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Updated: June 25, 2025
Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to measure diurnal time. And even these were not constructed as they should have been.
However, as soon as I had pulled myself together and collected my thoughts, I began my address, and though I was nervous I was on the best of terms with my audience. I spoke for nearly five hours, for, in addition to the twelve water-clocks the largest I could get which had been assigned to me, I obtained four others.
Matters being in this posture, they prevailed upon some of the orators who were not known to be enemies to Alkibiades, but who hated him nevertheless, to move before the people that it was an absurd proceeding for the irresponsible general of so great a force of Athenians and their allies to waste his time while the court was drawing lots for the jury, and filling water-clocks with water.
Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus, 224 B.C.; but there was a difficulty in using them, since they failed at night and in cloudy weather, and could not be relied on. Hence the introduction of water-clocks instead. Aristarchus also, according to Plutarch, explained the apparent annual motion of the sun in the ecliptic by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined to its axis.
In mid-winter the hours were only about forty-four minutes in length, while at mid-summer they were about seventy-five, and they corresponded with ours only at the two equinoxes. This, of course, made the construction of accurate dials and water-clocks a matter of considerable difficulty.
The great drawback on the advancement of science in the Alexandrian School was the want of an instrument for the measurement of time, and one for the measurement of temperature the chronometer and the thermometer; indeed, the invention of the latter is essential to that of the former. Clepsydras, or water-clocks, had been tried, but they were deficient in accuracy.
To sleep on a straw couch was deemed a regal luxury. One consequence of the Crusades was to introduce carpets and hangings into the dwellings of the great. Improved timepieces took the place of the water-clocks, which were a wonder in the days of Charlemagne. In the twelfth century the castle begins to look less like a dungeon.
Paula knew the man well. He was one of the most respected members of the household, the chief mechanician whose duty it was to test and repair the water-clocks, balances, measures and other instruments.
Water-clocks are provided, having small supply-tubes, into which the water is poured by which the length of the pleadings is regulated. Ten gallons are allowed for a case in which an amount of more than five thousand drachmas is involved, and three for the second speech on each side.
The silence of the halls of Serapis was broken by the water-clocks of Ctesibius and Apollonius, which drop by drop measured time. When the Roman calendar had fallen into such confusion that it had become absolutely necessary to rectify it, Julius Caesar brought Sosigenes the astronomer from Alexandria.
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