Its ancient name and meaning must be obtained from the names of its stars which have come down [pg 143] to us. There are 64 altogether. Two are of the 1st magnitude, two of the 2nd, four of the 3rd, four of the 4th, etc. Of these α (in the head) is the brightest in the whole heavens! It is called Sirius, the Prince (שַׂר, Sar), as in Isa. ix. 6.
Sirius[66] was, by the ancients, always associated with great heat. And the hottest part of the year we still call “the dog days,” though, through the variation as observed in different latitudes, and the precession of the equinoxes, its rising has long ceased to have any relation to those days. Virgil says that Sirius
“With pestilential heat infects the sky.”
Homer spoke of it as a star
“Whose burning breath
Taints the red air with fevers, plagues, and death.”
It is not, however, of its heat that its name speaks, but of the fact that it is the brightest of all the stars, as He of whom it witnesses is the “Prince of princes,” “the Prince of the Kings of the earth.”
Though this “Dog-Star” came to have an ill-omened association, it was not so in more ancient times. In the ancient Akkadian it is called Kaṡiṡta, which means the Leader and Prince of the heavenly host. While (as Mr. Robert Brown, Junr., points out) “the Sacred Books of Persia contain many praises of the star Tistrya or Tistar (Sirius), ‘the chieftain of the East.’ ”[67]
The next star, β (in the left fore foot), speaks the same truth. It is named Mirzam, and means the prince or ruler. The star δ (in the body) is called Wesen, the bright, the shining. The star ε (in the right hind leg) is called Adhara, the glorious.
Other stars, not identified, bear their witness to the same fact. Their names are—Aschere (Hebrew), who shall come; Al Shira Al Jemeniya (Arabic), the Prince or chief of the right hand! Seir (Egyptian), the Prince; Abur (Hebrew), the mighty; Al Habor (Arabic), the mighty; Muliphen (Arabic), the leader, the chief.