But the morning star shone with a different significance as the herald of the day, the torchbearer who lights the way for radiant Aurora on her triumphal progress through the skies. Hence he was called Eosphorus, or Phosphorus, the bearer of the dawn, translated into Latin as Lucifer, the Light-bearer. The son of Eos, or Aurora, and the Titan Astraeus, he was of the same parentage as the other multitude of the starry host, to whom a similar origin was ascribed, and from whom in Greek mythology he was evidently believed to differ only in the superior order of his brightness. Homer, who mentions the planet in the following passage:
"But when the star of Lucifer appeared,
The harbinger of light, whom following close,
Spreads o'er the sea the saffron-robed morn."
(Lord Derby's "Iliad.")
recognizes no distinction between those celestial nomads, the planets, "wandering stars," as the Arabs call them, which visibly change their position relatively to the other stars, and the latter, whose places on the sphere are apparently fixed and immutable. In this he and his compatriots were far behind the ancient Egyptians, who probably derived their knowledge from still earlier speculators in Asia, for they not only observed the movements of some at least of the planets, but believed that Mercury and Venus revolved as satellites round the sun, which in its turn circled round our lesser world. Pythagoras is said to have been the first to identify Hesperus with Phosphor, as the
"Silver planet both of eve and morn,"
and by Plato the same fact is recognized. The other planets, all of which had, according to him, been originally named in Egypt and Syria, have each its descriptive title in his nomenclature. Thus the innermost, "the Star of Mercury," is called Stilbon, "the Sparkler," Mars, Pyroeis, "the Fiery One," while Jupiter, the planet of the slowest course but one, is designated as Phaeton, and Saturn, the tardiest of all, Phaenon. These names were in later times abandoned in favor of those of the divinities to whom they were respectively dedicated, unalterably associated now with the days of the week, over which they have been selected to preside.