THE PLANETS. 407 



founding it with the Ptolemaic epicycles, or the system of 

 Tycho. 



The names by which the star-like planets of the ancients 

 were represented, are of two kinds: names of deities, and 

 significantly descriptive names derived from physical charac- 

 ters. Which part of them originally belonged to the Chal- 

 deans, and which to the Egyptians, is so much the more 

 difficult to determine from the sources which have hitherto 

 been made use of, as the Greek writers present us, not with 

 the original names employed by other nations, but only 

 translations of these into Greek equivalents, which were more 

 or less modified by the individuality of those writers' opinions. 

 What knowledge the Egyptians possessed anterior to the 

 Chaldeans, whether these latter are to be considered merely as 

 gifted disciples of the former, 11 is a question which impinges 

 upon the important, but obscure problem of primitive civili- 

 zation of the human race, and the commencement of the 

 development of scientific ideas upon the Nile or the Eu- 

 phrates. The Egyptian names of the 36 Decans are known; 

 but the Egyptian names of the planets, with the exception 

 of one or two, have not been transmitted to us. 12 



It is remarkable that Plato and Aristotle employed only 

 the names of deities for the planets which Diodorus also 



is the system of the Egyptians : the circle in which the Sun 

 moves is encompassed by the circle of Mercury, which in its 

 turn is encircled by the larger one of Venus." The orbits are 

 are all permanently parallel to each other mutually sur- 

 rounding. 



11 Lepsius, Chronologie der JEgypter, th. i. p. 207. 



12 The name of the planet Mars, mutilated by Vettius 

 Valens and Cedrenus, must, in all probability, correspond to 

 the name Her-tosch, as Seb does to Saturn. (Lepsius, 

 Chronol. der JEgypt. pp. 90 and 93.) 



