THE SIDEREAL UNIVERSE. 693 



However, the first authentic proof of the division of the 

 heavens only belongs to the times of Hesiod, much nearer 

 to our epoch. In his book, the " Works and Days," written 

 about 800 years before Christ, this poet speaks of the Pleia- 

 des, Arcturus, Orion, and Sirius. 



The Odyssey and Iliad are barren in respect to astronom- 

 ical allusions. Homer, however, relates that Ulysses steered 

 his ship guiding his course by the Pleiades and Bootes ; and 

 the prince of poets, when he describes the shield of Achilles, 

 mentions several constellations, and among them the Great 

 Bear, " which alone never sinks in the waves of the ocean." 



The invention of almost all the constellations is generally 

 attributed to the Greeks. As to those which lie near the 

 equator, and which are called zodiacal, the learned consider 

 that they emblematically recall the Egyptian divinities. 

 The Virgin represents Isis, and the Goat Mendes. The 

 Ram is consecrated to Jupiter Ammon ; the Bull is only the 

 emblem of the god Apis, and the Lion that of Osiris. 1 



to have lived. In the book of Job allusion is made to the constellations of Orion, 

 the Pleiades, and the Hyades. The grouping of stars thus goes back nearly 3300 

 years. Arago, Astronomie Populaire, t. i., p. 346. 



We also find on the monuments of ancient Egypt indications of the grouping of 

 constellations. But we now know that many of these monuments are much more 

 recent than was thought at first. 



1 Among the Greeks the Bull recalled to mind the carrying away of Europa 

 by Jupiter. The sun, when he arrived at the sign of the Crab, indicated, 

 by his moving backwards to the equator, the way in which this crustacean pro- 

 gresses. 



According to M. J. Coulier, the Egyptians, by the sign of the Lion, intended to 

 indicate the great heats which occur towards the summer solstice, a time when 

 the lions are very abundant and very dangerous in Ethiopia. The Virgin is said 

 to have represented the Egyptian goddess Isis. The Balance anciently indicated 

 the place where the sun is found at the autumnal equinox, the time when the 



