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fician who knew better than all his cotemporaries the use of plants, especially of those which ferve for the curing of wounds. But further: it is known that Jason was brought up by Chiron ». The Centaur, fay the ancients, imparted to his difciples all his knowledge, and particularly that of medicine. They even add, that Chiron gave from this motive the name of Jafon to that hero, instead of that of Diomede which he bore before. We do not fee that in these ancient traditions there is any mention made of aftronomy. On what authority then is it that a modern author is fupported to make Chiron an aftronomer capable of making a calendar, and to fix the true state of the heavens, especially in the ages he mentions? They support themselves from a fragment of an unknown poet mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus. But further, what fays this paffage which makes the only basis of the fyftem which we attack? Here it is, tranflated literally, that we may judge if fuch an authority is capable of destroying the unanimous fuffrage of antiquity. "Hermippus of Beryte gives the 66 name of Sage to Chiron the Centaur; and he who has ❝ written the Titanomachy reports, that he had first learned "the human race to live according to justice, by fhewing "them the force of an oath, the joyful facrifices, or thankf "givings, and the figures of the heavens ("

Without speaking of the whimsical affortment of these three forts of knowledge, without being willing to examine the authority of an unknown poet, and of whom the ancients have tranfmitted fcarce any thing to us, could even what he has faid make us conclude, that Chiron had been learned enough in aftronomy to range all the ftars under their dif ferent conftellations? Do we fee in the paffage in question, that the Centaur had reformed the calendar in favour of the

P. The scholiaft of Pindar brings to prove it two verses of Hefiod. Nemea 3. ad verf. 92.

Id. Pyth 4. ad verf. 211.

This is what the fcholiaft of Apollonius fays also, 1. 1. v. 554.

Strom. 1. 1. p. 360. & 361.

• Σχήματα Ολύμπο. Clem. Αlex. loco cit,

Argonauts,

Argonauts, and lastly, that he had fixed the four points of the folftices and the equinoxes in the middle, that it to fay, in the fifteenth degree of Cancer and of Capricorn, of the Ram and Libra ?

What we can conclude, as appears to me, moft naturally from this paffage, is, that Chiron joined to the knowledge of botany, that fort of aftronomy which concerns the heliacal fetting and rifing of fome conftellations, fuch as the Hyades, the Pleiades, and Orion, whose appearances furnish prognoftics about the wind, the tempefts, the rains, and other accidents hurtful to agriculture. He might know alfo, that the observation of the stars near the pole is ufeful in naviga tion. Perhaps he might have given fome inftructions to the Greeks about thefe objects. It was this point, without doubt, to which the celeftial knowledge of Chiron was reduced. The ftate in which aftronomy then was in Greece, does not permit us to doubt of it. These sciences, moreover, were limited enough, and did not put the person who poffeffed them, in a state of executing all that they would give the honour of to Chiron *.

We must besides have paid very little attention to the manner in which the Greeks failed in the heroic times, to imagine, that the Argonauts had need of a calendar to mark exactly the rifing, the fetting, and the position of the ftars. The Greeks then only cruised about, that is to fay, failed along the coafts. It was not neceffary in the enterprise of the Argonauts to bear off to the open feas; their object was to make the paffage from Theffaly to Colchis. Of what ufe then would the pretended calendar of Chiron have been to them? Shall we fuppofe, that thefe adventurers knew how to take the height of the stars, to know the place in which they were? What I fhall fay in the fol

What Clemens Alexandrinus adds, of Hyppo, daughter of Chiron, whom Ovid, by the by, calls Ocyroe, confirms the explication which I have just given of the astronomical knowledge of Chiron. Hyppo, daughter of the Centaur, fays Clement, having espoused Æolus, the fame Ulyffes came to fhew to her husband the science of her father, that is to fay, the contemplation of nature. Euripides, adds he, fays of this Hyppo, that the knew and predicted divine things by the oracles and by the rifing of the ftars. Strom. 1. 1. f. 361.

lowing book, about the manoeuvre of the Greeks in the heroie ages, will fhew us how incapable they were of such an operation. We shall there fee, that even in the times of Homer, that is to fay, more than 300 years after the epoch which we are actually speaking of, the Urfa Major was the only guide which their pilots knew.

1

These are, I think, proofs more than fufficient to destroy all the imaginations which they have propagated about the calendar made by Chiron. If it was neceffary to add to this fome reflections, the writings of Homer and Hefiod alone would furnish us with enow to overturn the system which we attack. Homer, who in his poems has had fo many occafions to speak of the stars, and who in effect speaks of them very often, yet only 'names fix conftellations, Urfa Major, Orion, Charles's Wain, the Hyades, the Pleiades, and the Great Dog. It is a ftrong prefumption, that, even in his time, the Greeks knew no more. In the defcription which he makes of the fhield of Achilles, where he fays, that Vulcan, among other fubjects, had reprefented all the conftellations with which heaven is crowned ", we do not fee, that he places there a greater number.

