Keeping Time with the Romans

 

Modern societies rely on precise and standardized timing. Our schedules are synchronized to prevent chaos, ensure safety, and keep complex modern systems running efficiently. Without a shared timeline, daily operations, global markets, and digital networks would quickly fail. Power grids and telecommunications would crash and transportation hubs would become ensnarled. If stock markets didn’t have exact timing down to the microsecond, fraud could easily take place. Our ordered lives demand accurate synchronized devices that rely on electronic oscillation, digital counters, and atomic frequency.

While timekeeping in ancient Rome was still important, it was very different. Before digital and atomic clocks, there were physical gears and springs. But even these were beyond Roman technology. Romans measured time in ways that were much more closely connected to the rhythms of nature. The rising and setting of the sun and the changing of the seasons shaped how Romans perceived time much more than they do today.

Both the modern world and the Roman one divide the day into twenty-four hours. However, we divide those hours differently. Now, our hours are all equal in length and do not vary from day to day or season to season. The Roman day was divided into twelve hours of daylight and twelve of night, and each hour was a flexible unit rather than a consistent measure. During the summer, when the sun follows a higher arc in the sky and days are longer, the Romans had longer hours during the day and shorter hours at night. During the winter, when the sun rose later in the day and set earlier, the hours of day were compressed and nighttime hours lengthened. At Mediterranean latitude, one hour could be as short as 45 minutes in the middle of winter solstice, and 75 minutes during the height of summer.

A modern American’s day begins when the alarm clock goes off. This can be well before sunrise or close to noon. For Romans, sunrise marked the beginning of the day. The first hour of the day, or prima diei hora in Latin, started then.  The ante meridiem, or time before noon continued with hora secunda, hora tertia, and so on. We still use am to differentiate between hours before noon and those in the afternoon.

Roman mornings were busy. Most Romans and began work early to take full advantage of daylight. Most business transactions, legal proceedings, and political obligations occurred before noon. It was also the time when clients of elite patrons made their way to their patron’s house to pay their respects in what was called a salutatio. The clients offered a formal greeting and, in exchange, the patron would dispense advice, give instructions, or request assistance in civic or business matters. In many cases, he also distributed the sportula, a modest allowance that could take the form of cash or food.

 When the sun reached its highest point in the sky, it was Midday, or meridies, and six hours (sexta hora) after sunrise. This wording survives today in the Spanish word siesta, which literally means the sixth hour of the day. For some odd reason, the English term noon didn’t always signify the middle of the day. Until 1300, monks used the word noon to describe a period of prayer beginning at three in the afternoon, or the ninth hour.

The second half of the day was called the post meridiem, or after noon, which in English has become one word: afternoon. We still use the abbreviation pm to identify this period, although for us, pm continues until midnight, while the Romans ended their pm hours at sunset.

By meridies, especially during the long, hot days of summer, most business and civic duties were done. Afternoons were focused on leisure, social interaction, and personal affairs. Bathing was an important part of the afternoon, and a visit to the public baths was not just a time to get clean, but a time relaxing, exercising, and socializing.

Cena, the main meal of the day, was usually eaten in the late afternoon or early evening, after the day's work had come to an end.

The natural day (dies naturalis) ran from sunrise to sunset, which was called vespera in Latin.  Then night began, with the hour after sunset called the prima noctis hora, the first hour of the night. But although night was divided into twelve hours much as day was, most Romans did not keep track of hours. Instead, night was divided into four watches, or vigils. These were especially important for military and security purposes, as soldiers, guards, and night watchmen structured their duties according to these intervals. Vigilia prima was the first watch, or evening watch, and ran from sunset (vespera) to the third hour of the night (hora tertia noctis) at about 9:00 PM.  Vigilia secunda (Second Watch, or Midnight Watch) ran from 9:00 PM to midnight , and Vigilia tertia (Third Watch or Cock-crowing, gallicinium in Latin) ran from midnight to about 3:00 AM. The final watch of the night, Vigilia quarta, ended when the sun rose. All the watches were signaled by horns, bells, or trumpets.

Although they now follow a modern clock with fixed hours, the Catholic Church preserved many of the Latin names in their canonical hours.   Prime takes place at 6 am, terce at 9 am, sext at noon, and none at 3 pm, and vespers at 6 pm.

The Roman system followed a naturally flexible daily rhythm regulated by sunlight rather than mechanical clocks. Activities did not occur at a fixed, standardized times in the modern sense, but were organized around dawn, midday, and sunset. Even with 24 hours in a day, Romans did not manage time down to the minute. Rather than planning to meet at "9:30am sharp" as we might, Romans would plan to meet in the third hour.  Arriving a bit early or late was not considered bad form. It was just a normal part of the system. What feels like imprecision to a modern observer was, for a Roman, simply how life worked.

