TIIE PLANETS. 411 



The descriptive names, however old and Chaldean they may 

 be, were not very frequently employed by the Greek and 

 Koman writers until the time of the Crcsars. Their diffusion 

 is connected with the influence of astrology. The planetary 

 signs are, with the exception of the disc of the Sun and the 

 Moon's crescent upon Egyptian monuments, of very recent 

 origin ; according to Letronne's researches u they would not 



ful, all-penetrating being: ' qui omnia permeat,' as Lucan 

 says of Jupiter." Compare, with reference to the Indian names 

 of the days of the week, Budha and Buddha, and the week- 

 days in general, the observations of my brother, in his work, 

 Ueber die Verbindungen zwischen Java und Indien (Kawi 

 sprache, bd. i. pp. 187-190). 



14 Compare Letronne, Sur V Amulette de Jules Cesar et les 

 Signcs Planetalres, in the Revue Archcologique Annee III., 

 1846, p. 261. Salmasius considered the oldest planetary 

 sign for Jupiter to be the initial letter of Zevs, that of Mars 

 a contraction of the cognomen Oovptos. The sun-disc was 

 rendered almost unrecognizable by an oblique and trian- 

 gular bundle of rays issuing from it. As the Earth was 

 not included among the planets in any of the ancient sys- 

 tems, except, perhaps, the Philo-Pythagorean, Letronne 

 considers the planetary sign of the Earth " to have come 

 into use after the time of Copernicus." The remarkable pas- 

 sage in Olympiodorus, on the consecration of the metals 

 to individual planets, is taken from Proclus, and was traced 

 by Boekh (it is in p. 14 of the Basil edition, and at p. 30 of 

 Schneider's edition). Compare for Olympiodorus, Aristot. 

 Meteor, ed. Ideler, torn. ii. p. 163. The scholium to Pindar, 

 (Isthm.) in which the metals are compared with the planets, 

 also belongs to the new Platonic school ; Lobeck (Aglaopha- 

 mus in Orph. torn. ii. p. 936). In accordance with the same 

 connexion of ideas, planetary signs by-and-bye became signs 

 of the metals ; indeed, some (as Mercurius, for quicksilver, 

 the argentum vivum and liydrargyrus of Pliny) became 

 names of metals. In the valuable collection of Greek manu- 

 scripts of the Paris Library are two manuscripts on the cabal- 

 istic, or so-called sacred art, of which one (No. 2250) men- 



