A dictionary of Greek and Roman . movement of these wheelswas communicated to a small statue, which, gra-dually rising, pointed with a little stick to thehours marked on a pillar which was attached tothe mechanism. It indicated the hours regularlythroughout the year, but still required to be oftenattended to and regulated. This complicated clep-sydra seems never to have come into general use,and was probably only found in the houses of verywealthy persons. The sun-dial or gnomon, and asimpler kind of clepsydra, on the other hand, Averemuch used down to a very late period. The twe
A dictionary of Greek and Roman . movement of these wheelswas communicated to a small statue, which, gra-dually rising, pointed with a little stick to thehours marked on a pillar which was attached tothe mechanism. It indicated the hours regularlythroughout the year, but still required to be oftenattended to and regulated. This complicated clep-sydra seems never to have come into general use,and was probably only found in the houses of verywealthy persons. The sun-dial or gnomon, and asimpler kind of clepsydra, on the other hand, Averemuch used down to a very late period. The twelveparts of the day were not designated by the name&pa until the time of the Alexandrian astrono-mers, and even then the old and vague divisions,described in the article Dies, were preferred in theaffairs of common life. At the time of the geo-grapher Hipparchus, however (about 150 ), itseems to have been very common to reckon by hours.(Comp. Becker, Charikles, vol. ii. p. 490, &c.)There is still existing, though in ruins, a horo-. logical building, which is one of the most interest-ing monuments at Athens. It is the structureformerly called the Tower of the Winds, but nowknown as the Horological Monument of AndronicusCyrrhestes (see Diet, of Biog. s. v.). It is ex-pressly called horologium by Varro (R. R. iii. 5.§ 17). This building is fully described by Vitru-vius (i. 6. § 4), and the preceding woodcuts showits elevation and ground plan, as restored by Stuart.{Antiq. of Athens, vol. i. c. 3.) The structure is octagonal ; with its faces to thepoints of the compass. On the and are distyle Corinthian porticoes, giving accessto the interior ; and to the south wall is affixed asort of turret, forming three quarters of a circle, tocontain the cistern which supplied water to theclepsydra in the interior. On the summit of thebuilding was a bronze figure of a Triton, holding awand in his hand ; and this figure turned on apivot, so that the wand always pointed abov
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsmithwilliam18131893, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840
