Astronomical myths : based on Flammarion's "History of the heavens"

Front matter

A-rt,- y LU&T]/

ASTRONOMICAL MYTHS.

The Cliffs of Flama^ v

Preface

seaside. It was thought that this style would hardly be so much appreciated by English as by French readers, and therefore in presenting the materials of the French author in an English dress the conversational form has been abandoned. Several facts of extreme interest in relation to the early astronomical myths and the development of the science among the ancients having been brought to light, especially by the researches of Mr. HalibuTton, a considerable amount of new matter, including the whole chapter on the Pleiades, has been introduced, which makes the present issue not exactly a translation, but rather a l<nok founded on the French author's work. It is hoped that it may be found of interest to those who care to know about the early days of the oldest of our sciences, which is now attracting general attention again by the magnitude of its recent advances. Astronomy also, in early days, as will be seen by a perusal of this book, was so mixed up with all the affairs of life, and contributed so much even to religion, that a history of its beginnings is found to reveal the oriqin of several of our ideas and habits, now apparently quite unconnected with the science. There is matter of interest here, therefore, for those who wish to know only the history of the general ideas of mankind.

The Annual Revolution of the Earth round the Sun, with the Signs of the Zodiac and the Constellations.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

'J' he Annual Revolution of the Earth round the Sun, with the Signs of the Zodiac and

the Constellations Page ix

The Earth's Year, and the Months „ xiv

An Astronomer at Work To face page 1

The Northern Constellations „ 49

The Constellations from the Sea-Shore ... „ 65

The Zodiac of Denderah „ lo2 x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

