162 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 



would more especially refer to is the fact that, with an 

 increased knowledge of the earth and its productions,, we 

 find by recent and careful investigations that the Greeks 

 obtained from Babylon an important augmentation of their 

 knowledge of the heavens. The conquest of Cyrus had in- 

 deed already caused the downfal of the glories of the Astro- 

 nomical College of priests in the capital of the eastern world ; 

 the terraced pyramid of Belus, (at once a temple, a tomb, 

 and an astronomical observatory whence the nocturnal 

 hours were proclaimed), had been given over to destruction 

 by Xerxes, and already lay in ruins when the Macedonians 

 came. But the very fact of the close sacerdotal caste 

 being dissolved, and of many astronomical schools having 

 formed themselves ( 247 ), rendered it possible for Callisthenes 

 to send to Greece, (by the advice of Aristotle according to 

 Simplicius), observations of stars for a very long period; 

 Porphyry says for a period of 1903 years before Alexander's 

 entry into Babylun, 01. 11 2, 2. The oldest Chaldean observa- 

 tions referred to in the Almagest, (probably the oldest which 

 Ptolemy found suitable for his objects) go back indeed only 

 to 721 years before our era, or to the first Messenian War. 

 It is certain that " the Chaldeans knew the mean motions 

 of the moon with an exactness which caused the Greek 

 astronomers to employ them for the foundation of the theory 

 of the Hioon( 248 )." Their planetary observations, to which 

 they were stimulated by the old love of astrology, appear 

 also to have been used for the construction of astronomical 

 tables. 



This is not the place to examine how much of the earliest 

 Pythagorean views of the true fabric of the heavens, of the 

 course of the planets, and of that of comets which accord* 



