Ideas

by Peter Watson

  The understanding of time in the ancient world varied with local conditions and, in particular, local religions. The first coins to be dated were minted in Syria around 312 BC and were stamped with the year of the Seleucid era in which they were coined (Seleucus Nicator founded the Seleucid empire in 321 BC, two years after the death of Alexander the Great.2) The basic astronomical factor in the understanding of time in antiquity was the division of the earth into the East, or Orient (from the Latin for ‘to be born, rise, grow’), and the West, the Occident (from ‘to fall down, die’). The Babylonians, among others, noticed the so-called ‘heliacal’ rising of the stars. This is the phenomenon whereby, just before dawn, it is possible to observe the rising of stars which are close to the position of the sun. The Babylonians also noticed that, as the year passed, the sun traversed the stars in what appeared to be a regular cycle. They divided these constellations into twelve, no doubt because there were, roughly, twelve lunations in a year, and gave them names. The origins of these names are obscure but many of them were animals (perhaps reflected in the arrangement of the stars) and the practice, inherited from the Babylonians by the Greeks, gave us the zodiac, derived from the Greek word zodion, meaning ‘little animal’. Just as the twelve months of the year are each divided into, roughly, thirty days, so the twelve regions of the zodiac were divided into thirty. This division of the sky eventually gave rise to our practice of dividing the complete circle around a point into 360 degrees.3

  Babylonian astronomical knowledge spread far and wide–to Greece, to Egypt, to India and even to China (though its influence in China has recently been called into question). This is perhaps responsible for the similarities in time-keeping in different cultures, though the basic division of the day into twenty-four hours seems to have arisen in Egypt. There it was noticed that at regular intervals throughout the night bright stars arose, and this is how, at first, the hours of darkness were divided into twelve. Later, the day was divided in the same way, though until medieval times, and the invention of the mechanical clock, the length of hours varied with the seasons: the longer the night, the longer the evening hours and the shorter the daylight hours. This Egyptian practice spread, and in Babylon itself the day was divided into twelve beru, in China into twelve shichen, and in India into thirty muhala. In Babylon a beru was divided into thirty ges and one ges was equal to sixty gar. In India one muhala was divided into two ghati which in turn were each divided into sixty palas. In other words, there was in ancient times a tendency to divide time into subdivisions that are multiples of twelve or thirty and almost certainly this has to do with the division of the year into (roughly) twelve lunations and each lunation into (approximately) thirty days. This ‘sexagesimal’ system of the Babylonians, using sixty as a base, also accounts for why we divide hours into sixty minutes, and minutes into sixty seconds. Just as we are now familiar with a decimal system, in which numbers to the right have only one tenth of the power of numbers to the left (think of 22.2), so in the Babylonian system sixty was the base. Furthermore, the names given to this system of subdivisions live on. The first was known by the Latin phrase, pars minuta prima (the first small division), the next was partes minutae secondae (second small division), and so on. In time, the phrases were corrupted, until all that was left of the first division was ‘minute’ and all that was left of the other phrase was ‘second’. The first, second and further divisions were sometimes represented by ′, ″, and so on, which also survive today.4

  The main problem in recording time was to reconcile the lunar cycle with the solar cycle. The sun governed the seasons–vital in agricultural societies–whereas the moon governed the tides and was an important deity, which appeared to change form in a regular rhythm. Most societies introduced extra months at certain times to overcome the discrepancy between the lunar and the solar year, but though such procedures often redressed the situation on a temporary basis, other intercalations, as they are called, were eventually needed. The most important amendment was introduced in Babylon, by 499 BC, though we know most about it from two Greeks, Meton and Euctemon, who introduced it to Greece in 432 BC. This ‘Metonic’ cycle, as it is called, lasts for nineteen years. Each of these years lasts for twelve months but seven extra months were added, one each in the third, fifth, eighth, eleventh, thirteenth, sixteenth and nineteenth years, while some months were ‘full’ (thirty days) and others ‘deficient’ (twenty-nine days). This might seem excessively complicated but the fact that the Indians and the Chinese took over the practice shows how important it was. (Endymion Wilkinson says that something very like the Metonic cycle was in use in China as early as the seventh century BC.) In medieval calendars the number which gave a year’s position in the Metonic cycle was written in gold and to this day they are known as ‘golden numbers’.5

