ARIES

Zodiac

By C.J. BLAKE 

'The Ram, the Bull, the Heavenly Twins, And next the Crab, the Lion shines 
The Virgin, and the Scales; 
The Scorpion, Archer, and He-goat, 
The Man that bears the watering-pot,
And Fish with glittering tails.' 

What is Zodiac?

A schoolboy, inquiring what the Ram and the other objects mentioned in the verse were, and being told that they were the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, said very naturally, 'Yes, but what is the Zodiac?'

Well, to explain what is meant by the term Zodiacm we must go back a very long time- more than four thousand years, to the days when there lived in the West of Asia a wonderful people called the Chaldeans.

Something about these people you will remember to have read in your Bibles, and the more you learn about them, the more you will be surprised at the talents and the knowledge which they possessed so long ago. 

Their land consisted of flat, fertile plains, so that they were able to look up to a very wide, over-arching sky, spangled with the brilliant stars, which in the East shine more brightly than with us. 

The wise men amongst them were constantly watching the stars and other heavenly bodies. They noticed that the sun always took one regular way through the sky, describing in his course a great circle, to which they gave the name of the Ecliptic. On either side of this line these early astronomers marked out a wide space-nine degrees on each side-and the broad path or belt round the Heavens thus formed was afterwards called the Zodiac. 

This name comes from a Greek word 'zo-on'. meaning an animal, and you will see that nearly all the signs employed to mark the divisions of the heavenly circle are figures of living creatures.

Within this circle the sun, the moon and planets made their movements; the sun going entirely round it once in a year of three hundred and sixty or more days; and thus the Chaldeans arrived at a similar way of counting time to that which we use at present. They divided this great belt into twelve parts, according to the twelve months of the year, the sun being thirty days in passing through each part. 

To every division they gave a sign such as ram, the bull, and so on, and a constellation or of stars bearing the same name occupied each part. They invented curious characters to stand for these signs in their calculations; these signs are very often given in modern almanacs. 

Some writers say that the ram was chosen for the first sign, because it was a sacred animal, frequently used for sacrifice. Others think that the ram had the first place, because where there was a large flock of sheep, it was common for a ram to go before as the leader. So the ancients in their poetical manner likened the heavenly bodies to a great flock of sheep, following their leader. 

CJ BLAKE 

References:

CHATTERBOX, No II,1903