Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/273



to Eratosthenes this imaginary river of the stars, winding its devious way across the winter skies, represented the River Nile, and in the Alphonsine Tables it bore the title "Nilus," Brown, however, claims that the Akkadians identified it with the River Euphrates, and that the name "Eridanus" may refer to a Turanian river name meaning "Strong River."

In the Euphratean records there are many allusions to a stellar stream that may refer to this imaginary river, although there is a possibility that the Milky Way is intended, as that always represented a celestial river to the ancients.

Burritt tells us that Eridanus is the name of a celebrated river in Cisalpine Gaul, also called "Padus," the modern "Po." Virgil calls it "the King of Rivers," and the Latin poets have rendered it famous from its connection with the fable of Phaëton, the intrepid youth who endeavoured to drive for a day the chariot of the sun. As the familiar story goes, he was unable to restrain the fiery steeds, and a universal catastrophe was only prevented by a timely thunderbolt from the hand of Jupiter, which hurled Phaëton from heaven into the River Eridanus.