. . . the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas
Beyond th' Horizon.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas
Beyond th' Horizon.
Milton's Paradise Lost.
Aries, is Ariete in Italy, Bélier in France, and Widder in Germany — Bayer's Wider; in the Anglo-Saxon tongue it is Ramm, and in the Anglo-Norman of the 12th century, Multuns. The constellation is marked by the noticeable triangle to the west of the Pleiades, 6° north of the ecliptic, 20º north of the celestial equator, and 20º due south from γ Andromedae.
With the Greeks it was Κριός, and sometimes Ἀιγόκερως, although this last was more usual for Capricorn.
It was always Aries with the Romans; but Ovid called it Phrixea Ovis; and Columella, Pecus Athamantidos Helles, Phrixus, and Portitor Phrixi; others, Phrixeum Pecus and Phrixi Vector, Phrixus being the hero-son of Athamas, who fled on the back of this Ram with his sister Helle to Colchis to escape the wrath of his stepmother Ino. It will be remembered that on the way Helle fell off into the sea, which thereafter became the Hellespont, as Manilius wrote:
First Golden Aries shines (who whilst he swam
Lost part of's Freight, and gave the Sea a Name);
and Longfellow, in his translation from Ovid's Tristia:
The Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle.
On reaching his journey's end, Phrixus sacrificed the creature and hung its fleece in the Grove of Ares, where it was turned to gold and became the object of the Argonaut's quest. From this came others of Aries' titles: Ovis aurea and auratus, Chrysomallus, and the Low Latin Chrysovellus.
The Athamas used by Columella was a classical reproduction of the Euphratean Tammuz Dum‑uzi, the Only Son of Life, whom Aries at one time represented in the heavens, as did Orion at a previous date, perhaps when it marked the vernal equinox 4500 B.C.
Cicero and Ovid styled the constellation Cornus; elsewhere it was Corniger and Laniger; Vervex, the Wether; Dux opulenti gregis; Caput arietinum; and, in allusion to its position, Aequinoctialis. Vernus Portitor, the Spring-bringer, is cited by Caesius, who also mentioned Arcanus, that may refer to the secret rites in the worship of the divinities whom Aries represented.
From about the year 1730 before our era he was Princeps signorum coelestium, Princeps zodiaci, and the Ductor exercitus zodiaci, continuing so through Hipparchos' time; Manilius writing of this:
The Ram having pass'd the Sea serenely shines,
And leads the Year, the Prince of all the Signs.
But about A.D. 420 his office was transferred to Pisces.
Brown writes as to the origin of the title Aries, without any supposition of resemblance of the group to the animal:
The stars were regarded by a pastoral population as flocks; each asterism had its special leader, and the star, and subsequently the constellation, that led the heavens through the year was the Ram.
Elsewhere he tells us that when Aries became chief of the zodiac signs it took the Akkadian titles Ku, I-ku, and I‑ku‑u, from its lucida Hamal, all equivalents of the Assyrian Rubū, Prince, and very appropriate to the leading stellar group of that date, although not one of the first formations.
He also finds, from an inscription on the Tablet of the Thirty Stars, that the Euphratean astronomers had a constellation Gam, the Scimetar, stretching from Okda of the Fishes to Hamal of Aries, the curved blade being formed by the latter's three brightest components. This was the weapon protecting the kingdom against the Seven Evil Spirits, or Tempest Powers.
Jensen thinks that Aries may have been first adopted into the zodiac by the Babylonians when its stars began to mark the vernal equinox; and that the insertion of it between Taurus and Pegasus compelled the cutting off a part of each of those figures, — a novel suggestion that would save much theorizing as to their sectional character.
The Jewish Nīsān, our March-April, was associated with Aries, for Josephus said that it was when the sun was here in this month that his people were released from the bondage of Egypt; and so was the same month Nisanu of Assyria, where Aries represented the Altar and Sacrifice, a ram usually being the victim. Hence the prominence given to this sign in antiquity even before its stars became the leaders of the rest; although Berōssōs and Macrobius attributed this to the ancient belief that the earth was created when the sun was within its boundaries; and Albumasar,1 of the 9th century, in his Revolution of Years wrote of the Creation as having taken place when "the seven planets" — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — were in conjunction here, and foretold the destruction of the world when they should be in the same position in the last degree of Pisces.
Dante, who called the constellation Montone, followed with a similar thought in the Inferno:
The sun was mounting with those stars
That with him were, what time the Love Divine
At first in motion set those beauteous things.
To come, however, to a more precise date, Pliny said that Cleostratos of Tenedos first formed Aries, and, at the same time, Sagittarius; but their origin probably was many centuries, even millenniums, antecedent to this, and the statement is only correct in so far as that he may have been the first to write of them.
