things perished, others that a few survived. . . . For instance,
Epietetus favors the opinion that at the solstices of the great year
not only all human beings, but even the gods, are annihilated; and
speculates whether at such times Jove feels lonely.[1] Macrobius, so
far from agreeing with him, explains the great antiquity of Egyptian
civilization by the hypothesis that that country is so happily
situated between the pole and the equator, as to escape both the
deluge and conflagration of the great cycle."[2]

In the Babylonian Genesis tablets we have the same references to the
man or people who, after the great disaster, divided the heavens into
constellations, and regulated, that is, discovered and revealed,
their movements. In the Fifth Tablet of the Creation Legend[3] we
read:

"1. It was delightful all that was fixed by the great gods.

2. Stars, their appearance (in figures) of animals he arranged.

3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,

4. Twelve months or signs of stars in three rows he arranged,

5. From the day when the year commences unto the close.

6. He marked the positions of the wandering stars to shine in their
courses,

7. That they may not do injury, and may not trouble any one."