  Easter is also rooted in these practices. Both the Jewish and Christian calendars took over the nineteen-year lunar–solar cycle, since it solved the problem of fixing dates for the new moon, so important for religious ritual. Originally, the Babylonian priest-kings needed to fix the New Year Festival with absolute precision, since the celebrations were regarded as re-enactments of the divine manoeuvres which established the creation of the world, and only exact correspondence could propitiate the gods. From this sprang the Christian idea to celebrate Easter on the correct date ‘since this was the crucial time of combat between God (or Christ) and the Devil, and God required the support of his worshippers to defeat the Devil’.6 The Babylonians also appear to have been the first to divide the lunar months into seven-day periods (each day being dedicated to one of seven divine planets, or ‘wanderers’, heavenly bodies which were not ‘fixed’ in the sky as the stars were). Each period ended with an ‘evil day’, when taboos were enforced so that, once again, the gods would be propitiated. Cuneiform records also show that the Babylonian shabbatum (‘full-moon day’) fell on the fourteenth or fifteenth of the month, and this seems to be the basis of the Hebrew term shabbath. The Christians took over this practice also. The order of the days of the week is derived from an elaborate table of hours. Each of the hours of the day was named after one of the seven planets, arranged in descending order according to the length of their orbits, beginning with Saturn (29 years), Jupiter (12 years), Mars (687 days), Sun (365 days), Venus (224 days), Mercury (88 days) and ending with the Moon (29 days). When this cycle of seven is laid in this order alongside the twenty-four hours of the day, the first hour of each subsequent day then becomes: Saturn; Sun; Moon; Mars; Mercury; Jupiter; Venus.7

  The ancient Egyptians divided the year into twelve lunar months, of thirty days each, with five additional days at the end, which were considered very unlucky. This calculation was achieved on purely practical grounds, being the average amount of time between successive arrivals of the Nile flood at Heliopolis (the most important event in Egyptian life). The Egyptians soon noticed that, in fact, the actual year is slightly longer, 36514 days, and made the adjustment. They also noticed that the rising of the Nile occurred just as the last star appeared on the horizon, the dog star Sothis (Sirius as we would say). This ‘heliacal rising’ became the fixed point of the so-called ‘Sothic’ calendar, and was more regular, and more accurate, than the flooding of the Nile. Astronomical calculations have shown that the first day of the two calendars–the pre-Sothic and the Sothic–agreed in 2773 BC, and scholars have concluded that this must have been when the Sothic calendar was introduced. So for the Egyptians, whether they knew it or not, the Year 0 was in fact 2773.8

  The Greeks had two concepts of time–aion, sacred or eternal time, and chronos, ordinary time. There was in Greece a concept of time being the judge, and in the Athenian law courts water clocks, or clepsydras, were introduced, to limit speeches to half an hour.9 Before the introduction of the Metonic cycle, in Greece in 432 BC, an eight-year cycle, the octaeteris, had been in use. This was based on a year of twelve months containing alternately, thirty days and twenty-nine days, giving a total of 354 days. This was reconcile
d with the sun by introducing an intercalated month of thirty days every other year. This meant that the calendar was out of step with the moon by a whole day after eight years. In the late sixth century, the Greeks adopted a system whereby they dropped the intercalated month every eight years and this eight-year cycle came to be considered a fundamental time period. It survives today in the Olympic Games cycle, celebrated every four years, which is half an octaeteris.10 The Greeks sometimes dated events by referring to the current Archon–a new one being elected every Year–and sometimes by reference to the Olympiads. The first Olympiad was reckoned to have been held in 776 BC and under this system, for example, the city of Alexandria was founded in the second year after the 112th Olympiad, written as 112.2 (our year 331 BC).11