Many think that our figure was designed to represent the Egyptian King of Gods shown at Thebes with ram's horns, or veiled and crowned with feathers, and variously known as Amon, Ammon, Hammon, Amen, or Amun, and worshiped with great ceremony at his temple in the oasis Ammonium, now Siwah, 5º west of Cairo on the northern limit of Libyan desert. Kircher gave Aries' title there as Ταμετοῦρο Αμοῦν, Regum Ammonis. But there is doubt whether the Egyptian stellar Ram coincided with ours, although Miss Clerke says that the latter's stars were called the Fleece.
As the god Amen was identified with Ζεύς and Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, so also was Aries, although this popularly was attributed to the story that the classical divinity assumed the Ram's form when all the inhabitants of Olympus fled into Egypt from the giants led by Typhon. From this came the constellation's titles Jupiter Ammon; Jovis Sidus; Minervae Sidus, the goddess being Jove's daughter; the Jupiter Libycus of Propertius, Deus Libycus of Dionysius, and Ammon Libycus of Nonnus.
The Hebrews knew it as Telī, and inscribed it on the banners of Gad or Naphtali; the Syrians, as Amru or Emru; the Persians, as Bara, Bere, or Berre; the Turks, as Kuzi; and in the Parsi Bundehesh it was Varak; all these being synonymous with Aries. The unexplained Arabib, or Aribib, also is seen for it. The early Hindus called it Aja and Mesha, the Tamil Mesham; but the later followed the Greeks in Kriya.
An Arabian commentator on Ulug Beg called the constellation Al Kabah al ʻAlīf, the Tame Ram; but that people generally knew it as Al Ḥamal, the Sheep, — Hammel with Riccioli, Alchamalo with Schickard, and Alhamel with Chilmead.
As one of the zodiacal twelve of China it was the Dog, early known as Heang Low, or Kiang Leu; and later, under Jesuit influence, as Pih Yang, the White Sheep; while with Taurus and Gemini it constituted the White Tiger, the western one of the four great zodiac groups of China; also known as the Lake of Fullness, the Five Reservoirs of Heaven, and the House of the Five Emperors.
Chaucer and other English writers of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries Anglicized the title as Ariete, which also appeared in the Low Latin of the 17th century. It was about this time, when it was sought to reconstruct the constellations on Bible lines, that Aries was said to represent Abraham's Ram caught in the thicket; as also Saint Peter, the bishop of the early church, with Triangulum as his Mitre. Caesius considered it the Lamb sacrificed on Calvary for all sinful humanity.
Aries generally has been figured as reclining with reverted head admiring his own golden fleece, or looking with astonishment at the Bull rising backward; but in the Albumasar of 1489 he is standing erect, and some early artists showed him running towards the west, with what is probably designed for the zodiac-belt around his body. A coin of Domitian bears a representation of him as the Princeps juventutis, and appeared on those of Antiochus of Syria with head towards the Moon and Mars — an appropriate figuring; for, astrologically, Aries was the lunar house of that planet. In common with all the other signs, he is shown on the zodiacal rupees generally attributed to the great Mogul prince Jehangir Shah, but really struck by Nūr Mahal Mumtaza, his favorite wife, between 1616 and 1624, each figure being surrounded by sun-rays with an inscription on the reverse.
Its equinoctial position gave force to Aratos' description of its "rapid transits," but he is strangely inexact in his
faint and starless to behold
As stars by moonlight —
a blunder for which Hipparchos seems to have taken him to task. Aratos however, was a more successful versifier than astronomer.
Among astrologers Aries was a dreaded sign indicating passionate temper and bodily hurt, and thus it fitly formed the House of Mars, although some attributed guardianship over it to Pallas Minerva, daughter of Jove whom Aries represented. It was supposed to hold sway over the head and face; in fact the Egyptians called it Arnum, the Lord of the Head; while, geographically, it ruled Denmark, England, France, Germany, Lesser Poland and Switzerland, Syria, Capua, Naples and Verona, with white and red as its colors. In the time of Manilius it was naturally thought of as ruling the Hellespont and Propontis, Egypt and the Nile, Persia and Syria;a and, with Leo and Sagittarius, was the Fiery Trigon.
Ampelius said that it was in charge of the Roman Africus, the Southwest Wind, the Italians' Affrico, or Gherbino; but the Archer and Scorpion also shared this duty. Plinyb wrote that the appearance of a comet within its borders portended great wars and wide-spread mortality, abasement of the great and elevation of the small, with fearful drought in the regions over which the sign predominated; while 17th‑century almanacs attributed many troubles to men, and declared that "many shall die of the rope" when the suns in the sign; but they ascribed to its influence "an abundance of herbs."
Its symbol, ♈, probably represents the head and horns of the animal.
The eastern portion is inconspicuous, and astronomers have mapped others of its stars somewhat irregularly, carrying a horn into Pisces and a leg into Cetus.
