68 Hutton Webster 



acts which should be accomplished only under the most favorable 

 auspices. During the axreXivoi it was necessary to sacrifice to the 

 underworld gods in order to avoid their anger. Appropriately, 

 these days were consecrated to chthonic deities and to the dead.^* 

 Similar beliefs appear to have survived in the still current idea 

 that the three days before the new moon are especially unlucky 

 and apt to be attended by storms and winds.''* 



The astrological conceptions which have centered about the 

 moon stations afford an interesting study in the diffusion of super- 

 stition. The old Babylonian astronomers, who watched night 

 by night the course of the moon through the heavens, associated 

 that luminary with various prominent stars and constellations, 

 drawing therefrom various forecasts for each day in the tropical 

 or periodic month. ^^ The fact is well known that Babylonian 

 astrology and astronomy— for the two were scarcely distinguish- 

 able in the earlier period — exerted great influence on the neigh- 

 boring peoples of Asia, and hence it has been argued that the 

 lunar mansions, usually twenty-seven or twenty-eight in number, 

 which we find among the Hindus and Chinese, and the augural 

 calendars connected therewith, were derived ultimately from 

 Babylonia.^" It is probably true that the Arabian moon stations 

 mentioned in the Koran^' reach back to the same source. The 



^ E. Rohde, Psyche,' Freiburg-i-B., 1898, i. 235, 269; Daremberg and 

 Saglio, Dictionnaire des aiitiquites grecques et romaines, i. 174, 322. In 

 Greek fancy Selene was believed to descend to the lower world and the 

 abode of shades ; hence the goddess came to be identified with Persephone 

 (Roscher, Uher Selene unci Ven^'andtes, 46 sqq.). 



** Hazen, op. cit., 192. 



^ Mean length 27. 321 days. 



^ Lehmann, in Abhandl. Berliner Gesells. f. Anthrop., Eihnol. u. Urgesch., 

 1895. p. 435 n'; F. K. Ginzel, " Die astronomischen Kenntnisse der Baby- 

 lonier," Klio, 1901, i. 12 sqq.; L. H. -Gray, "The Parsi-Persian Burj- 

 Namah, or Book of Omens from the Moon," Journal of the American 

 Oriental Society, 1910, xxx. 237- 



""God hath appointed mansions for the moon" (Siira, x. 5). See in 

 general on this subject, A. de G. Motylinski, Les mansions lunaires des 

 Arabes, Alger, 1899; Hommel, in Zeitschrift dcr deutschcn morgenldnd- 

 ischen Gesellschaft, 1891, pp. 592 sqq. 



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