. 392

NIGHT-WATCH.

people, we submit, if they would perpetrate such outragesin the open light of day, the shade of night was much morelikely to afford them opportunity to practise their unlawfuland violent occupation even in cities. Therefore, having bythose instances, deduced inference from them to establishthe necessity, — it follows, we would also suggest, thatthe prudence and precaution of men should teach themto be upon their guard: and since fear suggested the pro-priety of establishing centinels by day, much more wouldthe same motive instruct to provide for security by night,by the establishment of proper watchmen, as well to resistany puny attempt of a solitary thief, as to forewarn a cityof greater approaching danger, threatening the persons orproperty of the inhabitants.

Admitting there was no necessity from fear of robbersin large well regulated societies, yet there is an enemy itassuredly behoves all people to guard against, and whichmust have existed in ancient days as well as it does now :we mean the subtility of fire. And without the intelligenceof ancient historians, poets, and other delineators of ancientmanners, which may be produced in vast abundance, toprove this necessity, it is apparent, in the previous anecdotewe have related from the history of Omar, the third caliphof the Saracenic empire, by the conduct of Dames, at thesiege of A leppo. A watch is named likewise where AmmianusMarcellus, xxiv. 1C. reports that such was the custom amongthe Persians: as the Persian centinels were singing (a cen-tinel and watchman is in this case nearly a synonomy) atthe time they were surprised by the Romans.

We have, we think, established the necessity for the exist-ence of a watch in most countries, in a very ancient period; itnow alone remains to see the names by which they werecalled by the Greeks as well as the Romans.

Night watchmen in Greece were called Kudavopofoi, bell-bearers, or what we call bellmen, because whilst going theirrounds they gave a signal with their bells, which the cen-tinels were obliged immediately to answer. \ ide the Scho-liasts upon the Aves of Aristophanes , ver. 841, whose wordshave been inserted by Varinus in his Lexicon, p. 461, andfound to be exactly of the same class with the ntpiTrotei twVoitov qnj\xTTovre; in Pollnx, viii. cap. 9. The watchmen indifferent quarters of the city have small bells, that they maymake signals to each other when they think proper. Hence,it appears, the bells did not serve to announce the hour, assome have thought, because first they appear for signals agreedupon; and secondly, those signals depended upon the cir -