CHAP. 79. (77.)—OF THE MODE IN WHICH THE DAYS ARE
COMPUTED.
The days have been computed by different people in different ways.
The Babylonians reckoned from one sunrise
to the next; the Athenians from one sunset to the next; the
Umbrians from noon to noon; the multitude, universally,
from light to darkness; the Roman priests and those who
presided over the civil day, also the Egyptians and Hipparchus, from
midnight to midnight [Note]. It appears that the interval from one sunrise
to the next is less near the solstices
than near the equinoxes, because the position of the zodiac
is more oblique about its middle part, and more straight
near the solstice [Note].
