160 COSMOS. 



the separate stars forming these three catasterisms, but simply 

 an ignorance of their arrangement into constellations. A 

 long and frequently misunderstood passage of Strabo (lib. i. 

 p. 3, Casaub.) on Homer, II. xviii. 485-489, specially proves 

 a fact important to the question, that in the Greek sphere 

 the stars were only gradually arranged in constellations. Homer 

 has been unjustly 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 specially designated this constellation and made 

 use of it for the purposes of navigation. All the scholia on 

 Homer, Hyginus and Diogenes Laertius, ascribe its introduc- 

 tion to Thales. In the Pseudo-Eratosthenian work to which 

 we have already referred, the lesser Bear is called $011/1*77 (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^oYqs, and Aries, Kpios. 



The introduction of the Zodiac into the ancient Greek 

 sphere coincides according to Letronne with this period of the 

 domination of the Pisistratidrc. Eudemus of Rhodes, one of 

 the most distinguished pupils of Aristotle, and author of a 

 " History of Astronomy," ascribes the introduction of this 

 Zodiacal belt f) TOV ^coSm/cou diafao-is, also faidios /cuxXoy) to 

 QEnopides of Chios, a contemporary of Anaxagoras. 27 The 

 idea of the relation of the planets and fixed stars to the suns 



27 Letronne, op. cit., p. 25 ; and Carteron, Analyse des Re- 

 cherches de M. Letronne sur Ics representations zodiacales, 1840, 

 p. 119. " It is very doubtful whether Eudoxus (Ol. 103) ever 

 made use of the word faSiaKos. We first meet with it in 

 Euclid, and in the Commentary of Hipparchus on Aratus 

 (01. 160). The name ecliptic, e*:Xfi7mKo'y, is also very recent." 

 Compare Martin in the Commentary to Theonis Smyrncei 

 riatonici Liber de Astronomia, 1849, pp. 50, 60. 



