Later, the phases of the stars have become so familiar to everyone that Sophocles can say, ‘a time of six months from spring to Arcturus’, i. e. the morning rising of Arcturus on Sept. 18[485]. Whether the Romans made use of time-indications from the stars before they borrowed them from the Greeks is uncertain; in any case they had their own names for some constellations:--_vesperugo_, _iubar_ = _lucifer_, the evening star, _septentriones_ or _iugulae_, the Great Bear, _vergiliae_, the Pleiades. _Suculae_, the Hyades, and _canicula_, the Dog-star, are translations of the corresponding Greek names[486]. At a later period the risings and settings of the stars, together with the climatic phenomena accompanying them or believed to accompany them, were brought into a calendar, which was then arranged according to the signs of the zodiac, or later according to the months of the Julian or Egyptian solar year. The Greek lunisolar year was unsuitable for the purpose, since it varied in reference to the sun and the stars. How both were adjusted to practical needs is shewn by the remains of two stone calendars found at Milet. On the stone are inscribed the risings and settings of the stars, arranged according to the signs of the zodiac: by the side of these are holes into which little tablets containing the days of the lunisolar calendar could be fitted, these tablets being arranged according to the relation of every lunisolar year to the solar one[487]. The Arabians also carefully observed the stars, and many of their proverbs couple the risings of the stars with natural events[488]. Since these constellations are the so-called lunar stations their use here is not primitive, but must have been added on to a primitive usage. The Pleiades were observed throughout their course, and about most of the positions which they take up mnemonic verses were made. Mohammed swears by the setting Pleiades in the 53rd chapter of the Koran.