[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.