If from Homer we pass to Hefiod, we shall fee, that the number of the conftellations known to the Greeks were not augmented in his time. This poet only mentions thofe which were spoken of by Homer. For Sirius and Arc&turus ×, of which the names are found in his writings, and of which we fee no trace in thofe of Homer, are only two particular ftars, which make a part, one of the Great Dog, and the other of Charles's Wain, Anacreon, although greatly pofterior to Homer and Hefiod, only names one conftellation more than these two poets *. Lastly, if we were to examine

Book 4. chap. 4.

u Ἐν δὲ τὰ τείξεα πάντα τά τ ̓ ἐρανός ἐτεφάνωται. Iliad. 1. 18. v. 485. * Opera, v. 609. & 612.

The name Zugios given to the Great Dog, and that of 'Agzrogos, given to Charles's Wain, make one suspect, that Hefiod is not quite as ancient as Homer.

It is the Little Bear. We fee, that it was known in his time, because he ufes the plural mažas inftead of the fingular pa, which Homer and Hefiod always ufe.

It was Thales, as I fall fhewin the third part, who learned the Greeks to know the Little Bear.

VOL. II.

N n

all

all the ancient Greek authors who have had occafion to fpeak of the constellations, we fhall fee, that they knew no others but the two Bears, Orion, Charles's Wain, and the Pleiades.

With regard to the zodiac, there is no mention made of it in any writers of antiquity. We do not find that term ufed but in authors much younger *. We fhould not be furprifed at this. It is certain, that, before Thales, the Greeks had no idea of aftronomy confidered as a fcience . If we refer to Pliny, Anaximander had been the first who had made known to them the obliquity of the ecliptic ; a dif covery which I think notwithstanding ought to be referred to Thales. Pliny likewife tells us, that Cleoftrates had been the first among the Greeks who was faid to have made known the different figns which compose the circle of the fphere; and from the manner in which Pliny expreffes himself, we fee, that he was only a little time after Anaximander.

It appears to me then demonftrated, that in the ages which at prefent make our object, and even a long time after, the Greeks knew only fuch of the conftellations whofe obfervation is moft neceffary for agriculture. It had only been fucceffively and by length of time, that they came to know and defign the greateft part of the conftellations, of which they would make us believe the pretended planisphere of Chiron was compofed. We fhall have occafion to convince them ftill more of this by the expofure which I thall make in the following volume of the state in which aftronomy then was in Greece.

* It is neither in Plato nor in Ariftotie. And we find no more of it in the poem of the fphere which remains to us under the name of Empedocles. Apud Fabric. Bibl. Graec. t. 1. p. 477.

It is true, that in the treatise de mundo, inferted among the works of Ariftotle, we fee the word Zadie ufed to defign the twelve figns; but all the critics agree at this time, that that treatife is not Ariftotle's.

Aratus is the most ancient author who has defigned the zodiac by the term Záidios Kaixos. Aratus lived about the year 275 before Christ.

y This is what we fhall prove in the 3d part.

See what is faid on this subject, part 3.
Plin. 1. 2. fect. 6.
Ibid.

* L. 2. fect. 6.

Befides

Befides the names by which the Greeks have defigned the conftellations, it would fuffice alone, in my opinion, to prove, that far from having been invented before the expedition of the Argonauts, they must be on the contrary posterior to that epoch. By the confeffion of the partifans of the fyftem which we now attack, the greatest part of these names have a direct relation to that expedition; in this point we are perfectly agreed. We only differ in this, that they fuppofe that the Greeks had formed their conftellations before the voyage of the Argonauts. We pretend on the contrary, that they could only be fince that event; and we prove it by the names of many of the conftellations; fuch as that of the Dragon who guarded the golden fleece, of Medea's cup, of Caftor and Pollux, and of Chiron himself. Thefe names neceffarily fuppofe the expedition of the Argonauts become already famous by its fuccefs.

With refpect to the fhip Argo, one of the principal conftellations of the Greek planifphere, there is no appearance that it had been formed in Greece. They can only perceive one part of the stars which composed it. I shall be easily enough brought to believe that that conftellation was the work of Greek aftronomers established at Alexandria under the Ptolomeys. The name of Canopus, given to the most brilliant ftar of that conftellation, appears to fhew it pofitively enough. No one is ignorant that that word is purely Egyp tian. It was the name of a god much celebrated and highly revered in Egypte.

Laftly, is it well proved, that, in the times of which we are speaking, the Greeks defigned even the conftellations which they knew by the names which remain at this time. in ufe in our aftronomy? Do we not fee on the contrary, that these names and thefe figures have fuffered great variation among thefe people? The Great Bear, which af terwards they called Helice, is never called but Arctos by

& Newton's chron. of the Greeks, p. 87.

* See Plut. de fide & Ofiride, p. 359. E.; Voff. de idol. Į. 1. c. 31.

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