Wang Hongchao commented on "The Night of the Ancients"|Those familiar and strange nights

"The Night of the Ancients: An Examination of Night Life in the Ancient World", edited by Nancy Gonlyn and Apulil Noel, translated by Guo Zhengdong, published by Guangxi Normal University Press in March 2023, 508 pages, 108.00 yuan

At midnight on October 22, 1879, Edison turned on the light bulb made of carbon cotton filament, and he also lit up the entire modern world. The invention of the electric light has reshaped human culture, reshaped the relationship between human beings and nature, and marked "the final victory of mankind over darkness" ([US] Ernest Freeberg, translated by Qian Yuge: The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America, Zhejiang University Press, 2022, p. 7). Electric lights have changed human concepts of time, work and rest rules, and also changed human cognition of the relationship between day and night since ancient times. As we modern people who regard electric light as a natural existence like the sun, we may occasionally wonder how the ancients lived their nights. We don't know much about it, especially for more ancient times. The night is a familiar and strange world. Everyone spends half of their life with the night, but as far as academic research is concerned, attention to the night is insufficient, as Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said: "Our entire history is only the history of the awake man." But this book attempts to give an exploratory answer.

The original title of this book in English is Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World, Chinese translated as "Night of the Ancients: A Night Life Test of the Ancient World", which is somewhat misleading. Archaeology here is not a reference to "archaeology of knowledge", but to true archaeology. This book is a nocturnal archaeological study of the night of the ancients based on archaeological data, and is by no means an ordinary historical reading. However, the professionalism of this book does not affect its interest and readability in the slightest, but because of the distance of its processing period, it has opened up a greater distance from today, and it can arouse the interest of readers. And because of the rich and colorful details, it is interesting to read. This book is a selection of papers from two conferences on the archaeology of the night convened by the two editors-in-chief. More than twenty authors make extensive use of archaeology, evolutionary psychology, history, inscription, art history, biology, cultural astronomy, religious studies, literature, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science and other disciplines, especially household archaeology and Pierre Bourdieu's practical theory (practice). theory) and phenomenology methods, showing readers the activities of the ancients during the night such as sleep, socializing, storytelling, rituals, witchcraft, labor, entertainment, sex, and song and dance, revealing the intermingling of ideas, beliefs, and lives behind these activities.

Reading the scroll will not only silently dispel unfounded misunderstandings such as "the monotony of the nightlife of the ancients", but also give rise to the sigh that "today's nightlife has no soul".

Lighting with night view

Modern people will always imagine that the ancients are limited by lighting conditions, sunset and rest, night life must be poor and monotonous, but the nightlife of the ancients is far richer than we think. For example, the variety of Roman nightlife can be seen from the staging of sleep. In Roman and European history, it was common to practice the two-stage sleep method, which began to fall asleep at nightfall, got up again at midnight, engaged in conversation, writing, housework, sex, etc., and then fell asleep again. The Roman "first sleep" (primus somnus) is well documented, as Ovid's Metamorphoses writes: "When night comes, her courage grows with darkness, and the first silence (prima quiesaderat) begins, and when sleep rushes to the heart burdened by daily worries, the parents' bedroom is quiet." "This kind of work and rest that divides the night in half is probably more scientific and healthy than the vice of modern people staying up late."

