Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/71

 Western Asia 35 which made it world-renowned in its time that nearly twenty years of excavation have recovered almost no standing buildings. 49. Civilization of Chaldean Babylon. The Chaldeans seem to have adopted the civilization of Babylonia in much the same way as other earlier Semitic invaders of this ancient plain. Science made notable progress in one important branch astron- omy. This was really at that time only what we call "astrology" ; namely, a study of the heavenly bodies with the idea that one could forecast the future by observing the movements of the sun, moon, and planets. The equator was divided into 360 degrees, and for the first time the Chaldean astrologers laid out the twelve groups of stars which we call the "Twelve Signs of the Zodiac." The observations made by these Chaldean astrologers became so accurate that they were actually able to foretell an eclipse of the sun. These discoveries formed the basis of the science of astronomy, which the Greeks carried much further. Astrology was much studied in Europe during the Middle Ages. We un- consciously recall it in sijch phrases as "his lucky star" or an "ill-starred" undertaking. We still use the seven-day week which prevailed in Babylonia. The Chaldeans named the days of the week after the sun, moon, and five planets then known. Three of our days Saturday (Saturnday), Sunday, and Monday (Moonday) are still named after the heavenly bodies. II. THE INDO-EUROPEAN PEOPLES : THE PERSIAN EMPIRE 50. Origin of the Indo-European Races. We have seen how Semitic nomads of the Arabian desert had repeatedly shifted over into the Fertile Crescent, conquered the town-dwellers there, and adopted their civilization. To the north were peoples of a differ- ent race, who were pasturing their flocks in the great stretch of grassland which extends north and east of the Caspian Sea and westward across what is now Russia to the lower Danube. These nomads of the North were the ancestors of the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs, and the Germanic peoples, and consequently of the Europeans of today. They began moving about at a very