Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Translator's Preface
- Author's Preface
- Contents
- ERRATUM
- SCENE THE FIRST THE NOCTURNAL RETURN HOME
- SCENE THE SECOND THE MORNING
- SCENE THE THIRD STUDIES AND LETTERS
- SCENE THE FOURTH THE JOURNEY
- SCENE THE FIFTH THE VILLA
- SCENE THE SIXTH LYCORIS
- SCENE THE SEVENTH A DAY AT BAIÆ
- SCENE THE EIGHTH THE DISPLEASURE OF AUGUSTUS
- SCENE THE NINTH THE BANQUET
- SCENE THE TENTH THE DRINKERS
- SCENE THE ELEVENTH THE CATASTROPHE
- SCENE THE TWELFTH THE GRAVE
- APPENDIX
- Excursus I Roman Marriage
- Excursus II Education
- Excursus I The Roman House
- Excursus II The Slave Family
- Excursus I The Library
- Excursus II The Books
- Excursus III The Booksellers
- Excursus IV The Letter
- Excursus V The Clocks and Divisions of Time
- Excursus I The Lectica and the Carriages
- Excursus II The Inns
- Excursus I The Game of Ball, and other Gymnastic Exercises
- Excursus II The Gardens
- Excursus: The Dress of the Women
- Excursus: The Baths
- Excursus: The Male Attire
- Excursus I The Meals
- Excursus II The Triclinium
- Excursus III The Table Utensils
- Excursus IV The Drinks
- Excursus I The Manner of Lighting
- Excursus II The Garlands
- Excursus III The Social Games
- Excursus: The Manner of Closing the Doors
- Excursus: The Interment of the Dead
- Index
Excursus V - The Clocks and Divisions of Time
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2010
- Frontmatter
- Translator's Preface
- Author's Preface
- Contents
- ERRATUM
- SCENE THE FIRST THE NOCTURNAL RETURN HOME
- SCENE THE SECOND THE MORNING
- SCENE THE THIRD STUDIES AND LETTERS
- SCENE THE FOURTH THE JOURNEY
- SCENE THE FIFTH THE VILLA
- SCENE THE SIXTH LYCORIS
- SCENE THE SEVENTH A DAY AT BAIÆ
- SCENE THE EIGHTH THE DISPLEASURE OF AUGUSTUS
- SCENE THE NINTH THE BANQUET
- SCENE THE TENTH THE DRINKERS
- SCENE THE ELEVENTH THE CATASTROPHE
- SCENE THE TWELFTH THE GRAVE
- APPENDIX
- Excursus I Roman Marriage
- Excursus II Education
- Excursus I The Roman House
- Excursus II The Slave Family
- Excursus I The Library
- Excursus II The Books
- Excursus III The Booksellers
- Excursus IV The Letter
- Excursus V The Clocks and Divisions of Time
- Excursus I The Lectica and the Carriages
- Excursus II The Inns
- Excursus I The Game of Ball, and other Gymnastic Exercises
- Excursus II The Gardens
- Excursus: The Dress of the Women
- Excursus: The Baths
- Excursus: The Male Attire
- Excursus I The Meals
- Excursus II The Triclinium
- Excursus III The Table Utensils
- Excursus IV The Drinks
- Excursus I The Manner of Lighting
- Excursus II The Garlands
- Excursus III The Social Games
- Excursus: The Manner of Closing the Doors
- Excursus: The Interment of the Dead
- Index
Summary
NOTWITHSTANDING the magnificence of the domestic arrangements of the ancients, and the refined care bestowed on every thing that could make life agreeable, they still were without many ordinary conveniences. For instance, a clock, to regulate the business of the day, according to a fixed measure of time, to us an indispensable piece of furniture, which the man of moderate means can command with facility, and even the poorest does not like to be without,—was, for nearly five hundred years, a thing quite unknown in Rome, and even in later times only in a very imperfect state.
Besides this, the division of the day was inconvenient. It is true, they reckoned twenty-four hours from midnight to midnight, but they divided the regular duration of the day, between the rising and setting of the sun, into twelve hours, and allotted the remainder of the time to the night, which was partitioned into four watches. On this account a faulty state of things naturally arose, for the hours of night and day being of variable length throughout the year, and only equal at the equinoxes, their eleventh hours, for instance, began at fifty-eight minutes past two, according to our mode of reckoning, in the winter solstice, and at two minutes past five in the summer solstice. Thus any comparison of the Roman hours with ours, is attended with this difficulty, that we must always know the natural length of the day for the latitude of Rome, in order that our calculation may be correct.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- GallusOr, Roman Scenes of the Time of Augustus, pp. 251 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1844