I'ACK

I. Babylonian Astronomers 19

II. Druidical Worship 37

III. Chaldean Astronomers 87

IV. The Zodiac and the Dead in Egypt ........ 108

V. The Legends of the Druids 123

VI. The Nfm.ean Lion 146

VII. Heavens of the Fathers Ifil

VIII. Death of Copernicus 208

IX. The Solar System 225

X. The Discovery of the Telescope 227

XI. The Foundation of the Paris Observatory .... 221)

XII. The Legend of Owen 315

XIII. Christopher Columbus and the Eclipse of the Moon 336

XIV. Prodigies in the Middle Ages 358

XV. An Astrologer at Work 38.r>

XVI. The End of the World ' 42J>

1. The Earliest (Aryan) Representation of the Earth . 12

2. Anctent Gaulish Medals, Bearing Astronomical

Signs 42

3. Ancient Celestial Sphere .r>M

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xi

I'AGE

4. Positions of the Great Bear on September 4 . . . . 62

5. ( 'onstellation of the bear 63

6. Constellation of Orion 73

7. Chart of Constellations in Sixteenth and Seven-

teenth Centuries 78

8. Flamsteed's Chart 79

9. Arabian Sphere of the Eleventh Century 84

10. Ancient Chinese Pieces of Money, Bearing Repre-

sentations of the Zodiac 93

12. Diagram Illustrating the Position of Certain Stars,

13. Curious Fifteenth Century Figure, Representing

Eleven different Heavens 150

14. Ptolemy's Astronomical System 181

15. The Epicycles of Ptolemy 184

16. Heavens of the Middle Ages 188

17. Emblematic Drawing from Ancient Astronomical Work 193

18. Egyptian System . . 194

19. Capella's System ... 195

20. The Copernican System 205 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PACK

21. Tycho Brahe's System 212

22. Descartes' Theory of Vortices 216

23. Vortices of the Stars 218

24. Variation of Descartes' Theory 219

25. The Earth Floating 237

26. The Earth with Roots 237

27. The Earth of the Vedic Priests 238

28. Hindoo Earth 239

29. The Earth of Anaximander v 240

30. Plato's Cubical Earth 241

31. Egyptian Representation of the Earth 243

32. Homeric Cosmography 247

33. The Earth of the Later Greeks 256

34. Pomponius Mela's Cosmography 257

35. The Earth's Shadow 262

39. The Cosmography of Cosmas 268

40. The Square Earth 269

41. Explanation of Sunrisk 271

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

xui

PACK

42. The Earth as an Egg 273

43. The Earth as a Floating Tgg 274

44. Eighth Century Map of the World 276

45. Tenth-Century Maps 277

46. The Map of Andrea Bianco 283

47. From the Map in Hereford Cathedral 285

49. Cosmography of St. Denis 291

50. The Map of Marco Polo 293

51. Map on a Medal of. Charles V. . . 294

52. Dante's Infernal Regions 311

53. Paradise of Fra Mauro 322

54. The Paradise of the Fifteenth Century 324

55. Representation of a Comet, Sixteenth Century . . . 349

56. An Egg marked with a Comet . . 352

57. The Roman Calendar 403

58. Diagram Illustrating the Order of the Days of the

Week 413

Autunyul Kcpmox 23 Sept.

2«March Yernal Equinox

The Earth's Year, and the Months.

Chapter I. The First Beginnings Of Astronomy

Astronomy is an ancient science ; and though of late it has made a fresh start in new regions, and we are opening on the era of fresh and unlooked-for discoveries which will soon reveal our present ignorance, our advance upon primitive ideas has been so great that it is difficult for us to realize what they were without an attentive and not uninstr active

H

HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS. [chap.

study of them. Xo other science, not even geology, can compare with astronomy for the complete revolution which it has effected in popular notions, or for the change it has brought about in men's estimate of their place in creation. It is probable that there will always be men who believe that the whole universe was made for their benefit ; but, however this may be, we have already learned from astronomy that our habitation is not that central spot men once deemed it, but only an ordinary planet circulating round an ordinary star, just as we are likely also to learn from biology, that we occupy the position, as animals, of an ordinary family in an ordinary class.

That we may more perfectly realize this strange revolution of ideas, we must throw ourselves as far as possible into the feeling and spirit of our ancestors, when, without the knowledge we now possess, they contemplated, as they could not fail to do, the marvellous and awe-inspiring phenomena of the heavens by night. To them, for many an age, the sun and moon and stars, with all the planets, seemed absolutely to rise, to shine, and to set; the constellations to burst out by night in the east, and travel slowly and in silence to the west ; the ocean waves to rise and fall and beat against the rock-bound shore as if endowed with life ; and even in the infancy of the intellect they must have longed to pierce the secrets of this mysterious heavenly vault, and to know the nature of the starry firmament as it

I.] THE FIRST BEGINNINGS OF ASTRONOMY.

seemed to them, and the condition of the earth which appeared in the centre of these universal movements. The simplest hypothesis was for them the truth, and they believed that the sky was in reality a lofty and extended canopy bestudded with stars, and the earth a vast plain, the solid basis of the universe, on which dwelt man, sole creature that lifted his eyes and thoughts above. Two distinct regions thus appeared to compose the whole system — the upper one, or the air, in which were the moving stars, the lights of heaven, and the firmament over all ; and the lower one, or earth and sea, adorned on the surface with the products of life, and below with the minerals, metals, and stones. For a long time the various theories of the universe, grotesque and changing as they might be, were but modifications of this one central idea, the earth below, the heavens above, and on this was based every religious system that was promulgated — the very phrases founded upon it remaining to this day for a testimony to the intimate relation thus manifested between the infant ideas in astronomy and theology. No wonder that early revolutions in the conceptions in one science were thought to militate against the other. It is only when the thoughts on both are enlarged that it is seen that their connection is not necessary, but accidental, or, at least, inevitable only in the infancy of both.

