Editing Hour (section)

==== Ancient Greece ====
{{Further|Horae}}
The ancient Greeks kept time differently than is done today. Instead of dividing the time between one midnight and the next into 24 equal hours, they divided the time from sunrise to sunset into 12 "seasonal hours" (their actual duration depending on season), and the time from sunset to the next sunrise again in 12 "seasonal hours".<ref>{{cite book |first=James |last=Evans |year=1998 |title=The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=95 |isbn=978-0-19-509539-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nS51_7qbEWsC&pg=PA95 |via=Google Books}}</ref> Initially, only the day was divided into 12&nbsp;seasonal hours and the night into three or four night watches.<ref>
{{cite book
 | last1 = Liddell | first1 = Henry George | author-link1 = Henry Liddell
 | last2 = Scott   | first2 = Robert       | author-link2 = Robert Scott (philologist)
 | year = 1883
 | title = A Lexicon Abridged from Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon
 | edition = 20
 | publisher = Harper & Brothers
 | orig-year = 1883
 | page = 469
 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LeFFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA469
 | access-date = 12 April 2021
 | quote = [...] from Homer downwards, the Greeks divided the night into three watches.
}}
</ref>

By the [[Hellenistic period]] the night was also divided into 12 hours.<ref>{{cite book |author=Polybius |title=Histories, Book 9 |chapter=15 Mode of Calculating Time |chapter-url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D9%3Achapter%3D15}}</ref> The day-and-night ({{lang|grc|νυχθήμερον}}) was probably first divided into 24 hours by [[Hipparchus of Nicaea]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Liddell |first1=Henry George |last2=Scott |first2=Robert |last3=Jones |first3=Henry Stuart  |section=ὥρα |title=A Greek-English Lexicon |at=Α.ΙΙ.2 |section-url=https://lsj.gr/wiki/%E1%BD%A5%CF%81%CE%B1}}</ref> The Greek astronomer [[Andronicus of Cyrrhus]] oversaw the construction of a [[horologion]] called the [[Tower of the Winds]] in Athens during the first century BCE. This structure tracked a 24-hour day using both sundials and mechanical hour indicators.<ref name="nist">{{cite web |title=Early Clocks |date= 12 August 2009 |series=A Walk Through Time |publisher=[[National Institute of Standards and Technology]] |url=https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/popular-links/walk-through-time/walk-through-time-early-clocks |access-date= 13 October 2022}}</ref>

The [[canonical hours]] were inherited into [[early Christianity]]  from [[Second Temple Judaism]].
By AD 60, the ''[[Didache]]'' recommends disciples to pray the [[Lord's Prayer]] three times a day; this practice found its way into the canonical hours as well. By the second and third centuries, such [[Church Fathers]] as [[Clement of Alexandria]], [[Origen]], and [[Tertullian]] wrote of the practice of Morning and Evening Prayer, and of the prayers at the third, sixth and ninth hours.
In the early church, during the night before every feast, a [[vigil]] was kept. The word "Vigils", at first applied to the Night Office, comes from a Latin source, namely the ''Vigiliae'' or nocturnal watches or guards of the soldiers. The night from six o'clock in the evening to six o'clock in the morning was divided into four watches or vigils of three hours each, the first, the second, the third, and the fourth vigil.<ref>{{CE1913|last=Cabrol |first=Fernand |wstitle=Matins |volume=10}}</ref>

The ''[[Horae]]'' were originally personifications of seasonal aspects of nature, not of the time of day.
The list of 12 ''Horae'' representing the 12 hours of the day is recorded only in [[Late Antiquity]], by [[Nonnus]].<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Nonnus]] |title=Dionysiaca |at=41.263}}</ref> The first and twelfth of the ''Horae'' were added to the original set of ten:

# ''Auge'' (first light)
# ''Anatole'' (sunrise)
# ''Mousike'' (morning hour of music and study)
# ''Gymnastike'' (morning hour of exercise)
# ''Nymphe'' (morning hour of ablutions)
# ''Mesembria'' (noon)
# ''Sponde'' (libations poured after lunch)
# ''Elete'' (prayer)
# ''Akte'' (eating and pleasure)
# ''Hesperis'' (start of evening)
# ''Dysis'' (sunset)
# ''Arktos'' (night sky)