The above mention of a column is of interest when it is realized that, in historical times, the laws of Solon were actually inscribed on a square wooden pillar which was made to revolve or turn and was placed on the Acropolis. The presence of a revolving pillar on the Acropolis, the sacred centre of the Athenian state, is, moreover, curiously in keeping with the conception of axial energy set forth by Plato and awakens the desire to learn from Greek scholars what relationship, if any, there was between the Sanscrit aksa=axle or axis, the Greek akra (akris=summit, akros=most high, supreme, akrisios=mountain-top god) and the Egyptian ak=the Centre, and hak=a king; and whether the word polis=city was connected with polos=the pole-star, an axis, pivot or pole, from polein=to turn, and may be interpreted as the equivalent of the Egyptian An and Annu. It would also be important to learn whether the name of the principal ancient god of Greece, Apollo, who was revered under the form of a column at Delphi, can also be connected with the verb polein or pelein=to turn, as well as the name Polias i. e. the goddess protecting the city, a surname for Minerva (Athene) at Athens, where she was worshipped at one time as the protecting divinity of the Acropolis. The title Poliuchus, “protecting the city,” occurs as a surname of several divinities and particularly of Minerva Chalchioecus, “of the brazen house,” at Sparta and Athens. It is instructive likewise to compare the Greek words for axis=axon, and polis=city, with Helice, the name for Ursa Major and for a town in Arcadia, with the Egyptian Annu, An or On, the names of capitals, and the Egyptian word an=that which turns around. It will be for Greek and Egyptian scholars to enlighten us as to whether the Egyptian an and the Greek polis are synonyms; in which connection I draw their attention to the following suggestive passage of the Critias (vii).... “Yet before we narrate this we must briefly warn you not to [pg 448] be surprised at hearing Hellenic names given to barbarians ... and the cause of this you shall now hear. Solon made an investigation into the power of names and found that the early Egyptians, who committed these facts to writing, transferred these names into their own language; and he again, receiving the meaning of each name, introduced it by writing into our language.” While, on one hand, it is certain that the Egyptian astronomer-priests associated the pole star with the words An, Anu, Anubis, on the other, the following passages from Plato's works clearly demonstrate his views concerning axial rotation.[119] A fresh interest is undoubtedly added to Plato's philosophy when it is regarded as the possible result of the thirteen years spent by him with the Egyptian priesthood, who may possibly have confided to him the entire sum of their ancient philosophy and accumulated store of knowledge, and who certainly seem to have imposed upon him the reticence and obscurity noticeable in the Republic, the Critias and the Timæus.
To those who have followed my investigation of the ancient state organization and cosmical conceptions of the ancient Egyptians, and noted the interpretation given to the pyramid and the fact that Amenophis instituted the disk as the image of the Supreme Being, the following detached extracts from Plato's Timæus will appear [pg 449] familiar and full of fresh significance. “To discover the Father and Creator of this universe (also called the heaven or the world) or his work is indeed difficult; and when discovered it is impossible to reveal him to mankind at large.... The composing (or framing) Artificer constituted the universe from entire elements of fire, water, air and earth and ... considering that it would thus be a whole animal.... He gave it also a figure becoming and allied to its nature; and to the animal destined to comprehend all others within itself that figure as the most becoming which includes within itself every sort of figure whatever. Hence he fashioned it in the shape of a sphere, perfectly round, having its centre everywhere equally distant from the bounding extremities.... He assigned to it a motion peculiar to itself ... making the world to turn constantly on itself and on same point, he gave it a circular motion ... he assigned to it a motion peculiar to itself, being that of all the seven kinds of motion.... As for the soul, he fixed it in the middle, extended it throughout the whole and likewise surrounded it with its entire surface ... and so, causing a circle to revolve in a circle, he established the world as one substantive, solitary object.... Let the universe be called heaven or the world or by any other name it usually receives.... The soul of this universe [pg 450] ... being composed of three parts ... being interwoven throughout from the middle to the very extremities of space and covering it even all around externally, though at the same time herself revolving within herself, originated the divine commencement of an unceasing and wise life throughout all time.... Time ... was generated with the universe.... Time ... an eternal image on the principles of numbers ... the perfect number of time completes a perfect year ... for this purpose ... were formed such of the stars as moved circularly through the universe....”
While a careful study of Plato's work will further elucidate his views concerning the quadruplicate nature of the universe, of its comprehensive unity, of axial rotation, the generation of time and of the principle of numbers, I point out that the following passage conveys the idea of applying the universal plan to the regulation of human thought: “This, however, we may assert, that God invented and bestowed sight upon us for the express purpose, that on surveying the circles of intelligence in the heavens, we might properly employ those of our minds, which, though disturbed when compared with the others that are uniform, are still allied to their circulation and that, having thus learned and being naturally possessed of a correct reasoning faculty, we might, by imitating the uniform revolutions of divinity, set right our own silly wanderings and blunders.”
There are two portions of Plato's cosmology to which I wish particularly to draw attention, because of the striking examples that exist, showing that the views therein expressed and suggestions given, were independently carried into practice in ancient times, in widely separated countries. One is the suggestive attempt to figure the Cosmos by geometrical images, a method which had been carried out by the pyramid-builders and Amenophis III and suggests an explanation for the origin and meaning of the geometrical decoration that prevailed at one period of antiquity. The other is the association of time with the principles of numbers, the most remarkable exemplifications of which are furnished by the Egyptian, Hindu, Chinese, Mexican and Maya cyclical systems, founded upon the associations of divisions of time and numerals, and even and uneven numbers with day-names, etc.
