Primitive Time-reckoning: A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples — John Shaqi
Primitive Time-reckoning: A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoplesNilsson, Martin P. (Martin Persson)
History
Primitive Time-reckoning: A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples
Nilsson, Martin P. (Martin Persson)
Chronology
The Latin expressions I merely copy from Censorinus, Ch. 24, and
insert in brackets the additions made by Macrob., _Sat._ I, 3, 16
ff. _Tempus quod huic_--i. e. _nox media--proximum est vocatur de
media nocte (media noctis inclinatio), sequitur gallicinium, cum
galli canere incipiunt, dein conticinium, cum conticuerunt; tunc
ante lucem, et sic diluculum, cum sole nondum orto iam lucet.
Secundum diluculum vocatur mane cum lux videtur sole orto, post
hoc ad meridiem, tunc meridies, quod est medii diei nomen, inde
de meridie (inde--i. e. a meridie--tempus occiduum), hinc suprema
... post supremam sequitur vespera ante ortum scilicet_--this must
be before the appearance of the star--_eius stellae, quam Plautus
vesperuginem ... appellat_. There are also _ortus_ and _occasus
solis_, _crepusculum_. This terminology is poor and applies almost
exclusively to the daylight. In ancient Rome the edifices of the
Forum are said to have served as sun-dials. A servant of the consul
proclaimed noon “when the sun peeped between the Rostra and the
Graecostasis; when the sun sank from the Maenian column to the prison
he proclaimed evening, but only on clear days”[150]. With the advance
of civilisation the Greek terms for the twelve hours of the day, each
of which varied in length according to the time of the year, became
customary, a fact which is connected with the spread of sun- and
water-clocks[151]. Hence arises in the Middle Ages the terminology
derived from the daily mass (_hora canonica_)[152]. In daily life
there was often a recurrence to primitive methods. I borrow a few
examples of a quite primitive character from the early medieval tract
_Peregrinatio Aetheriae_:--‘the hour when people can recognise each
other’[153], ‘when the crow of cocks begins’[154], ‘from the first
cock-crow’[155], etc., but also _hora tertia_, _quinta_, _sexta_
(noon).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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