CHAP. VII. EARLY USE OF THE DIAL. 331 At all events the use of the dial was known in Judæa as early as seven centuries before our era, and it is not mentioned as a novelty. All that Anaximander could have done was to introduce it into Greece, and adoption should frequently be substituted for "invention" in the claims set up by the Greeks. Indeed they often claimed inventions centuries after they had been known to other people; and we are not surprised at the statement of Plato, that "when Solon inquired of the priests of Egypt about ancient matters, he perceived that neither he nor any one of the Greeks (as he himself declared) had any knowledge of very remote antiquity." (Plat. in Tim. p. 467.) And when Thales is shown by Laertius to have been the first who was acquainted with geometry, some notion may be had of the very modern date of science in Greece, since he was a contemporary of Croesus (Herod. i. 75), and lived at a time when Egypt had already declined from its greatness, and more than seven centuries after astronomical calculations had been recorded on the monuments of Thebes. Clemens (Strom. i. p. 300) says Thales is thought by some to be a Phoenician, and quotes Leander and Herodotus; but the latter only says his ancestors were Phoenician (i. 170). Vitruvius attributes the invention of the semicircular (concave) dial, or hemicyclium, to Berosus, the Chaldæan historian, who was born in the reign of Alexander, which is reducing the date of it to a very recent period. This was a simple kind of wóλos (for, as before observed, the óxos is the dial, and yvwuwv merely a perpendicular rod which showed the time by the length of its shadow-see note on ch. 109), and it was very generally used till a late period, judging from the many that have been found of Roman times. It consisted of a basin, λekavís, with a horizontal yvwuwv in the centre of one end, and eleven converging lines in the concave part divided it into the twelve hours of the day; the older dials having been marked by degrees, probably like that of Ahaz. The Greeks marked the divisions by the first twelve letters of the alphabet, and four of these reading ZнOI, "Enjoy yourself," are alluded to in this epigram, ascribed to Lucian (Epigr. 17) :— *Εξ ὧραι μόχθοις ἱκανώταται, αἱ δὲ μετ ̓ αὐτὰς "Eudoxus," according to Vitruvius, "invented the Arachne (spider's web), or, as some say, Apollonius; and Aristarchus of Samos the scaphé or hemisphere, as well as the disk on a plane; " which (if he 332 DIVISIONS OF TIME. APP. BOOK II. means a dial on a plane surface) was a still further improvement, and required greater knowledge for its construction. The most perfect hydraulic-clock was invented by Ctesibius, at Alexandria, in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes II.; but the more simple clepsydra was known long before, being mentioned by Aristophanes, and described by Aristotle (Probl. sec. 16, p. 933), and not being then a novelty. (See Athen. Deipn. iv. p. 174, and xi. p. 497; Vitruv. ix. 9; Plin. vii. 37, and ii. 76, on the Horologium.) Herodotus 13. says the Greeks received the twelve hours from the Babylonians, and the Jews are supposed not to have adopted them till after the captivity. The first mention of an hour is certainly in Daniel (iv. 19), where the name sah is the same as now used in Arabic; for though even there (as in iii. 6) the sense might require it to mean only "moment," the use of the word "time" immediately before, shows that sah was a division of time, which is still employed by the Arabs in the same sense of "hour" and "moment." 14. 15. The Jews at first divided the day into four parts, and their night into three watches, and the mention of the dial of Ahaz proves that they had also recourse to a more minute division of time; but no hours are specified; and afterwards, when they adopted them, the numbering of their hours was irregular, as with the Arabs, being reckoned from sunrise to sunset. The Greek word "pa was used long before hours were introduced into Greece. Homer divides the day into three parts (Il. xxi. 111; see note on ch. 173); and at Rome it consisted of two, sunrise and sunset, meridies or noon separating the two; and the twelve equal parts were adopted B.C. 291. 