~ 29 ~
thought that the Emperor might not be familiar with them all. The Sun's day is mentioned by name, because it is the day with which the chapter is concerned. The mention of Friday is merely incidental and therefore the Emperor need not be troubled with its special name. If this is right, we might infer that the planetary week was not so well established in popular usage and knowledge as it was when Dion wrote 60 years later, though on the other hand we must not make too much of a perhaps accidental omission. The other point is the position which Saturday holds in Justin's scheme. That day too comes in only incidentally, even more so than Friday, for nothing is mentioned as happening on it. But it is evidently the pivot on which the week turns, the day from which the others are measured. For the present I only note this in passing. I shall recur to it, when we come to deal with the relations between the Jewish and the planetary week.
Another, but to my mind, doubtful, piece of evidence in the earliest part of the second century is connected with the Emperor Trajan (98–117). A biographer of the fourth century, Lampridius[1], notes that Alexander Severus, Emperor from 222 to 235, made certain restorations or changes in the public baths. One
- ↑ Scriptores Historiae Augustae, XVIII, 25. The text is in part corrupt, but there can be little doubt about the general meaning.
