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exact moment of its entry upon the first decan, which 

 they called the upper room, the whole sign being called 

 the house of the sun ; the second decan they called the 

 middle or inner room, and the third the lower room. 

 On each side of the zodiacal band there are also a 

 number of what are called extra-zodiacal constellations, 

 which never vary their position with regard to the 

 zodiacal signs, the constellations on either side of Aries 

 always rising and setting at the same time with that sign, 

 those on each side of Taurus doing likewise, and so on 

 through all the signs. 



As the various astronomical figures became endowed 

 by the ancients with divine honours, each of .these signs 

 became associated with a number of romantic stories, 

 until at length the struggles, victories, and defeats of the 

 gods were told in such a variety of ways that sufficient 

 lore existed to fill, if written down, whole libraries. The 

 zodiacal signs were all gods of great importance ; the 

 planets were gods, the sun was a god, the moon was a 

 goddess, and the extra-zodiacal constellations were 

 either gods or heroes; but all were not of equal import- 

 ance, and, owing to the constant changing of positions, 

 some were powerful and victorious at one time and weak 

 and dying at another. The chief deity, which to the 

 Aryans was Dyaus, the day-father, became in later times 

 a concentrated essence of all the gods, and was supposed 

 to undergo all the vicissitudes to which they were sub- 

 jected ; but, inasmuch as the new-born sun was the life 

 of the world, bringing back happiness, and the vernal 

 equinoxial sign was the one at which his influence began 

 to be felt, these two deities were looked upon as god 

 par excellence, a dual deity, separate yet conjoined, and 

 of equal power and authority. So, when the bull was 

 the vernal equinoxial point, the sun-in- Taurus was 

 supreme god; and when the ram, or lamb, was the 

 vernal equinoxial point the sun-'m-Artes was supreme 

 God ; and, although it was only in March that the sun 

 was at the vernal equinoxial point, yet the bull-god, for 

 two thousand years prior to B.C. 2188, was always su- 

 preme, and the ram-god (in Egypt) or lamb-god (in 

 Persia) after that date. On leaving the vernal equinoxial 

 sign the sun passed into the next in order ; but, although 