The main reason why people today wishfully believe that the night of the ancients is monotonous and boring is that the ancients did not have convenient lighting conditions and sufficient lighting effects. Indeed, although the ancients were not good at lighting technology and effects, the ancestors' exploration of artificial light technology began very early. The earliest evidence of human use of fire dates back 1.8 million years, while the earliest controllable traces of human fire date back to 500,000 years ago. The most critical role of fire for early humans was to process food, but it also provided an artificial light source that could be used (Andrew M. C. Scott, translated by Zhang Gong and Li Weibin: The Burning Planet: The Natural History of Fire, Social Science Literature Press, 2023). There were three main ways of lighting in Paleolithic humans: stone lamps, torches, fires or bonfires. It is undeniable that the night lighting effect of the ancients was limited. Some scholars have used primitive techniques and methods to restore the stone lamps used by the Vikings, using cod liver oil as fuel, dried goatee grass and flax as wicks, the light of which is between seven and nine lumens, and a fifteen-watt fluorescent lamp emits eight hundred lumens (pp. 326-330), the ancients used light at night to do only some less delicate work, as in a French trade manual in the thirteenth century, it was explicitly forbidden for goldsmiths to work at night, because "the light at night is too dim, It is difficult for them to complete their work accurately" (Jane Brocks, translated by Jiang Yiying: The Chaser of Light: The Evolutionary History of Artificial Light, Social Science Academic Press, 2023, p. 20). Later, people's efforts to pursue artificial light continued. The Romans made the world's first beeswax candles, and gradually used fats extracted or extracted from animals or plants as fuel, and the fuel increased and the lighting effect gradually improved (Chaser of Light: The Evolution of Artificial Light, pp. 7-22). For some basic activities, these light sources created in ancient times are sufficient, and the reason for limiting the effect of ancient night lighting is not so much technology as the cost is too high, and ordinary people can hardly afford expensive fuel.

The nocturnal activities of the ancients were more ritualistic and emotional. Storytelling, singing, and dancing around campfires "creates a sensory landscape of a common human community through the sounds of touch, smell, and even intimate breathing" (107). Bonfires gathered crowds, a form important for the development of religion, ritual, art and knowledge, Thomas Wynn: "People staring at bonfires and being fascinated by the flickering light of the fire probably played a role in early human cognitive evolution." (122 pages)

At night, with the change of light, the visual landscape also has obvious differences, not only the vision begins to become blurred after the light dims, but the human visual system will also adjust in the dark. The world of color became black and white, vision was no longer as sharp, and visual focus changed. Lightscape takes on a different look at night. As visual animals, humans pay more attention to the world scene observed by the eyes, but after the vision is limited at night, other senses such as sound, touch, taste, smell, etc. begin to become important. In fact, human beings rely on a whole set of sensory experiences to survive:

Our perception of the world is a concrete experience that depends on all our senses. When experiencing a place, the texture of the crunching grains of sand on the soles of your feet, the calves walking through the grass, the rustling of lizards, the smell of swamp pines, and the smell of smoky fires are just as important as the visual landscape. (94 pages)

With limited vision, other sensory organs become more sensitive. It may be suggested that at night, it is the weakening of vision that leads to the strengthening of other senses. Not really. Catherine Kemp and John Whitaker pointed out in their study: "It is only because people use these senses more carefully that they are more important for the overall perception of the environment around them." As a result, we are more aware of what's behind us and around us at night, as well as sounds and touches that might otherwise be overlooked during the day. (p.96) From what we know about the sensory experience of the ancients, the night is really the best place to start.

Starry sky as a stage

In the dark night landscape, the starry sky is in a prominent and important position. The Mayan culture saw the night sky as a map of mythological events, with James Brady and Wendy Ashmolean saying: "The night sky is a dynamic map showing the various major events in the creation mythological world, and trees, birds and other wildlife are the main participants in recreating these events." (pp. 75-76) On the night of the ancients, the night sky is like a stage, on which the moon, stars and gods play out the great tragicomedy, and humans are the spectators, watching in silence the various episodes from creation to myth, from history to memory. The starry sky is educating humanity.

The Colorado Plains is known as the "Big Sky Country," and at night, the sky occupies sixty percent or more of the perceptible landscape. Walking out the door, the sky becomes the protagonist of the vision, magnificent and magnificent, which is impossible to ignore. Modern people can not experience the spiritual tremor of the ancients when they encounter the starry sky, in addition to using incandescent lamps to illuminate the night to "defeat" the darkness, modern people are also living in a closed space without contact with the sky, especially the night sky is becoming more and more strange. Driving from the garage into the underground garage of the office in the morning, I have been working in the building wrapped in glass walls during the day, and occasionally go out to the front to shelter from the sun and rain. At night, the lights shine brightly, gathering towards the brightest places, and the ubiquitous light pollution makes it impossible to see any stars even if you occasionally raise your head. The night sky is like darkness around the stage, empty, strange, or non-existent. The sky as understood by modern people is abstract, and predicting sunny rain relies on weather forecasts, not observing clouds; To observe a solar and lunar eclipse, only turn on the live stream in front of the computer, not open the window. Humans have not only lost their intimate relationship with the night sky, but have also gradually distanced themselves from nature as a whole.

