128 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



height at noon, would perhaps be the most observ- 

 able of such circumstances. Accordingly the -rpo-rrai 

 rieXioio, the turnings of the sun, are used repeatedly 

 by Hesiod as a mark from which he reckons the 

 seasons of various employments. " Fifty days," he 

 says, " after the turning of the sun, is a seasonable 

 time for beginning a voyage 4 ." 



The phenomena would be different in different 

 climates, but the recurrence would be common to 

 all. Any one of these kinds of phenomena, noted 

 with moderate care for a year, would show what 

 was the number of days of which a year consisted ; 

 and if several years were included in the interval 

 through which the scrutiny extended, the know- 

 ledge of the length of the year so acquired would 

 be proportionally more exact. 



Besides those notices of the sun, which offered 

 exact indications of the seasons, other more inde- 

 finite natural occurrences were used ; as the arrival 

 of the swallow (xe\Mv) and the kite (IKTIV). The 

 birds, in Aristophanes's play of that name, mention 

 it, as one of their offices, to mark the seasons; 

 Hesiod similarly notices the cry of the crane as an 

 indication of the departure of winter 5 . 



Among the Greeks the seasons were at first 

 only summer and winter (Oepos and ^etjuwV), the 



4 "HjUCtTa irevTiiKovTa pera T^OTTC?? r}e\ioto 

 Es T6\o<? eXdovTos Qepeos. 



Op. et Dies, 661. 

 6 Ideler, i. 240. 



