Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

HOROLOGIUM.

207

HORTUS.

sun-dial, especially to its finger which threw
the shadow, and thus pointed to the hour.
The polos or heliotropion OjAioTpdn-ioi'), on the
other hand, seems to have been a more per-
fect kind of sun-dial; but it appears, never-
theless, not to have been much used. It
consisted of a basin (AeKavi;), in the middle
of which the perpendicular staff or finger
(yiwfxaiv) was erected, and in it the twelve
parts of the day were marked by lines.—
Another kind of horologium was the clep-
sydra (/cAci//u'5pa). It derived its name from
icAem-eii' and u5iop, as in its original and
simple form it consisted of a vessel with
several little openings (Tpvir-qp.a.Ta) at the
bottom, through which the water contained
in it escaped, as it were by stealth. This in-
strument seems at first to have been used
only for the purpose of measuring the time
during which persons were allowed to speak
in the courts of justice at Athens. It was a
hollow globe, probably somewhat flat at the
top-part, where it had a short neck (avAds),
like that of a bottle, through which the water
was poured into it. This opening might be
closed by a lid or stopper (7rcl>p.a), to prevent
the water running out at the bottom. As
the time for speaking in the Athenian courts
was thus measured by water, the orators fre-
quently use the term vSwp instead of the time
allowed to them. An especial officer (6 e<p'
ilSup) was appointed in the courts for the
purpose of watching the clepsydra, and stop-
ping it when any documents were read,
whereby the speaker was interrupted. The
time, and consequently the quantity of water
allowed to a speaker, depended upon the im-
portance of the case. The clepsydra used in
the courts of justice was, properly speaking,
no horologium; but smaller ones, made of
glass, and of the same simple structure, were
undoubtedly used very early in families for
the purposes of ordinary life, and for dividing
the day into twelve equal parts. In these
glass-clepsydrae the division into twelve
parts must have been visible, either on the
glass globe itself, or in the basin into which
the water flowed.—The first horologium with
which the Romans became acquainted was a
sun-dial {solarium or horologium sciotheri-
cum), and was said to have been brought to
Rome by Papirius Cursor twelve years before
the war with Pyrrhus. But as sun-dials
were useless when the sky was cloudy, P.
Scipio Nasica, in his censorship, 159 B.C.,
established a public clepsydra, which indi-
cated the hours both of day and night. This
clepsydra was in aftertimes generally called
solarium. After the time of Scipio Nasica
several horologia, chiefly solaria, seem to
have been erected in various public places at

Rome. Clepsydrae were used by the Romans
in their camps, chiefly for the purpose of
measuring accurately the four vigiliae into
which the night was divided. The custom
of using clepsydrae as a check upon the
speakers in the courts of justice at Rome,
was introduced by a law of Cn. Pompeius, in
his third consulship. Before that time the
speakers had been under no restrictions, hut
spoke as long as they deemed proper. At
Rome, as at Athens, the time allowed to the
speakers depended upon the importance of
the case.

HORRRUM (tupetoi', o-nofyvXtxKeiov, ano*
was, according to its etymological signi-
fication, a place in which ripe fruits, and
especially corn, were kept, and thus an-
swered to our granary. During the empire
the name horreum was given to any place
destined for the safe preservation of things ol
any kind. Thus we find it applied to a place
in which beautiful works of art were kept,
to cellars (horrea subterranea, horrea vinaria),
to depots for merchandise, and all sorts of
provisions (horreum penarium). Seneca even
calls his library a horreum. But the more
general application of the word horreum was
to places for keeping fruit and corn ; and as
some kinds of fruit required to be kept more
dry than others, the ancients had besides the
horrea subterranea, or cellars, two other
kinds, one of which was built like every other
house upon the ground; but others (horrea
pensilia or sublimia) were erected above the
ground, and rested upon posts or stone
pillars, that the fruits kept in them might
remain dry.—From about the year 140 after
Christ, Rome possessed two kinds of public
horrea. The one class consisted of buildings
in which the Romans might deposit their
goods, and even their money, securities, and
other valuables. The second and more im-
portant class of horrea, which may be termed
public granaries, were buildings in which a
plentiful supply of corn was constantly kept
at the expense of the state, and from which,
in seasons of scarcity, the corn was distri-
buted among the poor, or sold at a moderate
price.

HORTUS (lojTros), garden. Our knowledge
of the horticulture of the Greeks is very
limited. In fact the Greeks seem to have
had no great taste for landscape beauties, and
the small number of flowers with which they
were acquainted afforded but little induce-
ment to ornamental horticulture. At Athens
the flowers most cultivated were probably
those used for making garlands, such as vio-
lets and roses. In the time of the Ptolemies
the art of gardening seems to have advanced
in the favourable climate of Egypt so far,