A Schedule of Boundaries: An Exploration, Launched from the Water-Clock, of Athenian
Time
Author(s): Danielle Allen
Source: Greece & Rome, Second Series, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Oct., 1996), pp. 157-168
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
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Greece& Rome, Vol. xliii, No. 2, October,1996
A SCHEDULE OF BOUNDARIES: AN EXPLORATION,
LAUNCHED FROM THE WATER-CLOCK, OF
ATHENIAN TIME
By
DANIELLE
ALLEN
Have you ever stopped to think what life would be like without your alarm
clock, without church bells ringing out the hour, without clocks in lecture
rooms? How differently would you understandthe world?
Time measurements serve to order and to regulate human activity. An
examination of the origination and workings of temporal orders in a given
society can tell us much about the organization,conceptual and otherwise,
of that society. In relation to Athens, such explorationmust begin from the
klepsydra,or water-clock, the most prominent time-measure used by the
Athenians. Klepsydrai were of two sorts, the first being small ceramic
vessels, resembling pottery flower pots in the words of Homer Thompson,
and used to enforce time limits on speeches in the courts of judgementand,
later, to measure out night watches for the military.'The pots were filled to
a specific level, and as the water drained from a hole near the bottom,
marked off the required amount of time. The first extant reference to this
kind of water-clock appears in Aristophanes' Acharnians of 426/5, and
Xenophon refers to the klepsydraas used in the Arginusaetrial of 406 B.C.2
In the second half of the fourth century, the Athenianserected their second
sort of klepsydra,a stone water-clock with a capacity of 1000 litres that
requiredseventeen hours (as we measure them today) to drain and to mark
the passing day.3Examination of both sorts of klepsydra,timer and clock,
reveals an interesting relation between politics and time in Athens and
provides some clues as to how, in that democracy, politics and time
affected one another.
I A Boundary between the Political and Philosophical
In the fifth century A.D., the lexicographer Hesychius glossed dvadyK7q
(necessity)as: 7) LKaaUTLKq KAE0•8pa (a judicialwater-clock).Hesychius'
gloss requires that we understand not just the relation between time and
necessity (a question to which Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity
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158
ATHENIAN TIME
contributes) but, more specifically, the relation between dikastic time and
necessity. That is, Hesychius claims a relationship between time as
specifically political and necessity. In the Acharnians, Aristophanes uses
klepsydraas a metonym for the court itself, describinga lawsuit thus:
How is it fitting to destroy an old man, a grey-headed man, beside the water-clock (Err~pI
KAEOVflpav)?'
In the Wasps(422 B.C.),Aristophanestwice names the water-clock as one
of the defining features of the courts:
I'll tell you what disease your master has.
He is a lawcourt lover, no man as much so....
If he should doze a blink,
His soul flies in the night around the waterclock
r7v KAEO~tSpav).5
(ITEppi
Where two characterspreparea mock trial, the water-clockis the final item
that they say they need, and come up with, to make things realistic.6In the
Birds, Aristophanes again uses klepsydrametonymically.7Attributed to
Aesop is the statement that orators are just like frogs, but one is in water
while one is by the water-clock. And later Eubulus, a poet of Middle
Comedy, has two characters draw up a list of things to be bought in the
market, one character listing typical market produce such as roses and
lambs, etc., the other listing political wares such as law suits and laws and
water clocks.8 Athenian time-keeping is indeed specifically political; but
what is its relation to necessity?
Our most extensive description of klepsydraiand their function in the
courts of judgement appears in the Athenaion Politeia attributed to
Aristotle.9Three jurorswere appointed by lot to take charge of the waterclock; one particulartool was used to fill the clock every time, and water in
clocks was apportionedaccordingto the type of speech so that equal jars of
time were distributedto the citizens involved in a judicial case, whoever
they might have been. Certain suits were given a full day, the day being
divided into the different portions of the trial.The divisions from the shortest day of the year were used for these divisions in order that the time
lengths might fit any other day of the year, and this temporal organization
of the day came to be known as the measured out day or the divided day:
e
L-pa SatiquETp77uEl-rp
q.