In the long-term companionship of the night sky, human beings have not only created many myths, but also learned to use the starry sky to guide the direction and time. In recent Oman, farmers used the position of the stars to keep time for irrigation, despite the availability of watches. Harriet Nash notes:

It appears that the use of stars still exists mainly in smaller residential areas, which are still predominantly agricultural, where light pollution is less severe than in towns, and where society tends to follow traditional methods. Many of the stars have names that differ from the Arabic names of the stars in the literature, and the stars used for irrigation timekeeping also vary from village to village. Stargazing varies from village to village: in some villages, the stars begin to be observed after rising from the horizon, while in others, the time is known when the stars are above or below the man-made marker, or when the stars reach the zenith. (129 pages)

The night sky, as a guide for people's actions in the dark, is especially evident in navigation. If at night on land, people still have roads, woods, buildings, rivers, etc. as a reference for action, then at night in the ocean, in the era of underdeveloped technology, sailors may only rely on the starry sky: "Although the pattern of waves and bird activity during the day can help indicate the direction of the land, in fact the night sky is centered on the rising and setting of the sun on the horizon, giving people a sense of position." At night at sea, man knows his place in the universe, a certainty that cannot be conveyed in the ocean during the day. (197 pages)

Ancient architecture also corresponds to the starry sky, and between 1500 BC and 1000 AD, the Titicaca Basin in the highlands of the Andes Mountains of South America formed a network of ceremonial centers, characterized by more than 800 huge earthen platforms with sunken courtyards. The viewing feature of sunken courtyards is to look outward from the inside, rather than from the outside. The sunken courtyard "hides most of the natural horizon behind its various edges, resulting in a selective view of the landscape... Place the South Celestial Pole—the point in the sky where the Milky Way rotates—directly above the highest peak of Mount Kimsachatta" (p. 159). The structure and location of the building accurately combine the elements of the night sky, and this combination reflects the way the Tiwanaku people see the world, self and beliefs. In Mississippi, the moon, night sky, and reproduction belong to women, while the sun and day belong to men. The ruins of the Emerald Mountains of Mississippi, built entirely on the trajectory of the moon, are also clearly emphasized in which the power of women is also clearly emphasized.

The ancients lived in the natural "heaven and earth", the sun during the day and the moon and stars at night, which were organic beings in the world of life of the ancients, especially providing a reference system for human beings to locate and time. Astronomy corresponds to humanities, and astronomy is also the basic basis for explaining humanities (research on Chinese social astronomy, such as Huang Yinong's Ten Lectures on the History of Social Astronomy, Fudan University Press, 2004; Feng Shi, Astronomy and Humanities in Ancient China, China Social Sciences Press, 2006).

The darkness of fear and the source of creation

Since its birth, human beings have gradually formed a binary contrast structure of civilization and barbarism, order and chaos, noise and silence around day and night. The disappearance of light always causes fear, and the night is given many symbolic meanings: death, hell, danger, evil, loneliness, despair, suffering and nightmares, etc. The Maya in classical times saw night as an ominous time, when the underworld gods came alive under the shade of darkness. Darkness is a cover for human evil deeds. Witchcraft, robbery, adultery, theft, etc., all happen under the cover of darkness. There is a proverb among the Shona people: "All evil deeds are carried out under the cover of darkness." (p. 428) Night is also a paradise for nocturnal animals, bats, owls, jaguars, coyotes, toads, night herons, fireflies, snakes, etc. began to haunt at night, and many myths and legends were formed around them. Native Americans believed that owls were messengers of misfortune and snakes were creatures that traveled between the netherworld and the sun.

