Living by the Clock II: The Diffusion of Clock Time in the Early Hellenistic Period

Abstract

Summary By the mid-second century BC, and possibly even earlier, clock time was widely known: from Rome to Bactria, from rulers to men of modest means. This is striking, as Greco-Roman clock time was not fully conceptualized until 300 BC. In this article, I aim to explain its rapid diffusion, by examining which groups in society were the first to adopt clock time and how they communicated the concept and its related practices to others. I make use of Everett Rogers’ model of the diffusion of innovations, which identifies various adopter categories and their typical characteristics. I identify two groups of early adopters of clock time. Firstly, there is the cosmopolitan elite at the intellectual hubs Alexandria and Athens. Through the travels and written word of this mobile group, the idea of clocks as prestige monuments and the use of clock time for precisely scheduled parties rapidly gained traction in other urban centers. The more important early adopters were, however, Hellenistic soldiers, in particularly the Ptolemaic cleruchs. Armies already had a tradition of carefully keeping track of time. Because they relied on the direct participation of a considerable portion of the male population, armies had direct ways to communicate usage of this innovation to a wide section of the non-elite population. Via mercenaries, military practices could also easily spread from one Hellenistic army to another. Back at home, the soldiers took their temporal regimes to (among other places) the gymnasia, which played an important role in teaching the artificial concept of clock time to the next generations.