Having hastily noted some features of Plato's Cosmos let us next obtain an insight into the ideas associated with Polaris and the Septentriones by the ancient Greeks and their neighbors, before [pg 451] and after Plato's time. I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. Richard Hinckley Allen's “Star-names and their meanings” (New York, 1899), for the following valuable information and at the same time express my regret that his useful work was unknown to me when I wrote the preceding portion of my investigation.[120]
“Ursa Minor was not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod for, according to Strabo, it was not admitted among the constellations of the Greeks until about 600 B.C. when Thales, inspired by its use in Phœnicia, his probable birthplace, suggested it to the Greek mariners in place of its greater neighbor which till then had been their sailing guide. Thence its title Phœnice and Ursa Phœnicia. But it also shared, with Ursa Major, the titles Septentrio, Aratos, Amaxa, Aganna and Helice. It also bore the ‘early and universal title’ Kynosura or Cynosura, usually translated ‘the Dog's Tail,’ the origin of which is uncertain, Bournouf asserting that ‘it is in no way associated with the Greek word for dog.’ Cox identified the word with Lycosura (meaning tail or trail of light), which recalls the city of that name in Arcadia considered, by Pausanias, the most ancient in the world, having been founded by Lycaon some time before the Deluge of Deucalion.”
“Euclid said in his Phainomena: ‘A star is visible between the Bears, not changing its place, but always revolving upon itself’ (cf. Plato's Cosmos). Hipparchus, that the pole was ‘in a vacant spot forming a quadrangle with three other stars,’ both writers calling this Polos, the Polus of Lucan, Ovid and other classical Latins, and Euphratean observers had called their pole-star Pūl or [pg 452] Bil. But, although other astronomical writers used these words for some individual star, there is no certainty as to which was intended, for it should be remembered that, during many millenniums, the polar point has gradually been approaching our pole-star which, 2000 years ago, was far removed from it, in Hipparchus' time 12° 24' away, according to his own statement, quoted by Marinus of Tyre and cited by Ptolemy. Heraclitus, the Ionian philosopher of Ephesus of about 500 B.C., asserted that this constellation marked the boundary between the east and the west, which it may be regarded as doing when on the horizon.” This statement is of extreme importance as it proves an orientation of the north by the pole-star and not by the solstitial position of the sun. “Another name for it, πλενθιον, used for it or its quarter of the sky, was from the Greek, as seen in Plutarch's αἰ τῶν πλινθίων ὀπογραφαί the ‘fields’ or ‘spaces’ into which the augurs divided the heavens, the templa, or regiones cœli of the Latins....”
“In Homer's Iliad and Odyssey the use of the seven stars of Ursa Major in Greek navigation is clearly shown. The constellation is entitled the Bear=arctos, described, according to different translators, as ‘circling on high,’ ‘wheeling round,’ or ‘revolving around the axle of the sky.’[121] Homer used, equally with Arctos, [pg 453] the name Amaxa=the wain or wagon, to designate the seven stars. Aratos called the constellation the ‘Wain-like Bear;’ and, alluding to the title Amaxa, asserted that the word was from ama=together, the Amaxai thus circling together around the pole; but no philologist accepts this and it might as well have come from axion=axle, referring to the axis of the heavens. In fact Hewitt goes far back of Aratos in his statement that the Sanscrit god Akshivan, the Driver of the Axle (aksha), was adopted in Greece as Ixion, whose well-known wheel was merely the circling course of this constellation. Anacreon mentioned it as a Chariot as well as a Bear; and Hesychius had it Aganna, an archaic word from agein, ‘to carry,’ singularly like, in orthography at least, the Akkadian title for the Wain stars, Aganna or Akanna, the Lord of Heaven; and Aben Ezra called it Ajala, the Hebrew word for ‘waggon.’ The name Helice from Ελιξ, the Curved, or Spiral One, apparently first used by Aratos and Apollonius Rhodius, became common as descriptive of its twisting around the pole, ... Sophocles having the same thought in his mention of ‘the circling paths of the Bear.’ Some, however, derived the name from the curved or twisted positions of the chief stars.... Helice was also the name of a city in Arcadia, the country so intimately connected with the Bears, whose inhabitants were called the Bear race.”
As far back as Hesiod's time the constellation was associated in myth, with the name Kallisto, “the beautiful,” which “La Lande referred to the Phœnician Kalitsah or Chalitsa, Safety, as its observation helped to a safe voyage. Another version of the Grecian myth associated the constellation with Artemis, the Roman Diana [i. e. the huntress, cf. Ishtar and Isis-Satit].” The apparent connection of the name Artemis with Themis=“law and justice personified,” should be noted here.
The preceding statements establish that, in ancient Greece, Polaris was identified with the celestial Polos and was described as a star, not changing its place, but always revolving on itself and it appears superfluous to point out how closely Plato's Cosmos agrees with the current astronomical theories. The Ursæ, on the other hand, were identified with the titles Helice, referring to axial rotation, and with the names Aganna (Akanna) Arctos and Amaxa, which are identical in sound with the words we have found associated with Polaris and the Septentriones in the ancient Egyptian texts.