The tabella defixionis: a Roman curse in lead

 

These days, if someone ticks you off, you might be tempted to go on social media and say something nasty about them. This is not something I recommend. Often, the repercussions can be far worse than anyone expects.

Crosa, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

In the days when the Roman Empire controlled half the known world, dissing someone on the internet was not an option. This didn’t stop people from saying nasty things about each other, though. They just had to use different methods. One of the ways people vented their complaints about others was in a tabella defixionis. Sometimes just shortened to defixio, this is usually translated into English as a curse tablet.

A tabella defixionis was a note requesting a curse or other course of action from a god or
goddess. While these might have been written on parchment or velum, the ones that have survived to the modern period were created on very thin sheets of lead. The aggrieved person would write on that sheet, using a stylus to scratch tiny letters onto the surface. 

There are hints that some of the tabellae were written not by the aggrieved, but by a clerk or scribe. Archaeologists have excavated 80 lead curse tablets from the Roman temple of Mercury at West Hill, Uley in Gloucestershire, England. About 45 of these tablets were either completely blank or contained pre-formulated template text without a specific victim's name so that a client could add in the name of their specific enemy.

Almost all the curse tablets discovered at Bath, in Southern England, relate to petty thefts of clothing, especially cloaks and gloves. Money, jewelry, and household items are also listed. This suggests that victims frequently had their belongings swiped while they were relaxing in the public waters.  The language on these tablets was formulated to function as divine legal contracts. The victim "gifted" the stolen item to the goddess Sulis Minerva, so that the theft became a crime against the deity herself. The goddess was then expected to torment the thief until the property was safely returned to the temple.

An example of this was written by a man named Docilianus, who wrote: “to the most
holy goddess Sulis. I curse him who has stolen my hooded cloak, whether man or woman, whether slave or free, that … the goddess Sulis inflict death upon … and not allow him sleep or children now and in the future, until he has brought my hooded cloak to the temple of her divinity.”

Another, found in Gaul, says “Just as this lead disappears and falls, thus falls their lifetime, limbs, life, ox, grain and goods, those who did me wrong, namely Asuetemeos who Secundina bore, and Verres Tearus // and Amarantis and all that is yours, oh gods, I forbid (them) by all spells to celebrate the Masitlatida and to sing the Necrocantus.” https://mckies.wordpress.com/2014/06/

Not all curse tablets asked the gods to curse someone. Some were love spells, asking the gods to make a specific person fall in love with the writer of the tabella. Many of these had a bit of hair or pieces of clothing wrapped up in them. This was seen as a way to give them strength through inclusion of the central essence of the person. Others have rings folded into them. Archaeologists wonder if these are gifts to the gods to help along their requests.

Other tablets were intended to help the dead. These have been found at the grave sites of people who had died at a very young age or in a violent manner. The tablet seeks to help the dead lay their souls to rest in spite of their untimely deaths.

Whether the sheets were curses, pleas for aid in love or in death, or requests for some other assistance from the gods, after the sheet inscribed, it was rolled or folded, and placed where the gods might have access to it. In Britain, 72 of the 256 tabella were folded, while 6 have been rolled. Most of the ones found at Uley had been rolled, then flattened. 

The word defixionis comes from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". Many of the tablets found have been pierced by nails. Sometimes these were the nails that affixed them to coffins and temple walls. Other times, the piercing seems to have been done at specific words, especially names. Small dolls or figurines were found near some tablets, and these, too, had been pierced by nails and often had bound feet and hands. The texts of many curses say they bind or nail down a specific person.

Once written and folded, the tablets had to be placed where the gods would find them. Many have been found buried in underground sanctuaries. Others, presumably to water gods and goddesses, had been thrown into wells or pools. Some have been found nailed to temple walls or tucked between their stones. The tabella defixionis that ask favors of or for the dead have been found in graves and tombs, and some of the ones requesting help with love seemed to have been hidden away in the homes of their intended.

In The Potter’s Hands, the novel I am presently working on, the main character is a Britanii with a temper as fiery as her hair. When Enica is spurned by a handsome young centurion, she responds by writing a tabella defixionis She writes:

Enica Flavia Servula to the goddess Minerva. I call upon you to give justice to the worthless man who has betrayed me. Do not allow sleep or health to him who has done me wrong.May his member cause him pain when he urinates. May it refuse to be a good soldier and stay at attention when he is with another woman. I give to your divinity and majesty my finest water jug, made of my own hand.

She flings this tablet into the river as he is passing by on parade and immediately feels vindicated, but as time goes on, it appears to Enica that Minerva has responded with horrifying finality. Just as many who post curses on social media later regret their actions, Enica finds her entire world damaged by a few words written on a little sheet of lead.