"Whenever a star less than first magnitude is used (Pleiades only excepted) it has been necessary, to secure coincidence, to give it several more degrees of sun depression than in the cases of Spica and Antares."
The problem in Greece was slightly different from that in Egypt. We had not such a great antiquity almost without records to deal with, and moreover the feast-calendars of the various temples presented less difficulty. There was no vague year to contend with, and in some cases the actual dates of building were known within a very few years.
In Greece, not dominated by the rise of the Nile, we should not expect the year to begin at a solstice, but rather at the vernal equinox. I have shown that even in pyramid times in Egypt the risings of the Pleiades and Antares were watched to herald the equinoctial sun; it is not surprising, therefore, to find the earliest temples in Greece to be so oriented. Mr. Penrose has found the following:—
| B.C. | |||
| η Tauri (The Pleiades) | Archaic temple of Minerva | Athens | R[185] 1530 |
| Asclepieion | Epidaurus | R 1275 | |
| The Hecatompedon (site of Parthenon) | Athens | R 1150 | |
| Temple of Bacchus | Athens | R 1030 | |
| Temple of Minerva | Sunium | S 845 | |
| Antares | Heræum | Argos | R 1760 |
| Earlier Erechtheum | Athens | S 1070 | |
| Temple at | Corinth | S 770 | |
| Temple on the Mountain Jupiter Panhellenius | Ægina | S 630 | |
Here we find the oldest temple in a spot which by common consent is the very cradle of Greek civilisation.
It has also been shown that in Khu-en-Aten's time the sun-temple at Tell el-Amarna was oriented to Spica. Spica, too, we find so used in Greece in the following temples:—
| B.C. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spica | The Heræum at | Olympia | R | 1445 | |
| Nike Apteros | Athens | S | 1130 | ||
| Themis | Rhamnus | R | 1092 | ||
| Nemesis | Rhamnus | R | 747 | ||
| Apollo | Bassæ | R | 728 | Eastern doorway. | |
| Diana | Ephesus | R | 715 | ||
When the sun at the spring equinox had left Taurus and entered Aries, owing to precession, in Egypt the equinoxes were no longer in question, since the solstitial year was thoroughly established, and consequently we find no temples to the new warning star α Arietis.
In Greece, however, where the vernal equinox had now been established as the beginning of the year, we find a different state of things. No less than seven temples oriented to α Arietis are already known:—
| B.C. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| α Arietis | Minerva | Tegea | R | 1580 | |
| Jupiter Olympius | Athens | R | 1202 | ||
| Jupiter | Olympia | R | 790 | ||
| Temple (perhaps Juno) | Platea | S | 650 | ||
| Jupiter | Megalopolis | S | 605 | ||
| Temple at the Harbour | Ægina | S | 580 | ||
| Temple on Acropolis of | Mycenæ | R | 540 | Eastern doorway. | |
| The Metroum | Olympia | S | 360 | ||