At a time when the passage of time was dictated by the movement of the sun and the seasons, the introduction of “clock time” in Hellenistic Greece, around the 3rd century BCE, marked a radical shift in people’s daily lives. Historian Sofie Remijsen, a researcher at the University of Amsterdam, has delved into this phenomenon, and in her study, recently published in the journal Klio, she details how the use of clocks quickly expanded in major Hellenistic cities, transforming the way people organized their daily lives, especially in places like Athens, Alexandria, and Rome.

According to Remijsen’s research, the concept of clock time began to take hold in Alexandria around 300 BCE. Thanks to advances in astronomy, Greek science adapted and perfected Egyptian knowledge to create a time system that divided the day into hours of variable length, depending on the season. These early clocks allowed for more precise time measurement and created a system where activities could be set and coordinated according to specific hours, a previously unheard-of phenomenon.

Clock time or “hour” differed from modern equinoctial hours, which always have the same duration. In Hellenistic Greece, days and nights were divided into twelve hours that varied in length depending on the time of year. In summer, daytime hours were longer than nighttime hours, while in winter the situation was reversed. This artificial subdivision was essential for organizing civil, religious, and military events and activities.

Water clock
Egyptian water clock from the Hellenistic period, c.285-246 BC. Credit: Daderot / Wikimedia Commons

In late 4th century BCE Athens, the first public clocks were built, and later the famous Tower of the Winds in the Athenian Agora became a symbol of the power and importance of time in urban life. However, it was in Alexandria, the great knowledge center of the time, that water and sundials were perfected to mark “seasonal” hours. This city became the epicenter of a revolution in the perception of time, which soon spread to the rest of the Mediterranean basin.

The acceptance of this new temporal concept was largely made possible by the elites of Hellenistic cities. Remijsen highlights that the first to adopt this innovation were the upper classes and scholarly circles, particularly in centers like Alexandria and Athens. In these places, fixed hours began to characterize social events. Feasts and banquets, common activities in elite life, were organized according to a pre-established schedule that set the start and end times.

The adoption of clock time became a symbol of prestige, allowing the idea to spread rapidly through circles of power and culture. The mobility of the cosmopolitan elite, who traveled between different Hellenistic cities on diplomatic or religious missions, allowed the concept of hours to become established in a network of major cities like Athens, Rhodes, and Rome.

Additionally, the rise of literature and the spread of comedic works reflected this emerging obsession with clock time. Greek authors like Menander, and later Plautus in Rome, began to satirize the population’s dependence on clocks in their works, showing that, at least among the higher sectors of society, the use of clock time was already common practice.

Tower of the Winds
Inside the Tower of the Winds, in the agora of Athens, you can see the grooves and channels through which the water of the clock flowed. Credit: MartinVMtl / Wikimedia Commons

However, urban elites were not the only ones responsible for spreading this system. According to Remijsen, the true driver of the spread of clock time to other sectors of society was the Hellenistic armies, especially soldiers of the Ptolemaic army in Egypt. In the military sphere, precise timekeeping was a strategic necessity. During Alexander the Great’s campaigns, a rudimentary form of time measurement was used through “watches,” a system that divided the night into four equal parts to coordinate guards and operations.

As water and sundials were refined, Greek soldiers in Egypt began adopting the hour system to organize their movements and military records. Research indicates that by around 260 BCE, Ptolemaic army administrative documents mentioned clock time in reports on messenger movements and message dispatch logs. This shows that soldiers not only used clock time in the field but also brought it into their administrative activities, expanding its use across the Mediterranean.

The influence of these soldiers was decisive in Hellenistic Egypt, as many of them received land after military service and settled in rural communities where they began applying clock time to agricultural and daily activities. This practice was soon adopted by other Greeks settled in Egypt, helping to establish the notion of hours in rural communities throughout the country.

Augustus Horologium
The obelisk in Piazza Montecitorio was the gnomon of the sundial that Emperor Augustus installed in Rome. Credit: teldridge+keldridge / Wikimedia Commons

Another key point in the spread of clock time was the gymnasium, an institution that, besides serving as a center for physical training, acted as a space for socialization and civic education for young Greeks. During the Hellenistic period, the gymnasium became an essential institution in cities, and many of them were commonly equipped with sundials or water clocks.

In these gymnasiums, young people learned to organize their activities according to a specific schedule, internalizing the concept of clock time as part of their education. The laws regulating the operation of the gymnasiums established fixed schedules for activities, allowing students to understand the importance of punctuality in training. This educational process was crucial for making clock time common in future generations.

In cities like Beroia and Ai Khanoum, inscriptions from this period show how training hours were set in local gymnasiums, confirming that clock time was already a daily practice in these institutions.

Ai Khanoum sundial
Sundial found in the ancient Greek city of Ai Khanoum in Afghanistan. Credit: World Imaging / Wikimedia Commons

Although the concept of hours originated in Greece, Rome was also captivated by this innovation. Historical evidence points to the installation of the first sundial in Rome in 263 BCE, a piece brought as war booty from Catania, Sicily. Although this clock was not calibrated for Rome’s latitude, its installation marked a milestone in the capital, and soon became popular among citizens.

As Rome expanded across the Mediterranean and increased its contact with the Greek world, clock time gained adherents. By the end of the 3rd century BCE, Roman authors were referencing hours in their texts, and some war chroniclers, like Polybius, detailed the exact hours of certain military movements.

Sofie Remijsen’s study reveals how clock time, an artificial system of temporal measurement, revolutionized the Hellenistic world in less than two centuries. The adoption of this system not only allowed for more precise organization of military, religious, and civil activities but also laid the foundation for perceiving time as something measurable and divisible into standardized segments.

This advancement marked the beginning of a new era in which time ceased to be an abstract reference and became a practical tool for daily life, a legacy that endured into modernity and remains an essential aspect of our daily lives over two thousand years later.

SOURCES

Remijsen, Sofie. Living by the Clock II: The Diffusion of Clock Time in the Early Hellenistic Period. Klio, vol. 106, no. 2, 2024, pp. 569-593. doi.org/10.1515/klio-2023-0036

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