The Boston Globe suggests:
As is often the case when modern journalist types try to find an ancient 'connection' to something modern, this doesn't strike me as quite right. In this case, we have an example where 'the ancients were just like us' approach doesn't quite work. We're operating on an assumption that an hour is sixty minutes long. The Romans were operating on a principle that the amount of daylight was divided into twelve hours ... i.e., they didn't "extend" anything, but had a more fluid definition of what an hour was ... here's a nice page on Roman Timekeeping (based on Carcopino) ...
But daylight saving apparently dates to the ancient Romans, who are said to have taken advantage of the summertime sun by extending the actual length of daylight hours.
As is often the case when modern journalist types try to find an ancient 'connection' to something modern, this doesn't strike me as quite right. In this case, we have an example where 'the ancients were just like us' approach doesn't quite work. We're operating on an assumption that an hour is sixty minutes long. The Romans were operating on a principle that the amount of daylight was divided into twelve hours ... i.e., they didn't "extend" anything, but had a more fluid definition of what an hour was ... here's a nice page on Roman Timekeeping (based on Carcopino) ...