The same method of distinguishing the years from one another was employed in ancient Babylonia, in the days of the Sumerian kingdom of Ur in the second half of the third millenium B. C., and also later under the first dynasty in Babylon, and was only replaced by the reckoning according to the years of the king’s reign under the dominion of the Kassites[457]. For our historical knowledge of the events these so-called ‘year-formulae’ are of extreme importance. They vary in each case according to the towns, and shew that these in some respects maintained an independent position. The adoption of the year-formulae of the main locality implies the complete subjugation of the town[458]. No trace of an era or any reckoning by the years of the reign is to be found. Only the king’s accession to the throne is utilised for distinguishing the years, the first complete year of his reign (not the year of accession, therefore,) being described as the year of King X. As marks of the other years the most important national events in the domain of the religious cult and of politics are almost universally employed. Only exceptionally is the year named after some violent natural catastrophe. Rather, it is a striking fact that in none of the 66 year-formulae hitherto discovered is there any mention of an eclipse of the sun, or a comet or meteor. If no important event has occurred, the year is described as the one following such and such a year, e. g. the year 49 of king Dungi is called ‘the year in which the temple of X. was built’; year 50 = ‘the year following that in which the temple of X. was built’; year 51 = ‘the year following that in which the temple of X. was built, the year after this’. We see the clumsy method used in order to avoid counting, instead of simply saying ‘the second year after etc.’: so firmly is the concrete description adhered to. These year-formulae were however used for the dating of documents, and not simply, as among the primitive peoples with whom we have hitherto been concerned, for the retaining of past events in the memory. Hence arises the difficulty that often an event of such importance that the year can be named after it does not occur until well on into the year, that is, the event from which the year is named does not take place until a greater or smaller part of the year has already passed by. Until the event takes place indications of the kind already mentioned, having reference to the preceding year, are employed, e. g. the year 17 of Dungi = ‘the year after that in which the ship of Belit (was launched)’; when a noteworthy event happens it gives its name to the year: thus the same year is ‘the year in which the god Nannar was brought from Kar-zi-da into his temple’. Hence arise twofold descriptions, and they are indeed necessary in this kind of designation when events of the current year are to be dated by the year. An example containing a political event is the year 36 of Dungi = ‘the year after that in which Simuru was destroyed’, or ‘the year in which Simuru was destroyed for the second time’. It is characteristic to count the destructions of a town but not the years[459]. During the reign of Rimsin of Larsa, a contemporary of Hammurabi, the years begin to be run together into an era: there are many datings from the capture of Isin, up to thirty years after that event,[460] and so under the second king of the first Babylonian dynasty five years were reckoned after the taking of Kazallu[461]. So also under the first dynasty of Babylon the years were described by occurrences, by events in the religious and political life, especially religious acts and buildings of the kings, by wars, and lastly by natural catastrophes, especially inundations of the country[462]. Dates given by events of a previous year are also found. At that period however the year-formula seems to have been given at the New Year’s Day and therefore to have been determined beforehand: when important historical events occurred, the year was given a new name from these[463].
In the older period of Egyptian history each year of the king’s reign is described by an official name borrowed from the festivals—e. g. those of the king’s accession, of the worship of Horus, of the sowing, of the birth of Anubis—from buildings, wars, and the censuses for purposes of taxation. Gradually the simple counting of the years of the reign appears alongside of these names, and from the end of the old empire completely supplants the former method even in official dates. The years however are not calendar years, but begin with the day of the king’s accession: they therefore offer the disadvantage of running from different dates according to this. At certain periods however the reigns, as in Babylon, were counted only from the first New Year’s Day. Of an era there is only a single example[464]. The Egyptians also began with the concrete descriptions, but passed over, at least within the separate reigns, to the counting of years which is so much more suitable for a survey of the course of time. The Assyrian designation of the year after eponyms, limmu, the Greek after archons, ephors, and other eponymous officials, the Roman after consuls etc. are no different. For a people with a fully developed political life and annually changing supreme officials the latter naturally offer a means of distinguishing the years; the life was too regular and too well-established for events of such a decisive nature that they could impress themselves upon the memory of everyone and become available for time-reckoning to be able to happen to the whole people in smaller intervals of time. Here however the system shews a weak point. It is very difficult to keep an arbitrary series of many names in its right order without confusing the names, and only very few persons can do it. The system therefore did not provide that survey over the whole course of time which the awakening historical sense rendered more and more necessary. So men were led to the only practical method, that of simply counting the years and marking them by figures, by which means everyone without more ado became quite clear as to the dates of earlier or later events, whether these were expressed in olympiads, in ab urbe condita etc., or in the countless local eras of antiquity. It was long before it was seen that the starting-point is a matter of indifference, and that the only essential is that all should use the same starting-point. In this respect the old reckoning in epochs long continued to influence the minds of men.
CHAPTER IV.
THE STARS.
The time-indications from the phases of the climate and of Nature are only approximate: they themselves, like the concrete phenomena to which they refer, are subject to fluctuation. Even in the tropics, where the regularity of the climatic changes is greater than in our latitudes, the beginning of the rains, the dry season, or monsoons may be to some extent advanced or retarded. In the temperate zones the fluctuations are very perceptible. In the year in which I write this (1916) the corn harvest has been delayed by nearly a month, not only on account of bad weather in harvest-time but also owing to the unusually low temperature of the past summer. Even the townsfolk notice that the days are shorter and the weather is colder than is usual at the time of harvest. Further, incidents of plant and animal life—e. g. the blossoming of certain trees and plants, the arrival of the migratory birds—vary somewhat in different years. In general primitive man takes no notice of these variations: the Banyankole, for instance, are indifferent as to whether the year is one or even three weeks longer or shorter, i. e. whether the rainy season opens so much earlier or later[465]. The days are not counted exactly, but the people are content with the concrete phenomenon. More accurate points of reference are however especially desirable for an agricultural people, since, although the right time for sowing can be discerned from the phenomena and general conditions of the climate, yet a more exact determination of time may be extremely useful. The possibility of such a determination exists—and that at a far more primitive stage than that of the agricultural peoples—in the observation of the stars, and especially in the observation of the so-called ‘apparent’ or, more properly, visible risings and settings of the fixed stars, the importance of which has already been explained (pp. [5 ff].) The observation of the morning rising and the evening setting is extraordinarily wide-spread, but other positions of the stars, e. g. at a certain distance from the horizon, are also sometimes observed[466]. The Kiwai Papuans also compute the time of invisibility of a star. When a certain star has sunk below the western horizon they wait for some nights during which the star is ‘inside’; then it has ‘made a leap’, and shews itself in the east in the morning before sunrise[467].
Any reader of the classics will be familiar with the risings and settings of the stars: Virgil, for example, mentions them often. With him however they are pre-eminently a traditional ornament of poetic style: the richest sources are the peasants’ rules of Hesiod, in which the stars are mentioned as time-indications along with phenomena of plant and animal life, and appear just as frequently as the latter, often in combination with them. But Homer not only knows several stars but is also acquainted with the rising and setting. A much quoted passage in the Iliad runs:—
“Him first king Priam saw with his old eyes,
As o’er the plain he lightened, dazzling bright,
Like to the star that doth in autumn rise,
Whose radiant beams, pre-eminent to sight,