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Sundials in Cetius Faventinus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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In her Greek and Roman Sundials (New Haven and London, 1976), Sharon Gibbs discusses (pp.105–17) with success the identification of the archaeological finds of ancient sundials with the description of the types given briefly by Vitruvius (De Arcbitectura, IX.8.1). There is, however, an important piece of evidence from another ancient literary source which, though it does not alter her conclusions, ought to be added and clarified.
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References
page 203 note 1 Reviewed by the present writer in CR 28 (1978), 336–9.Google Scholar
page 203 note 2 Edition of Rose, V. (Leipzig, 1867)Google Scholar = Plommer, H., Vitruvius and Later Roman Building Manuals (Cambridge, 1973), pp.80 f.Google Scholar
page 203 note 3 See Gibbs, , op. cit., p.60.Google Scholar
page 203 note 4 Ibid., p.61.
page 203 note 5 Plommer, , op. cit., p.2.Google Scholar
page 203 note 6 Soubiran, J., Vitruve, De l'Architecture, Livre IX (Paris, 1969), pp.258–60.Google Scholar
page 203 note 7 Op. cit., p.109 and introduction, passim.Google Scholar
page 203 note 8 I use the word dial in its time-honoured sense of sun-dial of whatever form (cf. L. L. dialis – from dies, German Uhr, French cadran, cf. O.E.D.). Thought the word used in common parlance today tends to suggest a flat disc, this is not its technical meaning.
page 203 note 9 Cf. Gibbs, , op. cit., p.61,Google ScholarDiels, H., Antike Technik (reprint, Osnabrück, 1965), pp.179–85.Google Scholar For an early attempt at identification see Urbinas, Bernardus Baldus, Lexicon Vitruvianum pp.80–1Google Scholar in an appendix to the edition of Salmasius, C. (Amsterdam, 1649).Google Scholar
page 203 note 10 e.g. Soubiran, loc. cit.
page 204 note 1 I apologize for an occasional echo of Plommer's translation (loc. cit.), which is almost unavoidable if one wishes to be idiomatic.
page 204 note 2 contra orientem <solem> aequinoctialem ‘facing the sunrise at the equinox’’. In any latitude the sun rises exactly 90 degrees east along the horizon from the meridian point when its declination is 0°.
page 205 note 1 Catalogue, 5022G.
page 205 note 2 Ibid., pp.346–7, catalogue number 5002G, cf. 5020, p.361.
page 205 note 3 Cf. Gibbs, p.97 n.2.
page 206 note 1 Ibid., pp.41–2 and 79.
page 206 note 2 Some dials of this type were combined with a wind rose (cf. Gibbs, pp.86–7) –a variation of this with vertical dials is found on the Tower of the Winds at Athens.
page 206 note 3 See Gibbs, , op. cit., pp. 105–17, esp. p.107.Google Scholar For details on how the constructions were applied to dials see Bilfinger, Gustav, Die Zeitmesser der Antiken Völker (Stuttgart, 1886), pp.28–37,Google Scholar cf. Neugebauer, O., A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (Berlin etc., 1975), Part II (Book V), pp.843–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 207 note 1 On the meaning of horalis see below, p.210.
page 207 note 2 Strictly he should say ‘the heliacal rising of the vernal equinox’’.
page 207 note 3 The old date of the vernal equinox, until the Gregorian calendar set it at 21 March in and after 1582 (see Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris etc. (London, 1961), p.412).Google Scholar
page 208 note 1 Ibid., pp.23–7, esp. Figs. 9 and 12, cf. Plates 23 and 24 relating to dial number 2017G(p.211).
page 208 note 2 i.e. the lines marking the path of the shadow across the dial during certain days.
page 210 note 1 The numbers marked were A' B' r' which gave rise to the epigram in the Anthology, punning on the letters Z H
I–see Anthologia Graeca, X.43.Google Scholar
page 210 note 2 Ptolemaei, Cl.Liber de Analemmate ed. Heiberg, J. L. (Leipzig, 1907), Vol. II, p.191,Google Scholar line 3. horarium and e.g. p.205, line 17 of the Greek.
page 210 note 3 Winter solstice– Equinoctial–
Summer solstice–
For a suitable example see p.211 n.3. below.
page 210 note 4 Soubiran, , op. cit., pp.240–1.Google Scholar
page 210 note 5 Cf. Gibbs, , op. cit., pp.59–60.Google Scholar
page 210 note 6 See Gibbs, , op. cit., p.61.Google Scholar
page 211 note 1 Plommer, , op. cit., p. 109.Google Scholar
page 211 note 2 Gibbs, , op. cit., pp. 59–60 and 14–16, esp. Figs. 2, 3, and 4.Google Scholar
page 211 note 3 Gibbs, , op. cit., pp.373–5,Google Scholar catalogue number 7001G. For illustration see Soubiran, , op. cit., p.245,Google Scholar originally IG XII. 5.891.Google Scholar
page 212 note 1 De Arch. IX. 8. 1; cf. the list of in the main otherwise unknown writers of architectural manuals in Vitruvius VII. praef. 14 (159–60).
page 212 note 2 Above, p.207, line 33 of quotation.
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