Daylight Savings in Ancient Rome

[M. Porcius Cato]

Here's an illuminating discussion I just discovered on Roman daylight savings. The source is B. L. ULLMAN (1918). DAYLIGHT SAVING IN ANCIENT ROME. The Classical Journal, Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 450-451.

 

The ancient Romans labored under the enormous disadvantage of having no way of measuring small periods of time, as we have with our seconds, minutes, and hours. They divided their period of daylight into twelve periods of equal length which they called hours. These, of course, varied in length according to the time of year from about forty-five to seventy-five minutes. Think of trying to run railroad trains on such a system! But the system had great advantages as a compensation-the Romans were not confronted with the great problem of daylight saving. The various occupations of the day were arranged with reference to sunrise- a certain engagement might be made for the end of the third "hour" after sunrise. To illustrate the advantage of this plan let us take a concrete example. On the longest day of the year (June 21 or 22) the sun rises in the latitude of Pittsburgh at 4:51 A.M., eastern time, and sets at 7:51 P.M. On that day three Roman "hours" after sunrise (counting an "hour" as one-twelfth of daylight) is 8:36 A.M. by our time. On the shortest day of the year (December 21 or 22) the sun rises in the latitude of Pittsburgh at 7:41 A.M. and sets at 4:55 P.M. Three Roman "hours" after sunrise is 9:59 A.M. Thus, on June 21 at the end of the third hour, one hour and twenty-three minutes of daylight would be saved in Pittsburgh as compared with December 2I. The amount of daylight saved would vary of course with the time of day that an appointment was made. In the afternoon they evened up matters by scheduling for the eighth "hour" in summer what would be put at the ninth "hour" in winter. We see too that this system had another advantage, one which the modern daylight-saving proposition cannot offer. It is as if we were to set the clocks ahead a different number of minutes every day during the summer, instead of a fixed sixty minutes.

Edited October 22, 2008 by M. Porcius Cato

[Nephele]

This reminds me of a short story I read -- "Caveat Emptor" by Rosemary Rowe, in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits. The fact that the Roman hours varied according to the time of year was a key plot point in this mystery solved by Rowe's ancient-day detective, Libertus the freedman.

 

-- Nephele

[M. Porcius Cato]

This reminds me of a short story I read -- "Caveat Emptor" by Rosemary Rowe, in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits. The fact that the Roman hours varied according to the time of year was a key plot point in this mystery solved by Rowe's ancient-day detective, Libertus the freedman.

 

Thanks Nephele! I had no hopes for this posting, but I'm thrilled to learn of the The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits! How was it?

[Nephele]

Thanks Nephele! I had no hopes for this posting, but I'm thrilled to learn of the The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits! How was it?

 

It's a pretty comprehensive collection, including not only short stories by well-known Roman-mystery writers, but also one anonymously written short story ("The Missing Centurion") dug out of the February 1966 issue of the Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine, and purported to have first been published in 1862. All in all, the anthology serves as an excellent introduction to various writers of the genre. Caroline Lawrence has a short story in this anthology, as well.

 

-- Nephele