[37] Called by the ancients χηλαι, Chelæ, or the claws of Scorpio; which sign they made to consist of 60 degrees, omitting Libra. Thus Virgil in the first Georgic, line 33, &c.
Quo locus Erigonen inter, Chelasque sequentes
Panditur: ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens
Scorpius, et cœli justâ plus parte reliquit.
Ovid, likewise, takes the following notice of Scorpio:—
Porrigit in spatium signorum membra duorum.
Met. 2, l. 198.
[38] Adams’s Treatise on the Globes calls this star “Kalb al Akrab, or the Scorpion’s heart,” and adds, that “the word Antares (if it is not a corruption) has no signification.” But it should be observed that Ptolemy states that this star partakes of the nature of Mars: it seems therefore not improbable that Antares may be a regular Greek word, compounded of αντι pro and αρης Mars, and signifying Mars’s deputy, or lieutenant, or one acting for Mars.
[39] Salmon, in his “Horæ Mathematicæ, or Soul of Astrology” (printed by Dawks, 1679) divides each sign of the zodiac into six faces of five degrees each, “because that in every sign there are various stars of differing natures”; and he gives a particular description to each face, depending on its ascension or culmination. This seems an attempt to adapt Ptolemy’s signification of the several stars, composing the different signs, to some general rule or mode of judgment: but it does not merit the implicit assent of astrologers. It is understood that Salmon was not the inventor of this division of the signs into faces, but that it came originally from the Arabian schools.
[40] Canis Minor.