The passage in the AthenaionPoliteia gives few clues as to the source of
?.
the equation between dvdyKtq and 8LKaeUTLK7
KAEb&8pa. But the
oratorical corpus proves more generous. Demosthenes uses dvdyKq when
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ATHENIAN TIME
159
he makes the comment: how much of the money has been wasted, it is
impossible to tell within the time allotted by the present water; it is
necessary (dvdyK7q)to discuss each question separately.'0He also remarks:
You know everything as it happened, unless I have left something out
because I have been forced (dvayKdigojat) to speak with but little water;"
and:I have many other fearful things to tell, things that this man has done
wrongly to me and to some of you, but I am forced (dvayKao 6jEvos ) to
leave them aside because there is only a little water left me.12In the action
of the courts, time is involved in the process of making known - as that
which threatens to keep in darkness.And this political role of time stands in
great contrast to its tragic role. In tragedy, time creates necessity by
bringing to light what has been hidden.13
By limiting the time allowed a trial, the Athenians were accepting that
judgements would be incomplete, imperfect; they were accepting the
principle of the fallibility of human judgement.A tyrant claiming absolute
wisdom needs no water-clock.He gives the answer when 'he knows'. Once
having accepted the fallibility of human judgement, the Athenians had in
the time-limits a method of providing themselves with judgement of
consistent quality. Thus, the democratic nature of the Athenian
distributionof time and judgement did not lie primarilyin the equality of
the portions of water but rather in the acceptance of fallibility.
Plato shows well that the klepsydra, as marker of dikastic necessity,
marks human fallibility.Socrates argues that to compare the man who has
been hanging about the lawcourts to the philosopher is to compare the
slave to the free.
Soc: The one man always has what you mentioned just now - plenty of time. When he talks,
he talks in peace and quiet, and his time is his own. It is so with us now. Here we are
beginning on our third new discussion;and he can do the same, if he is like us, and prefers
the new-comer to the question in hand. It doesnot matterto such men whetherthey talkfor a
day ora year, ifonly theymay hit uponthatwhichis. But the other - the man of the law-courts
- is always in a hurry when he is talking;he has to speak with one eye on the clock. Besides,
he can't make his speeches on any subject he likes, he has his adversarystanding over him.
... Such conditions make him keen and highly-strung,skilled in flattering the master and
working his way into favour; but cause his soul to be small and warped.'4
The philosopher refuses to accept principles of egalitarian judgement.
Socrates will have the best judgementpossible no matter what time it takes
and no matter what quality judgement others accept.
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160
ATHENIAN TIME
II A Boundary between Citizen and Other
Did the powerful associationbetween politics and the water-clock as timer
affect time as a concept in its own right in Athens? Study of the temporal
divisions and orders used by the Athenians and Greeks before them
indicates that politics did have much to do with the development of time as
a concept in its own right and indicates, also, that Athenian time measurements, as tightly involved with the political, can inform our understanding
of the place of the citizen in relation to the other.
In what follows, I will use the following two terms to describe two
different categories of words used to talk about time. 'Derivative
vocabulary'describesthose words that are used first of all to describenatural phenomena or human activities and only secondly to describetemporal
points or durations. 'Dawn' and 'milking-time' would be examples. The
term 'primaryvocabulary' describes those words that are used first (and
usually only) to describe temporal points or durations - 6:00 a.m., for
instance.
The vocabularyfor time measurementsin the Homeric epics and hymns
and in Hesiod is a derivativevocabulary.The longest periodsof time in the
Iliad and Odysseyseem to be generationsand years understoodseasonally.
'EvTavr6s, meaning year and appearingboth as a point or unit of time or
one of a series'5 and as a space of time,'6 probablyderives from 'the time
when the heavens are again 'vtaO-rc, in the same position'.'7No names for
months as such are found in Homer.'8 In the epics, most time spans are
measuredby dawns or 7j/ipal, the time from rising to setting of the sun or
from rising to rising.19The HomericHymns and Worksand Days of Hesiod
reveal an elementarycalendarorderedaccordingto the waxing and waning
portions of the twenty-nine 'middle days of the month'.20
To mark specific points in the day, the Iliad uses dawn, noon, and
afternoon;21fovAvr6v8E, meaningthe time the cows head home;22and
meal times.23In the Odyssey, one specific time is described as that time
when a man rises from the market place to go home to a meal after having
judged many quarrels.24 At night, in the epics, times are determined
according to the position of the stars and the approach of dawn.25This
means two things. The earlier Greeks seem to have followed existing
temporal orders and patterns (whether natural or customary) rather than
to have created a temporal order. And the early Greeks could only talk
about specific periods of time in relation to the length of certain occurrences or activities.
