Watchstanding regulate the sailors' duty watches and for other purposes (see main article). Unlike civil clock bells, the strikes of a ship's bell do not accord to the number of the hour. Instead, there are eight bells, one for each half-hour of a four-hour watch. Bells would be struck every half-hour, and in a pattern of pairs for easier counting, with any odd bells at the end of the sequence. Watchstanding Watchstanding, or watchkeeping, in nautical terms concerns the division of qualified personnel to operate a ship continuously. On a typical seafaring vessel, be it naval or merchant, personnel keep watch
Droungarios of the Watch front and another with the emperor on horseback on the rear. The dignity survived until the end of the Byzantine Empire. The historian Sphrantzes equated the Ottoman post of Agha of the Janissaries to the Grand "Droungarios" of the Watch. Droungarios of the Watch The "Droungarios" of the Watch (, "droungarios tēs viglēs/viglas"), sometimes anglicized as "Drungary of the Watch", was originally a senior Byzantine military post. Attested since the late 8th century, the "droungarios" commanded the "Vigla" or "Watch", one of the elite professional cavalry regiments ("tagmata") of the middle Byzantine period, and was in charge of the Byzantine