L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2025 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS L o n g b e f o r e t h e advent of quartz crystals, digital displays, or GPS- e n a b l e d s m a r t - phones, ancient Romans were already walking around with personal time-telling devices in their hands. We are not talking about watch- es in the modern sense, of course, yet they fulfilled a strikingly similar role: they offered information, gave their wearer a certain sophis- t i c a t i o n , a n d s e r v e d a s portable links to the wider world. Compact, elegant, and s u r p r i s i n g l y c o m p l e x , Roman portable sundi- als were the ultimate acces- s o r y f o r t h e e a r l y - t e c h adopters of antiquity. These handheld gadgets became popular — or viral, if we want to use contempo- rary lingo — during the late R o m a n E m p i r e , m o s t l y f r o m t h e 2 n d t o 4 t h c e n - turies AD. Even if only about a dozen survived, they man- age to give us an interesting insight into the technological a m b i t i o n s a n d c u l t u r a l habits of Rome's educated é l i t e : M e g h a n B a r t e l s , writing in Smithsonian Mag- azine, described them as the R o m a n e q u i v a l e n t o f a n iPhone: small, shiny, impres- sive, and more about social cachet than everyday utility. T h e p r i n c i p l e b e h i n d a sundial is simple: a shadow cast by the sun moves over a set of hour markers as the day progresses, but turning t h i s i n t o a f u n c t i o n a l , portable tool posed signifi- cant challenges. First and foremost, sundials have to be calibrated for the latitude of the location where they're used, because the sun's angle in the sky changes with geog- r a p h y . T o o v e r c o m e t h i s , Roman artisans and mathe- maticians devised ingenious a d j u s t a b l e m e c h a n i s m s — some with rotating disks, others with nested rings — that allowed the user to align t h e i n s t r u m e n t b a s e d o n their position. S o m e o f t h e s u r v i v i n g examples contain inscrip- tions that serve as geograph- ical guides, etched "cheat sheets," so to speak, that list cities and their correspond- i n g l a t i t u d e s , t h o u g h n o t always with the precision m o d e r n g e o g r a p h y w o u l d demand. Historian Richard J . A . T a l b e r t , w h o p u b - lished a fascinating study of these instruments in Roman P o r t a b l e S u n d i a l s : T h e E m p i r e i n Y o u r H a n d , explains that the latitude lists inscribed on the sundi- als are a reflection of the owner's mental map of the e m p i r e , r e v e a l i n g h o w R o m a n s v i s u a l i z e d t h e i r place in a vast and intercon- nected world. When it came to aesthet- ics, portable sundials were r e l a t i v e l y s i m p l e : s m a l l bronze disks or assemblies of rings, compact enough to fit in the palm of a hand or hang from a belt. But their operation was anything but s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d : t y p i c a l models often included two or three parts that needed to be rotated or tilted depend- ing on the time of year and the latitude; some used pin- holes to direct beams of sun- light onto calibrated sur- faces, while others relied on g n o m o n s ( s m a l l p e g s ) w h o s e s h a d o w s m o v e d across engraved scales. You had to know whether it was morning or afternoon, need- ed clear skies, they offered no help in the rain, and mid- day could make it hard to tell if the sun was rising or s e t t i n g . F o r a l l t h e i r e l e - gance, they were far from being user-friendly, at least by modern standards. They didn't need batteries— but they demanded a lot of their owners. Roman timekeeping itself was unlike ours. Day and night were each divided into twelve hours, but since day- light varies with the seasons, an hour in winter could be only 45 minutes long, while in summer it stretched to 75. The Romans inherited this system from the Egyptians, and it remained in use for c e n t u r i e s . T h e r e w e r e n o s t a n d a r d i z e d t i m e z o n e s , and no clocks chiming at noon: time was fluid, local, and connected to the sun's path. It governed rituals, legal proceedings, and pub- lic life — but without the minute-by-minute punctual- ity modernity would later impose. Despite these differences, Romans cared deeply about t i m e . H u n d r e d s o f s t o n e sundials have been uncov- ered throughout the former empire — 36 alone in Pom- p e i i — w h i c h w e r e o f t e n fixed in courtyards, gardens, or public spaces. Portable sundials, on the other hand, were rare, and by no means utilitarian tools for the aver- a g e c i t i z e n , a s t h e y w e r e expensive to produce and required a high level of liter- a c y a n d s c i e n t i f i c u n d e r - standing to use. This is why they were closely associated with the social élite: sena- tors, scholars, diplomats, and wealthy merchants. W h a t ' s p a r t i c u l a r l y r e v e a l i n g i s t h a t s o m e o f these devices might not have worked all that well at all: errors in the engraved lati- tude lists, approximations in t h e c a l i b r a t i o n s , o r e v e n design flaws could compro- m i s e a c c u r a c y . B u t m u c h like an expensive mechani- cal wristwatch today, preci- s i o n w a s n o t a l w a y s t h e point because, more than t i m e m a r k e r s , t h e y w e r e miniature orreries — proof that the owner understood the movements of the heav- ens and was plugged into the knowledge networks of the empire. T h e r e w e r e d i f f e r e n t models in circulation. The so-called "disc dial" required the user to rotate an inner disk based on the month, then position the instrument s o a s h a d o w f e l l o n h o u r lines. The "ring dial" version involved a system of rings, one of which contained a pinhole that let sunlight hit hour markers inside. This model could be collapsed, m a k i n g i t e v e n m o r e portable and appealing for t r a v e l e r s . E x a m p l e s h a v e been found as far afield as Britain, Spain, Greece, and Egypt, which shows their p a n - i m p e r i a l a p p e a l . Indeed, beyond their func- tion, portable sundials are important to help us under- stand how ancient Romans imagined space and time, both tightly connected with the greatness — geographi- cal and cultural — of their Empire. Dating these devices has proven tricky, too: most are a r c h a e o l o g i c a l o r p h a n s , u n e a r t h e d w i t h o u t c l e a r context; they cannot be car- bon-dated, and their inscrip- tions are not always easy to interpret. Scholars rely on stylistic features, the method used for writing latitude, and the mention of certain cities — such as Constan- tinople, founded in 330 AD — to estimate their age. Like many of today's tech g a d g e t s , R o m a n s u n d i a l s were equal parts tool and toy, status symbol and scien- t i f i c d e v i c e . T h e y d i d n ' t always work perfectly, but they showed that their own- ers valued innovation and learning. And, perhaps most importantly, they allowed individuals to carry a piece of the empire — with all its sophistication and reach— right in their hand. LUCA SIGNORINI T h e R o m a n E m p i r e ' s o r i g i n a l smartwatch: portable sundials An antique sundial with a brass gnomon and Roman numerals (Photo: Dartproductionworld/Dreamstime)

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