iad and Odyssey the use of the seven stars of Ursa Major in
Greek navigation is clearly shown. The constellation is entitled the
Bear=arctos, described, according to different translators, as 'circling
on high,' 'wheeling round,' or 'revolving around the axle of the
sky.'(121) Homer used, equally with Arctos, the name Amaxa=the wain or
wagon, to designate the seven stars. Aratos called the constellation the
'Wain-like Bear;' and, alluding to the title Amaxa, asserted that the word
was from ama=together, the Amaxai thus circling together around the pole;
but no philologist accepts this and it might as well have come from
axion=axle, referring to the axis of the heavens. In fact Hewitt goes far
back of Aratos in his statement that the Sanscrit god Akshivan, the Driver
of the Axle (aksha), was adopted in Greece as Ixion, whose well-known
wheel was merely the circling course of this constellation. Anacreon
mentioned it as a Chariot as well as a Bear; and Hesychius had it Aganna,
an archaic word from agein, 'to carry,' singularly like, in orthography at
least, the Akkadian title for the Wain stars, Aganna or Akanna, the Lord
of Heaven; and Aben Ezra called it Ajala, the Hebrew word for 'waggon.'
The name Helice from {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}, the Curved, or Spiral One, apparently first
used by Aratos and Apollonius Rhodius, became common as descriptive of its
twisting around the pole, ... Sophocles having the same thought in his
mention of 'the circling paths of the Bear.' Some, however, derived the
name from the curved or twisted positions of the chief stars.... Helice
was also the name of a city in Arcadia, the country so intimately
connected with the Bears, whose inhabitants were called the Bear race."

As far back as Hesiod's time the constellation was associated in myth,
with the name Kallisto, "the beautiful," which "La Lande referred to the
Phoenician Kalitsah or Chalitsa, Safety, as its observation helped to a
safe voyage. Another version of the Grecian myth associated the
constellation with Artemis, the Roman Diana [_i. e._ the huntress, _cf._
Ishtar and Isis-Satit]." The apparent connection of the name Artemis with
Themis="law and justice personified," should be noted here.

The preceding statements establish that, in ancient Greece, Polaris was
identified with the celestial Polos and was described as a star, not
changing its place