Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/382

278 the perpetual strife between the powers of light and darkness, in which the former ever prevails.

Plunket claims 4667 as the date of the invention of this constellation. Orion at that time accurately marked the equinoctial colure, but others have thought that 2000 was the more probable date, as at that time the so-called "Belt of Orion" began to be visible before dawn in the month of June, called "Tammuz," and Orion was known to the Chaldeans as "Tammuz."

As the death of Adonis is celebrated in the month Tammuz, Miss Clerke is of the opinion that Orion received this name because its annual emergence from the solar beams coincided with the mystical mourning for the vernal sun. "Altogether the evidence is strong," says Miss Clerke, "that Orion may be considered as a variant of Adonis, imported into Greece from the East at an early date, and there associated with the identical group of stars which commemorated to the Akkads of old, the fate of Tammuz, the 'only Son of Heaven.'"

Homer describes Orion as the "tallest and most beautiful man," which description well befits Adonis.

According to Brown, Orion like Boötes was regarded as a shepherd, the keeper of the flock of stars, and one of his titles was "Shepherd Spirit of Heaven."

Orion was also known as "the Lord of the River Bank," an appropriate name as regards his location close by Eridanus, the River Po.

In mythology Orion is connected with the constellation of the Scorpion, and it is related that Orion boasted that there was not an animal on earth which he could not conquer. To punish his vanity, it is said, a scorpion sprang out of the earth and bit his foot, causing his death. At the request of Diana he was placed among the stars opposite his slayer.

Ovid agrees with this version, but Hyginus, Homer, and Apollodorus claim that Orion was killed by Diana's darts, and that he was placed in the sky opposite the Scorpion so