The zodiacal constellations are: 1, Aries, the Ram; 2, Taurus, the Bull; 3, Gemini, the Twins; 4, Cancer, the Crab; 5, Leo, the Lion; 6, Virgo, the Virgin; 7, Libra, the Scales,—also called the Claws, that is of the Scorpion; 8, Scorpio, the Scorpion; 9, Sagittarius, the Archer; 10, Capricornus, the Sea-goat, i. e. Goat-fish; 11, Aquarius, the Water-pourer; 12, Pisces, the Fishes.
The southern constellations are: 1, Cetus, the Sea-Monster; 2, Orion, the Giant; 3, Eridanus, the River; 4, Lepus, the Hare; 5, Canis Major, the Great Dog; 6, Canis Minor, the Little Dog; 7, Argo, the Ship and Rock; 8, Hydra, the Water-snake; 9, Crater, the Cup; 10, Corvus, the Raven; 11, Centaurus, the Centaur; 12, Lupus, the Beast; 13, Ara, the Altar; 14, Corona Australis, the Southern Crown; 15, Piscis Australis, the Southern Fish.
Aratus, living four hundred years earlier than Ptolemy, differs only from him in that he reckons the cluster of the Pleiades—counted by Ptolemy in Taurus—as a separate constellation, but he has no constellation of Equuleus. The total number of constellations was thus still forty-eight. Aratus further describes the Southern Crown, but gives it no name; and in the constellation of the Little Dog he only mentions one star, Procyon, the Dog's Forerunner. He also mentions that the two Bears were also known as two Wagons or Chariots.
Were these constellations, so familiar to us to-day, known before the time of Aratus, and if so, by whom were they devised, and when and where?
They were certainly known before the time of Aratus, for his poem was confessedly a versification of an account of them written by Eudoxus more than a hundred years previous. At a yet earlier date, Panyasis, uncle to the great historian Herodotus, incidentally discusses the name of one of the constellations, which must therefore have been known to him. Earlier still, Hesiod, in the second book of his Works and Days, refers to several:—
"Orion and the Dog, each other nigh,
Together mounted to the midnight sky,
When in the rosy morn Arcturus shines,
Then pluck the clusters from the parent vines.
Next in the round do not to plough forget
When the Seven Virgins and Orion set."
Much the same constellations are referred to by Homer. Thus, in the fifth book of the Odyssey,—
"And now, rejoicing in the prosperous gales,
With beating heart Ulysses spreads his sails:
Placed at the helm he sate, and marked the skies,
Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes.
There view'd the Pleiads and the Northern Team,
And great Orion's more refulgent beam,
To which around the axle of the sky
The Bear, revolving, points his golden eye."