But during all the ages the winter solstice moved on steadily through almost a quarter of the great circle of the ecliptic,[13] and in the second century B.C., the _spring equinox_ was not far from the same point of the star-marked ecliptic where the _winter solstice_ had been when first the calendar-makers had “fixed” the constellations “for the twelve months from the day when the year issues forth to the close,” and we who now read the almanacs drawn up at that late period of Babylonian history are not (as has been said above) surprised to find the year “_beginning with Nisan, hence in the spring_.” (See Plate I., fig. 2.) [13] This moving of the equinoctial point through a _quarter_ of the great circle may perhaps explain the tradition to which Syncellus twice alludes, once when he states that Eusebius was aware of the Greek opinion that many ages, or rather myriads of years had passed since the creation of the world, _during the mythical retrograde movement of the Zodiac, from the beginning of Aries, and its return again to the same point_ (_Chronographia_, p. 17.) And again at p. 52, he refers to “the return of the Zodiac to its original position, according to the stories of the Greeks and Egyptians, that is to say, the revolution from one point back again to the same point, which is the first minute of the first division of the equinoctial sign of the Zodiac, which is called κριος (Aries) by them, as has been stated in the _Genica_ of Hermes and in the Cyrannid books.” He goes on to say that this is the ground of the chronological division of Claudius Ptolemy. Jean Silvain Bailly, speaking of the Indian Zodiac, the beginning of which is placed by the Brahmins at the first point of Aries, suggests that a similar tradition may have prevailed amongst the Indians and other ancient nations to account for the pre-eminence so generally accorded to Aries. He says: