We are indebted to the Phœnicians for the first observation of the stars in navigation; the Copæ invented the oar, and the Platæans gave it its broad blade.[1470] Icarus was the person who invented sails,[1471] and Dædalus the mast and yards; the Samians, or else Pericles, the Athenian, transports for horses,[1472] and the Thracians, long covered vessels,[1473]—before which time they used to fight only from the prow or the stern. Pisæus, the Tyrrhenian, added the beak to ships;[1474] Eupalamus, the anchor; Anacharsis, that with two flukes; Pericles, the Athenian, grappling-irons, and hooks like hands;[1475] and Tiphys,[1476] the helm and rudder. Minos was the first who waged war by means of ships; Hyperbius, the son of Mars, the first who killed an animal; and Prometheus, the first who slew the ox.[1477]
CHAP. 58. (57.)—THE THINGS ABOUT WHICH MANKIND FIRST OF ALL AGREED. THE ANCIENT LETTERS.
There was at the very earliest[1478] period a tacit consent among all nations to adopt the letters now used by the Ionians.[1479] (58.) That the ancient Greek letters were almost the same with the modern Latin,[1480] is proved by the ancient Delphic inscription on copper, which is now in the Palatine library, having been dedicated by the emperors to Minerva; this inscription is as follows:
ΝΑΥΣΙΚΡΑΤΗΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΤΟ ΤΗΙ ΔΙΟΣ ΚΟΡΗΙ.
[“Nausicrates offered this to the daughter of Zeus.”][1481]
CHAP. 59. (59.)—WHEN BARBERS WERE FIRST EMPLOYED.[1482]
The next point upon which all nations appear to have agreed, was the employment of barbers.[1483] The Romans, however, were more tardy in the adoption of their services. According to Varro, they were introduced into Italy from Sicily, in the year of Rome 454,[1484] having been brought over by P. Titinius Mena: before which time the Romans did not cut the hair. The younger Africanus[1485] was the first who adopted the custom of shaving every day. The late Emperor Augustus always made use of razors.[1486]
CHAP. 60.—WHEN THE FIRST TIME-PIECES WERE MADE.
(60.) The third point of universal agreement was the division of time, a subject which afterwards appealed to the reasoning faculties. We have already stated, in the Second Book,[1487] when and by whom this art was first invented in Greece; the same was also introduced at Rome, but at a later period. In the Twelve Tables, the rising and setting of the sun are the only things that are mentioned relative to time. Some years afterwards, the hour of midday was added, the summoner[1488] of the consuls proclaiming it aloud, as soon as, from the senate-house, he caught sight of the sun between the Rostra and the Græcostasis;[1489] he also proclaimed the last hour, when the sun had gone down from the Mænian column[1490] to the prison. This, however, could only be done in clear weather, but it was continued until the first Punic war. The first sun-dial is said to have been erected among the Romans twelve years before the war with Pyrrhus, by L. Papirius Cursor,[1491] at the temple of Quirinus,[1492] on which occasion he dedicated it in pursuance of a vow which had been made by his father. This is the account given by Fabius Vestalis; but he makes no mention of either the construction of the dial or the artist, nor does he inform us from what place it was brought, or in whose works he found this statement made.
M. Varro[1493] says that the first sun-dial, erected for the use of the public, was fixed upon a column near the Rostra, in the time of the first Punic war, by the consul M. Valerius Messala, and that it was brought from the capture of Catina, in Sicily: this being thirty years after the date assigned to the dial of Papirius, and the year of Rome 491. The lines in this dial did not exactly agree with the hours;[1494] it served, however, as the regulator of the Roman time ninety-nine years, until Q. Marcius Philippus, who was censor with L. Paulus, placed one near it, which was more carefully arranged: an act which was most gratefully acknowledged, as one of the very best of his censorship. The hours, however, still remained a matter of uncertainty, whenever the weather happened to be cloudy, until the ensuing lustrum; at which time Scipio Nasica, the colleague of Lænas, by means of a clepsydra, was the first to divide the hours of the day and the night into equal parts: and this time-piece he placed under cover and dedicated, in the year of Rome 595;[1495] for so long a period had the Romans remained without any exact division of the day. We will now return to the history of the other animals, and first to that of the terrestrial.