Kitap 2
21
Then one of them, who had devoted himself to ancient literature and antiquities, replied: "The common run of grammarians think that the word septentriones is derived solely from the number of stars. For they declare that triones of itself has no meaning, but is a mere addition to the word; just as in our word quinquatrus, so called because five is the number of days after the Ides, The quinquatrtus, or festival of Minerva, was so called because it came on the fifth day after the Ides (fifteenth) of March. atrus means nothing. But for my part, I agree with Lucius Aelius Fr. 42, Fun. and Marcus Varro, De Ling. Lat. vii. 4. 74. who wrote that oxen were called triones, a rustic term it is true, as if they were terriones, A word made up from terra, earth ; the derivation is a fanciful one. Triones is connected with tero, rub, tread, etc. that is to say, adapted to nominibus regionibusque docere nos ipse vellet, ploughing and cultivating the earth. Therefore this constellation, which the early Greeks called a(/maca merely from its form and position, because it seemed to resemble a wagon, the early men also of our country called septentriones, from oxen yoked together, that is, seven stars by which yoked oxen (triones) seem to be represented. After giving this opinion, Varro further added," said he, that he suspected that these seven stars were called triones rather for the reason that they are so situated that every group of three neighbouring stars forms a triangle, that is to say, a three-sided figure.
