Flight of Time

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 9

Flight of Time

JJEFORE any really scientific method of reckoning time can be established, there must, of course, be some knowledge of the movements of heavenly bodies. But this could not be expected in EARLY HUMAN SOCIETY where we find that the reckoning was by successions of Kings, or ot magistrates or of priests. The Babylonians reckoned time from the era of Nabonassar (747 8.C.); the Greeks reckoned from 776 8.C., the year when a popular hero won the Olympic Games; and the Romans dated events from the founding of the city (roughly 753 8.C.). Our word “Calendar” comes from the Roman “Calends”—a method of dividing time into hours, days, weeks, months, and years. It is clear that the movements of the sun and moon helped mankind in the first instance, in his growing after exact time-measurement. Light and dark alternating marked the solar day, the moon’s appearance and disappearance defined the months, while the cycle of the seasons as the earth completed its circuit around the sun registered the solar year. These may be called the natural divisions of time. DAY. In ancient Rome there were no divisions of the day-time other than sunrise, mid-day and sunset. The Greeks, however, divided the period of light and the period of darkness into twelve equal parts each. This meant, of course, the length of the hours varied according to the variati< s of light and darkness respectively as the seasons changed. The Egyptians, whom Europeans have followed, commenced the civil day at midnight and subdivided the whole period in to 24 parts. WEEK. The week did not occur in the Greek calendar, and was not recognised in Rome until after the time of Theodorius, but as far back as can be traced it has been familiar to almost all eastern countries. Our early Saxon ancestors borrowed the week from some eastern nation (it is impossible to be precise) and gave the name of one of their own gods to each day. Thus English. Saxon.

Sunday Sun’s Day Monday Moon’s Day Tuesday Tiw’s Day Wednesday Woden’s Day Thursday Thor’s Day Friday Frigg’s Day Saturday Seterne’s Day MONTH. The month was determined by observation of the moon’s changes. The Egyptians established in their calendar, a month which had invariably 30 days, and to complete the year, they simply added 5 days at the end and called them supplementary days. The Greeks subdivided the month into three periods of 10 days each—and this was imitated by the French in the days of the Revolution, when they attempted to bring in a new calendar. The Roman system of dividing a month, as every schoolboy knows to his discomfort and mental distress, was most complicated. Instead of reckoning the days first, second, and third, and so on, they counted backwards from three epochs — the Calends, the Nones and the Ides. The Calends were the Ist of the month ; the Nones were the 9th day before the Ides, counting inclusively; and the Ides could be either the 13th or the 15th. YEAR. The solar year is the time taken by the earth to complete its revolution round the sun. It consists of 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds of mean solar time. Our civil calendar was borrowed from the Romans, who began the year in March. The Latin words Septem (seven), Octo (eight), Novem (nine), and Decern (ten), are still retained to denote the last fourth months of the year. It was in the reign of Numa that two months were added — January at the beginning, and February at the end—and in 452 B.C. the order of the months was changed, February being placed after January. It was Julius Caesar who fixed the mean length of the year at 3651 days, and therefore decreed that, in order to square things up, every fourth year should have 366 days, thus leaving 365 each for the others. July is the month named after Caesar, just as August incorporates the name of Augustus. That is broadly how time has come to be measured. There remain many other aspects of the subject that are highly technical, and that can hardly be dealt with in such an article as this.