Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/33

nates Scorpio, "Μεγαθήριον" "Megatherion," "The great beast." (Phænom. 82.) And Ovid says:

"Est locus in geminos ubi brachia concavat arcus
Scorpios; et cauda flexisque utrimque lacertis
Porrigit in spatium signorum membra duorum."

His length extended through two-twelfths or one-sixth of the whole zodiac circle. After the time of Aratus, Libra, the Scales, was substituted for Chelæ, the Claws, on the celestial sphere. Virgil suggested this constellation as the proper one for the star of Augustus, when after his death he should be inscribed among the gods, as the 23rd of September was his birth-day, at which time the Sun enters this constellation:

"Anne novum tardis sidus te mensibus addam?
Qua locus Erigonen inter Chelasque sequentes
Panditur: ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens
Scorpios, et cœli justa plus parte relinquit."
(Georg. I.. 32.)

The Poet implies that in honour of Augustus the Scorpion had contracted his claws to make room for Libra, about to be honoured by the Julium Sidus. Manilius also:

"Sed cum autumnales coeperunt surgere Chelæ,
Felix æquato genitus sub pondere Libræ,
Judex examen sistet vitæque necisque;
Imponetque jugum terris, legesque rogabit.
Illum urbes et regna trement, nutuque regentur
Unius, et cœli post terras jura manebunt."
(Lib. iv. 548.)