Agnes Mary Clerke

“ Aries became the Fleece; two Sprouting Plants, typifying equality or resemblance, stood for Gemini; Cancer was re-named Scarabaeus; Leo was converted, from the axe-like configuration of its chief stars, into the Knife: Libra into the Mountain of the Sun, a reminiscence, apparently, of the Euphratean association of the seventh month with a “holy mound,” designating the biblical tower of Babel. A Serpent was the Egyptian equivalent of Scorpio; the Arrow only of Sagittarius was retained; Capricornus became “Life,” or a Mirror as an image of life; Aquarius survived as Water ”

“ For the Chinese series has the strange peculiarity of proceeding in a retrograde direction or against the course of the sun. Thus, the second sign (of the Ox) occupies the position of Capricorn, the third that of Sagittarius, and so on. The explanation of this seeming anomaly is to be found in the primitive destination of the “animals” to the purposes of an “horary zodiac.” Their succession, established to mark the hours of day and night, was not unnaturally associated with the diurnal revolution of the sphere from east to west. [19] They are unquestionably of native origin. ”

“ Each sar, month and hour was represented at once visibly and symbolically by a twelfth part of the “furrow” drawn by the solar Bull across the heavens. The idea of tracing the sun’s path among the stars was, when it occurred to Chaldaean astronomers, an original and, relatively to their means, a recondite one. We owe to its realization by them the constitution and nomenclature of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Assyrian cylinders and inscriptions indicate for the familiar series of our text-books an antiquity of some four thousand years. ”

“ The signs—the Greek δωδεκατημόρια—are geometrical divisions thirty degrees in extent, counted from the spring equinox in the direction of the sun’s progress through them. The whole series accordingly shifts westward through the effect of precession by about one degree in seventy two years. At the moment of crossing the equator towards the north the sun is said to be at the first point of Aries; some thirty days later it enters Taurus, and so on through Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius and Pisces. ”

“ The Chinese circle of the “animals” obtained early a wide diffusion. It was adopted by Tatars, Turks and Mongols, in Tibet and Tong-king, Japan and Korea. It is denominated by Humboldt [21] the “zodiac of hunters and shepherds,” and he adds that the presence in it of a tiger gives it an exclusively Asiatic character. It appears never to have been designed for astronomical employment. From the first it served to characterize the divisions of time. ”

“ Hindu astronomy received its first definite organization in the 6th century, with results embodied in the Sūrya-Siddhanta. Here the “signs” and the “constellations” of the lunar zodiac form two essentially distinct systems. The ecliptic is divided into twenty-seven equal parts, called bhogas or arcs, of 800′ each. But the nakshatras are twenty-eight, and are represented by as many “junction stars” (yogātāra) , carefully determined by their spherical co-ordinates. ”

“ In Italy the signs and works survive fragmentarily in the baptistery at Parma, completely on the porch of the cathedral of Cremona and on the west doorway of St Mark’s at Venice. They are less common in England; but St Margaret’s, York, and the church of Iffley in Oxfordshire offer good specimens. In the zodiac of Merton College, Oxford, Libra is represented by a judge in his robes and Pisces by the dolphin of Fitzjames, warden of the college, 1482–1507. ”

“ Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus perpetuates the tradition. And the Pleiades continued, within historical memory, to be the first asterism of the lunar zodiac.
In the Chaldaean signs fragments of several distinct strata of thought appear to be embedded. From one point of view they shadow out the great epic of the destinies of the human race, again, the universal solar myth claims a share in them, hoary traditions were brought into ex post facto connexion with them, or they served to commemorate simple meteorological and astronomical facts. ”

“ The earlier Greek writers—Eudoxus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus—knew of only eleven zodiacal symbols, but made one do double duty, extending the Scorpion across the seventh and eighth divisions. The Balance, obviously indicating the equality of day and night, is first mentioned as the sign of the Libra and Scorpio. autumnal equinox by Geminus and Varro, and obtained, through Sosigenes of Alexandria, official recognition in the Julian calendar. ”

“ The hieroglyphs representing the signs of the zodiac in astronomical works are found in manuscripts of about the 10th century, but in carvings not until the 15th or 16th. [65] Their origin is unknown; but some, if not all of them, have antique associations. The hieroglyph of Leo, for instance, occurs among the symbols of the Mithraic worship. [66]
See also the article Astrology, and the separate articles on the constellations. The whole subject of the history of the zodiac is very obscure. ”

“ An ancient Chinese law, moreover, prescribed the regularization of weights and measures at the spring equinox. [6] No representation of the seventh sign has yet been discovered on any Euphratean monument; but it is noticeable that the eighth is frequently doubled, [7] and it is difficult to avoid seeing in the pair of zodiacal scorpions carved on Assyrian cylinders the prototype of the Greek scorpion and claws. Both Libra and the sign it eventually superseded thus owned a Chaldaean birthplace. ”

“ Euphratean exploration has so far brought to light no traces of elliptical partition by the moon’s diurnal motion, unless, indeed, zodiacal associations be claimed for a set of twenty-eight deprecatory formulae against evil spirits inscribed on a Ninevite tablet. ”

“ Syria was assigned to Aries, and Syrian coins frequently bear the effigy of a ram; Scythia and Arabia fell to Taurus, India to Gemini. Palmyra, judging from numismatic evidence, claimed the favour of Libra, Zeugma that of Capricorn; Leo protected Miletus, Sagittarius Singara. [45] The “power of the signs” was similarly distributed among the parts of the human body ”

“ Hence it is not surprising to meet in them evidence of foreign communications. Reminiscences of the Greek signs of Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricornus and Pisces are obvious severally in the Hindu Two Faces, Lion’s Tail, Beam of a Balance, Arrow, Gazelle’s Head (figured as a marine nondescript) and Fish. The correspondence does not, however, extend to the stars; and some coincidences adverted to by Humboldt between the nakshatras and the zodiacal animals of Central Asia are of the same nominal character. [34] Mexican loans are more remarkable. ”

“ The safest general conclusions regarding this disputed subject appear to be that the sieu, distinctively and unvaryingly Chinese, carmot properly be described as divisions of a lunar zodiac, that the nakshatras, though of purely Indian origin, became modified by the successive adoption of Greek and Chinese rectifications and supposed improvements; while the mandzil constituted a frankly eclectic system, in which elements from all quarters were combined. ”

“ Such were the Hindu nakshatras, a word originally signifying stars in general, but appropriated to designate certain small stellar groups marking the divisions of the lunar track. They exhibit in an exaggerated form the irregularities of distribution visible in our zodiacal constellations, and present the further anomaly of being frequently reckoned as twenty-eight in number, while the ecliptical arcs they characterize are invariably twenty-seven. Now, since the moon revolves round the earth in 271/3 days, hesitation between the two full numbers might easily arise ”