Time

[Theoderic]

Hi All

Firstly Happy New Year

Secondly......

Could someone please confirm that the Roman time is the same as how we refer to hours i.e.: the third hour would be 3 a.m., the fourth hour 4 am etc.? If that is the case what happens after the 12th hour?

Also regarding "watches" - are these as follows the First Watch 18.00 - 21.00, Second Watch 21.00 - 24.00, Third Watch 24.00 - 03.00 and finally the Fourth Watch 03.00 - 06.00? Are there any other "Watches"?

Kind Regards - Deryk

[ValentinianVictrix]

No, Roman hours and marking of time is different to our way of doing it.

The Romans had two hourly rates, Summer and Winter. The Summer hours were longer than the winter one's. Vegetius has the famous quote that the Roman army could march 20 miles in five Summer Hours as an example.

Also, the hour of the day did not correspond to the time of day. For instance, the 'eight hour' in the morning is approximately 12pm.

[Theoderic]

Hi Valentinian Victrix

Many thanks - why I am asking is on looking at a passage from Caesar regarding crossing the English Channel he refers as follows:

These matters being arranged, finding the weather favorable for his voyage, he set sail about the third watch, and ordered the horse to march forward to the further port, and there embark and follow him. As this was performed rather tardily by them, he himself reached Britain with the first squadron of ships, about the fourth hour of the day, and there saw the forces of the enemy drawn up in arms on all the hills. The nature of the place was this: the sea was confined by mountains so close to it that a dart could be thrown from their summit upon the shore. Considering this by no means a fit place for disembarking, he remained at anchor till the ninth hour,

In this case I presume that he embarks at around midnight (3rd Watch)

It is in late August therefore the fourth hour of the day is 04.00?

The ninth hour of the day being 13.00?

Or does it work with the Watches covering the 12 hours of the Night Time (18.00 - 06.00) with the hours the Day Time covering 06.00 - 18.00 therefore the above reading:

3rd Watch - 00.00 - 03.00
4th Hour 10.00
9th hour 15.00

My apologies in advance for being a bit slow here.....

Kind Regards - Deryk

[D B Campbell]

a passage from Caesar regarding crossing the English Channel

This is B.G. 4.23.

In this case I presume that he embarks at around midnight (3rd Watch). It is in late August therefore the fourth hour of the day is 04.00? The ninth hour of the day being 13.00? Or does it work with the Watches covering the 12 hours of the Night Time (18.00 - 06.00) with the hours the Day Time covering 06.00 - 18.00 therefore the above reading: 3rd Watch - 00.00 - 03.00. 4th Hour 10.00. 9th hour 15.00.

You are right that the third watch always begins at midnight, but (as the eminent Caesar scholar T. Rice Holmes long ago observed) in August, it could last until around 2.30am, so Caesar could've set out as late as that. As daylight appears around 5am in the Channel in August, the fourth hour was 8 or 9am, and the ninth hour was probably earlier than 3pm.

[Theoderic]

Hi D B Campbell

That's excellent - although I have to say time appears to be fairly fluid with this method :unsure:

Kind Regards - Deryk

[Flavivs Aetivs]

The Ninth Hour is useful to me, that indicates the Battle of Chalons started before 3pm.

[Nathan Ross]

Lacus Curtius has this useful page from Smith's Dictionary:

Hora

The note at the bottom about the process of calculating an exact time from the literary reference is also very interesting.

[Epictetus]

I was playing with Microsoft Excel one time and made it convert our time to Roman time based upon the time of sunrise and sunset. It has some bugs in it, but it was interesting to see how drastically the length of an hour could change between the summer and winter.

If anyone wants to play with it I've attached it here.

Edit: Well, I tried to attach it but it doesn't seem to work. Sorry about that.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

compress it to an RAR and then attach it. Not all filetypes are supported.

According to Lacus Curtis:

Ninth Hour: 2 o'clock, 31 minutes 0 seconds (Summer Solstice)

On June 20th it would be more or less the same