It can’t be influenced by the moon or stars in the sky, because how would they measure the time during a moonless cloudy night?
Edit: How would, say, 3 common travellers camping on the road measure time at night?
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The most common ancient device was the [water clock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices#Water_clocks), which was basically just a tank of water draining at a known rate. Whoever was keeping time – either the watchmen themselves or some centralized timekeeper – could just reset the clock periodically.
Ancient peoples also had hourglasses, although those were developed later and required more engineering work.
You could measure time from the time it takes a fire to burn something or by the length of a lit candle. The hourglass goes back quite a ways in history as well.
As far back as the ancient greeks we have timekeeping devices that don’t rely on the sun. Typically, candles or giant tubs of water calibrated to burn out or drain over a certain amount of time.
It varied widely. In some medieval Christian traditions, church bells would ring (and monks would say prayers) at 7 p.m, 2 a.m., and dawn. So first watch might be from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. and second watch from 2 a.m. to dawn.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_hours](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_hours)
Yet for sailors traditional watches consisted of 5 four-hour periods and 2 two-hour periods. First watch would be from 2000 hours (10 p.m.) to midnight, middle watch from midnight to 400 hours (4 a.m.), and morning watch from 400-800 hours (4 a.m. to 8 a.m.). That said, there were a number of alternative watch systems as well.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchkeeping)
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In addition to other answers, note that even modern people can still estimate time pretty well without any instruments at all. I.e., once you have a good sense of how long an hour is, whether from sundials or hourglasses or mechanical clocks or what have you, you can estimate pretty accurately what time it is and how much time has passed. Not down to the minute, but good enough for, like, waking up the next night watchman.
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AFAIK “watches” are a nautical thing. They’re 4-hour blocks of on-duty time (except for two 2-hour blocks from 4-6 and 4-8 pm known as “dog watches”— those exist to break up the 24 hours into an odd number…otherwise the groups of sailors would fall into a pattern and have the same watch assigned to them forever— with dog watches they will alternate).
One thing to remember is that prior to cheap reliable clocks the strict schedule wasn’t as big a deal.
You’d make an appointment for the morning, or mid day, or afternoon. Then show up around then.
For now timely matters you might pace it out. It’s thirty steps to the corner, two hundred around the ground. You make 20 trips before swapping out with your partner.
Another common simple “clock” was the rate things burned.
A log of a fairly standard size might burn down, when you replace it you wake the next watch.
If you were more wealthy you might have a candle.
Travelers on the road wouldn’t use watches, as such. Formal watches were used on ships, because ships were always moving, night and day, and needed someone to make sure they were on course and not getting into a hazardous situation. The watches always began/ended with bells. Often ships were on missions for months at a time, or journeys of years. People got used to the rhythm of ship life.
If you were traveling on a road you wouldn’t need to know the exact time to wake someone for a watch. People were much better at judging the passing of time. They were attuned to the natural world more than we are because they lived closer to it. Also, if you traveled during a new moon and the sky were overcast, you would just pay more attention to other clues.
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