Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/346

250 Some authorities hold that, in spite of the fact that the Greeks did not recognise a constellation figure between Virgo and Scorpio, an independent constellation existed at an earlier date. It is not clear just why the Greeks failed to discover it.

Serviss states that there are indistinct indications that in the valley of the Euphrates, the constellation now known as Libra stood for the Tower of Babel.

Besides the analogy mentioned respecting the sign of the Balance and the equality of the nights and days at the time of the autiunnal equinox, we find that the Balance was the emblem of the office of Virgo, as the goddess of justice, so that there seems to have been a desire to connect these two constellations.

The Balance in poetical fiction belongs to the goddess Astræa, and in the pans the fate of mortals was supposed to be weighed.

The symbol of the sign Libra,, represents it is said the beam of a pair of scales in equilibrium, thus denoting the equal duration of the nights and days. Brown however thinks that the symbol represents the top of the archaic Euphratean altar, located in the zodiac next preceding Scorpio, and figured on early gems, tablets, and boundary stones.

Allen points out that the stars in Libra, α, μ, ξ, δ, β, χ, ζ, and ν seem to represent a circular altar. These stars were also thought to represent a censer, or a lamp and fire.

On an ancient zodiac there appears between the constellations of the Virgin and the Scales, the figure of a mound or altar, round which a serpent twines. Miss Clerke recalls the association of the seventh month, "Tashritu," with the seventh sign, and with the Holy Mound, Tul Ku, designating the Biblical Tower of Babel surmounted by an altar, so there is little doubt that in very early times the ancients saw in these stars an altar towering to the skies.

Libra is thus connected with the constellation Ara, the Altar, just south of it, and many have considered that in