Argelander assigns to it 50 naked-eye components; Heis, 80.
The sun now passes through it from the 16th of April to the 13th of May.
A nova is reported to have appeared here in May, 1012, described by Epidamnus,c the monk of Saint Gall, as oculos verberans.
With the Greeks it was Κριός, and sometimes Ἀιγόκερως, although this last was more usual for Capricorn.
It was always Aries with the Romans; but Ovid called it Phrixea Ovis; and Columella, Pecus Athamantidos Helles, Phrixus, and Portitor Phrixi; others, Phrixeum Pecus and Phrixi Vector, Phrixus being the hero-son of Athamas, who fled on the back of this Ram with his sister Helle to Colchis to escape the wrath of his stepmother Ino. It will be remembered that on the way Helle fell off into the sea, which thereafter became the Hellespont, as Manilius wrote:
First Golden Aries shines (who whilst he swam
Lost part of's Freight, and gave the Sea a Name);
and Longfellow, in his translation from Ovid's Tristia:
The Ram that bore unsafely the burden of Helle.
On reaching his journey's end, Phrixus sacrificed the creature and hung its fleece in the Grove of Ares, where it was turned to gold and became the object of the Argonaut's quest. From this came others of Aries' titles: Ovis aurea and auratus, Chrysomallus, and the Low Latin Chrysovellus.
The Athamas used by Columella was a classical reproduction of the Euphratean Tammuz Dum‑uzi, the Only Son of Life, whom Aries at one time represented in the heavens, as did Orion at a previous date, perhaps when it marked the vernal equinox 4500 B.C.
Cicero and Ovid styled the constellation Cornus; elsewhere it was Corniger and Laniger; Vervex, the Wether; Dux opulenti gregis; Caput arietinum; and, in allusion to its position, Aequinoctialis. Vernus Portitor, the Spring-bringer, is cited by Caesius, who also mentioned Arcanus, that may refer to the secret rites in the worship of the divinities whom Aries represented.
From about the year 1730 before our era he was Princeps signorum coelestium, Princeps zodiaci, and the Ductor exercitus zodiaci, continuing so through Hipparchos' time; Manilius writing of this:
The Ram having pass'd the Sea serenely shines,
And leads the Year, the Prince of all the Signs.
But about A.D. 420 his office was transferred to Pisces.
Brown writes as to the origin of the title Aries, without any supposition of resemblance of the group to the animal:
The stars were regarded by a pastoral population as flocks; each asterism had its special leader, and the star, and subsequently the constellation, that led the heavens through the year was the Ram.
Elsewhere he tells us that when Aries became chief of the zodiac signs it took the Akkadian titles Ku, I-ku, and I‑ku‑u, from its lucida Hamal, all equivalents of the Assyrian Rubū, Prince, and very appropriate to the leading stellar group of that date, although not one of the first formations.
He also finds, from an inscription on the Tablet of the Thirty Stars, that the Euphratean astronomers had a constellation Gam, the Scimetar, stretching from Okda of the Fishes to Hamal of Aries, the curved blade being formed by the latter's three brightest components. This was the weapon protecting the kingdom against the Seven Evil Spirits, or Tempest Powers.
Jensen thinks that Aries may have been first adopted into the zodiac by the Babylonians when its stars began to mark the vernal equinox; and that the insertion of it between Taurus and Pegasus compelled the cutting off a part of each of those figures, — a novel suggestion that would save much theorizing as to their sectional character.
The Jewish Nīsān, our March-April, was associated with Aries, for Josephus said that it was when the sun was here in this month that his people were released from the bondage of Egypt; and so was the same month Nisanu of Assyria, where Aries represented the Altar and Sacrifice, a ram usually being the victim. Hence the prominence given to this sign in antiquity even before its stars became the leaders of the rest; although Berōssōs and Macrobius attributed this to the ancient belief that the earth was created when the sun was within its boundaries; and Albumasar,1 of the 9th century, in his Revolution of Years wrote of the Creation as having taken place when "the seven planets" — the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn — were in conjunction here, and foretold the destruction of the world when they should be in the same position in the last degree of Pisces.
Dante, who called the constellation Montone, followed with a similar thought in the Inferno:
The sun was mounting with those stars
That with him were, what time the Love Divine
At first in motion set those beauteous things.
To come, however, to a more precise date, Pliny said that Cleostratos of Tenedos first formed Aries, and, at the same time, Sagittarius; but their origin probably was many centuries, even millenniums, antecedent to this, and the statement is only correct in so far as that he may have been the first to write of them.
Many think that our figure was designed to represent the Egyptian King of Gods shown at Thebes with ram's horns, or veiled and crowned with feathers, and variously known as Amon, Ammon, Hammon, Amen, or Amun, and worshiped with great ceremony at his temple in the oasis Ammonium, now Siwah, 5º west of Cairo on the northern limit of Libyan desert. Kircher gave Aries' title there as Ταμετοῦρο Αμοῦν, Regum Ammonis. But there is doubt whether the Egyptian stellar Ram coincided with ours, although Miss Clerke says that the latter's stars were called the Fleece.
