"Writers have often told us, speaking only from the depths of their ignorance, how 'Chaldean' shepherds were wont to gaze at the brilliant nocturnal sky, and to _imagine_ that such and such stars resemble this or that figure. But all this is merely the old effort to make capital out of nescience, and the stars are before our eyes to prove the contrary. Having already certain fixed ideas and figures in his mind, the constellation-former, when he came to his task, applied his figures to the stars and the stars to his figures as harmoniously as possible."[386] "Thus _e.g._ he arranged the stars of _Andromeda_ into the representation of a chained lady, not because they naturally reminded him (or anybody else) of such a figure, but because he desired to express that idea." A coin of Manius Aquillus, B.C. 94, shows four stars in Aquila, and seems to be the oldest representation extant of a star group. On a coin of B.C. 43, Dr. Vencontre found five stars, one of which was much larger than the others, and concludes that it represents the Hyades (in Taurus). He attributes the coin to P. Clodius Turrinus, who probably used the constellation Taurus or Taurinus as a phonetic reference to his surname. A coin struck by L. Lucretius Trio in 74 B.C., shows the seven stars of the Plough, or as the ancients called them Septem Triones. Here we have an allusion to the name of the magistrate Trio.[387] In a work published in Berne in 1760, Schmidt contends that the ancient Egyptians gave to the constellations of the Zodiac the names of their divinities, and expressed them by the signs which were used in their hieroglyphics.[388] Hesiod mentions Orion, the Pleiades, Sirius, Aldebaran, and Arcturus; and Homer refers to Orion, Arcturus, the Pleiades, the Hyades, the Great Bear (under the name of Amaxa, the Chariot), and the tail of the Little Bear, or "Cynosura." Hipparchus called the constellations Asterisms (αστερισμος), Aristotle and Hyginus Σοματα (bodies), and Ptolemy Σχηματα (figures). By some they were called Μορφωσεις (configurations), and by others Μετεωρε. Proclus called those near the ecliptic Ζωδια (animals). Hence our modern name Zodiac. Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and Al-Sufi referred the positions of the stars to the ecliptic. They are now referred to the equator. Aboul Hassan in the thirteenth century (1282) was the first to use Right Ascensions and Declinations instead of Longitudes and Latitudes. The ancient writers described the stars by their positions in the ancient figures. Thus they spoke of "the star in the head of Hercules," "the bright star in the left foot of Orion" (Rigel); but Bayer in 1603 introduced the Greek letters to designate the brighter stars, and these are now universally used by astronomers. These letters being sometimes insufficient, Hevelius added numbers, but the numbers in _Flamsteed's Catalogue_ are now generally used.