The Eye of Zeus

"The wondrous thing is: how could Kepler have known of the red spot in Jupiter, then not yet discovered? It was discovered by J. D. Cassini in the 1660’s, after the time of Kepler and Galileo. Kepler’s assumption that Galileo had discovered a red spot in Jupiter amazes and defies every statistical chance of being a mere guess. But the possibility is not excluded that Kepler found the information in some Arab author or some other source, possibly of Babylonian or Chinese origin. Kepler did not disclose what the basis of his reference to the red spot of Jupiter was — he could not have arrived at it either by logic and deduction or by sheer guesswork. A scientific prediction must follow from a theory as a logical consequence. Kepler had no theory on that. It is asserted that the Chinese observed solar spots many centuries before Galileo did with his telescope. Observing solar spots, the ancients could have conceivably observed the Jovian red spot, too. Jesuit scholars traveled in the early 17th century to China to study Chinese achievements in astronomy." -- Immanuel Velikovsky, polymath, On Prediction in Science, ~1960-70

Jupiter's red spot: to the Egyptians it was "the eye of Horus."

Hesiod called Jupiter's famous red spot "the eye of Zeus."

"The eye of Zeus, seeing all and understanding all...." -- Hesiod, poet, Works and Days, 8th century B.C.

Hesiod deliberately says eye of Zeus (singular) not eyes of Zeus (plural).

The playwrights Aeschylus and Euripides refer to "the eye of Zeus" as well.

"... glancing down on thee the Father's [Zeus's] eye ...." -- Aeschylus, playwright, Prometheus Bound, 430 B.C.

"... on the eye of Zeus may fall the balm that shall assuage desire." -- Aeschylus, playwright, Prometheus Bound, 430 B.C.

And again.

"... Zeus, whose awful eye is over all." -- Euripides, playwright, Hippolytus, 428 B.C.

In addition, Hesiod describes the giant gaseous planets as stones wrapped tight in cloud bands, like a mummy.

"... to the mightily ruling son of Heaven, the earlier king of the gods [Saturn], she gave a great stone wrapped in swaddling clothes [cloud bands]." -- Hesiod, poet, Theogony, The Children of Cronus, 8th century B.C.

Lucian relates that Homer referenced the striped bands of Jupiter.

"In Homer and Hesiod particularly many things are found that have reference to the astrology of the remote periods. As, for example, what Homer says respecting the golden chain of Jupiter...." -- Lucian, author, Of Astrology, 2nd century

Hesiod and the ancients also observed the rings of Saturn.

"But the bright and glorious star Tishtrya [Ishtar] keeps that Pairika [Saturn] in bonds, with twofold bonds, with threefold bonds, that cannot be overcome...." -- Avesta

"To you, O Saturn, Zoilus dedicates these chains and these double fetters, his first rings." -- Marcus V. Martialis, poet, Epigram XXIX, 1st century

"... and yet the King of Gods, the first and eldest one, is in bonds [rings], they say, if we are to believe Hesiod and Homer and other wise men who tell this tale about Cronus [Saturn]...." -- Dio Crysostom, philosopher, Fourteenth Discourse, 21, 1st century

"... they say he [Saturn] stands bound in chains [rings]." -- Lucian, author, Of Astrology, 2nd century

"... Saturn is bound..." -- Porphyry, philosopher, On the Cave of Nymphs, 3rd century

"There is a singular agreement between what is mythologically asserted of Jupiter, the Demiurgus of the universe, by ancient theologists, and what modern observations, through the telescope, have found of the planet Jupiter.... The remarkable agreement I allude to, and which has I believe been hitherto unnoticed by all modern writers, is this, that Jupiter the Demiurgus is said by ancient theologists, to have put his father Saturn in chains, and also to have surrounded himself with bonds; and that the moderns have found the body of the planet Jupiter to be surrounded by several substances resembling belts or bands, and likewise that there is the faint resemblance of a belt about the planet Saturn." -- Thomas Taylor, classicist, On the Coincidence Between the Belts of the Planet Jupiter and the Fabulous Bonds of Jupiter the Demiurgus, The Classical Journal, Volume XX, Pages 324-326, Sep/Dec 1819

"It has, indeed, been suggested that the proper name Assir, represents the name of Osiris [Saturn]. ... the best interpretation of 'assir' is prisoner." -- A.S. Yahuda, polymath, The Osiris Cult and the Designation of Osiris Idols in the Bible, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume 3, Number 3, Pages 194-197, Jul 1944

"We must take note how philosophy, like myth, has proceeded as a sublimation of catastrophic memory. It is fairly certain, then, that the cloud bands and belts of Jupiter were well-known in the earliest times." -- Alfred De Grazia, philosopher, The Bonds of Saturn and Jupiter, 1977