[5] Ideler, i. 240.
Among the Greeks the seasons were at first only summer and winter (θέρος and χειμών), the latter including all the rainy and cold portion of the year. The winter was then subdivided into the χειμών and ἔαρ (winter proper and spring), and the summer, less definitely, into θέρος and ὀπώρα (summer and autumn). Tacitus says that the Germans knew neither the blessings nor the name of autumn, “Autumni perinde nomen ac bona ignorantur.” Yet harvest, herbst, is certainly an old German word.[6]
[6] Ib. i. 243.
In the same period in which the sun goes through his cycle of positions, the stars also go through a cycle of appearances belonging to them; and these appearances were perhaps employed at as early a period as those of the sun, in determining the exact length of the year. Many of the groups of fixed stars are readily recognized, as exhibiting always the same configuration; and particular bright stars are singled out as objects of attention. These are observed, at particular seasons, to appear in the west after sunset; but it is noted that when they do this, they are found nearer and nearer to the sun every successive evening, and at last disappear in his light. It is observed also, that at a certain interval after this, they rise visibly before the dawn of day renders the stars invisible; and after they are seen to do this, they rise every day at a longer interval before the sun. The risings and settings of the stars under these circumstances, or under others which are easily recognized, were, in countries where the sky is usually clear, employed at an early period to mark the seasons of the year. Eschylus[7] makes Prometheus mention this among the benefits of which [116] he, the teacher of arts to the earliest race of men, was the communicator.
Οὔκ ἤν γαρ αὐτοῖς οὔτε χείματος τέκμαρ,
Οὔτ’ ἀνθεμώδους ἦρος, οὔδε καρπίμου
Θέρους βέβαιον· ἀλλ’ ἄτερ γνώμης τὸ πᾶν
Ἔπρασσον, ἔστε δή σφιν ἀνατολὰς ἐγὼ
Ἄστρων ἔδειξα, τάς τε δυσκρίτους δύσεις.—Prom. V. 454.
Thus, for instance, the rising[8] of the Pleiades in the evening was a mark of the approach of winter. The rising of the waters of the Nile in Egypt coincided with the heliacal rising of Sirius, which star the Egyptians called Sothis. Even without any artificial measure of time or position, it was not difficult to carry observations of this kind to such a degree of accuracy as to learn from them the number of days which compose the year; and to fix the precise season from the appearance of the stars.
[8] Ideler (Chronol. i. 242) says that this rising of the Pleiades took place at a time of the year which corresponds to our 11th May, and the setting to the 20th October; but this does not agree with the forty days of their being “concealed,” which, from the context, must mean, I conceive, the interval between their setting and rising. Pliny, however, says, “Vergiliarum exortu æstas incipit, occasu hiems; semestri spatio intra se messes vindemiasque et omnium maturitatem complexæ.” (H. N. xviii. 69.)
The autumn of the Greeks, ὀπώρα, was earlier than our autumn, for Homer calls Sirius ἀστὴρ ὀπωρινός, which rose at the end of July.
A knowledge concerning the stars appears to have been first cultivated with the last-mentioned view, and makes its first appearance in literature with this for its object. Thus Hesiod directs the husbandman when to reap by the rising, and when to plough by the setting of the Pleiades.[9] In like manner Sirius,[10] Arcturus,[11] the Hyades and Orion,[12] are noticed.