Part of the uneasiness of the night is brought about by sleep, and in the Mayan conception, when a person falls asleep, his companion spirit (or co-essence) wanders around detached from the body. The dark mystery of the night is reminiscent of death, and Catullus wrote in Poem: "Once the brief light falls, only the eternal night falls into a long sleep." ”

But the darkness of the night is cyclical and regular, and humans have adapted to it for a long time. Although it couldn't be eliminated, it relieved some of the fear. Humans have evolved over time to form circadian rhythms, adapting both biologically and culturally to environmental, physical, and mental changes caused by changes in light exposure. In terms of biology, at night, body temperature, urine output, blood pressure, etc. will decrease, metabolism will slow down, and melatonin and growth hormone will increase. Circadian rhythm is mainly caused by melatonin to convert changes in external light signals into the intrinsic regular time rhythm of organisms, forming a biological clock. In terms of cultural adaptation, people create comfortable and stable places to sleep safely. When you close your eyes and sleep at night, you will enter a state of "double blindness", and the premise of restful sleep is that people must create a safe environment psychologically and physically, and people are most fearful and vulnerable at this moment. "The process of falling asleep does not happen naturally, but requires a decision, a tacit consent, and even a strength." ([fr] Pierre Bachet, trans. Yuan Ning: The Power of Sleep: Sleep in Literature, Triptych Books, 2021, p. 12) At the same time, human beings "have also created myths associated with the night to explain the disappearance of the sun, the existence of stars, and whether real or imagined creatures can harm people." Many ceremonies are held in the twilight, pinning hope on the sunrise of a new day" (p. 5). These rituals bring humanity a sense of security at night. Circadian rhythms are not only biologically and culturally, but also spiritual. The circadian rhythm is the result of long-term human evolution and is the adaptation of human beings to nature, especially to the transition between day and night. Ten to fifteen percent of human genes are controlled by circadian rhythms, and the destruction of circadian rhythms can cause many diseases, such as depression, insomnia, cardiovascular diseases, etc.

Compared with the regular cycle of day and night, sudden darkness, such as solar and lunar eclipses, will trigger a general panic response in human beings, which is easy to make people fall into unease and fear. A solar eclipse is an anomalous interruption of the day-night cycle, bringing temporary darkness, like another kind of night. When a solar eclipse occurs, after "the light disappears, fear and superstition invade us to varying degrees." We are surrounded by that eerie darkness, and the darkness itself has long been linked to the uncertainty deep within us. Even predictably, this disruption and disruption is so disturbing. Solar eclipses are a mockery of the cycle of day and night that occurs every day" (171).

Solar eclipses may represent humanity's attitude toward darkness rather than the entire night. Sudden darkness can easily associate people with death and stimulate irrational fear. In various cultures, the behavior of coping with solar eclipses is somewhat similar: making noise, biting, eating or swallowing, etc. Especially making noise, which was also the most popular way in ancient China. "Save the sun and the moon, then edict the king drum." ("Zhou Li · Di Guan · Drumman") "There is an eclipse of the sun, and the Son of Heaven does not lift, and the drum is cut down in the society; The princes used money in the society, and the drums in the dynasty. (Spring and Autumn Zuo, Volume 9)

In South Sudan, when a solar eclipse occurs, people bang on pots and pans, arguing that "one must wake the sun god from his sleep, because his inattentiveness heralds great disaster" (174). The Maya would even pinch dogs to make them howl to make more noise.

The invention of the electric light was seen as a decisive step in the victory over darkness, and mankind seems to have since emerged from the fear of darkness. This is also often mentioned when referring to the significance of the invention of electric light:

Since the dawn of humanity, darkness has been an obvious obstacle to human happiness throughout the world. Throughout history, another meaning of being in darkness is exclusion and isolation... The development of lighting also depicts the evolution of civilization itself, and because incandescent lamps solve a need that has survived from time immemorial - repelling not only physical darkness, but also human spiritual darkness - many people cite the appearance of incandescent lamps as the climax of this whole story. (Edison's Time: The Electric Light and Modern American Inventions, p. 15)

Darkness, despite its frightening meaning, is also initial and creative in many cultures. In Judeo-Christian thought, darkness predates light, and the Old Testament Book of Genesis says:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth is empty and chaotic. The abyss is dark. The Spirit of God moves on the water. God said, Let there be light, and there will be light. God saw that light was good and separated light from darkness. God calls light day and darkness night.

"Darkness is even closer to the final cosmological starting point than light, because in legend darkness is often identified as one of the conditions that precede the formation of the light world," Helms said. (p. 243) As the ancient Chinese said, "Heaven and earth are as chaotic as chickens," before it was opened, it was probably darkness that enveloped the world.