As the god Amen was identified with Ζεύς and Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, so also was Aries, although this popularly was attributed to the story that the classical divinity assumed the Ram's form when all the inhabitants of Olympus fled into Egypt from the giants led by Typhon. From this came the constellation's titles Jupiter Ammon; Jovis Sidus; Minervae Sidus, the goddess being Jove's daughter; the Jupiter Libycus of Propertius, Deus Libycus of Dionysius, and Ammon Libycus of Nonnus.
The Hebrews knew it as Telī, and inscribed it on the banners of Gad or Naphtali; the Syrians, as Amru or Emru; the Persians, as Bara, Bere, or Berre; the Turks, as Kuzi; and in the Parsi Bundehesh it was Varak; all these being synonymous with Aries. The unexplained Arabib, or Aribib, also is seen for it. The early Hindus called it Aja and Mesha, the Tamil Mesham; but the later followed the Greeks in Kriya.
An Arabian commentator on Ulug Beg called the constellation Al Kabah al ʻAlīf, the Tame Ram; but that people generally knew it as Al Ḥamal, the Sheep, — Hammel with Riccioli, Alchamalo with Schickard, and Alhamel with Chilmead.
As one of the zodiacal twelve of China it was the Dog, early known as Heang Low, or Kiang Leu; and later, under Jesuit influence, as Pih Yang, the White Sheep; while with Taurus and Gemini it constituted the White Tiger, the western one of the four great zodiac groups of China; also known as the Lake of Fullness, the Five Reservoirs of Heaven, and the House of the Five Emperors.
Chaucer and other English writers of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries Anglicized the title as Ariete, which also appeared in the Low Latin of the 17th century. It was about this time, when it was sought to reconstruct the constellations on Bible lines, that Aries was said to represent Abraham's Ram caught in the thicket; as also Saint Peter, the bishop of the early church, with Triangulum as his Mitre. Caesius considered it the Lamb sacrificed on Calvary for all sinful humanity.
Aries generally has been figured as reclining with reverted head admiring his own golden fleece, or looking with astonishment at the Bull rising backward; but in the Albumasar of 1489 he is standing erect, and some early artists showed him running towards the west, with what is probably designed for the zodiac-belt around his body. A coin of Domitian bears a representation of him as the Princeps juventutis, and appeared on those of Antiochus of Syria with head towards the Moon and Mars — an appropriate figuring; for, astrologically, Aries was the lunar house of that planet. In common with all the other signs, he is shown on the zodiacal rupees generally attributed to the great Mogul prince Jehangir Shah, but really struck by Nūr Mahal Mumtaza, his favorite wife, between 1616 and 1624, each figure being surrounded by sun-rays with an inscription on the reverse.
Its equinoctial position gave force to Aratos' description of its "rapid transits," but he is strangely inexact in his
faint and starless to behold
As stars by moonlight —
a blunder for which Hipparchos seems to have taken him to task. Aratos however, was a more successful versifier than astronomer.
Among astrologers Aries was a dreaded sign indicating passionate temper and bodily hurt, and thus it fitly formed the House of Mars, although some attributed guardianship over it to Pallas Minerva, daughter of Jove whom Aries represented. It was supposed to hold sway over the head and face; in fact the Egyptians called it Arnum, the Lord of the Head; while, geographically, it ruled Denmark, England, France, Germany, Lesser Poland and Switzerland, Syria, Capua, Naples and Verona, with white and red as its colors. In the time of Manilius it was naturally thought of as ruling the Hellespont and Propontis, Egypt and the Nile, Persia and Syria;a and, with Leo and Sagittarius, was the Fiery Trigon.
Ampelius said that it was in charge of the Roman Africus, the Southwest Wind, the Italians' Affrico, or Gherbino; but the Archer and Scorpion also shared this duty. Plinyb wrote that the appearance of a comet within its borders portended great wars and wide-spread mortality, abasement of the great and elevation of the small, with fearful drought in the regions over which the sign predominated; while 17th‑century almanacs attributed many troubles to men, and declared that "many shall die of the rope" when the suns in the sign; but they ascribed to its influence "an abundance of herbs."
Its symbol, ♈, probably represents the head and horns of the animal.
The eastern portion is inconspicuous, and astronomers have mapped others of its stars somewhat irregularly, carrying a horn into Pisces and a leg into Cetus.
Argelander assigns to it 50 naked-eye components; Heis, 80.
The sun now passes through it from the 16th of April to the 13th of May.
A nova is reported to have appeared here in May, 1012, described by Epidamnus,c the monk of Saint Gall, as oculos verberans.
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