130 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



seasons of the year. Eschylus 7 makes Prometheus 

 mention this among the benefits of which he, the 

 teacher of arts to the earliest race of men, was the 

 communicator. 



Thus, for instance, the rising 8 of the Pleiades in 

 the evening was a mark of the approach of winter. 

 The rising of the waters of the Nile in Egypt coin- 

 cided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, which star 

 the Egyptians called Sothis. Even without any 

 artificial measure of time or position, it was not 

 difficult to carry observations of this kind to such 

 a degree of accuracy as to learn from them the 

 number of days which compose the year; and to 

 fix the precise season from the appearance of the 

 stars. 



7 QVK fjv yap awrois OVTE ^ei/ueiTos re'icjuap, 

 "Our' ai>0e/ia>BoiM? qpos, ovce KCtpTn'juou 

 Oepoi/s (3e(3aiov' d\\' <rrep yvtow; TO irav 

 effTf Sij (riv ai/aToXae eyw 



eeta, -rac T 



Prom. V. 454. 



8 Ideler (Chronol. i. 242) says that this rising of the Pleiades 

 took place at a time of the year which corresponds to our llth 

 May, and the setting to the 20th October; hut this does not 

 agree with the forty days of their being "concealed," which, 

 from the context, must mean, I conceive, the interval between 

 their setting and rising. Pliny, however, says, *' Vergiliarum 

 exortu eestas incipit, occasu hiems; semestri spatio intra se 

 messes vindemiasque et omnium maturitatem complexae. (H. N. 

 xviii. 69.) 



The autumn of the Greeks, oVw'pa, was earlier than our 

 autumn, for Homer calls Sirius dvrrjp oVwpivoV, which rose at 

 the end of July. 



