United States or Azerbaijan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Sothiac period, or that cycle in which the heliacal rising of Sirius passed the whole civil year, and took place again on the same day, was of 1461 years, not 14,601. If they had adopted a year of 365 d. 6 h., this period would have been more than three times 14,601; the excess of the sidereal year above that being only 9' 9", which will not amount to a day in less than about 125 years.
And with each succeeding period of four years the day of heliacal rising, which marked the true beginning of the year and which still, of course, coincided with the inundation would have fallen another day behind the calendar.
In other words, 1461 vague years or Egyptian calendar years Of 365 days each correspond to 1460 actual solar years of 365 1/4 days each. This period, measured thus by the heliacal rising of Sothis, is spoken of as the Sothic cycle.
Now Ilioneus, whom Virgil twice employs in embassies as the best speaker of the Trojans, attributes that tempest to Orion in his speech to Dido: "Cum subito assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion." He must mean either the heliacal or achronical rising of that sign. The heliacal rising of a constellation is when it comes from under the rays of the sun, and begins to appear before daylight.
The periodic time of Uranus, the nature of Saturn's ring, and the occultation of Jupiter's satellites are as far removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius, or the northern position of the Great Bear."
The soothsayer, who followed, carrying a clock and a palm-branch, the emblem of the year, could repeat the four astrological books; one on the moon's phases, one on the fixed stars, and two on their heliacal risings.
Of course the precession of the equinoxes, due to that axial wobble in which our clumsy earth indulges, would change the apparent position of the fixed stars in reference to the sun, so that the same star could not do service as heliacal messenger indefinitely; but, on the other hand, these changes are so slow that observations by many generations of astronomers would be required to detect the shifting.
They were culturally incapable of making a formal calendar and could have no possible use for one. Either the calendar did not originate in Egypt, or it was introduced in 2780 B.C., when again the heliacal rising Sothis fell on the first of Thoth. At this time the Osiris story was dominant, in the religion.
The achronical rising, on the contrary, is when it appears at the close of day, and in opposition of the sun's diurnal course. The heliacal rising of Orion is at present computed to be about the 6th of July; and about that time it is that he either causes or presages tempests on the seas.
Segrais has observed farther, that when Anna counsels Dido to stay AEneas during the winter, she speaks also of Orion: "Dum pelago desaevit hiems, et aquosus Orion." If therefore Ilioneus, according to our supposition, understand the heliacal rising of Orion, Anna must mean the achronical, which the different epithets given to that constellation seem to manifest.
Word Of The Day