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ATHENIAN TIME
161
Examination of Athenian temporal divisions longer than day divisions
shows that the Athenians, unlike their predecessors, created temporal
orders. And examination of day divisions shows that the Athenians
eventually do separate time from the duration of activities; that is, they
create a primarytemporal vocabulary.
On, then, to their longer temporal divisions. The Athenians used two
calendars. The first was the bouleutic calendar. This was organized
accordingto prytanies,or the ten portions of the 354 day year, during each
of which a different tribe presidedin the boule or council.26In this calendar,
the Athenians had a temporal order of their own political creation rather
than a natural order to be followed.
The second calendar was the festival calendar. This calendar was
organized according to lunar months and the year-long course of the sun,
and marked religious holidays.27With the festival calendar, then, the
Athenians accepted that there were certain immutable temporal orders
(here the temporal order of the gods) prior to democraticpolitics.28Certain
days had to have certain festivals held during them. That the nominal date
for a festival was pre-ordained,however, did not prevent the Athenians
from deciding to which particularperiod of daylight they would assign that
date. At the end of the fourth century, in order to allow Demetrius
Poliorcetes to participate in the Eleusinian Mystery initiation rites, the
Athenians renamed the month of Mounichion first Anthesterion, the
assigned time for the lesser mysteries, and then Boedromion, the assigned
time for the greater mysteries.29Aristophanescould joke that the Athenians sent their gods to bed hungry by failing to hold festivals and sacrifices
on the astronomical day originally assigned to a certain festival. Also, the
festival calendar required adjustmentfor the partial days of the solar year
(which we do with Leap Year), but the Athenians had no regular formula
for carrying out this adjustment. Instead, the adult male citizens in the
assembly added days and/or months as they saw fit.30 For instance, circa
420 B.C., the democratic assembly decreed that the archon of the coming
year should insert the month of Hekatombaion.31 The disjunctionbetween
the created order and the followed order appears in the language that the
Atheniansused to talk about their calendars.Because coordinationwith the
moon was lost, the Greeks considered vovjirvita to be the civil new moon
it fromvovpvrviaKa'rdorEAvrlqv,the actualnew moon.32
distinguishing
theAthenians
created
Thus,evenin respectto the'preordained'
calendar,
their
orders
and
temporal
democratically temporal
descriptions.
all the Greekcity-states
hadtheirowncalendars
so that
Furthermore,
Aristoxenus (born 375-360 B.C.) could say: 'The tenth day of the month
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162
ATHENIAN TIME
for the Corinthians is the fifth for the Athenians, and the eighth
somewhere else.'33Temporal definition contributedto polis definition. By
manipulating the created temporal vocabulary and system of temporal
description and thereby constructing the temporal orders for their citystate, the adult male citizens of Athens were together defining themselves
as Athenians separate from members of other city-states. Simultaneously,
the construction of the temporal order of days and months for the polis
bound the politically disempoweredto the politically powerful, removing
both sets from their equivalent groups in other poleis.
'The tampering with the calendar could also play into the hands of the
politicians.'34The political bodies of the city seem by tradition(though not
law) to have shut down on feast dates and dates determinedto be officially
unlucky.35Thus, the citizens of Athens had a political tool in their abilityto
manipulate temporal measurements and descriptors.Because during the
democracy there existed a vocabulary and system of measurements
intendedprimarilyto describetime, time descriptionwas no longer entirely
derivative from the regular patterns of life. Nonetheless, the organization
of the new vocabularywas still very much concerned with human activity
(particularly political activity) insofar as the new vocabulary regulated
such activity. But the patterns of life from which earlier temporal
descriptorsderived did not disappearin the democracy, and neither did the
descriptorstypical of this followed order.
