INFLUENCE OF THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGNS. 16"^ 



piu'ius maintains, in accordance with the advice of Aristotle) 

 to send to Greece observations of the stars for a very long pe- 

 riod (Porphyrins says for 1903 years) before Alexander's en 

 trance into Babylon, 01. 112, 2. The earliest Chaldean ob- 

 servations mentioned by Almagest (probably the oldest which 

 Ptolemy found available for his object) only go back 721 years 

 before our era, that is to say, to the first Messenian war. It 

 is certain " that the Chaldeans knew the mean motions of the 

 moon with an exactness which induced the Greek astronomers 

 to employ their calculations for the foundation of a lunar the- 

 ory."^' The planetary observations to which they were led 

 by their ancient love of astrology appear also to have been 

 used for the true construction of astronomical tables. 



The present is not the place to decide how much of the 

 Pythagorean views regarding the true structure of the heavens, 

 the course of the planets, and of the comets which, according 

 to Apollonius Myndius, return in long regulated orbits,! may 

 be due to the Chaldeans. Strabo calls the mathematician 

 Seleucus a Babylonian, and distinguished him in this manner| 

 from the Erythraean, who measured the tides of the sea. It 

 is sufficient to remark that the Greek zodiac was most prob- 

 ably taken from " the Dodecatemoria of the Chaldeans, and 

 that, according to Letronne's important investigations, § it does 



739). Ill this passage four Chaklean matbeinaticians are indicated by 

 name, in conjanction with the Chaldean astronomers. This circuni 

 stance is so much the more important in an historical point of view, 

 because Ptolemy always mentions the observers of the heavenly bodies 

 under the collective name of Xa?i6atoL, as if the observations at Babylon 

 were only made collectively in collegiate bodies (Ideler, Handbuch der 

 Chronologie, bd. i., 1825, s. 198). 



* Ideler, op. cit., bd. i., s. 202, 206, und 218. When a doubt is ad 

 vanced regarding the astronomical observations said to have been sent 

 by Callisthenes from Babylon to Greece, on the ground that there is no 

 trace of these observations of a Chaldean priestly caste to be found in 

 the wrifengs of Aristotle (Delambre, Hist, de V Astronomie Ancienne, t. i., 

 p. 308), it is forgotten that Aristotle, in speaking {De Casio, lib. ii., cap. 

 12) of an occultation of Mars by the Moon, observed by himself, ex- 

 pressly adds, that " similar observations had been made for many years 

 on the other planets by the Egyptians and the Babylonians, many of 

 which have come to our knowledge." On the probable use of astro- 

 nomical tables by the Chaldeans, see Chasles, in the Covtptes Rendns de 

 VAcadimie des Sciences, t. xxiii., 1846, p. 852-854. 



t Seneca, Nat. Qucest., vii., 17. 



X Compare Strabo, lib. xvi., p. 739, with lib. iii., p. 174. 



§ These investigations were made in the year 1824 (see Gnigniaut, 

 Religions de V Antiquity, ouvrage tradnit de VAllemajid de F. Creuzer, 

 t. i., Part ii., p. 928). See a more recent notice by Letronne, in the 

 Journal d(s Savans. 1839, p. 338 and 492, as well as the A^aJyte Cri 



