116 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE UllANOLOGICAL PORTION 



ment, which I have noticed elsewhere, ( 226 ) is discussed at 

 length by a Eoman writer of the age of Constantino, Julius 

 Firmicus Maternus.( 227 ) The differences in right ascen- 

 sion of the "royal stars/' "stellse regales," are llh. 57m. 

 and 12h. 49m. The importance which was attached to 

 this subject was probably founded on opinions derived from 

 the East, which, under the Caesars, made their way into the 

 Eoman empire, together with a great predilection for astro- 

 logy. An obscure passage in the book of Job (ch. ix. v. 9), 

 in which the te chambers of the south" are opposed to u the 

 Leg/' i. e. the North Star in the Great Bear (the celebrated 

 Bull's Leg in the astronomical representations at Dendera, 

 and in the Egyptian " Book of the Dead"), seems also in- 

 tended to allude to the four quarters of the heavens, marked 

 by four constellations. ( 228 ) 



If a large and fine portion of the southern heavens, viz. 

 all stars beyond 53 of south declination, remained con- 

 cealed from the ancients, and even until the latter part of the 

 Middle Ages, yet the knowledge of the southern celestial 

 hemisphere had gradually become complete about one hun- 

 dred years before the invention and employment of telescopes. 

 In the time of Ptolemy, the Altar, the feet of the Centaur, 

 the Southern Cross then included in the Centaur, or other- 

 wise (according to Pliny) called Csesaris Thronus in honour 

 of Augustus, ( 229 ) and lastly Canopus (Canobus), which the 

 scholiast to Germanicus ( 23 ) calls the Ptolemaeon, were all 

 visible above the horizon of Alexandria. In the catalogue of 

 the Almagest, Achernar, a star of the 1st magnitude, the last 

 in the constellation of the Biver Eridanus (in Arabic, Achir- 

 el-nahr), is also mentioned, although it was 9 below the 

 horizon. Intelligence of the existence of this star must 