Thus, as we move to the day divisions,we must note the use, through the
fourth century, of expressions such as 'when the agora is full' and 'before
the agora is emptied'.36The Atheniansalso gauged time of day accordingto
their shadows.37Nonetheless, a primaryvocabularyfor time seems to have
appeared at the end of the fifth century. Meton, an astronomer working
with time measurement in the 430s, erected a sundial on the Pnyx, the hill
where the assembly met.38It is, however, important to rememberthat the
sundial would only have been accessible and useful to those attending the
assemby.(Although it would have been of little use even to those since the
assembly took place from sunrise to sunset and a clock was not needed.)
Near the same time, the Athenians started using water-clocksin the courts.
As a measure of the whole day, the water-clocks were significant during
this period only in their generation of the divided or measured out day
Nonetheless, the introductionof the sundial and
(jiLpa la(E•IETrpqLLulw).
means
the water-clock
to mark specific temporalpoints in the day
provided
with a primary vocabulary. Time measurement was becoming a concept
independentof human activity, and the passage of time, an event in its own
right. These time measurements,however, were not yet entirely separated
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ATHENIAN TIME
163
in the assemblyand
fromthe durationof certainactivities(proceedings
time
At
this
measurement,
independent,
becoming
though
point,
courts).
wasa politicalconcept,andonlythoseinvolvedinpoliticshadaccessto the
was a
Withinthe polis,therefore,timeas measured
measures.
primarily
in
andprivilege Athens,separating
markof citizenship
powerful
politically
frompowerless.
seemalsoto havebeentrying
Earlyin thefourthcenturytheAthenians
thepotteryjugs,to measureouttheequalportions
to usethewater-clock,
of a night'smilitarywatch.Because,in the courts,the divisionsof the
dividedday,takenfromtheshortestdayof theyear,wereusedevenin the
for
longerdaysof theyear,thejugsasusedin thecourtwerenotadequate
the
were
content
to
let
In
Athenians
the
courts,
portions
militarypurposes.
of daylightgo unusedduringthepartsof theyearwithlongerdays.Fora
militarywatch,however,a timeror clockmust alwaysmarkout the
neededwater-clocks
entiretyof the night.Thismeansthatthe Athenians
Wehavea
thatwouldserveforthelongestnightsaswellasfortheshortest.
Aeneas
Tacticus
this
when
the
Athenians
over
of
problem
puzzling
glimpse
ten
tellsusthat,ratherthanchanging
moving
jugsevery days(presumably
onto a jugof a differentsize),thesoldiersshouldcoattheinsideof thejug
it awayeachdayto decreaseorincrease
withwax,addingto it orscraping
the capacityof the jug.39
was
Notuntiltheendof thefourthcentury,whenthestonewater-clock
the
the
Athenians
create
a
that
could
divide
did
clock
constructed,
daylight
stretchintotwelvepartsforanydayof theyear.Thatis, at theendof the
fourthcenturyandperhapsinspiredby the needsof militaryclocks,the
Athenians
builta clockthatcouldmeasurethe shorthoursof winterand
of thislargestonewaterthelonghoursof summer.
Withtheconstruction
measurements
and
the
the
Athenians
also
clock,
finallyseparated primary
for timefromthe durationof activities.'Thetwelvedaylight
vocabulary
hourdivisiondidnotcomeintousein Greece,evenin scientificwritings,
untilthe endof the fourthcentury.'40
Indeed,the Greekwordfor 'hour',
in
the
halfof the fourthcentury,having
means
'hour'
second
(pa, only
meantearlier'season'and,derivatively,
time'.41The
'fittingor appointed
was intendedprimarily
for the measurement
of time,
stonewater-clock
themeasurement
of timethatit
but,andthiswasnewfortheAthenians,
wasnotaimedatorganizing
Nonetheless,
permitted
activity.
anyparticular
as we have seen,the strongassociation
betweenpoliticsandtime had
concept,political.
alreadymadetime,insofaras it was an independent
ontheoutside
to erectthewater-clock
Thus,thedecisionof theAthenians
wall of the northwest face of the Heliaia, one of the most important courts
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164
ATHENIAN TIME
of judgement
locatedin the centreof the agora,seemsan appropriate
articulation
of theirconceptionof time as politicalanddemocratically
controlled.
