224 THEOIIY OF THE EARTH. 



year 138 after, or in that which ended in 1322 

 before Christ, or in some other. 



The late Visconti, who was the first author of 

 this hypothesis, taking the sacred year, whose 

 commencement corresponded with the sign of 

 the Lion, and judging from the resemblance of the 

 signs, that they had been represented at a period 

 when the opinions of the Greeks were not un- 

 known to the Egyptians, was naturally led to make 

 choice of the end of the last great year, or the space 

 that elapsed between the year 12 and the year 

 138 after Christ *, which appeared to him to ac- 

 cord with the Greek inscription, of which, how- 

 ever, he knew little more than that it was said to 

 make mention of one of the Caesars. 



M, Testa, seeking the date of the monument 

 in another order of ideas, went so far as to sup- 

 pose that since the Virgin is seen at Esne, at the 

 head of the zodiac, it was meant thereby to repre- 

 sent the era of the battle of Actium, such as it 

 had been established with regard to Egypt, by a 

 decree of the senate, mentioned by Dion Cassius, 

 and which commenced in the month of Septem- 

 ber, the day on which Alexandria was taken by 

 Augustus.f 



* Translation of Herodotus by Larcher, vol. ii. p. 570. 



t See the Dissertation of the Abbe Dominique Testa, 

 Sopra due Zodiaci novellamente scoperte nell' Egitto, 

 Rome, 1802, p. 34. 



