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The Argonautic expedition being, like the TF^r between the Gods and the Giants, a mere fiction, it became, therefore, equally necessary to throw the supposed time of it back into antiquity, that the authenticity of the fabulous facts on which it was founded might not be controverted or overturned. Digitized by Google OF THE HINDUS. 53 The positioa of the star 8 Cancri, at the time of the . War between the Gods and the Giants, and at the ArgonatUic expedition, being exactly the same, that is to say, in the beginning of the sign Cancer, shows, that the time must be the same, and that the one fact corroborates the other, in so far as time is con- cerned. Lastly. — From all the facts thus exhibited, it ap- pears sufficiently obvious, notwithstanding all that has been urged by writers on the supposed great an- tiquity of astronomy in Egypt and Chaldea, that, in reality, they had none before the era df Nabonassar, and that the whole of their pretensions were mere fictions, set up on purpose to conceal the source from whence they received it, as well as the time of its introduction ; anxious to make themselves appear to be, not only the most ancient people* on th^ face of the earth, but the first also in astronomy and other sciences. If, however, any other evidence be thought necessary to show that they were not so, we have the testimony of both Hipparchus and Ptolemy, who, after very diligent search, met with no observ- ations made at Babylon before the time of Nabo- nassar. Epigenes speaks of Babylonian observations for the space of 720 years. Berosuis allows them to have been made 480 years before his time, which cisuries them back to the year 746 B. C. We have, therefore, the most direct and positive proofs that could be given, that the Chaldeans and Egyptians had no , astronomy, till they received it from India about the time above mentioned; and that it was then, and not before, that they were enabled to form the constellations, from the information and assist- ance they derived from the same source. It was not 'from Abraham they received their astronomy, as pre- Digitized by Google 54 THE AI^CIfiNT ASTRONOMY tended, for the purpose of concealment, but from a Brahman^ or the Brahmans ; and though the word or name Abraham, might poi^sibly arise by corrup- tion, from pronouncing the name Brahman, yet I am disposed to think the corruption intentional. But, should the whole of wha^t is ^hpwn above, he deemed not sufficiently accurate, we have another fact of a still more decisive nature, which, while it serves to point out the time v9^ith the utniost preci* sion, other circumstances connected with it, will be found to form the basis of an inxmense number of fictions, framed for the purpose of imposing on man^ kind. The fact that I allude to here is the ecHp^ of the sun, at the ascending node, which took place dur- ing the War between the Gods and the Giants in the West. Hesiod notices thijs eclipse under the fiction of the battle between Jupiter and Typhaeus, or Ty- phon, which I mentioned in a former place ; but he cautiously avoids saying ajiy thing that could point out the time of it. He makes Jupiter to conquer him, who " down wide hell's abyss his victim hurl'd, in bitterness of soiil." Others say, that the sun and moon chased Typhon till he was drowned in the Thracian sea, or, as others have it, till he was buried under M<iViiLtMtna: but all these lead to no conclu- sion as to the time. The Egypians, however, have not acted with the sanue caution ; for, in alluding to this event, they say that Typhon put Osiris (the sun) into a chest, on the 17th day of Athyr, which there* fore serves as a clue to discover the actual time of the eclipse. But, in order to limit our enquiries within proper or reasonable bounds, I have already shown, from other circumstances, that the War he^ tween the Gods and the Giants was from the autum- nal equino^v in the year 756 B. C. to the entrance of Digitized by Google OF THE HINDUS. 55 the sun into Pisces in the year 746 B. C. being ten years smd five months : therefore, if this statement of the time be at all correct, the eclipse of the sun at the ascending node on the 17th day of the Egyptian month Athyr, must be found within that period. Be- ginning, therefore, our enquiry from the year 756 B. C. we find, at last, that the very eclipse we are in search of, fell on the 17th day of the month Athyr, in the year 761 B. C. being the sixth year of the War between the Gods and Giants, and therefore com- pletely proving all that has been already stated. The eclq^e took place in the afternoon, and the sun set eclq>sed in Egypt; in consequence of which the Egyptians represented it by the figure of a Hippopo-^ tamus, (a Typhonic emblem,) receiving the sun in his jaws at setting in the western ocean. The eclipse must have been considerable, as the sun and moon at the time were very near the ascending tiode; but felling in the sacred period of the Wmr between the Gods and the Giants, it could not be entered on record, like the subsequent eclipses after the eta of Nabonas- sar, without exposing the whole imposition. The time was, therefore, kept a profound secret from all except the initiated and the priesthood, who had formed various festivals, on purpose to blind the po- pulace, as well as for their own benefit. Having thus far explained matters, we may now take a view of some of the other circumstances con- nected with this eclipse. The longitudes of the sun and moon at the time of this ec/ip^ye was Taurus, 15° 46', or thereabouts, and therefore in or very near the middle of the sign. The day on which the eclipse fell was made the birth of Hermes, the son of Osiris and Maia, one of the daughters of Atlas ; or, which is the same thing, the Digitized by Google 56 THE ANCIENT ASTRONOMY birth of Mercury, the son of Jupiter and Maia ; which day, according to the conection of the calendar by Julius Caesar, in the year 44 B.C. was the fifteenth of the month now called May; so named, it is sup- posed, after the same Maia ; and in consequence of which, the fifteenth of that month was always held sacred to Mercury in the Julian calendar. Mercury, or Hermes, was considered by the an- cients as emblematic of the year : hence we find the books of Hermes, as mentioned by some writers, as amounting to 360,00, or the number of degrees which the sun passes through in one year, multiplied by 100 ; or, as others have it, 365,24, being the num- ber of days, &c. in the year, multiplied by 100: from which we gather, that the ancient tropical year of the Egyptians was 365 days 5 hours 45 minutes and 36 seconds, differing from the Julian^ exactly one day in 100 years ; which difference, in the time of Julius Caesar, reckoning from the year of the eclipse 751 B. C. was upwards of 7 days : therefore, in or- der to make allowance for this difference, and to make his year correspond with the Chaldean reckon- ing, he was obliged to change the Numaen year into another form, making the 15th* of October, in Numa's year, to be the 1st of January in his own ; so that the birth of Mercury fell on the fifteenth of May, the day on which the eclipse occurred, MYTHOLOGICAL REMARKS. Fr6m the circumstance of Hermes being consi- dered the same as the year, he was called the great- * See this matter more fally explained in my translations of two Hieroglyphic Calendars, (foand at Dendera in Egypt,) at the end of this work. Digitized by Google OF THE HINDUS. 67 est of chemists ; for time reduces all things to their original states; compounds and decompounds bo- dies; converts earths into stones, and stones into earth ; forming continual changes in every thing that exists : hence the science of chemistry was called the Hermetic art. The name Hermes we find also often united with others, forming thereby compounds generally expressive of the month, or sign, or other cir- cumstance from which the year commenced : thus — Hermanubis, the year, commencing from the rising of the do^star .—Hermaphrodite. thfi...JI£ar, com- mencing from the ^ry^ gf Ap"^ fro^i V^gjjy^residing over that month, &c. Anubis was called sometimes the year, and marked the different seasons ; but it seems the ancients had ascribed different meanings to Anubis, though all apparently expressive of cer- tain points* of time.