WhenAtheniancitizenswerepunishedwithbanishment
from
the marketplaceandpoliticalareas,theyweretherebyalsopunished
by
banishment
frommeasured
time.
III A Boundary between Democratic and Non-Democratic
Time-keeping
If the construction of the water-clock on the face of the court seems an
appropriateexpression of the political nature of time in Athens, the construction seems also an appropriatereification of the metonymic relation
between the courts and the water-clocks. Not only is time political, but
Athenian politics are bound with the water-clock. Is the Athenian waterclock a specifically democratic time piece?
The Chinese began using an inflow klepsydraduring the Han Dynasty
(200 B.C.-A.D. 221). The Athenians themselves had begun using this more
advanced version, where the water flows into a tank rather than out,
around 250 B.C., but, although it was technologically more advanced, the
clock was little different aesthetically or practically from the original.42
Very soon after the Chinese began using this clock, however, they began
using another version of the water-clock, which required an operating
crew.43The crew had to report the passing of each importanttime interval
to the appropriateauthorities.44Where in Athens anyone had been able to
read the water-clockwhen passing along the busy thoroughfarerunning in
front of it, in China time was for those in positions of authority.
The Romans began using sundials before they used water-clocks, and
their use of the water-clockwas primarilyas a timerin law cases, though they
also employed the clocks to time the courses of the Great Games in the Circus Maximus.45 Their use of the water-clockin legal matters, however, did
not indicate the same acceptance of fallibility as existed in Athens. Rather
than being fixed in advance of a case and for all cases equally, time limits
were set by the iudexin a given case in orderthat mattersshouldnot take any
longer than he thought they needed.46If anything,the use of the water-clock
in the Roman courts seems a reflectionof a claimby judicialofficialsto infallibility, and thus, the klepsydrain the courts of Rome was hardlythe democratic mechanismthat it was in the courts of Athens.
Since the Roman water-clock played no separate role in time-keeping
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ATHENIAN TIME
165
generally, our comparison of time-keeping in Rome and Athens must be a
comparison of the sundial and the water-clock.The most famed sundial is
indeed a very imperial time-keeper.Augustus erected an Egyptian obelisk
in the north part of the Campus Martius to provide a sundial whose linegrid on the earth gave yearly, monthly, as well as daily temporal
information.And it seems that the emperormeasuredtime in such a way as
to show his natural destined part in its progress. Buchner has shown that
the obelisk, 30 metres tall, was erected so that the sun, reminding all that
the emperor was born for peace, would move along the equinoctial line
from Augustus' birthdayon the grid to the Ara Pacis.47
Does it matter that the Athenians chose to erect in the agora a waterclock rather than a sun-clock?Both were used in Babylon and Egypt long
before either appearedin Athens. The oldest extant shadow clock in Egypt
dates to the reign of Thotmes III, c.1450 B.C.48The water-clockseems also
to have come into use about that time.49 During the first millennium B.C.,
information about both sorts of clocks spread to others of the Mediterranean countries.50 It seems, though, from the importance of the cult of
the sun, that in Egypt the sun played the more important role in timekeeping, even requiring daily rituals to ensure its rise on the following
day.51
The sun-clock, however, does not seem to have been thoroughly
developed in Greece as a scientific instrument until the third century by
Hellenistic scientists. Thus, one might say that the Athenians simply did
not have the option to use that sort of time-keeping device.52 Nonetheless,
scientists and philosophers earlier than the Hellenistic age seem to have
had knowledge of and to have been aware of sundials.Diogenes Laertius
attributesto Anaximanderthe invention in the sixth century of the sundial
and the erection of a sundial at Sparta, although this sundial may well not
have measuredhours.53Nonetheless, he also attributesto Anaximanderthe
construction of a cbpouK6r7TLO, which definitely measured hours.54 And
Meton was said to have erected a sundial in Athens.55Also, Diogenes
Laertius claims that the cynic Diogenes of Sinope (403-322 B.C.) was
shown a sundial and recognized it as a device for arriving on time to
dinners.56Scientists and philosophers seem indeed to have had the
technical knowledge requiredto create sun-clocks.And the Athenianswere
accustomed to measuring time for daily activities with the length of their
shadows. Thus, since Athens certainly has sufficient sunlight to use a
sundial without too much interruption, we may perhaps claim other
differences as relevant.