8 The natural division of the circle by its radius of 60° into six parts, and into six more by the half of those parts, or by the same radius starting from the second diameter, CD, which crosses the first, AB, at right angles, may have been the origin of this conventional division into twelve parts; as that into three parts may have been the division of the circle by the length of its diameter, or 120°. The Egyptians had twelve hours of day and twelve of night at a very early period; but there is nothing to show whether this division was first used in Egypt or Chaldæa. The Greeks, however, who frequented Egypt from the time of Thales, ought to have been acquainted with the twelve hours there; and their intercourse being far greater, both for study and for trade, with Egypt than with Babylon, we might suppose them more likely to receive them from CHAP. VII. THE SEVEN-DAY DIVISION. 333 the former than from that inland city; but an intercourse through Asia Minor may have brought them to Greece from the Babylonians. It has been a question whether the Egyptians had a week of 16. seven days. Dio Cassius (writing in 222 A.D.) evidently shows that this was the case when he says:—τὰς ὥρας τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ νυκτὸς ἀπὸ πρώτης ἀρξάμενος ἀριθμεῖν, καὶ ἐκείνην μὲν τῷ Κρόνῳ δίδους, τὴν δὲ ἔπειτα τῷ Δίϊ, καὶ τρίτην Αρει, τετάρτην Ηλίῳ, πέμπτην Αφροδίτῃ, ἕκτην Ἑρμῇ, καὶ ἑβδόμην Σελήνῃ, κατὰ τὴν τάξιν τῶν κύκλων καθ ̓ ἣν οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι αὐτὴν νομίζουσι, καὶ τοῦτο καὶ αὖθις ποιήσας πάσας γὰρ οὕτως τὰς τέσσαρας καὶ εἴκοσιν ὥρας περιελθὼν, εὑρήσεις τὴν πρώτην τῆς ἐπιούσης ἡμέρας ὥραν ἐς τὸν Ἥλιον ἀφικομένην· καὶ τοῦτο καὶ ἐπ ̓ ἐκείνων τῶν τεσσάρων καὶ εἴκοσιν ὥρων κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν τοῖς πρόσθεν λόγον πράξας, τῇ Σελήνῃ τὴν πρώτην τῆς τρίτης ἡμέρας ὥραν ἀναθήσεις, κ ̓ ἂν οὕτω καὶ διὰ τῶν λοιπῶν πορεύσῃ, τὸν προσήκοντα ἑαυτῇ θεὸν ἑκάστη ἡμέρα λήψεται. (Hist. Rom. xxxvii. 19.) This agrees with what Herodotus says (ch. 82) of days being consecrated to certain Deities, though the fact of the Egyptians having reckoned by ten days may argue against it. It must, however, be observed that the division of the month into decads must date after the adoption of a solar year, and that weeks were the approximate result of the lunar division of time, which is the older of the two. Weeks were certainly used at a very early period, as we find from Genesis and the account of the creation; and the importance of the number seven is sufficiently obvious from its frequent occurrence throughout the Bible. It was common to all the Semitic nations and to those of India; but in China it was only used by the Buddhists, who introduced it there; and the Chinese as well as all the Mongolian races always had five-day divisions, and cycles of sixty years instead of centuries. The Aztecs of Mexico had also weeks 17. of five days, four of which made a month, and the year contained eighteen months of twenty days, with five days added at the end, which were unlucky, as one of them was in Egypt. They had also their astronomical computation by months of thirteen days, 1461 of which made their cycle of fifty-two years, the same number as that of the vague years composing the Egyptian Sothic period. That the seven-day division was known to the Egyptians seems 18. to be proved by the seven-days' fête of Apis (a fourth part of the number twenty-eight assigned to the years of Osiris' life) as well as by their seventy days' mourning for the dead, or ten weeks of seven days (Gen. 1. 3); and the seven days that the head took annually to float to Byblus from Egypt (Lucian. de Deâ Syr.), the fourteen pieces into which the body of Osiris was divided, and his twentyeighty years, evidently point to the length of a week (4 x 7). The 334 DECIMAL AND DUODECIMAL CALCULATION. APP. BOOK II. time of mortification imposed on the priests lasted from seven to forty-two days (one to six weeks): oi μèv dvoîv kal Teσσapákovta, oi dè τούτων πλείους, οἱ δὲ ἐλάσσους, οὐδέποτε μέντοι τῶν ἕπτα λειπομένας (Porphyr. de Abstin. iv. 7), which shows the entire number to have been based on seven; and the same occurs again in the forty-two books of Hermes, as well as in the forty-two assessors of Amenti. Indeed the fre19. quent occurrence of seven shows that it was a favourite number with the Egyptians as with the Jews; and the Pythagoreans borrowed their preference for the hebdomal division from Egypt. 