Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/737

.]  which presided over its first hour. If, then, the first hour of a day was consecrated to, that would also have the 8th, the 15th, and the 22nd hour; the 23rd would fall to , the 24th to , and the 25th, or the first hour of the second day, would belong to the. In like manner the first hour of the 3rd day would fall to the, the first of the 4th day to , of the 5th to , of the 6th to , and of the 7th to. The cycle being completed, the first hour of the 8th day would return to, and all the others succeed in the same order. According to Dio Cassius, the ian commenced with. On from, the , from hatred to their ancient oppressors, made  the last day of the. The names of the days are derived from the. The ancient had borrowed the  from some, and substituted the names of their own  for those of the  of. In and  s the  names are still retained.

.—Long before the exact length of the year was determined, it must have been perceived that the synodic of the is accomplished in about 29$1⁄2$ days. Twelve s, therefore, form a period of 354 days, which differs only by about 11$1⁄4$ days from the solar year. From this circumstance has arisen the practice, perhaps universal, of dividing the year into twelve s. But in the course of a few years the accumulated difference between the solar year and twelve s would become considerable, and have the effect of transporting the commencement of the year to a different. The difficulties that arose in attempting to avoid this inconvenience induced some to abandon the  altogether, and regulate their year by the course of the. The, however, being a convenient period of, has retained its place in the calendars of all s; but, instead of denoting a synodic of the , it is usually employed to denote an arbitrary number of days approaching to the twelfth part of a solar year.

Among the the consisted of thirty days invariably; and in order to complete the year, five days were added at the end, called supplementary days. They made use of no, and by losing a fourth of a day every year, the commencement of the year went back one day in every period of four years, and consequently made a of the s in 1461 years. Hence 1461 Egyptian years are equal to 1460 of 365$1⁄4$ days each. This year is called vague, by reason of its commencing sometimes at one of the year, and sometimes at another.

The divided the into three decades, or periods of ten days,—a practice which was imitated by the  in their unsuccessful attempt to introduce a  at the period of the. This division offers two advantages: the first is, that the period is an exact measure of the of thirty days; and the second is, that the number of the day of the decade is connected with and suggests the number of the day of the. For example, the 5th of the decade must necessarily be the 5th, the 15th, or the 25th of the ; so that when the day of the decade is known, that of the can scarcely be mistaken. In reckoning by weeks, it is necessary to keep in mind the day of the week on which each begins.

The Romans employed a division of the and a method of reckoning the days which appear not a little extraordinary, and must, in practice, have been exceedingly inconvenient. As frequent allusion is made by classical writers to this embarrassing method of computation, which is carefully retained in the ecclesiastical calendar, we here give a table showing the correspondence of the Roman s with those of modern Europe.

Instead of distinguishing the days by the ordinal numbers first, second, third, &c., the counted backwards from three fixed epochs, namely, the ', the ', and the . The (or Kalends) were invariably the first day of the, and were so denominated because it had been an ancient custom of the s to call the people together on that day, to apprize them of the s, or days that were to be kept sacred during the. The (from an obsolete verb , to divide) were at the middle of the, either the 13th or the 15th day; and the  were the ninth day before the , counting inclusively. From these three terms the days received their denomination in the following manner:— those which were comprised between the and the  were called the days before the ; those between the  and the  were called the days before the ; and, lastly, all the days after the  to the end of the  were called the days before the  of the succeeding. In the s of, , , and , the fell on the 15th day, and the  consequently on the 7th; so that each of these s had six days named from the. In all the other s the were on the 13th and the  on the 5th; consequently there were only four days named from the. Every had eight days named from the. The number of days receiving their denomination from the depended on the number of days in the  and the day on which the  fell. For example, if the contained 31 days, and the  fell on the 13th, as was the case in, , and , there would remain 18 days after the , which, added 