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counter blast to the Gospels. When he speaks of Apollonius wearing his planetary rings "according to the names of the days,' it is clearly assumed that the general public knows without further explanation that every day in a cycle of seven was named after a planet.
Another valuable witness is found or supposed to be found in a little Greek and Latin text book on grammar ascribed to one Dositheus and dated in A.D. 207, where we find a list of the days of the seven planets with the Latin and Greek names in the order Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus[1]. Incidentally we observe that here we find the week beginning with Saturday, an idea which the next section will shew to be reasonable and natural. But a more important inference is that, as the grammar was no doubt intended for school uses we find that in the beginning of the third century, children had to learn the names of the week-days, much as I remember to have recited in childhood:
And at the same time it suggests to us that, though the week is in such general use that it has to be known, it is not so familiar that every-
- ↑ Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, ed. Goetz, III, p. 58. But I think this testimony must be received with some caution. I am not sure that the date which is given as 'the consulship of Maximus and Aper' applies to the whole of the contents.
