93 COSMOS. 



meiit of sciontiiic ideas upon the Nile or the Euphrates. The 

 Egyptian names of the 36 Decans are known ; but the Egyp- 

 tian names of the planets, with the exception of one or two, 

 have not been transmitted to us.=^ 



It is remarkable that Plato and Aristotle employed only 

 the names of deities for the planets which Diodorus also 

 mentions ; while at a later period, for example, in the book 

 T)e Mu7ido, erroneously attributed to Aristotle, a combina- 

 tion of both kinds of names are met with, those of deities, and 

 the descriptive (expressive) names : (palvcjv for Saturn, gtlX- 

 6o)V for Mercury, TTVpoeig for Mars.f Although the name 



* The name of the planet Mars, mutilated by Vettius Valens and 

 Cedrenus, mast, in all probability, correspond to the name Her-tosch, 

 as Seb does to Satmii. (Lepsius, Chronol. der j^gypt., p. 90 and 93.) 



+ The most striking ditfereuces are met with on comparing Aristot., 

 Metaph., xii., cap. 8, p. 1073, ed. Dekker, with Pseudo-Aristot., DeMnn- 

 do, cap. 2, p. 392. The planet names Phaethon, Pyrois, Hercules, Stil- 

 bon, and Juno, appear in the latter work, which points to the times of 

 Apuleius and the Autonines, in which Chaldean astrology was already 

 diffused over the whole Roman empire, and the ternu« of different na- 

 tions mixed with each other. (Compare Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 29, and 

 note). Diodorus Siculus says positively-that the Chaldef^ns first named 

 the planets after their Babylonian deities, and that these names were 

 thus transferred to the Greeks. Ideler {Eudoxus, p. 48), on the con- 

 trary, ascribes these names to the Egyptians, and grounds Ill's argument 

 upon the old existence on the Nile of a seven-day planetary week {Hand- 

 huch der Chronologic, bd. i., p. 180): an hypothesis which Lepsius has 

 completely disproved {Chronologie der J^g., th. i., p. 131). I will 

 here collate from Eratosthenes, from the editor o( Epinomis (Philippus 

 Opuutius?), from Geminius, Pliny, Theon of Smyrna, Cleomedes, Achil- 

 les Tatius, Julius Firmicus, and Simplicius, the synonyms of the five 

 oldest planets, as they have been transmitted to us chiefly through pre- 

 dilection for astrology: 



Saturn: (paivuv, Nemesis, also called a sun by five authors (The^^n 

 Smyrna, p. 87 and 105, Martin) ; 



Jupiter: (paiduv, Os'nis; 



Mars: Trupdeif, Hercules; 



Venus: ewaijidpof, ^wcr^opof, Lucifer ; euTrfpof, Vesper ; Juno, Isis; 



Mercury: crri7i6cjv, Apollo. 

 Achilles Tatius (Isag. in Phaen. Arati, cap. 17) considers it strange 

 " that the Egyptians, as well as the Greeks, should call the least lumin- 

 ous of the planets the shining" (perhaps only because it brought pros- 

 perity). According to Diodorus, the name refers to the opinion " that 

 Saturn was that planet which principally and most clearly foretold the 

 future." — Letronne, Sur rOrigi~ie du Zodiaque Grec, p. 33, and in the 

 Jorirnal des Savants, 183G, p. 17. Compare also Carteron, Analyse dea 

 Recherches Zodiacales, p. 97. Names which are transmitted as equiv 

 alents from one people to another, certainly depend in many cases, iu 

 addition to their origin, upon accidental circumstances, which can not 

 be investigated ; however, it is necessary to remark here, that etymo- 

 logically, ^aivetv expresses a mere shining, % fa'nter evolution of light, 



