That many other of the remaining ancient constellations—Canis Major and Canis Minor, Aquila, Cygnus, &c., were depicted and named at very remote dates, there can, I think, be little doubt. The wide-spread traditions connected with these figures demand an early origin for them. It is probable that the heliacal rising of certain bright stars in these constellations at some special season of the year, rather than their culmination at noon or at midnight, may have been the occasion for the interest taken in them.
A further study of the precessional globe with this thought present would probably suggest approximate dates for the imagining of some of these constellations, small in extent but marked by bright stars.
I will now only allude to the two remaining ancient constellations of wide extent—namely, to Argo and Pegasus.
Glancing at [Plate X.] (Astronomy in the Rig Veda) the almost upright and symmetrical position of Argo 3000 B.C. may suggest the likelihood that at that date or perhaps a few hundred years later, and in a latitude about 12° higher than that given in the diagram, this constellation was imagined. It will be observed that all the stars of Argo, even the bright and southern Canopus at 35° N. would have been above the horizon and visible at midnight of the winter solstice. At noon of the summer solstice they would have been above the horizon, but invisible in conjunction with the sun.
But now turning our thoughts to the constellation Pegasus, a difficulty confronts us at every date from 6000 B.C. downwards even to this present A.D. 1903: Pegasus as depicted on the globe has held and still holds a reversed position in the heavens. The very fact that for all the other ancient constellations which represent living beings, it has been possible to find some season and some date at which they could have been observed upright in the sky, makes it a more imperative need to seek for some explanation of the anomalous treatment meted out by astronomers of old to the winged steed.
In this stress of difficulty, I venture to make a suggestion which will, I fear, at first sight, appear far-fetched and fanciful, and quite out of line with other suppositions put forward in this book.
My suggestion is that an error concerning the right depicting of this constellation was fallen into by some astronomers of old, and that this error was handed down to us through the Grecian school.
If on some clear autumnal or winter night we search for the constellation Pegasus, not on a globe or map but in the southern quarter of the actual sky, we may quickly recognise it by four very bright stars which mark the corners of an almost exact and very extensive square on the vault of heaven. Then stretching away from the lower and western corner of this square still farther towards the horizon and to the west, we may trace the faint stars which mark the neck, and the somewhat brighter star which marks the head of the Demi-Horse: while starting from the upper western corner of the square and stretching still higher towards the zenith, and to the west we detect the lines of fainter stars which mark the fore legs and the hoofs of Pegasus. If we allow the four stars of the “square of Pegasus” still to mark the body of the horse, and think of the upper lines of faint stars as marking its neck and head and of the lower ones as marking its fore legs and hoofs, the figure exactly reversed will still fit within the limiting lines of the constellation, with the satisfactory result that the winged steed, not miserably floundering on its back but upright and alert, will be seen in our mental vision night after night pursuing its course from east to west across the heavens.
AQUARIUS