To understand the importance that night occupied in the world of ideas of the ancients, the pō in Hawaiian vocabulary is a good example. This word from the ancient Polynesian word contains multiple meanings such as the source of creation, the ancestor of all things, the depths of the sea, the spiritual world, and the night after the sun sets. Hawaiians use pō for night, and also use the word as a unit of time for a whole day ( as in day in English ) . Polynesians had a different concept of night than modern people:

Our night is a transition to the end; Hawaiian nights are felt like a transition to the beginning. (191 pages)

Narrative and emotional identification

Compared with the work and busyness of the day, the night has a more leisure meaning. Among the nocturnal activities, narrative activity is one of the most important forms, especially conversation and storytelling. Polly Wiessner's study of Ju/'hoansi found that more than 80 percent of their nocturnal conversation activities were storytelling. "After dinner, when it gets dark, the bad mood of the day softens, and the enthusiastic people gather around the fire to talk, play music or dance... When economic and social issues are thrown to the forehead, the focus of the conversation changes radically. (p. 10) During the day, he talks more about economics and at night he tells stories and social relations. Nocturnal narratives are part of traditional social education. In southern Africa, after dark, older people begin to mentor young people. Older women tell stories to girls in cooking huts (imba yokubikira), while older men educate boys in the male space dare.

April Noel analyzed the activities of people in the late Paleolithic period under light and their impact on human perception of emotion. When people are relaxed at night, emotions become more sensitive, and music, dance, and narrative activities that sit around a campfire more sensitively affect everyone involved, and these activities "may be particularly effective in promoting social cohesion and motivating people to take action" (p. 46). So the night will bring both a sense of division and a stronger sense of group identity:

While the boundaries imposed by night enhance the sense of isolation in space and may further shift it into social distancing, humans can also reduce or exacerbate these effects through the modification of society or the natural environment. Those who get together at night, but are separated from the rest of the population, experience a sense of shared isolation that strengthens the sense of social identity between them; Therefore, a stronger sense of group identity based on where you live may come from the various restrictions of the night. Similarly, developments in gender, age, and other personal identities are linked to the connection and separation of day and night. (93 pages)

Nocturnal activities breed unity and identity. The Jinkanoo Carnival is one of the most famous and representative cultural events in Bahamian culture. What began as a nightly celebration by slaves sold to the Bahamas during the Christmas holidays, despite its initial rebellion, slowly became an activity of cultural creation, nation formation, and memory practice (p. 449).

The nocturnal ritual gives participants a more pronounced "mutualistic proprioception" of the world (229). The ritual allows the participants' nervous systems and their functions to be harmonized, overcome social distancing between individuals, enhance a sense of collective unity and solidarity, and cultivate, build and strengthen a sense of collective identity in order to organize group actions.

Ritual, witchcraft and faith

Compared to the hustle and bustle of the day, the night can make people sink into the world of spirit and faith. Mary Helms said:

For monks, by definition, they renounce the superficial things of the earthly world during the day, and the spiritual nature of the night is particularly attractive to them. The night gives people a deep silence and tranquility, and it is easier for people's minds to immerse themselves in supernatural mystery. (11 pages)

The Catholic Church has many nighttime worship rituals, including vespers (6 p.m.), bedtime prayers (compline, 9 p.m.), nocturns (midnight), and dawn prayers. Mary Helms argues that the early European monks "were typical people living in darkness" (p. 135), who performed the longest liturgical services at night. The most important of the evening rituals is the nocturns, which is "by far the longest and most important 'everyday' prayer ritual" (p. 11). A fifth-century day lesson document shows that eighteen hymns were sung in a midnight prayer on a winter night, and in the sixth century the number sometimes rose to ninety-nine. The monks slept only five to seven hours a night, got up at two in the morning, and chanted all night. The emphasis on midnight prayer is linked to the Christian understanding of light and darkness, with light born of darkness, "liturgy connecting monks with the newborn, pre-creation darkness that occurs before and in the creation described in the book of Genesis; It also connects the monk to the divine power, which can be perceived in the depths of infinity" (p. 11).