  Only four months of the year are mentioned in the Bible, but the probability is that the ancient Israelites had a lunar calendar, tied to a seasonal year that began in the autumn. This is inferred from other documentary evidence which suggests that if the Jews could see that the barley would not be ripe by 16 Abib (‘the month of new fruits’) an extra month was intercalated, to ensure that a sheaf of barley could be offered to God on the day after Passover. At the time of Jesus, most Jews used the Seleucid calendar, which began in 321 BC (matching the first dated coins) and was known as the ‘era of contracts’ because the Seleucids required all legal documents to be dated by their era.12 According to Jewish calculations the world began on 7 October 3761 BC but these calculations are uncertain and complex. These Anni Mundi (a twelfth-century idea) were derived from discrepancies between the Jewish, Samaritan, Hebrew and Greek texts, all of which were different. For example, from the Creation to the birth of Abraham there are 1,946 years according to the Jewish Hebrew text, 2,247 years according to the Samaritan Hebrew text, and 3,412 years according to the Septuagint. 3761 BC is now the date preferred for the Creation.

  The world in which Christianity emerged and developed was partly Hellenistic, partly Jewish, but also Roman. In Rome there were many religions, and many superstitions. On several days of the year, the religious calendars forbade business of any kind and ships would not leave harbour, for example, on 24 August, 5 October or 8 November.13 Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, was supposed to have invented the original calendar, which began in March and had ten months. This was revised by the second king of Rome, Numa, who set up the pontifices, a college of officials headed by the Pontifex Maximus. Their responsibilities included giving religious advice, looking after the bridges of Rome (which had great theological significance) and overseeing the calendar. Later on, the Christian leader in Rome became the Pontifex Maximus, which is why the pope is still referred to as the pontiff. According to legend, it was Numa who added the months of February and January (in that order), producing a year of 355 days that kept in step with the moon. He also introduced an intercalated month, known as Mercedonius, deriving from the word merces or ‘wages,’ (from which the English word ‘mercenary’ derives) because that was the season when people were paid.14 In the fifth century there were further reforms, when January became the first month. This was because Janus was the god of gateways and it was felt appropriate for the beginning of a new year, when office-holders took up their positions in the Roman government.

  A public clepsydra was set up in Rome in 158 BC, but rich Romans had their own water clocks and would employ slaves to announce the time aloud to them, on the hour.15 The calendar we use today is actually a modified version of the one introduced in Rome by Julius Caesar on 1 January 45 BC. The previous year, 46 BC, was 445 days long, to bring it into line, and was known as ‘the last year of confusion’.16 The change was made because, under the previous system, intercalary months, of no determinate length, had been abused by unscrupulous politicians for their own ends–for example, either to lengthen a term of office, or to bring forward an election.17 Caesar abolished both the lunar year and intercalary months and settled on the solar year of 365¼ days, introducing the idea of a leap year every four years to account for this extra quarter day. To begin with, January, March, May, July, September and November all had thirty-one days, the rest thirty, save for February, which had twenty-nine. The changes to the system we have now were introduced in 7 BC by Augustus, who wanted a month (Sextilis) named after him.18 Officially, the Roman calendar began in the spring, on 1 March (which is reflected in the names for the months September to December) but this too was changed because Roman officials, elected for a year, took up office on 1 January. Early Christians disliked this arrangement because they felt it reflected a pagan habit and for a time used instead the Annunciation as the first day of the year (25 March, nine months before Christmas). The names Quintilis to December derive from the Latin names for the numbers five to ten and are probably very ancient. March is named after Mars, the god of war, May after Maia, a goddess of spring, June for Iuno, the wife of Jupiter. April may be derived from aprire, ‘to open’, or from Aphrodite. February may derive from a Sabine word, februare, meaning ‘to purify’. July was named after Julius Caesar who had done so much to remove confusion from the calendar.

