94 COSMOS. 



sages in the Commentary of Simplicius (p. 122), to tlie eigUti' 

 book of the De Ccclo of Aristotle, in Hyginus, Diodorus, and 

 Theon of Smyrna, it certainly was only its position, and the 

 length of its orbit, which raised it above the other planets 

 The descriptive names, how^ever old and Chaldean they may 

 be, were not very frequently employed by the Greek and Ro- 

 man writers until the time of the Caesars. Their diffusion 

 is connected with the influence of astrology. The planetary 

 signs are, with the exception of the disk of the Sun and the 

 Moon's crescent upon Egyptian monuments, of very recent 

 origin ; according to Letronne's researches,^ they would not 



120.) Wuotan, Odiiin, is, according to Jacob Grimm, the all-powerful, 

 all-penetratiug being : * qui omnia permeat,' as Lucan says of Jupiter." — 

 Compare, with reference to the Indian names of the days of the week 

 Budha and Buddha, and the week-days in general, the observations of 

 my brother, in his work Ueber die Verhindimgen zicischen Java und In 

 dien (Kawi Sprache, bd. i., p. 187-190). 



* dompare Letronne, Siir V Amulette de Jules Cesar et les Signes Plan 

 etaires,\n the Revue Archiologique, Annie III., 1846, p. 261. Salmasius 

 considered the oldest planetary sign for Jupiter to be the initial letter 

 of ZeiJf, that of Mars a contraction of the cognomen -dovpioQ. The sun- 

 disk was i-eiidered almost unrecognizable by an oblicpie and triangular 

 bundle of rays issuing from it. As the Eai'th was not included among 

 the planets iu any of the ancient systems, except, perhaps, the Philo- 

 Pythagorean, Letronne considers the planetary sign of the Earth "to 

 have come into use after the time of Copernicus." The remarkable 

 passage in Olympiodorus, on the consecration of the metals to individ- 

 ual planets, is taken from Proclus, and was traced by Boekh (it is in 

 p. 14 of the Basil edition, and at p. 30 of Schneider's edition). — Cora 

 pare, for Olympiodorus, Aristot., Meteorol., ed. Ideler, tom. ii., p. 163. 

 The scholium to Pindar {Isthm.), in which the metals are compared 

 with the planets, also belongs to the- new Platonic school. — Lobeck 

 (Aglaophamus in Orpk., tom.ii., p. 936). In accordance with the sarao 

 connection of ideas, planetary signs by-and-by became signs of the met 

 als ; indeed, some (as Mercurius, for quicksilver, the argentum vivum 

 and hydrargyrus of Pliny) became names of metals. In the valuable 

 collection of Greek manuscripts of the Paris Library are two manu- 

 scripts on the cabalistic, or so-called sacred art, of which one (No. 22.50) 

 mentions the metals consecrated to the planets without planetary signs; 

 the other, however (No. 2329), which, according to the writing, is of 

 the fifteenth century (a kind of chemical dictionary), combines the 

 names of the metals with a small number of planetary signs. (Hofer, 

 Histoire de la Chimie, tom. i., p. 250.) In the Paris manuscript No 

 22.50, quicksilver is attributed to Mercury, and silver to the i\Ioon, 

 while, on the contrary, in No. 2329, quicksilver belongs to the Moon, 

 and tin to Jupitei'. Olympiodorus has ascribed the latter metal to Mer- 

 cury. Thus indefinite were tlje mystic relations of the cosuiical bodies 

 to the metallic powers. 



This is also the appropriate place to mention the p'!anetary hours and 

 the planetary days iu the small seven-day period (the week), concern* 

 lug the antiquity and ditrusion of which among remote nations mor** 



