When Atreus and Thyestes contended for the
throne of their fathers, even then, it is plain, the
Greeks set great store by astrologie and celestial
lore; and the commonwealth of Argos determined
that which ever of them was more excellent than the
other in this lore should bear rule. Thereupon
Thyestes indicated and made manifest unto them the
Ram in the heavens, in consequence whereof they
fable that Thyestes had a golden lamb. But Atreus
declared the doctrine of the sun and its risings, that
the sun and the First Movable The firmament, or orb, of the fixed stars. This was thought of as revolving from East to West. The sun particited, to be sure, in its motion, but had a contrary motion of is own, which was compared to that of an ant walking on the rim of a moving wheel in the direction contrary to the wheel’s motion. Previous authors left this topic to Lucian “incomplete.” That Atreus owed his kingship to his discovery of the retrograde motion of the sun was known not only to Polybius (XXXIV, beginning) but even to Sophocles and Euripides, according es enter on arate (Achilleus: Maass, Comm. in Arat., p. 28). It remained for Lucian to point out that Thyestes was an astronomer also, the discoverer of the constellation Aries, and to add a touch of paradox to the other doctrine with his suggestion that inasmuch as the sun’s proper motion is from West to East, he is really going upward, and therefore rising, when he sets, and downward, or setting, when he rises.
Concerning Bellerophon also I am of this opinion: that he had a volatile as horse I do not at all believe, but conceive that he pursued this wisdom and raised his thoughts on high and held conversation with the stars, and thus ascended unto heaven by means not of his horse but of his wit.
The same may be said of Phrixus, the son of Athamas, that is fabled to have ridden through the ayr upon a golden ram. And certainly of Daedalus the Athenian; although his story be strange, yet methinks it is not without relation unto astrology, but rather he practised it constantly himself and taught it unto his son.
But because Icarus was governed by youth and audacity, and sought not the attainable but let his minde carry him into the zenith, he came short of truth and defected from reason and was precipitated into a sea of unfathomable perplexities. But the Greeks tell an idle myth of him and loosely call a golfe of their sea Icarian after his name.
Doubtless Pasiphae also, hearing from Daedalus
of the Bull that appeareth amongst the constellations
and of Astrology itself, fell in love with the doctrine ;
The reader will not fail to note how neatly this explanation of the Pasiphae myth puts a colophon upon Lucian’s masterly treatment of the flight-legends, which is entirely his own.
Again, there be-those who, dissecting the science into parts, have made different discoveries, some collecting the particulars of the moon, some those of Jupiter, and some those of the sun, concerning their course and motion and potency.
So Endymion
established the motions of the moon, We are indebted to Germanicus, in his commentary on Aratus, for the information that Mnaseas of Sicyon credited Endymion with the discovery of the course of the moon. Having found the key to the flight-legends, it was easy for Lucian to supply a pendant to Endymion in Phaethon.
so Phaeton
inferred the course of the sun; yet not strictly, but
left the theory incompleat at his death. Ignorant
of this, men believe that Phaeton was Helius his son,
and they relate a story of him that is not at all
credible. Going, say they, unto Helius, his father,
he asked to drive the car of light; whiche he suffered
him to do, and also instructed him in the manner
of its governance. But when Phaeton mounted the
car, because of youth and inexpertness he drove
now close to earth, now at a vast remove; and men
were being destroyed both by cold and by heat that
passed endurance. Thereupon, Jupiter in wrath smote
Phaeton with a great bolt of lightning. After his
fall his sisters surrounding him made great dole until
they transmuted themselves, and now they are trees
of black poplar and distil amber over him in place of
tears. These things were not so, and it consisteth
not with piety to believe in them; Helius begat no
son, and no son of his perished.
But the Greeks relate many other fabulosities— which I do not credit at all. For how doth it consist with piety to believe that Aeneas was the’son of Venus, Minos of Jupiter, Ascalaphus of Mars, or Autolycus of Mercury? Nay, these were each and all divinely favoured, and at their birth one of them was under the regard of Venus, another of Jupiter, another of Mars. For what powers soever are in their proper houses at the moment of birth into this life, those powers like unto parents make men answerable to them in all respects, in complexion, in figure, in workes, and in humour. So Minos became a king because Jupiter was in his ascendancy, Aeneas fair by the will of Venus, and Autolycus a theef, whose theevery came to him from Mercury.