It is scarcely possible to estimate fully the enormous

B 2

HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS. [chap.

change from these ideas representing the appearances to those which now represent the reality ; or to picture to ourselves the total revolution in men's minds before they could transform the picture of a vast terrestrial surface, to which the sun and all the heavenly bodies were but accessories for various purposes, to one in which the earth is but a planet like Mars, moving in appearance among the stars, as it does, and rotating with a rapidity that brings a whole hemisphere of the heavens into view through the course of a single day and night. At first sight, what a loss of dignity ! but, on closer thought, what a gain of grandeur ! JSTo longer some little neighbouring lights shine down upon us from a solid vault ; but we find ourselves launched into the sea of infinity; with power to gaze into its almost immeasurable depths.

To appreciate rightly our position, we have to plant ourselves, in imagination, in some spot removed from the surface of the earth, where we may be uninfluenced by her motion, and picture to ourselves what we should see. Were we placed in some spot far enough removed from the earth, we should find ourselves in eternal clay ; the sun would ever shine, for no great globe would interpose itself between it and our eyes ; there would be no night there. Were we in the neighbourhood of the earth's orbit, and within it, most wonderful phenomena would present themselves. At one time the earth would appear but an ordinary planet, smaller than Venus, but, as time wore on, unmeasured by recurring days or changing seasons, it would gradually be seen to increase in size — now appearing like the moon at the full, and shining like her with a silver light. As it came nearer, and its magnitude increased, the features of the surface would be •distinguished ; the brighter sea and the darker shining continents, with the brilliant ice-caps at the poles ; but, unlike what we see in the moon, these features would appear to move, and, one after another, every part of the earth would be visible. The actual time required for all to pass before us would be what we here call a day and night. And still, as it rotates, the earth passes nearer to us, assumes its largest apparent size, and so gradually decreasing again, becomes once more, after the interval we here call a year, an ordinaiy-looking star-like planet. To us, in these days, this description is easy of imagination ; we find no difficulty in picturing it to ourselves ; but, if we will think for a moment what such an idea would have been to the earliest observers of astronomy, we shall better appreciate the vast change that has taken place — how we are removed from them, as we may say, toto ccelo.

But not only as to the importance of the earth in the universe, but on other matters connected with astronomy, we perceive the immensity of the change in our ideas — in that •of distance, for instance. This celestial vault of the ancients was near enough for things to pass from it to us ; it was in

HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS. [chap.

close connection with the earth, supported hy it, and therefore of less diameter ; but now, when our distance from the sun is expressed by numbers that we may write, indeed, but must totally fail to adequately appreciate, and the distance from the next nearest star is such, that with the velocity of light — a velocity we are accustomed to regard as instantaneous— we should only reach it after a three years' journey, we are reminded of the pathetic lines of Thomas Hood :

" I remember, I remember, the fir trees straight and high, And how I thought their slender tops were close aga'nst the sky ; It was a childish fantasy, but now 'tis little joy, To know I'm further off from heaven than when I was a boy."

The astronomer's answer to the last line would be that as far as the material heaven goes, we are just as much in it as the stars or as any other member of the universe ; we cannot, therefore, be far off or near to it.

It is probable that we are even yet but little awake to true cosmical ideas in other respects; — as to velocity, for instance. We know indeed, of light and electricity and the motions of the earth, but revelations are now being made to us of motions of material substances in the sun with such velocities that in comparison with them any motions on the earth appear infinitesimally small. Our progress to our present notions, and appreciations of the truth of nature in the heavens, will thus occupy much of our thoughts; but we must also recount the history of the acquirement of those facts which have ultimately become the basis for our changes of idea.

Our rustic forefathers, whatever their nation, were not so enamoured of the "wonders of science" — that their astronomy was greatly a collection of theories, though theories, and wild ones, they had ; it was a more practical matter, and was believed too by them to be more practical than we now find reason to believe to be the case. They noticed the various seasons, and they marked the changes in the appearances of the heavens that accompanied them; they connected the two together, and conceived the latter to be the cause of the former, and so, with other apparently un certain events. The celestial phenomena thus acquired a fictitious importance which rendered their study of primary necessity, but gave no occasion for a theory.

