NIGHT-WATCH. 393

cumstances of the moment, to he judged of by the watch-men.

In Rome the watchmen were termed triumviri nocturni,cohortes viqilum, &c.

It is said, at a period when Augustus was apprehensiveof nocturnal commotions, as a means to prevent them, hetried the pretext of suggesting that such precautions werefrom the apprehension of tires only. This does not permitthe inference that watchmen were then first established inRome in the time of that Emperor; in most things Rome tookAthens for its model, and surely in so sound a feature as thispolicy, the prototype was not forgotten. We may hencesuppose that he doubled the watch. Cassiodorus says, whenorders were given to a prcefectus vigilum, that it was said tohim “ Kris securitas soporantium, munimen domontm, tutelaclaustrorinn, discussor ohscurus, arbiter silentiosus, cui fallereinsidiantes fas est, el decipere gloria.” Var. vii. 7.

Subsequently to the introduction of the Egyptian inven-tion of the water-clock in Greece and Rome , the watchmenof those cities might have announced the hour ; but previousthereto the watch of the night might be announced, as mightthe crxiot at Athens, and the liorce at Rome ; but, upon themost minute search no trace of such practice is to be dis-covered, which certainly appears very extraordinary, be-cause the nominal divisions of the night took their originalfrom the office of a watch. And when we consider the soli-citude of some voluptuaries, and indeed of the most respectableof citizens to be informed of the progress of time, the morestrange is the omission. It is reported by historians that allpeople of consequence in Athens and Rome kept servants ofboth sexes in their houses, whose duty it was to announce tothem the hour even in the day; those servants chiefly consistedof boys and girls whose duty was exclusively to attend uponcertain branches of the family, similar to our foolboys andladies’ maids. The reproach of Petronius , upon Trimalchio,a celebrated voluptuary, that he had a clepsydra in his dining-room, and a servant stationed near it to proclaim theprogress of the hours, that his master might know howmuch of his life-time he had spent, for he did not wish tolose a single moment without enjoying pleasure, tends toprove our assertion. This, and like instances, affords a proofof general habits in this particular.

Although we read of no intimation of the time beinggiven by the ancient night-watch, yet that the military por-tion of their population were in the habit of dividing thetime by night as well as by day is certain, from the evidence