20. There is no reason to conclude the Egyptians had not weeks of seven days because they divided their solar month into the very natural division of three parts of ten each; it would rather argue that the original lunar month was divided into seven-day weeks, and that the decad division was a later introduction, when the months were made to consist of thirty days. And as the monuments are all of a time long after the thirty days were adopted, the more frequent mention of a decad instead of the hebdomal division, is readily accounted for. Moreover these months of thirty days still continued to be called "moons," as at the present day. Dion Cassius also distinctly states that the seven days were first referred to the seven planets by the Egyptians. (See note1 on ch. 82, and note on ch. 8, B. iii.) 21. The Greeks, like the Egyptians, divided their month into three parts, and their year into three decads of months, corresponding to the three seasons of the Egyptians: and the Roman month consisted of calends, nones, and ides, the periods before each being of different lengths; but they afterwards adopted the division of weeks, giving the names of the sun, moon, and five planets to the seven days we now use. The Egyptians had both the decimal and duodecimal calculation, as the twelve hours of day and night, the twelve kings, twelve gods, twelve months: 12 x 30 360 days; and 360 cups at Osiris' tomb in Phila; 12 x 6 = 72 conspirators against Osiris ; and 12 x 6 72, which some fix as the number of days of the embalmed; and instances of both methods of notation are found on the oldest monuments of the 4th dynasty.-[G. W.] = = CHAP. VIII. HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EGYPT. 335 CHAPTER VIII. HISTORICAL NOTICE OF EGYPT. 1. Fabulous period of history-Rule of the Gods-Name of Menes; supposed to be Mizraim-Believed to be a real person by the Egyptians, and to have founded Memphis. 2. This and Memphis-Egyptians from Asia-Memphis older than Thebes. 3. Precedence of Upper Egypt. 4. Earliest notice of Thebes-Absence of early buildings. 5. Contemporary kings-Arrangement of the early dynasties. 6. Uncertainty of the early chronology-Date of the Exodus. 7. 1st, 2nd, and 3rd dynasties-Menes and his successors. 8. In the second dynasty sacred animals worshipped; and women allowed to hold the sceptre. 9. 4th and 5th dynasties. 10. Civilised customs in the early Pyramid period-Mount Sinai-Shafre built the 2nd pyramid. 11. 6th dynasty-The prenomen of kings. 12. 7th, 8th, and 9th dynastiesThe Enentefs. 13. 11th dynasty-Contemporary kings. 14. 12th dynasty -Osirtasen III. treated as a God. 15. The labyrinth. 16. The 13th dynasty in Ethiopia. 17. Shepherd dynasties-The Hyk-sos expelled. 18. The 18th dynasty-The horse from Asia. 19. Thothmes I., II., and III., and Queen Amun-nou-het. 20. Conquests of Thothmes III.-His monuments. 21. Amunoph III. and Queen Taia-The Stranger kings-Conquests of Amunoph III. 22. Country and features of the Stranger kings -Related to Amunoph. 23. Expelled from Egypt. 24. King Horus. 25. The 19th dynasty-Remeses, Sethos, and Remeses the Great-Attack and defence of fortresses-Pithom and Raamses-Canal to the Red Sea. 26. 20th dynasty-Remeses III.-His conquests and wealth-His sons. 27. 21st and 22nd dynasties-Priest kings. 28. Sheshonk, or ShishakConquers Judæa--Name of Yudah Melchi (kingdom of Judah). 29. Kings' names on the Apis stela. 30. The 23rd dynasty-Assyrian names of the Sheshonk family. 31. The 24th dynasty-Bocchoris the Saïte-Power of Assyria increasing. 32. The 25th dynasty of the Sabacos and Tirhaka. 33. The 26th dynasty-Psammetichus succeeded Tirhaka-Correction of the chronology-He married an Ethiopian princess. 34. War of Psammetichus and desertion of his troops. 35. Succeeded by Neco. 36. Circumnavigation of Africa-Defeat of Josiah. 37. Power and fall of Apries-Probable invasion of Egypt and substitution of Amasis for Apries by Nebuchadnez38. Amasis-Flourishing state of Egypt-Privileges granted to the Greeks-Treaty with Croesus-Persian invasion. 39. Defeat of the Egyptians-Conduct of Cambyses at first humane. 40. Egypt became a Persian province-27th or Persian dynasty-Revolt of the Egyptians. 41. 28th and 29th dynasties of Egyptians. 42. 30th dynasty of Egyptians -Nectanebo II. defeated. 43. Ochus recovered Egypt. 44. Duration of the Egyptian kingdom. zar. 1. THE early history of Egypt is enveloped in the same obscurity as that of other ancient nations, and begins in like manner with its fabulous period. The oldest dynasty therefore given by Manetho is said to have been of the "gods and demigods;" and the list of kings |