Fig. 10. The Scorpion.
From a boundary stone
(now in the British Museum) set up
in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I.,
king of Babylonia, about 1100 b.c.
Fig. 11. The Goat, with Fishes’ Scales.
From a Babylonian boundary stone.
A Scorpion with immense claws, and a Goat with fishes’ scales appear several times on monuments at least as old as 1000 b.c. and it is very probable, although this fact alone would not prove it, that they were then used as constellation figures. It has been definitely proved from inscriptions that before 600 b.c. the name of Scorpion was applied to some stars of our present Scorpion, that there was a Lion corresponding with ours, and the principal star in that asterism, which was called “The King” by Greeks and Romans (Basiliskos and Regulus), bore a name with the same meaning in Babylonia; the Celestial Bull seems to have been the group of the Hyades, and the Great Twins were the two stars Castor and Pollux. The last two identifications seem to show how the single stars or small groups of the monthly lists were expanded into the large zodiacal constellations, for the Hyades cluster is in our present Bull, and Castor and Pollux are in our Twins.
Under the great Assyrian kings who in the 8th and 7th centuries b.c. made Nineveh the capital of their empire, Babylonian astronomy flourished exceedingly, and it made much progress through all the political changes which followed, until the beginning of our era. The motions, phases, and eclipses of the moon were carefully studied and could be accurately predicted, the positions of many stars were determined; the zodiac was divided into twelve equal spaces, which afterwards became 36 by sub-division (the constellations being too unequal in size for convenience); and finally the whole circle was marked out in 360 degrees. The movements of all the naked eye planets were well understood, their positions being constantly compared with those of a number of standard stars, mostly in the zodiac; and after watching and recording these for a number of years the astronomers were able to calculate where each planet would be found at future dates. Tables have been found on clay tablets of the 2nd century b.c. predicting the heliacal risings and settings, and the stations and retrogressions etc., with considerable accuracy.
When astronomy had reached this stage of accurate prediction, it was no longer in its infancy, but was fairly on its way to become a true science.[22]
Nevertheless, the astronomy of the Babylonians, advanced as it was, seems never to have progressed beyond the empirical stage. With them, there seems to have been no desire to group the facts they so patiently and skilfully collected into a system, and form a theory to explain them.