  It was Varro, in the first century BC, who introduced the Roman system of dating ab urbae condita (from the foundation of Rome), which by tradition was placed in 753 BC. The Romans also took over the Babylonian idea of the seven-day week (the Greeks had not followed this practice), though originally their months had been divided into three: the Calends (from which our word ‘calendar’ is derived), which began on the first of the month, the Ides, which began on the thirteenth or fifteenth of the month, and Nones, beginning eight days before the Ides. Calends fell on the new moon, Ides on the full moon.19 Originally, the days were numbered, not named, working backwards from the Calends, Nones and Ides but in imperial times, thanks to the widespread popularity of astrology, the days were named after the planets.

  For the early Christians, who felt that the kingdom of God was ‘at hand’, time held little interest, not long-term time anyway (Paul, for one, didn’t date his letters). At first the Christians followed the Jewish practice of numbering days rather than naming them, except for the Sabbath. But as more and more converts from paganism entered the fold, bringing with them astrological influences, Christians adopted the planetary week, but chose Sunday as the first day, because this was when Christ rose from the dead and because it distinguished them from the Jews. Easter was introduced in Rome in about the year 160. The first mention of Christmas Day, according to G. J. Whitrow, occurred in the Roman calendar for 354. Previously, 6 January had been celebrated, as the anniversary of Jesus’ baptism, which was believed to have occurred on his thirtieth birthday. The change occurred because infant baptism was replacing adult baptism, as Christianity spread, and this led to a change in belief also. It was now held that Christ’s divinity began at birth, rather than at his baptism.20

  By the time of Jesus, Alexandria in Egypt–situated between the Occident and the Orient–had been a centre of learning, ‘a centre of calculation’, ‘a paradigmatic place’, for several centuries. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, because he wanted to bring Egypt closer to the Greek world, and because he wanted a port that would not be affected by the Nile floods, Alexandria was from the first intended as a ‘megalopolis’, built in the shape of a chlamys, a Macedonian military cloak, with walls that would stretch ‘endlessly’ into the distance, with streets wider than any yet seen, based on Aristotle’s design for the ideal city–a grid laid out in such a way as to benefit from sea breezes yet providing shelter from the wind.21 A third of the city was ‘royal territory’ and it was conveniently located as a trading centre, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, near where the Nile and the Red Sea formed an international crossroads, and where many caravan routes from inner Africa and Asia converged on the coast. It boasted two harbours, one with the famous lighthouse, the Pharos, 144 feet high, and a wonder of the ancient world that could be seen thirty-five miles away.22 After the death of Alexander, his generals had quarrelled, leading to a split, in
which Seleucus had gained control of the northern parts of the former empire, including Israel and Syria, while the Egyptian part was controlled by Ptolemy I, at least from 306 BC.

  But it was for its learning that Alexandria was chiefly known. According to tradition, Alexander himself, when he had decided that the site was ideal for a new city, had also commanded that a library be built there, dedicated to the muses. The idea was not new: as we have seen, several libraries had been compiled in Babylon and others arose elsewhere on the edge of the Mediterranean, in particular at Pergamum and Ephesus. From the start, however, the ambition at Alexandria was bigger than elsewhere–in the words of one scholar ‘an industry of learning’ was launched there.23 As early as 283 BC a synodos, or community of thirty to fifty learned men (only men), was associated with the library and given special status–the scholars were exempted from paying taxes and given free board and lodging in the royal quarter of the city. The library was directed by a scholar-librarian, appointed by the king, who also held the post of royal tutor.24 This library had several wings, with lines of shelves, or thaike, arranged along covered walkways, with niches where different categories of learning were kept. There were lecture theatres and a botanical garden.