While the Zodiac, the narrow strip in the sky in which we observe and measure the movements of the Sun, Moon and the planets, was undoubtedly recognized in Babylon 4,000 or so years ago it was not apparently until about 520 B.C.E. that the twelve Signs were actually defined. This seems to have been done by Cleostratos of Tenedos, who divided the ecliptic into twelve equal parts and is said to have "recognized the Signs of the Zodiac." He reputedly described them in a now-lost poem, Astrologia.
Before there were Signs there were months. The earliest calendars were lunar, a month lasting either from first crescent to first crescent or from full moon to full moon. Twelve 30-day months and five extra days made up the year. And each month was believed to have a separate God as its ruler or guardian. Evidence of this concept can be traced to both ancient Babylon and Egypt.
The month Gods first appear in Egyptian art as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty, some 3,600 years ago. In Western Europe this was the Bronze Age, the period when Stonehenge was being built. Twelve Gods for twelve months, originally the month Gods seem to have been deities in whose honor a festival was held on the first day of each month.
The Egyptian month Gods at this time were, in sequence, Thy, goddess of the first month, Ptah, Hathor, Sekhmet, Min, Rkh-Wr, Rkh-Nds, Rnwtt, Khonsu, Khnt-Khnty, Ipt, and Re-Harakhty, God of the twelfth month. They included five Goddesses, five Gods, and two hippopotami (Rkh-Wr and Rkh-Nds). These Gods appear in the above order on an alabaster waterclock from the reign of Amenhotep III (1397-1360 B.C.E.). Except that the hippopotami are replaced by jackals, they are in the same order on ceilings in the temples of Ramses I (1290-1223 B.C.) and Ramses II (1174-1147 B.C.E.). On these two ceilings, in the center of the band, a dog-headed ape squats on a pillar, the symbol of Thoth, God of the five intercalary days.
The Egyptian month Gods were still considered sacred nine hundred years later in the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.). There are extant representations of Alexander and later Macedonian rulers of Egypt making offerings to these month Gods. Representations of these same native month Gods continued to be used in Roman times. On two water clocks depicting the appropriate month Gods the Latin name of the months are incised on the rims.
The twelve Egyptian Gods began as month Gods. Later, some time before the third century B.C., they also became protectors of the Zodiac Signs. At that time Appollonius Rhodius, a Greek poet who was chief librarian at Alexandria, wrote "the Egyptians call the twelve Zodiac Signs' counselor Gods by name, and the planets attendants." It was the Twelve Gods then who ruled the Signs of the Zodiac, not the planets. Herodotus, the man Cicero called "the father of history" in the second book of his Histories, also refers several times to an Egyptian set of Twelve Gods. He wrote "each month and each day belongs to one of the Gods."
The Babylonians also believed there were twelve major Gods, each of whom watched over a month and one of the twelve Zodiac Signs. This we learn from the Biblioteca Historica written by Diodorus Siculus, a first century B.C. Greek historian.
The Greeks were familiar with the concept of twelve leading Gods. They had their own twelve Olympians. In Athens, the Olympians were the patrons of the city state, concerned with the maintenance and prosperity of the civic order, especially justice, and also bestowing upon Athens primacy among Greek cities.

   The individual Egyptian month gods were not the exact equivalent of the twelve Olympians whom the Romans later also recognized as month gods, only Ptah presides over the same month as his Greco-Roman equivalent Hephaistos/Vulcan. The twelve Egyptian month gods are not regarded as the source for the Greek Twelve (they were worshipped and invoked individually while the Greeks invoked them as a group; the Greek twelve were wholly anthropomorphic, the Egyptian included the two hippos, later jackals), but knowledge of this similar set of deities may have led to the later association of the twelve gods of Greece and Rome with the months.

@ vadzhij

Please reference the original when using other people's work. http://cura.free.fr/decem/10kengil.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/30/iliad-war-charlotte-higgins

Today's Independent (UK) has an article on the Illiad and war.

I feel it's a bit on the gushy side, but, long though it is, some of you might enjoy it.

Antinous wrote on 01/31/10 at 00:23:56:

War what is it good for? Absolutely nothing...except the accidental good that we achieve in the face of it.

I think Homers attitude to war is very modern, it happens, it's an evil, it brings glory, it should be avoided at all costs.

The war mongering tyrant is a madman, the reluctant warrior is the hero, the honourable enemy is Hector.

All of our modern ideas are there.

Are we off topic?

I agree that the overall tone of the Iliad is in fact very negative towards war and the negative attitudes that are brought up due to war. This is very unique considering that it was composed between 900 to 800BCE and possibly represents a strand of thought that survived through the Dark Ages. This means the base material could be as old as 1400BCE or even older.

This is especially unique considering the literatures composed in that period around the Near East and the Middle East. Most literatures we know that came from that period were glorifying war. In fact all the way to the Far East  and India literatures composed before the Axial period tended to be positive about conflict.

Iliad is unique in that it depicts war as a loss and a tragedy. No doubt it praises the positive characters brought forth by war such as nobility, honor, relunctance in fact to fight and preference to sue for peace, loyalty to country and to friends and family, but overall the message is that it is still something mournful and should really be avoided.

Off-Topic replies have been moved to this Topic.

Aias wrote on 02/11/10 at 19:01:16:


Whoops, I got a bit ahead of my own argument about this particular constellation of divinities.  "Peitho" refers not to compassion or pity, but to compliance, obedience, proper and due deference or submission.

Compassion, I'm afraid, I projected into the discussion because, having neglected my Ancient Greek for ages, I had a senior moment and confused it with "pity" rather than linking it to such interesting usages as the medio-passive, "peithomai," a very appropriate verb for my reflective intention to comply with the directives of custom and justice.

In that sense, it's better linked with that particular group, consisting of Themis, Nike, Dike, and Peitho.  Peitho is a bulwark of judgment itself, not an ethic recommending compassion, mercy or pity.

Curiously, unlike the more familiar Christian, Jewish, and Islamic, Hellenic thought tends to be resigned to the intrinsic cruelty of so much existence and action.  The souls of the dead in the general treatment, the good with the evil, both wander as mindless, powerless, memory-less phantoms in the Underworld.  Hellenic "justice" was never notably devoted to mercy, nor were the gods in their treatment of men, beasts or each other.

"Like flies to idle boys, so are we to the Gods/
"They slay us for their sport."

--Shakespeare from "Lear."

Timothy wrote on 02/18/10 at 19:47:39:

Pindar flatly denies it and as far as I'm aware he is the only ancient poet to really go into the subject of morality, judgement and the afterlife.

The Good go to Elysium, the Evil go to Tartarus and the indifferent masses end up in Asphodel.