Hitherto the measurement of time had been treated in Rome with barbarous indifference, but matters were now at least in some degree improved.  With the erection of the first sundial in the Roman Forum in 491 the Greek hour (—­ora—­, -hora-) began to come into use at Rome:  it happened, however, that the Romans erected a sundial which had been prepared for Catana situated four degrees farther to the south, and were guided by this for a whole century.  Towards the end of this epoch we find several persons of quality taking an interest in mathematical studies.  Manius Acilius Glabrio (consul in 563) attempted to check the confusion of the calendar by a law, which allowed the pontifical college to insert or omit intercalary months at discretion:  if the measure failed in its object and in fact aggravated the evil, the failure was probably owing more to the unscrupulousness than to the want of intelligence of the Roman theologians.  Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (consul in 565), a man of Greek culture, endeavoured at least to make the Roman calendar more generally known.  Gaius Sulpicius Gallus (consul in 588), who not only predicted the eclipse of the moon in 586 but also calculated the distance of the moon from the earth, and who appears to have come forward even as an astronomical writer, was regarded on this account by his contemporaries as a prodigy of diligence and acuteness.

Agriculture and the Art of War

Agriculture and the art of war were, of course, primarily regulated by the standard of traditional and personal experience, as is very distinctly apparent in that one of the two treatises of Cato on Agriculture which has reached our time.  But the results of Graeco-Latin, and even of Phoenician, culture were brought to bear on these subordinate fields just as on the higher provinces of intellectual activity, and for that reason the foreign literature relating to them cannot but have attracted some measure of attention.

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence, on the other hand, was only in a subordinate degree affected by foreign elements.  The activity of the jurists of this period was still mainly devoted to the answering of parties consulting them and to the instruction of younger listeners; but this oral instruction contributed to form a traditional groundwork of rules, and literary activity was not wholly wanting.  A work of greater importance for jurisprudence than the short sketch of Cato was the treatise published by Sextus Aelius Paetus, surnamed the “subtle” (-catus-), who was the first practical jurist of his time, and, in consequence of his exertions for the public benefit in this respect, rose to the consulship (556) and to the censorship (560).  His treatise —­the “-Tripartita-” as it was called—­was a work on the Twelve Tables, which appended to each sentence of the text an explanation—­chiefly, doubtless, of the antiquated and unintelligible expressions—­and the corresponding formula of action.  While this process of glossing undeniably indicated the influence of Greek grammatical studies, the portion treating of the formulae of action, on the contrary, was based on the older collection of Appius(69) and on the whole system of procedure developed by national usage and precedent.