That we may better appreciate the earliest observations on astronomy, it may be well to mention briefly what are the varying phenomena which may most easily be noticed. If we except the phases of the moon, which almost without observation would force their recognition on people who had no other than lunar light by night, and which must therefore, from the earliest periods of human history have divided time into lunar months ; there are three different sets of phenomena which depend on the arrangement of our planetary system, and which were early observed.

The first of these depends upon the earth's rotation on its axis, the result of which is that the stars appear to revolve with a uniform motion from east to west; the velocity increasing with the distance from the pole star, which remains nearly fixed. This circumstance is almost as easy of observation as the phases of the moon, and was used from the earliest ages to mark the passage of time during the night. The next arises from the motion of the earth in her orbit about the sun, by which it happens that the earth is in a different position with respect to the sun every night, and, therefore, a different set of stars are seen in his neighbourhood; these are setting with him, and therefore also a different set are just rising at sunset every evening. These changes, which would go through the cycle in a year, are, of course, less obvious, but of great importance as marking the approach of the various seasons during ages in which the hour of the sun's rising could not be noted by a clock. The last depends on the proper motions of the moon and planets about the earth and sun respectively, by reason of which those heavenly bodies occupy varying positions among the stars. Only a careful and continuous scrutiny of the heavens would detect these changes, except, perhaps, in the -case of the moon, and but little of importance really depends on them ; nevertheless, they were very early the subject of observation, as imagination lent them a false value, and in some cases because their connection with eclipses was perceived. The practical cultivation of astronomy amongst the

J.] THE FIEST BEGINNINGS OF .ASTRONOMY. 9

earliest people had always reference to one or other of these three sets of appearances, and the various terms and signs that were invented were intended for the clearer exposition of the results of their observations on these points.

In looking therefore into extreme antiquity Ave shall find in many instances our only guide to what their knowledge was is the way in which they expressed these results.

"We do not find, and perhaps we should scarcely expect to find, any one man or even one nation who laid the foundation of astronomy — for it wTas an equal necessity for all, and was probably antecedent to the practice of remembering men by their names. We cannot, either, conjecture the antiquity of ideas and observations niet with among races who are themselves the only record of their past ; and if we are to find any origins of the science, it is only amongst those nations which have been cultivators of arts by which their ancient doings are recorded.

Amongst the earliest cultivators of astronomy we may refer to the Primitive Greeks, the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and the Aryans, and also to certain traditions met with amongst many savage as well as less barbarous races, the very universality of which proclaims as loudly as possible their extreme antiquity.

Each of the four above-mentioned races have names with which are associated the beginnings of astronomy — Uranus and Atlas amongst the Greeks ; Eolic amongst the Chinese ;

Thaut or Mercury in Egypt ; Zoroaster and Bel in Persia and Babylonia. Names such as these, if those of individuals, are not necessarily those of the earliest astronomers — but only the earliest that have come down to us. Indeed it is very far from certain whether these ancient celebrities have any real historical existence. The acts and labours of the earliest investigators are so wrapped in obscurity, there is such a mixture of fable with tradition, that we can have no reliance that any of them, or that others mentioned in ancient mythology, are not far more emblematical than personal. Some, such as Uranus, are certainly symbolical ; but the very existence of the name handed down to us, if it prove nothing else, proves that the science was early cultivated amongst those who have preserved or invented them.

If we attempt to name in years the date of the commencement— not of astronomy itself — for that probably in some form was coeval with the race of man itself, but of recorded observations, we are met with a new difficulty arising from the various ways in which they reckoned time. This was in every case by the occurrence of the phases of one or other of the above-mentioned phenomena ; sometimes however they selected the apparent rotation of the sun in twenty-four hours, sometimes that of the moon in a month, sometimes the interval from one solstice to the next, and yet they apparently gave to each and all of these the same title — such as annus — obviously representing a cycle only, but without reference to its length. By these different methods of counting, hopeless confusion has often been introduced into chronology ; and the moderns have in many instances unjustly accused the ancients of vanity and falsehood. Bailly attempted to reconcile all these various methods and consequent dates with each other, and to prove that practical astronomy commenced "about 1,500 years before the Deluge, or that it is about 7,000 years old;" but we shall see reason in the sequel for suspecting any such attempt, and shall endeavour to arrive at more reliable dates from independent evidence.

