CHRONOLOGY. 6

Icareus and his daughter Erigone in bootes, plaustrum, andGaHEKs.virgo, ursa minor relates to one of the nurfes of Jupiter ;auriga to Erechthonius; Ophiuchus to Phorbas; sagittariusto Crolus the fon of the nurfeof the Mufes; capricorn to Pan,and aquarius toGanimede. There is Ariadne’s crown; Belle-rophon^ horse; Neptune’s dolphin; Ganimede’s eagle; Ju-piters goat with her kids; Bacchus’s asses ; and the fishes ofVenus and Cupid, and their parent the south pish. Thefewith deltoton are the old conftellations mentioned by Aratus :and they all relate to the Argonauts and their contemporari.es, andto perfons one or two generations older: and nothing later thanthat expedition was delineated there originally. antinous andcoma Berenices are no vel. The fphere feems there fore to have

been formed by Chiron and Mufaeus, for the ufe of the Argo-nauts: for the fhip Argo was the firtt long fhip built by theGreeks. Hitherto they had ufed round veffels of burden, andkept within fight of the lhore ; and now, upon an embaffy tofeveral princes upon the coalis of the Euxine and MediterraneanSeas, 3 by the didiates of the Oracle, and confent of the princes ] a ^ p ° 1I g ior ’of Greece, the flower of Greece were to fail with expedition feft. 16.through the deep, in a long fhip with fails, and guide their fhipby the ftars ( 5 ). The people of the ili and Corcyra b attributedthe invention of the fphere to Naulicaa, the daughter of Alci-nous, king of the Pheaces in that ifland ( 6 ) : and it is moft pro-

( 4 ) This was not the antient name of the conftellation. In the time of Aratus, the Greekshad no name for it, but one taken from the pofture, in which the figure was drawn, » s» yetxrt,and profeffed to be ignorant who or what was meant by it. See Aratus, lin. 613—616.

( 5 ) See Diod. Sic. lib. 4. c. 41. p. 171. That the Argo carried malis and fails, fee Orph.

Argonaut. lin. 274, and Apoll. Rhod. lib. 1. lin. 363—566.

( 6 j AvwyaMt;, 5 K ipKizxix r,rtf tu» Tu? aipxtga; evpextt Nxvcrtxaa Tv A?.xi;r,y Svyxlft a x'

«nGut ni. Thus the Lexico.grapher ; who probably thought as little, as the Corcyratan Gramma»rianefs, of decorating the princefs Nauficaa with the fame of aftronomical inventions. What•fphere Nauficaa invented, and to what purpofe it was applied, Athenaeus telis us more ditlinctly.

^ kicri raxp Oprigk f ytev T»x fu£fc’x' at $e &ta rvte xpxtgaq* us TU» EUgenv AyaXX K, u Ksg-Kvpata yqxjAfxuliKw, Navcruxa dvaTiSutn, uq woXtrtSt (Aixaia^©* h 'Ztxvwvtotc, lerrraa-oq h Ax-

HE^xtptovtotc, Ttxulnv re xai ra yvuvxtrta eepulotq.) Txvrr/j A p/ovuv ruJv u^akS&j» Ofj.r, r r ^ rrxpxyet ff$aigi£tfTa».

Athen. lib. i. c. 11, p. 14. That is, “ The Dances, that are.mentioned by Homer, are fome“ thofe of tumblers ; others, with a ball; the invention of which kind of dance, Agallis, the

Corcyratan grammarianefs, afcribes to Nauficaa, in compliment to her country-woman. (But“ Dicaearchus gives this invention to the Sicyonians; Hippafus to the Lacedaemonians, the firlt“ in this, as well as in manly exercifes.) Naulicaa is the only heroine that Homer introduces ,

“ dancing the ball-dance,” It appears from Athenaeus that thefe dances, in which the ball wasufed, were particularly graceful and elegant, and prattifed by perfons of thebeft condition.

Voi,. V, K bable