NOTES. CIX 



from Proclus, and was discovered by Bockh. (In the Basle edition it is in 

 p. 14, and in Schneider's in p. 30.) Compare for Olympiodorus : Aristot. 

 Meteor, ed. Ideler, T. ii. p. 163. The Scholion to Pindar (Isthm.), in 

 which the metals are compared to the planets, also belongs to the Neo-Platonic 

 School. (Lobeck, Aglaophamus in Orph. T. ii. p. 936.) By the same con- 

 nection of ideas planetary signs came gradually to be employed as signs for 

 the metals, and in particular cases even furnished names to metals, as mercury 

 for quicksilver, argentum vivum, and hydrargyrus of Pliny. In the valu- 

 able collection of Greek manuscripts in the Paris Library, there are two 

 manuscripts on the cabalistic, so-called sacred, art; one of which (No. 

 2250) mentions the metals consecrated to- the planets without planetary 

 signs, but the other (No. 2329), which is a kind of Chemical Dictionary, and 

 belongs to the 15th century, combines the names of the metals with a small 

 number of planetary signs. (Hofer, Histoire de )a Chimie, T. i. p. 250.) 

 In the Paris manuscript No. 2250, quicksilver is attributed to Mercury, 

 and silver to the Moon ; while in No. 2329, on the contrary, quicksilver is 

 given to the Moon, and tin to Jupiter. Olympiodorus assigned the latter 

 metal to Mercury: so fluctuating were the mystical relations of the 

 heavenly bodies to the " powers of the metals." 



This is the place for alluding to the allotment to different planets of the 

 several hours of the day, and of the several days of the short period of seven 

 days, or the week, respecting the antiquity and the prevalence of which 

 among remote nations, more correct views have very recently been put forward 

 for the first time. The Egyptians, as is shown by Lepsius (Chronologic der 

 Aegypter, S. 132), and testified by monuments reaching back to the very early 

 times of the construction of the great pyramids, had eriginally short periods, 

 similar to weeks, consisting not of seven, but of ten days. Three such 

 decades formed one of the twelve months of the solar year. When we read 

 in Dio Cassius (lib. xxxvii. cap. xviii.) "that the custom of calling the 

 days of the week after the seven planets came first from the Egyptians, and 

 had spread not very long ago from them to all other nations, and in parti- 

 cular to the Romans, among whom it had already become completely natu- 

 ralised," we must not forget that this writer lived so late as the reign of 

 Alexander Severus, and that since the first invasion of Oriental astrology 

 under the Csesars, and particularly in consequence of the great assemblage and 

 intercourse of persons of so many nations and races at Alexandria, it had 

 become usual among the people of the West to give the name of Egyptian to 

 whatever seemed to be ancient. Without doubt the week of seven days was 



