ZODIACAL SIGNS. 119 



groups ; the for.ner mentions tlie constellation of the Beat 

 (" otherwise known as the Celestial Wain, and which alona 

 never sinks into the bath of Oceanos"), Bootes, and the Dog 

 of Orion ; the latter speaks of Sirius and Arcturus, and both 

 refer to the Pleiades, the Hyades, and Orion.* Homer's twice 

 repeated assertion that the constellation of the Bear alone 

 never sinks into the ocean, m.erely allows us to infer that in 

 his age the Greek sphere did not yet comprise the constella- 

 tions of Draco, Cepheus, and Ursa Minor, wliich likewise do 

 not set. The statement does not prove a want of acquaint- 

 ance with the existence of the separate stars forming these 

 three catasterisms, but simply an ignorance of their arrange 

 ment into constellations. A long and frequently misunder- 

 stood passage of Strabo (hb. i., p. 3, Casaub.) on Homer, //., 

 xviii., 485—489, specially proves a fact — important to tho 

 question — that in the Greek sphere the stars were only grad- 

 ually arranged in constellations. Homer has been mijustly 

 accused of ignorance, says Strabo, as if he had known of only 

 one instead of two Bears. It is probable that the lesser one 

 had not yet been arranged in a separate group, and that the 

 name did not reach the Hellenes until after the Phoenicians 

 had sj)ecially designated this constellation, and made use of 

 it for the purposes of navigation. All the scholia on Homer, 

 Hyginus, and Diogenes Laertius ascribe its introduction to 

 Thales. In the Pseudo-Eratosthenian work to which we 

 have already referred, the lesser Bear is called (^olvUt] (or, 

 as it were, the Phoenician guiding star). A century later 

 (01. 71), Cleostratus of Tenedos enriched the sphere with the 

 constellations of Sagittarius, To^orrjg, and Aries, Kpiog. 



The introduction of the Zodiac into the ancient Greek 

 sphere coincides, according to Letromie, with this period of 

 the domination of the Pisistratidse. Eudemus of Hhodes, one 

 of the most distinguished pupils of Aristotle, and author of a 

 "History of Astronomy," ascribes the introduction of this zo- 

 diacal belt (?) rod ^iDdtanov dia^cjGLg, also ^G)i6wg icvfcXog) to 

 GFlnopides of Cliios, a cotemporary of Anaxagoras.f Tho 



* Ideler, Untcrs. uher die Stcrnnamen, s. xi., 47, 139, 144, 243 • Lev 

 traune, Sur VOrigine du Zodiaqve Grec, 1340, p. 25. 



"t Letronne, op. cit., p. 25 ; and Carteron, Analyse des RecTiercties de 

 M. Letronne sur les Representations Zodiacalcs, 1843, p. 119. "It is 

 very doubtful whether Eudoxus (01. 103) ever made use of the word 

 ^oidtaKoq. We first meet with it iu Euclid, and iu the Commentary of 

 Hipparchus on Aratns (01. 160). The name ecliptic, ekXeltttlko^, ia 

 also very recent." Compare Martin in the Commentary to Thconit 

 Smyrnai Platonici Liber de Adionomia, 1849, p. 50, GO. 