There are also rituals dedicated to the night, such as the New Fire Ceremony in Central America. Ancient Mesoamerica used two calendars, the tzolkin (two hundred and sixty days for one year, also known as the divination calendar) and the haab (three hundred and sixty-five days for one year, also known as the solar calendar). The two calendars periodically coincide in the fifty-second year (18,980 days), forming the Calendar Round, at which time a new fire ceremony is held to celebrate the end of the ominous night before the start of the new cycle. "Allegedly, if a fire cannot be made, then [the sun] will be destroyed forever; Everything will end; Next will be the Eternal Night. The sun will never rise. Night will be forever, and the dark devil [tzitzimine] will fall from the sky and begin to eat people" (p. 74).

The night is also the best time to practice witchcraft, "the shaman's manipulation of life force and the public participating in rituals, usually to change the world, such as increasing food production, achieving desirable political results, maintaining relationships with gods and ancestors, restoring order in the universe and society." Often at night, this manipulation can be best exercised, as during this time March is considered the most powerful and free from interference or competition from secular leaders. The night belongs to the shaman" (p. 231). Night is the exclusive time for witchcraft. In the Friuli region of sixteenth-century Italy, at night, some peasants known as "Benandanti" ("Walkers of Charity") would "fly" to the fields and "fight" with shamans while they fell asleep in order to protect the harvest (Carlo Ginzburg, translated by Geshu Zhu: Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agricultural Worship in the 16th and 17th Centuries, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2021).

Many metamorphosis myths occur at night, such as beautiful maidens during the day turning into witches at night, witches who are shapeshifters, and witches who can also turn into various animals at night. The arrival of night can also change the function of some objects, especially during rituals and witchcraft activities. Daily brooms, dustpans, mortars, and pestles became witches' tools. The Shawna witch in southern Africa, before traveling at night, placed the mortar next to her husband as her stand-in, so she rode to the party in a dustpan that could fly at supersonic speed.

Nighttime labor

"The sun rises and the sun rests", this is the common understanding of modern people on the work and rest of the ancients. In fact, the ancients also had a lot of work at night. In Oman's oasis agriculture history, the night has played a crucial role. In the tropics, the temperature difference between day and night makes the night an ideal time to work, as the saying goes: "Night is winter in the tropics." "Night irrigation is particularly popular in Oman, in addition to the temperature suitable for work and the easy absorption of water by crops at night, the more important reason for choosing night irrigation is that you can calculate and distribute water supply time by observing the position of the stars. They will use the natural or man-made "horizon" as a reference for observing the stars. This method is actually a timing method in many parts of the world.

Ancient Indus Valley cities had well-developed drinking water delivery and sewage treatment systems. These jobs require a lot of labor, especially cleaners, who are essential to maintaining the cleanliness and smell of the city. And their work is basically carried out at night. Their work includes transporting garbage, sweeping streets and dust, and flushing drainage pits.

Despite the abundance of nightlife in modern cities, the nights are generally quiet. City management rules strictly prohibit nighttime construction and honking of horns to prevent noise from affecting residents' sleep. However, in ancient times, the concept of the need to be quiet at night was not formed, at least in the ancient Roman city at night. Julius Caesar had decreed that wheeled vehicles were not allowed in the city for most of the day (from sunrise to sometime between about two and seven p.m.). The consequence of this rule is the sound of noisy wheels at night. The second-century Roman poet Martial wrote in his Epigrams:

For a poor person, in the city of Sparsus, there is neither a place to think nor a place to rest. Early in the morning, life was ruined by the teachers at school, and in the evening, it was replaced by a baker ... The laughter of the passing crowd woke me up, and all of Rome was on my side of the bed. (Reprinted from page 370)

The noise of the night was so disturbing that it was impossible to sleep, and Juvenal wrote in Satires: "In Rome, most diseases died from insomnia. "This may not be a false claim.

Order and carnival

Night is both a constraint and a liberation for people. The night is a moment of suspension of daytime order, a moment of revelry, as Bakhtin said, and ideas emerge from the guise of night.

