[190] At Rome, however, at a very early period, there appears to have been carriages to be let out for hire: Suetonius calls them (i. chap. 57) rheda meritoria, and (iv. c. 39) meritoria vehicula.
[191] Charles Villerme paid in 1650, into the king’s treasury, for the exclusive privilege of keeping coaches for hire within the city of Paris, 15,000 livres.
[192] A full history of the Parisian fiacres, and the orders issued respecting them, may be seen in Continuation du Traité de la Police. Paris, 1738, fol. p. 435. See also Histoire de la Ville de Paris, par Sauval, i. p. 192.
[193] An account of the manner in which these brouettes were suspended may be seen in Roubo, p. 588. He places the invention of post-chaises in the year 1664.
[194] Anderson’s Hist. of Commerce.
[195] Haubers Beschr. von Copenhagen, p. 173.
[196] Twiss’s Travels through Spain and Portugal.
WATER-CLOCKS, CLEPSYDRAS.
We are well assured that the ancients had machines by which, through the help of water, they were able to measure time[197]. The invention of them is by Vitruvius[198] ascribed to Ctesibius of Alexandria, who lived under Ptolemy Euergetes, or about the year 245 before the Christian æra[199]. They were introduced at Rome by P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, in the year 594 after the building of the city, or about 157 years before the birth of Christ. How these water-clocks were constructed, or whether they were different from the clepsydras, I shall not inquire. If under the latter name we understand those measurers of time which were used in courts of justice, the clepsydra is a Grecian invention, first adopted at Rome under the third consulship of Pompey[200]. The most common kinds of these water-clocks all, however, corresponded in this, that the water issued drop by drop through a hole of the vessel, and fell into another, in which a light body that floated marked the height of the water as it rose, and, by these means, the time that had elapsed. They all had this failing in common, that the water at first flowed out rapidly, and afterwards more slowly, so that they required much care and regulation[201].