Both sundial and water-clock depend on certain laws of physics and
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ATHENIAN TIME
166
of time.Witha sundial,however,onecan
therebyconveytheinexorability
do no morethanfollowthe natural,chartits path(orclaimas destined
on the other
one'sownplacewithina naturalschema).Thewater-clock,
theinterplay
betweenthecivilandthenatural.
Anartisan
hand,embodies
constructs
thepot,laterthestonetank,thatconfinesthewaterthatmoves
withimmutable
in accordance
laws.A humandecisionto makethepotor
therateof flowof the
tankandtheoutletholesof certainsizesdetermines
water,theportionof a daythata certainamountof waterwillmark.Thus,
the makersof the water-clocks
controlandmakeoperateto theirown
the
of
nature.
benefit principles
Also,the makersof the largefourthwater-clock
in
Athens
lesstechnical
thanthat
required
knowledge
century
possessedby the scientificelite.The competentbut commonmechanic
The sun-dialrequiredthe sophisticouldbuildthe originalwater-clock.
Inthislight,it is notoddthatwe knowthenamesof many
catedscientist.
whoinventedsun-dialsbutnot the nameof the inventorof thatfourththatreflectstheassertion
of thepower
centuryclock.It is thewater-clock
of the politicalandcivil,of the human,overthatof the naturalor preordained.
Andit is the water-clock
thatemploysdemocratic,
ratherthan
elite,knowledge.
Not much later, though,in the third centuryB.C.,a numberof
Hellenisticscientistsinventedmany varietiesof sun-clock.Ctesibius
invented
theinflowwater-clock,
onefarmoretechnologically
sophisticated
thanthe originalAthenianwater-clock.
the
second
During
century,the
clock
was
a
water-clock
that
the
born,
anaphoric
incorporated rotationof
the
devices
and
of
sun.
Thus,onlyfora shortperiodof
images
astrological
timeduringthehistoryof ancienttime-keeping
didthepolitical,civil,and
takeprecedence
overthenatural,pre-ordained,
andelite.
democratic
NOTES
of a water-clock
1. Fordetailsof andphysicaldescription
foundduringexcavationssee S. Young,
'AnAthenianKlepsydra',
Hesperia8 (1939),274f.;AeneasTacticus22.24.
2. Acharnians
694;Xenophon,Hell. 1.7.23.By the timeAristophanes
writes,the clockhasclearly
becometypical.Onewouldliketo thinkthatthe clockdatesbackto the 460s andthe reformsin the
butsuchspecificityis impossible.
courtsof judgement,
3. J. Camp,TheAthenian
Agora(London,1986),112, 113, 157-9.
4. Acharnians
694.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Wasps93.
Ibid. 857-8.
Birds 1695.
Athenaeus, Deipn. 14.46.17.
Ath. Pol. 67.
Against Aphobus1.2.5.
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ATHENIAN TIME
167
11. Ibid. Against Boeotus 2.38.3.
12. Ibid. Against Spudias 30.7. See also Against Nicostratus 33.4; Against Macartatus 8.1; Against
Stephanus 1.48.1, 86.1; Against Aphobus 4.1, 9.1; Against Meidias 129.1; Against Neaera 20.1; Against
Leochares45.1; Against Evergus 82.1; and Lysias, Against Erastosthenes1.1.
13. See B. Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley, 1993). 'Time that ages teaches all things',
Aeschylus, Prometheus981; 'Great and numberless time brings forth all that was unseen', Sophocles,
Ajax 646.
14. Theaetetus172c-d, trans. by M. J. Levett.
15. I. 2.134, 295, 551; Od. 10.469.
16. I. 8.404, 418; Od. 1.288, 2.219.
17. R. J. Cunliffe, A Lexicon of the HomericDialect (Norman, 1963 reprint), 131.
18. E.J. Bickerman, Chronologyof theAncient World(London, 1968, 1980), 27.
19. Ibid. 13.
20. Ibid. 27.
21. RI.21.111.
22. Ibid. II. 16.779, Od. 9.58.
23. Ibid. Il. 24.124; Od. 9.86.
24. Od. 12.439.
25. Il. 10.251.
26. A. F. Aveni, Empiresof Time:Calendars,Clocks,and Cultures(London and New York, 1990), 35:
The bouleutic calendarwas a purely civil calendar dividedto give each tribe a fair portion of governing
power and providing 'the working calendar of the government'.
