed over the occurrence.-Jour. SOC.Arts,xxxv, 928.

2 - seely, 1888, the development of time-keeping in greece and rome

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