[456] They were called bell-bearers or bellmen, because while going the rounds they gave a signal with their bells, which the sentinels were obliged immediately to answer. See the Scholiasts on the _Aves_ of Aristophanes, ver. 841. Dio Cassius, lib. liv. 4, p. 773, says, “The watchmen in the different quarters of the city have small bells, that they may make signals to each other when they think proper.” The bells therefore did not serve for announcing the hours, as some have imagined. [457] The Persian sentinels sung in this manner when they were surprised in the city by the Romans.--Ammianus Marcell. xxiv. 15. [458] That the servants in many houses were wakened by the ringing of a bell, appears from what Lucian says in his treatise, De iis qui mercede conducti in divitum familiis vivunt, cap. xxiv. p. 245, and cap. xxxi. p. 254, Bipont edition, vol. iii. It does not however follow that there were then striking or alarm-clocks, as some have thence concluded. See Magius De Tintinnabulis, cap. 6, in Sallengre, Thesaurus Antiquit. ii. p. 1177. [459] Vegetius De Re Milit. iii. 8. That Cæsar had such clocks may be concluded from the observation which he makes in his Commentaries, on the length of the day in the islands near Ireland, lib. v. 13. Maternus, in Romische Alterthümer, iii. p. 47, endeavours to prove by what Suetonius relates of Domitian, cap. 16, that this prince had in his palace neither a sun-dial nor a water-clock. But what kind of a proof! Domitian asked what the hour was, and some one answered, the sixth. Such insignificant _dicta probantia_ have been banished from philosophy by the moderns, and ought they not to be banished from antiquities likewise? The often-quoted passage also of Valerius Maximus, viii. 7, 5, proves nothing, unless we first adopt the amendment of Green. Carneades, it is said, was so engaged in the study of philosophy, that he would have forgot his meals had not Melissa put him in mind of them. Green reads _monitrix domestica_; but Valerius says, “Melissa, quam uxoris loco habebat.” See Sallengre, Thes. Antiq. Rom. i. p. 721. A passage likewise in Pliny’s Epistles, iii. 1, p. 181, “ubi hora balinei nunciata est,” does not properly prove that it alludes to one of those boys who announced the hours. That such servants however were kept, is evident from the undoubted testimony of various authors. Martial, viii. ep. 67.--Juven. Sat. x. 216.--Seneca De Brevit. Vitæ, c. 12.--Alciphron, Epist. lib. iii. p. 282.--Sidon. Apollin. ii. ep. 9, p. 120. [460] Cic. Orat. pro Muræna, cap. 22. [461] Sil. Ital. vii. 155. [462] Traité de la Police, vol. i. in the Index under the word _Guet_. [463] _Bivouac_, from the German _beiwacht_, is an additional night-guard during a siege, or when an army is encamped near the enemy. _Lansquenets_ were German soldiers added by Charles VIII. of France to his infantry, and who were continued in the French army till Francis I. introduced his legions.--TRANS.