As Virgil's Georgics have been brought up, just thought I'd add that in Book I, Virgil writes:
"candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum Taurus" (The golden-bright Bull opens the year with his horns, or perhaps, The golden-bright Bull with horns opens the year (since Taurus rises back first).

As Waybread points out,

there would seem to be some disconnect here between the sidereal and tropical zodiac.

, but perhaps also evidence of a persistent tradition dating from a time when the VP was in early Taurus.

A article on the BBC today made me think how unwise it can be to assume that a body of wisdom must have started only from when written evidence can be found (e.g. astrology, with reguler 30? sectors, only from when the VP was at 8 or at most 15 Aries), whereas it's quite possible that the first written evidence reflects a long oral tradition predating it:
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35358487

Graham

Hi Graham-- We can turn to a lot of non-astrological Hellenistic star-lore to get a sense of the ancient significance of the Pleiades and other stars.

Their primary concern with phenology as a natural calendar with which to time agricultural, maritime, and festival events existed prior to the invention of paper calendars, almanacs, or widespread literacy.

Of course, solstice and equinox points were important, but these might not coincide with the best times to plow or end the Mediterranean shipping season (due to autumn storms.) Knowing when to do particular kinds of plowing, planting, and harvesting; or when to get one's cargo off the water, were really crucial to survival.

It seems entirely reasonable that this star lore pre-dated written records. Cf. Hesiod, Works and Days from ca 700 BC:

"When the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, are rising [spring] begin your harvest [of winter barley], and your ploughing when they are going to set [autumn]. Forty nights and days they are hidden and appear again as the year moves round, when first you sharpen your sickle. This is the law of the plains, and of those who live near the sea...."

I just came across a cool book on the interfaces between the divine order, gods, agriculture, and the heavens: Stephanie Nelson, God and the Land: The Metaphysics of Farming in Hesiod and Vergil. The author stresses that farming was not separate from beliefs in the gods and their myths.

I think it is widely accepted among classical studies scholars that the early authors like Hesiod and Homer essentially established the writing and religious practices of Greek tradition, and that they drew on earlier oral lore.

Waybread wrote

solstice and equinox points were important, but these might not coincide with the best times to plow

So yes, Virgil's reference to Taurus starting the year might not be a "mistake" or a a throwback to 3 or 4000 BC, but a reference to an agricultural year starting in what we now call late April.

The same passage seems to refer to the heliacal setting of Sirius:

Sow beans in Spring: then the crumbling furrows receive you,
clover, and millet, you come to our annual attention,
when snow-white Taurus with golden horns opens
the year, and Sirius sets, overcome by opposing stars.

It looks like the heliacal setting of Sirius was around 24th April around the Mediterranean in about 800BC, and would have corresponded to when the sun was at 0? of what we now call tropical Taurus (1 month after equinox) in about 500BC:
http://classicalastrologer.me/heliaclal ... c-2000-ad/

Graham