Abstract
In this paper I examine the early formation and use of constellations in ancient Greece, firstly in broad terms as an exercise in mapping the sky for a variety of reasons—navigation, agricultural activities, religious timing—and then in more detail by analysing a part of the content of an early data set of star-risings and star-settings (a parapegma) attributed to Euktemon in the late fifth century BCE. I conclude that awareness of the movement of stars and constellations permeated ancient Greek everyday life and activities—the ability to make use of astronomical knowledge was not restricted to specific classes or groups in society. The elements of the night-sky were a kind of time device that could influence all activities, from those on which the subsistence of the community relied (e.g. agriculture and navigation), to those which guaranteed economic and civic stability, as well as the maintenance of the cosmic order through the performance of religious festivals at the correct time.
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Notes
- 1.
Note, however, the caveat expressed by Rochberg (1998): 1–3 regarding the dissimilarities between Babylonian and Greco-Egyptian ‘horoscopes’, with the former deserving to be classified more as ‘astronomical’ than ‘astrological’ in light of the absence of prognostications.
- 2.
The brief and remarkably uninformative discussion of the navigational technique implied by Homer in as authoritative a text as McGrail (2001): 101 is unfortunately typical of literature on this passage.
- 3.
Contrast Sider and Brunschön (2007): 9 n. 26–27, 37 n. 94–95, who seem to regard the parapegmata as inherently impractical on the basis of their perception that Theophrastos’s treatise On Weather Signs is also impractical. Their comparison confuses different genres.
- 4.
The text used is that published by Aujac (1975). The fact that Geminos organises the parapegmata according to the zodiacal months indicates that Euktemon’s original parapegma, composed before the institution of zodiacal months around 300 BCE, has been forced to some extent into a foreign framework. Such a manoeuvre may mean some accuracy has been sacrificed in the transmission, but we have no way of knowing.
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Hannah, R. (2021). The Stars in Ancient Greece. In: Boutsikas, E., McCluskey, S.C., Steele, J. (eds) Advancing Cultural Astronomy. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_10
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