In ancient times, the curfew system was widely practiced, which was an important part of social order, both in China and the West (Ge Zhaoguang, "The Festival of Harsh Dawn: An Analysis of the Intellectual History of the Concepts of Day and Night in Ancient China," Journal of National Taiwan University History, No. 32, December 2003). The "Yuan Dianzhang" stipulates: "The law of night prohibition is that the bell rings at three o'clock, forbids people to walk, and moves at five or three o'clock, and those who listen to pedestrians, those who violate it, flog it 27 times, and those who have officials flog it, and the yuan treasure banknote is allowed to be redeemed." The curfew has a definite time, and Rousseau once mentioned his experience of rushing into the city before the curfew time came:

Three miles from Geneva, I heard the curfew bells and immediately trotted up. I listened to the bells, running wildly, breathless, sweating, and my heart beating extraordinarily. From a distance, I saw soldiers coming out of the lookout; I ran and ran, shouting in a choked voice, but it was too late. (Chasers: The Evolutionary History of Artificial Light, p. 25)

Prone to fire and violence at night, the ancient Roman city established vigiles to patrol at night and manage social order at night. Rome also had a group of "knightwalkers," in which "elites went out to participate in night clashes as policemen or gangsters" (p. 392). Some join the Knightwalker in order to uphold justice, while others take the opportunity to do things that are out of line to release the desires that have been suppressed during the day. The joy of the night often becomes a carnival. In China, where etiquette is strict, there is still the Lantern Festival as a moment of release for the "Way of Zhang Chi" (Chen Xiyuan, "China's Sleepless Nights: Lantern Festival, Night Confinement, and Carnival in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", in Hu Xiaozhen and Wang Hongtai, eds., Discourse and Practice of Daily Life, Taipei: Yunchen Culture, 2011).

The greatest contrast between words and deeds during the day and night was represented by Emperor Nero. As soon as it got dark, Emperor Nero dressed as a freeman or slave and fled into the night. He habitually beat people who came home from dinner, and seriously injured those who dared to resist. He would also break into shops and rob them, sell them in the markets of the court, and squander the money. One night Nero attacked a lady, and her husband became angry and beat Nero to death. The husband was Julius Montanus, a member of the Senate. Although he recognized Nero and asked for pardon, he was eventually forced to commit suicide. Later, when Nero went out to play pranks, he would take soldiers and gladiators with him to hide nearby, and when the emperor fell behind in the fight, the soldiers would use weapons. The emperor's joke became a scene of life and death for ordinary people. "A reigning Roman emperor went out at night to commit crimes with impunity. The story dramatically shows the dangers of Roman night and why people need to be afraid, since the attacker may be the emperor himself. (page 393)

Save the night

The light from the oil lamp is dim but soft enough to immerse oneself. Under the light, people are more able to focus on the spirit and emotions. So when the light appeared, not everyone was eager to turn on the switch. For people who are accustomed to oil lamps, electric lamps are too strong and too penetrating. Where the light goes, everything is hidden. The oil lamp contains their stories and memories, "which are mainly illuminated by fire, oil lamps, candlelight and even starlight." Their sense of history and identity, as well as the emotions between their neighbors, was wrapped in the light of candles and oil lamps, which was qualitatively different from the tungsten filament that came after them and the transistors and radios that came with them" (pp. 141-142).

In the modern all-weather illumination, darkness has gone from being an object to be overcome and overcome to being protected and saved ([de] Marceus · R. Schmidt, Tandja-Gabriel Schmidt, translated by Ji Yongbin: Saving the Night: Starry Sky, Light Pollution and Night Culture, Shanxi People's Publishing House, 2020). Organizations like the International Dark-Sky Association were created to protect darkness. Modern people face the dilemma of darkness disappearing. The dark night that mankind wants to save is not just the night itself, but the past of mankind that has passed away day by day, the way mankind once felt the world. People's neglect of the night is not because the night, especially the night of the ancients, is lackluster, but because they focus too much on the world where the light reaches, and gradually forget the dark places around the stage.

This book's painstaking and outstanding efforts on the study of the night of the ancients not only present many details in the strange past night, but also allow people to understand the ancient concept of night, the culture and life of the night, and the ancient and modern changes of the night. A history without night, or without a night perspective, is incomplete. Human beings were born from the night, and they will eventually escape into the night.