Division of night into watches (2)

Text
In several passages Homer implies a division of the night into three parts. Later students cited him as evidence for an ancient division into three ‘watches’ (phylakai). Herodotus has a reference to ‘the second watch of night’, without revealing how many there were in his scheme of things (9.51). The work φυλακή corresponds closely in most of its senses to Akkadian maṣṣartu. An expression such as ‘in the night at the third watch’ (mūšum šalušti maṣṣarti) in an Old Babylonian letter (VAS 16 186.7) exactly parallels Herodotus’ ‘in the night of the second watch’. The same division into three ‘watches’ (ˀšmôrôt) is attested in the Old Testament, and a threefold division was also used by the Hittites.

Sources (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Herodotus 9.51
VAS 16 186.7

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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