EMBLEM OF THE CRAB IN RELATION TO THE SIGN CANCER. 607 



Oriuntur verb Orion totus, Eridanique principium, et in lingua Caniculse lucida Stella. 

 The table given by Hyginus is nearly identical, save that he speaks of Orionis corpus ad 

 zonam, et Eridanus totus [Poet. Astr., iv. 12). 



In such tables there is often a certain measure of discrepancy, which may be in 

 many cases explained by the different domiciles of the writers, or the different dates at 

 which they, or those from whom they took their statement, made their observations. 

 There is, for example, much conflict of statement over the relation of the Dog-star to the 

 Crab : in this case the difficulty arises partly from the uncertain meaning of the word 

 Canicula, which some would interpret as meaning Sirius itself, and some as Procyon, 

 the lesser Dog ; and, secondly, from confusion between the so-called cosmical and 

 heliacal risings of the star, in other words, between the point of the ecliptic together 

 with which it actually rises, and the point at which the sun rises when the star is 

 first seen on the eastern horizon in the morning twilight. Servius (ad G. i. 218) is 

 right when he says : Canis paranatellon est Cancri, id est cum eo oritur ; but the 

 "heliacal" rising of Sirius was not with Cancer but with Leo: and in the table of 

 Manilius (v. 206), it is with the Lion and not with the Crab that the Dog-star is said to 

 rise. The matter is elaborately discussed by Petavius ( Uranol. , var. diss. , vii. , capp. i.-iii. ). 



Of all the combinations of coin-emblems in which the Crab takes part, the most 

 striking is that afforded by the coinage of Agrigentum, where it is in the main asso- 

 ciated with, or rather opposed to, the Eagle (for it is very seldom, indeed, that both 

 appear on the same side of the coin), each with various other configurated emblems. 



As the Crab rises, the Eagle is visible on the extreme verge of the western sky. I have 

 elsewhere argued (Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., xxxviii. p. 187, 1895 ; Gloss. ofGh. Birds, p. 8) 

 that it is this fact, or the solstitial date coincident with it, that is symbolised or depicted 

 by the association of the Crab and the Eagle on the Agrigentine coins. But there is 

 another circumstance that must also be borne in mind, namely, that Cancer was the 

 " house" of the " exaltation" of Jupiter (cf. Salmas., Ann. Clim,, p. 620, and Manetho, 

 ii. 370, ed. Didot, ytjOol S' dv <f>ae6wv ev K.apKivw, ovveKev uvtov tyovTai), and that probably 

 the two facts were together present to the mind, and together depicted in allegory by 

 the skill, of the designer of the coins. On certain coins of the same city, of somewhat 

 later date, the Crab is absent, and the Eagle is opposed to the head of Zeus. The Eagle 

 and Crab are opposed in the same fashion on coins of Motya, a hint, if further hint be 

 needed, that there was more than a local allusion in the symbolism of the Agrigentine 

 coins. 



The imagery of the Agrigentine coins deserves to be dealt with more fully under the 

 head of the constellation Aquila, but we may note that on these coins we also find the 

 Crab associated with a Horse, a sea-monster or " Pistrix," with Scylla and her Dogs, and 

 with a Fish. If the horse be Pegasus, that constellation is in truth setting with the Eagle 

 as Cancer rises : if the Pistrix be the great constellation of the sea-monster or Cetus, for 

 which, indeed, Pistrix was but another name (Hygin., iii. 30), that constellation also is 

 setting or beginning to set as Cancer rises, haec cadit ex orto cancro et leone (Hygin., 



