92 COSMOS. 



ment of scientific ideas upon the Nile or the Euphrates. The 

 Egyptian names of the 36 Decans are known ; but the Egyp- 

 tian names of the planets, with the exception of one or two, 

 have not been transmitted to us.^ 



It is remarkable that Plato and Aristotle employed only 

 the names of deities for the planets which Diodorus also 

 mentions ; while at a later period, for example, in the book 

 De Mundo, erroneously attributed to Aristotle, a combina- 

 tion of both kinds of names are met with, those of deities, and 

 the descriptive (expressive) names : (paCvcjv for Saturn, ariX- 

 6g)v for Mercury, rrvpoEig for Mars.f Although the name 



* The name of the planet Mars, mutilated by Vettius Valeus and 

 Cedrenus, must, in all probability, correspond to the name Her-tosch, 

 as Seb does to Saturn. (Lepsius, Chronol. der ^gypt., p. 90 and 93.) 



t The most striking differences are met with on comparing Aristot., 

 Metaph., xii., cap. 8, p. 1073, ed, Bekker, with Pseudo-Aristot., De Mun- 

 do, cap. 2, p. 392. The planet names Phaethon, Pyrois, Hercules, Stil- 

 bon, and Juno, appear in the latter work, which points to the times of 

 Apuleius and the Antonines, in which Chaldean astrology was already 

 diffused, over the whole Roman empire, and the terms of different na- 

 tions mixed with each other. (Compare Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 29, and 

 note). Diodorus Siculus says positively that the Chaldeans first named 

 the planets after their Babylonian deities, and that these names were 

 thus transferred, to the Greeks. Ideler {Eudoxus, p. 48), on the con- 

 traiy, ascribes these names to the Egyptians, and grounds his argument 

 upon the old existence on the Nile of a seven-day planetary week\Hand- 

 buck der Chronologic, bd. i., p. 180): an hypothesis which Lepsius has 

 completely disproved (Ckronologie der u^g., th. i., p. 131). I will 

 here collate from Eratosthenes, from the editor of Epinomis (Philippua 

 Opuntius?), from Geminius, Pliny, Theon of Smyrna, Cleomedes, Achil- 

 les Tatius, Julius Firmicus, and Simplicius, the synonyms of the five 

 oldest planets, as they have been transmitted to us ^chiefly through pre- 

 dilection for astrology : 



Saturn: cpaivuv, Nemesis, also called a sun by five authors (Theon. 

 Smyrna, p. 87 and 105, Martin) ; 



Jupiter: (paeOov, Osiris; 



Mars : nvpostg, Hercules ; 



Venus : iua^opo^, (^uaclibpo^, Lucifer ; ^aTvepog, Vesper ; Juno, Isis ; 



Mercury : arlMuv, Apollo. 

 Achilles Tatius {Isag. in Phaen. Arati, cap. 17) considers it strange 

 " that the Egyptians, as well as the Greeks, should call the least lumin- 

 ous of the planets the shining" (perhaps only because it brought pros- 

 perity).^ According to Diodorus, the name refers to the opinion "that 

 Saturn was that planet which principally and most clearly foretold the 

 future." — Letronne, Sur VOrigine du Zodiaque Grec, p. 33, and in the 

 Journal des Savants, 1836, p. 17. Compare also Carteron, Analyse des 

 Recherches Zodiacales, p. 97. Names which are transmitted as equiv- 

 alents from one people to another, certainly depend in many cases, in 

 addition to their oingin, upon accidental circumstances, which can not 

 be investigated ; however, it is necessaiy to remark here, that etymo- 

 logically, ^alveiv expresses a mere shining, a fainter evolution of light, 