Perhaps the remotest antiquity to which we can possibly mount is that of the Aryans, amongst whom the hymns of the Rig Veda were composed. The short history of Hebrew and Greco-Boman civilization seems to be lost in comparison with this the earliest work of human imagination. When seeking for words to express their thoughts, these primitive men by the banks of the Oxus personified the phenomena of the heavens and earth, the storm, the wind, the rain, the stars and meteors. Here, of course, it is not practical but theoretical astronomy we find. We trace the first figuring of that primitive idea alluded to before — the heaven above, the earth below. Here, as we see, is the earth represented as an indefinite plane surface and passive being forming the foundation of the world ; and above it the sky, a luminous and variable vault beneath which shines out the fertile and life-giving light. Thus to the earth they gave the name

HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS.

[chap.

Fig. 1.

FKTHOVI, "the wide expanse;" the blue and star-bespangled heavens they called VARUISrA, " the vault ; " and beneath it in the region of the clouds they enthroned the light DYAUS, i.e. " the luminous air."

From hence, it would appear, or on this model, the early ideas oi all peoples have been formed, Among the Greeks the name for heaven expresses the same idea of a hollow vault (koIXos, hollow, concave) and the earth is called yr/, or mother. Among the Latins the name ccelum has the same signification, while the earth terra comes from the participle tersa (the dry element) in contradistinction to mare the wet.

In this original Aryan notion, however, as represented by the figure, we have more than this, the origin of the names Jupiter and Deus comes out. Tor it is easy to trace the connection between Dyaus (the luminiferous air) and the Greek word Zeus from whence Bios, 0e6?, Deus, and the French word Dim, and then by adding pater or father we get Deuspater, Zeuspater, Jupiter.

These etymologies are not however matters beyond dispute, and there are at least two other modes of deriving the same words. Thus we are told the earliest name for the Deity was Jehovah, the word Jehov meaning father of life; and that the Greeks translated this into Dis or Zeus, a word having, according to this theory, the same sense, being derived from £aco to live. Of course there can be no question of the later word Deus being the direct translation of Dios.

A third theory is that there exists in one of the dialects which formed the basis of the old languages of Asia, a word Yalwuh, a participle of the verb nih, to exist, to be ; which therefore signifies the self-existent, the principle of life, the origin of all motion, and this is supposed to be the allusion of Diodorus, who explaining the theology of the Greeks, says that the Egyptians according to Manetho, priest of Memphis, in giving names to the five elements have called the spirit or ether Youpiter in the proper sense of the word, for the spirit is the source of life, the author of the vital principle in animals, and is hence regarded as the father or generator of all beings. The people of the Homeric ages thought the lightning-bearing Jupiter was the commencement, origin, end, and middle of all things, a single and universal power, governing the heavens, the earth, fire, water, day and night, and all things. Porphyry says that when the philosophers discoursed on the nature and parts of the Deity, they could not imagine any single figure that should represent all his attributes, though they presented him under the appearance of a man, who was seated to represent his immovable essence ; uncovered in his upper part, because the upper parts of the universe or region of the stars manifest most of his nature; but clothed below the loins, because he is more hidden in terrestrial things ; and holding a sceptre in his left hand, because his heart is the ruler of all things. There are, besides, the etymologies which assert that Jupiter is derived fcomjiware to help, meaning i.] THE FIRST BEGINNINGS OF ASTRONOMY. IS

the assisting father ; or again that he is Dies pater — the god of the day — in which case no doubt the sun would he alluded to.