27. Festival dates as well as marriageand divorce dates were fixed in this calendar,which was 'used
for more general dating'. Aveni, op. cit., 36.
28. Aveni, op. cit., 36: The fasti, first published by Solon, were inscribed on stones. It would have
been an offence against the gods if these fixed dates were disregarded.
29. Plut. Demetr.26.
30. Aveni, op. cit., 35.
31. Ibid. 35; IGPI. 76.
32. Thucydides 2.28; Bickerman,op. cit., 28.
33. Elem. harm. 2.37.
34. Aveni, op. cit., 36.
35. J. D. Mikalson's study of calendars and dating indicates that only 7%of the known dates of
assembly meetings conflicted with festival dates (Mikalson, TheSacred and Civilian Calendarof the
Athenian Year [Princeton, 1975], 186). Mikalson's work differs from that of W. K. Pritchett (The
CalendarsofAthens [Cambridge,Mass., 1948]) and B. D. Meritt (TheAthenian Year [Berkeley, 1961]).
36. Herodotus 4.181; Hippocrates, Epid. 7.25, 31.
37. Aristophanes,Ecclesiazousae652; Menander fr. 364 K.
38. R. Flaceliere, La Vie Quotidienneen Greceau Siecle de Pericls (Paris, 1959), 205. It is disputed
whether the clock would have marked the year-long and day-long courses of the sun or only the first.
39. 22.24.
40. D. R. Dicks, 'Solistices, Equinoxes, and the Presocratics', JHS 86 (1966), 26ff. In Herodotus
(2.109) is the comment that Athenians learned the day division, as well as the sundial and gnomon,
from Babylonians.J. E. Powell ('Greek Time-keeping', CR 54 [1940], 69) argues that the passage in
Herodotus is an interpolation.S. L. Gibbs, Greekand Roman Sundials (New Haven, 1976) agrees with
this argument. The passage is an odd one and seems out of place. Nonetheless, Herodotus is talking
about geometricalinformationthat has been learnedfrom the Babylonians,and it could well be that the
day division was known, particularlyby scientists, long before its common use was taken up.
41. Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 30.6; Pytheas in Geminus, ElemAstro. 6.9; Aristophanes,fr. 161; 'half-hour'
in Menander.
42. Camp, op. cit., 157ff.
43. Reference is made to the clocks in A.D. 450 as if they have already been long in use. D. Hill, A
Historyof Engineeringin Classical and Medieval Times(London, 1984), 226.
44. Hill, op. cit., 226.
45. A. Rehm, Pauly-Wissowas.v. Horologium.
46. A. Adam, Roman Antiquities (Thomas Tegg & Son, 1834), 200, 269-70.
47. E. Buchner, Die Sonnenuhrdes Augustus (Mainz, 1982), 347; see also A. Wallace-Hadrill,'Time
for Augustus', in Michael Whitby,Philip Hardie, and Mary Whitby(edd.), Homo Viator(Bristol, 1987).
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ATHENIAN TIME
168
48. E. R. Leach, 'Primitive Time-Reckoning', in Singer, Holmyard, Hall (edd.), A History of
Technology(Oxford, 1955), 112ff.
49. Hill, op. cit., 224.
50. Ibid. 224.
51. Ibid. 123.
52. Gibbs, op. cit., 8.
53. Ibid. 6.
54. Ibid. 6.
55. Flaceliere, op. cit., 205.
56. Gibbs, op. cit., 6.
NOTES
ON CONTRIBUTORS
J. M. MOSSMAN: Lecturer in the School of Classics, Trinity College,
Dublin.
DANIELLE ALLEN: Research Student, King's College, Cambridge.
PETER WALCOT: was Professor, School of History and Archaeology,
University of Wales College of Cardiff.
RICHARD WALLACE: Lecturer in Classics, University of Keele.
P. G. WALSH: Emeritus Professor of Humanity, University of Glasgow.
CAROLINEVOUT: Research Student, Newnham College, Cambridge.
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