δύνειν, ‘set’, or by ‘goes under the earth’[137], or ‘the bright light of the sun sank down in the ocean, drawing after himself the dark night’[138]. The evening star has the same name as evening, ἕσπερος[139]. The Homeric Greeks therefore do not seem to have observed the position of the sun in any but the most general fashion. We may add certain indications taken from the business of daily life. The word βουλυτός (cp. above p. 31) appears in the twice-recurring verse ‘as the sun turned over to the unyoking of the oxen’[140]. It is not the sun but the ploughman that unyokes the oxen: the word has therefore become established as a chronological _terminus technicus_ which is significant on account of its antiquity. About the expression ἐν νυκτὸς ἀμολγῷ there has been much dispute. It occurs:--Il. XI, 173 and XV, 324, where lions surprise a herd, XXII, 28, in the simile of the morning rising of Sirius, 317, of the shining forth of the evening star, Od. IV, 841 ‘so clear appeared the dream to her’[141]: it is a well-known fact that we dream for the most part shortly before waking. The sense ‘beginning or end of night’ is therefore fully confirmed. As for the etymology I do not hesitate to pronounce in favour of that lying nearest to hand, viz. ἀμέλγειν, ‘to milk’, and therefore ‘milking-time’. Compare the terms of the Banyankole for early morning at 6 o’clock and evening at 7--‘milking-time’--and those of the Nandi: 6 p. m. ‘the sun is over, the cattle have come back’; 6.=15=, ‘milk’ (sc. the cows). That only these two expressions have settled into _termini technici_ admits of a not unimportant conclusion in regard to antiquity. The meal-hour as an indication of time occurs Il. XI, 86, ‘when a wood-cutter prepares his meal after having fatigued his arms by felling large trees’[142], and Od. XII, 439, ‘when a man rises from the market-place to go home to the meal after having judged many quarrels’[143],--in the latter instance in connexion with the market. This time-indication was destined to have a great future as the social life of the Greeks developed. Phrases such as the following are of common occurrence:--‘when the market-place is full’[144], ‘before the market-place has filled itself’[145], ‘the breaking up of the assembly of the market-place’[146], etc. The night was divided into the familiar three parts (although the expression μέση νύξ, ‘middle of the night’, first occurs in the smaller Iliad) and was judged according to the position of the stars:--‘Let us go, for the night draws close to an end and the dawn is near. The stars are far gone. The greater part of night is gone, the two parts, only the third part remains’[147]; ‘when it was the third part of the night and the stars had passed’[148]. The morning star serves as a time-indicator at the nocturnal home-coming of Odysseus[149].