It appears then that the ancient Aryan scheme, though possibly supplying us with the origin of one of the widest spread of our words, is not universally allowed to do so. This origin, however, appears to derive support from the apparent occurrence of the original of another well-known ancient classical word in the same scheme, that is Varuna, obviously the same word as Ovpavos, and Uranus, signifying the heavens. Less clearly too perhaps we may trace other such words to the same source. Thus the Sun, which according to these primitive conceptions is the husband of the Earth, which it nourishes and makes fruitful, wras called Savitr and Surya, from which the passage to the Gothic Sauil is within the limits of known etymological changes, and so comes the Lithuanian Saull, the Cymric Haul, the Greek Heilos, the Latin Sol, and the English Solar. So from their Nakt, the destructive, we get Nux, Nacht, Night. From Glu, the Shining, whence the participle Glucina, and so to Lucina, Zucna, Luna, Lune.

Turning from the ancient Aryans, whose astronomy we know only from poems and fables, and so learn but little of their actual advance in the science of observation, we come to the Babylonians, concerning whose astronomical acquirements we have lately been put in possession of valuable evidence by the tablets obtained by Mr. Smith from Kouyunjik, an account

1G HISTORY OF THE HEAVENS. [chap of the contents of which has been given by Mr. Sayce (Nature, vol. xii. ]>. 489). As the knowledge thus obtained is more certain, being derived from their actual records, than any that we previously possessed, it will be well to give as full an account of it as we are able.

The originators of Babylonian astronomy were not the Chaldseans, but another race from the mountains of Elam, who are generally called Acadians. Of the astronomy of this race we have no complete records, but can only judge of their progress by the words and names left by them to the science, as afterwards cultivated by the Semitic Babylonians. These last were a subsequent race, who entering the country from the East, conquered the original inhabitants about 2000 B.C., and borrowed their civilization, and with it their language in the arts and sciences. But even this latter race is one of considerable antiquity, and when we see, as we shortly shall, the great advances they had made in observations of the sun and moon, and consider the probable slowness of development in those early ages, we have some idea of the remoteness of the date at which astronomical science was there commenced. Our chief source of information is an extremely ancient work called The Observations of Bell, supposed to have been written before 1701 1 B.C., which was compiled for a certain King Saigou, of Agave in Babylonia. This work is in seventy books or parts, and is composed of numerous small earthen tablets having impressed upon them the cuneiform character in which they printed, and which we are now able to read. We generally date the art of printing from Gaxton, in 1474, because it took the place, of manuscript that had been previously in use in the West; but that method of writing, if in some respects an improvement on previous methods of recording ideas as more easily executed, was in others a retrogression as being less durable: while the manuscripts have perished the impressions on stone have remained to this day, and will no doubt last longer than even our printed books. These little tablets represented so many leaves, and in large libraries, such as that from which those known have been derived, they were numbered as our own are now, so that any particular one could be asked for by those who might wish to consult it. The great difficulty of interpreting these records, which are written in two different dialects, and deal often with very technical matters, may well be imagined. These difficulties however have been overcome, and a good approach to the knowledge of their contents has been made. The Chaldseans. as is well known, were much given to astronomy and many of their writings deal with this subject ; but they did practical work as well, and did not indulge so much in theory as the Aryans. We shall have future occasion in this book to refer to their observations on various points, as they did not by any means confine themselves to the simplest matters; much, in fact, of that with which modern astronomy deals, the dates and duration of eclipses of the sun and moon, the

c accurate measurement of time, the existence of cycles in lunar and solar phenomena, was studied and recorded by them. We can make some approach to the probable dates of the invention of some part of their system, by means of the signs of the Zodiac, which were invented by them and which we will discuss more at length hereafter. We need only say at present that what is now the sign of spring, was not reckoned so with them, and that we can calculate how long ago it is that the sign they reckoned the spring sign was so.