A reason for the substitution of the Eagle (Aquila) for the Zodiacal Water-man or Water-jar (Aquarius or Amphora) may, however, be found in the fact of the very great brilliancy of the star Altair in the Eagle. It is a star of the first magnitude. In the Water-man there is no star above the third. The Persians, we are told, had a tradition that four brilliant stars marked the four cardinal points (i.e. the colures). In Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio we find stars of the first magnitude: there was therefore no temptation for Mithraic calendar makers and mythologists to seek for an extra-Zodiacal star to mark and represent the spring, summer, or autumn seasons; but for the winter solstice the only stars of the first magnitude within at all suitable distance were Aquila, to the north-west, or Fomalhaut to the south of Aquarius. For a nation dwelling as far to the north as the Medians are supposed to have done, Fomalhaut (when the winter solstice was in Aquarius very far to the south of the equator) would have been rarely visible. The choice by a Median astronomer and symbolic artist in search of a very brilliant star mark for the solstice would therefore have been restricted to the constellation of the Eagle, containing the conspicuous Altair, a star of the first magnitude.
The very constant association, not only in Persian and Median, but also in the mythologic art of other nations, of the Lion and the Eagle, seems to confirm the view here put forward, i.e. that the constellations of Leo and Aquila rather than of Leo and Aquarius were sometimes chosen to symbolise the summer and winter solstices.
The Griffin, a fabulous animal sacred to the sun, composed of a Lion and an Eagle, is a well-known figure in ancient classic art.
In Babylonian and Assyrian sculptured and glyptic art Merodach is often represented as in conflict with a Griffin. Merodach has been claimed by Jensen and other writers as a personification of the sun of the spring equinox. The for ever recurring triumph of spring over winter is probably figured in Merodach’s triumph over the Griffin.
The association of Eagle and Lion is to be noticed in the arms of the city of Lagash; they were “a double-headed Eagle standing on a Lion passant or on two demi-lions placed back to back.”[38] In Lagash, as was pointed out in a former paper, the new year’s festival appears to have been held at the winter solstice: such a supposition would furnish an astronomical interpretation for the arms of Lagash.[39]
[38] Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 604.
[39] In this connexion the following passage from Sayce’s Hibbert Lectures, p. 261, is interesting:—
A text copied for Assur-banipal, from a tablet originally written at Babylon, contains part of a hymn which had to be recited “in the presence of Bel-Merodach ... in the beginning of Nisan,”—
“... O Zamama,
Why dost thou not take thy seat?