FOOTNOTES
[456] They were called bell-bearers or bellmen, because while going the rounds they gave a signal with their bells, which the sentinels were obliged immediately to answer. See the Scholiasts on the Aves of Aristophanes, ver. 841. Dio Cassius, lib. liv. 4, p. 773, says, “The watchmen in the different quarters of the city have small bells, that they may make signals to each other when they think proper.” The bells therefore did not serve for announcing the hours, as some have imagined.
[457] The Persian sentinels sung in this manner when they were surprised in the city by the Romans.—Ammianus Marcell. xxiv. 15.
[458] That the servants in many houses were wakened by the ringing of a bell, appears from what Lucian says in his treatise, De iis qui mercede conducti in divitum familiis vivunt, cap. xxiv. p. 245, and cap. xxxi. p. 254, Bipont edition, vol. iii. It does not however follow that there were then striking or alarm-clocks, as some have thence concluded. See Magius De Tintinnabulis, cap. 6, in Sallengre, Thesaurus Antiquit. ii. p. 1177.
[459] Vegetius De Re Milit. iii. 8. That Cæsar had such clocks may be concluded from the observation which he makes in his Commentaries, on the length of the day in the islands near Ireland, lib. v. 13. Maternus, in Romische Alterthümer, iii. p. 47, endeavours to prove by what Suetonius relates of Domitian, cap. 16, that this prince had in his palace neither a sun-dial nor a water-clock. But what kind of a proof! Domitian asked what the hour was, and some one answered, the sixth. Such insignificant dicta probantia have been banished from philosophy by the moderns, and ought they not to be banished from antiquities likewise? The often-quoted passage also of Valerius Maximus, viii. 7, 5, proves nothing, unless we first adopt the amendment of Green. Carneades, it is said, was so engaged in the study of philosophy, that he would have forgot his meals had not Melissa put him in mind of them. Green reads monitrix domestica; but Valerius says, “Melissa, quam uxoris loco habebat.” See Sallengre, Thes. Antiq. Rom. i. p. 721. A passage likewise in Pliny’s Epistles, iii. 1, p. 181, “ubi hora balinei nunciata est,” does not properly prove that it alludes to one of those boys who announced the hours. That such servants however were kept, is evident from the undoubted testimony of various authors. Martial, viii. ep. 67.—Juven. Sat. x. 216.—Seneca De Brevit. Vitæ, c. 12.—Alciphron, Epist. lib. iii. p. 282.—Sidon. Apollin. ii. ep. 9, p. 120.
[460] Cic. Orat. pro Muræna, cap. 22.
[461] Sil. Ital. vii. 155.
[462] Traité de la Police, vol. i. in the Index under the word Guet.
[463] Bivouac, from the German beiwacht, is an additional night-guard during a siege, or when an army is encamped near the enemy. Lansquenets were German soldiers added by Charles VIII. of France to his infantry, and who were continued in the French army till Francis I. introduced his legions.—Trans.
[464] [With respect to the institution of night-watch in this country, Stow says, “For a full remedy of enormities in the night, I read, that in the year 1253 Henry III. commanded watches in the cities and borough towns to be kept, for the better observing of peace and quietness among his people.... And further, by the advice of them of Savoy, he ordained, that if any man chanced to be robbed, or by any means damnified by any thief or robber, he to whom the charge of keeping that country, city, or borough, chiefly appertained, where the robbery was done, should competently restore the loss. And this was after the use of Savoy, but yet thought more hard to be observed here than in those parts; and therefore, leaving those laborious watches, I will speak of our pleasures and pastimes in watching by night.” (Survey of London, Thoms’s edition, 1842, p. 39.) He then describes the marching watches which were instituted in the months of June and July, on the vigils and evenings of festival days; with the cresset lights, &c. But he does not state whether these watches were continued in his time; nor does he state the author of the information which he gives us from his reading. The statute of Winchester, 13 Edward I. c. 4, enforces a continuation of the watches as they had previously been made, from Ascension-day to Michaelmas-day; the night-watch from sun-set to sunrise, in every city by six men at each gate, in every borough by twelve men, in every open town by six or four men.]
[465] Nicolai Beschreib. von Berlin, i, p. 38.
[466] Ib. p. 49.
[467] Iter Germanicum. Hamburgi, 1717, 8vo, p. 26.
[468] Lipsius De Milit. Rom. iv. 10, p. 198.—Bochart. Hierozoic. i.
[469] From the name of this instrument, called in some places of Germany a ratel, arose the appellation of ratelwache, which was established at Hamburg in 1671. In the Dutch language the words ratel, ratelaar, ratelen, ratelmann, ratelwagter (a night-watchman), are quite common.
[470] Stanihurst De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis, lib. i. p. 33.
[471] Leges Walliæ. Lond. 1730, fol.
[472] The person whose turn it was to watch at the gates, was obliged to perform the duty himself, or to cause it to be performed by a fit and proper young citizen. Those who attended to trade and neglected the watch, paid for every omission one mark to the council. The case was the same with the watch on the tower in the market-place.
[473] In the Berlin police ordinance of the year 1580, it was ordered that the Raths-thurn oder Hausmann, steeple-watchman or city-musician, should attend at weddings with music for the accustomed pay, but only till the hour of nine at night, in order that he might then blow his horn on the steeple, and place the night-watch.
[474] Martini Atlas Sinens. p. 17. Matches or links, to which alarums are sometimes added, are employed in China to point out the hours; and these are announced by watchmen placed on towers who beat a drum. See Kæmpfer’s Japan, where the mention of matches is omitted. Thunberg says, “Time is measured here not by clocks or hour-glasses, but by burning matches, which are plaited like ropes, and have knots on them. When the match burns to a knot, which marks a particular lapse of time, the hour is announced, during the day, by a certain number of strokes on the bells in the temples; and in the night by watchmen who go round and give a like signal with two pieces of board, which they knock against each other.”
[475] A great deal of important information, which is as yet too little known, has been collected on this subject by Reiske, on Constantini Lib. de Ceremoniis Aulæ Byzant. ii. p. 74.
[476] This is related in the Oettingisches Geschichts-almanach, p. 7, on the authority of an account in the parish books of Oettingen, said to be extracted from an ancient chronicle of that town. The author of this almanac, which is now little known, was, as I have been told, Schablen, superintendant at Oettingen.