Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/22

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This description evidently shews that the celestial sphere of Homer was the same as that of Eudoxus and Aratus; and that at the time when the Iliad was written the Greeks were in possession of this sphere. Herodotus states that they borrowed the names of their twelve gods, their religious ceremonies, and their geometry from Egypt; and from the same people they are said to have obtained the celestial sphere. At the same time it is not probable that the Egyptians were the inventors of it. There is nothing of an Egyptian character in the figures depicted upon it; nor can this people establish any claim to the invention, being never celebrated for their astronomical discoveries. Their talents and skill were directed to Geometry and Architecture, in which two sciences they greatly excelled. But there are two nations whose claim to the introduction of the celestial sphere rests upon such strong presumptive evidence that it is difficult to refuse to either the credit of the invention. These are the Assyrians and the Phenicians. And there is on the face of the sphere, as we now have it, and as it came to the Greeks, evidence almost amounting to proof that it was composed from two other distinct spheres, on one of which the signs or constellations were