Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/23

Rh animals, and on the other human figures with some emblematical signs" . The following is the way in which the constitution and present condition of the celestial sphere, exhibiting a strange mixture of human figures and animals, may be explained.

At an early period after the deluge that family of the human race which constituted the great Assyrian empire spread themselves over the central plain of Asia, founded large cities, among others Babylon, where they carried all the arts and sciences of civilized life to high perfection. We know that they excelled in the knowledge of astronomy; much of which they might derive from the antediluvian patriarchs through Noah and his immediate descendants. Cicero says: "Principio Assyrii, ut ab ultimis auctoritatem repetam, propter planitiem, magnitudinemque regionum, quas incolebant, cum cœlum ex omni parte patens, atque apertum intuerentur, trajectiones, motusque stellarum observaverunt: quibus notatis quid cuique significaretur, memoriæ prodiderunt."—(Cic. de Divin.) They would construct a celestial sphere. And we can imagine that, agreeably to the notions entertained by those early nations, of respect and veneration for their departed ancestors, they would honour their memories by pourtraying their figures on the celestial sphere. From the early history of the human race, as recorded in the