Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 374

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(60.) The third point of universal agreement was the division of time, a subject which afterwards appealed to the reasoning faculties. We have already stated, in the Second Book,1487 when and by whom this art was first invented in Greece; the same was also introduced at Rome, but at a later period. In the Twelve Tables, the rising and setting of the sun are the only things that are mentioned relative to time. Some years afterwards, the hour of midday was added, the summoner1488 of the consuls proclaiming it aloud, as soon as, from the senate-house, he caught sight of the sun between the Rostra and the Græcostasis;1489 he also proclaimed the last hour, when the sun had gone down from the Mænian column1490 to the prison. This, however, could only be done in clear weather, but it was continued until the first Punic war. The first sun-dial is said to have been erected among the Romans twelve years before the war with Pyrrhus, by L. Papirius Cursor,1491 at the temple of Quirinus,1492 on which occasion he dedicated it in pursuance of a vow which had been made by his father. This is the account given by Fabius Vestalis; but he makes no mention of either the construction of the dial or the artist, nor does he inform us from what place it was brought, or in whose works he found this statement made.

M. Varro1493 says that the first sun-dial, erected for the use of the public, was fixed upon a column near the Rostra, in the time of the first Punic war, by the consul M. Valerius Messala, and that it was brought from the capture of Catina, in Sicily: this being thirty years after the date assigned to the dial of Papirius, and the year of Rome 491. The lines in this dial did not exactly agree with the hours;1494 it served, however, as the regulator of the Roman time ninety-nine years, until Q. Marcius Philippus, who was censor with L. Paulus, placed one near it, which was more carefully arranged: an act which was most gratefully acknowledged, as one of the very best of his censorship. The hours, however, still remained a matter of uncertainty, whenever the weather happened to be cloudy, until the ensuing lustrum; at which time Scipio Nasica, the colleague of Lænas, by means of a clepsydra, was the first to divide the hours of the day and the night into equal parts: and this time-piece he placed under cover and dedicated, in the year of Rome 595;1495 for so long a period had the Romans remained without any exact division of the day. We will now return to the history of the other animals, and first to that of the terrestrial.

Summary.—Remarkable events, narratives, and observations, seven hundred and forty-seven.

Roman authors quoted.—Verrius Flaccus,1496 Cneius Gellius,1497 Licinius Mutianus,1498 Massurius Sabinius,1499 Agrippina, the wife of Claudius,1500 M. Cicero,1501 Asinius Pollio,1502 M. Varro,1503 Messala Rufus,1504 Cornelius Nepos,1505 Virgil,1506 Livy,1507 Cordus,1508 Melissus,1509 Sebosus,1510 Cornelius Celsus,1511 Maximus Valerius,1512 Trogus,1513 Nigidius Figulus,1514 Pomponius Atticus,1515 Pedianus Asconius,1516 Fabianus,1517 Cato the Censor,1518 the Register of the Triumphs,1519 Fabius Vestalis.1520

Foreign authors quoted.—Herodotus,1521 Aristeas,1522 Bæton,1523 Isigonus,1524 Crates,1525 Agatharchides,1526 Calliphanes,1527 Aristotle,1528 Nymphodorus,1529 Apollonides,1530 Phylarchus,1531 Damon,1532 Megasthenes,1533 Ctesias,1534 Tauron,1535 Eudoxus,1536 Onesicritus,1537 Clitarchus,1538 Duris,1539 Artemidorus,1540 Hippocrates1541 the physician, Asclepiades1542 the physician, Hesiod,1543 Anacreon,1544 Theopompus,1545 Hellanicus,1546 Damastes,1547 Ephorus,1548 Epigenes,1549 Berosus,1550 Petosiris,1551 Necepsos,1552 Alexander Polyhistor,1553 Xenophon,1554 Callimachus,1555 Democritus,1556 Diyllus1557 the historian, Strabo,1558 who wrote against the Euremata of Ephorus, Heraclides Ponticus,1559 Aclepiades,1560 who wrote the Tragodoumena, Philostephanus,1561 Hegesias,1562 Archimachus,1563 Thucydides,1564 Mnesigiton,1565 Xenagoras,1566 Metrodorus1567 of Scepsos, Anticlides,1568 Critodemus.1569