Fig. 3—Scorpion and Lamp. (From an Euphratean Seal.)
Figure 3 is a picture of this Euphratean Seal, preserved on a contract made on the 8th day of the month Tisri, i.e., this same seventh month![92]
This then is the next stage. But Mr. Robert Brown, junr., observes, “The Circle or other representation of an Altar not unnaturally disappeared as [pg 202] the use of the Sign advanced westward; whether by sea, or across Asia Minor, or both, and the Chelai alone remained when the shores of the Ægean were reached.”[93]
This is quite true, for the Greek name for the Sign was Chelai, which means simply the Claws. And thus the Scorpion monopolised two Signs; its body one, and its claws the other. This led to the mistake of Servius, the intelligent commentator on Virgil,[94] that “the Chaldean Zodiac consisted of but eleven constellations.” We now know that there were twelve Signs, and the mistake is thus explained.
Fig. 4—The Constellation of "the Claws." Formerly the Circular Altar, now Libra.
Mr. Brown quotes Achilles Tatius, about 475 a.d., in a Fragment on the Phainomena, who says, τὰς χηλὰς τὰς καλόυμένας ὑπ Ἀιγυπτίων Ζυγὸν.[95]
Aratus says that “some few stars of the Claws are in the (Celestial) Equator.” And Ptolemy describes the stars, now reckoned in Libra, as being in what he calls “The Constellation of the Claws.” We have reproduced them so that his description of them may be readily traced. He speaks of—
“The bright one of those at the end of the southern Claw.” (It is named Zuben el Genubi and now marked α).
“The one more northerly than it, and dimmer” (now marked μ).