Latin writers mentioned it under its present name, to which Germanicus added Bos from the country people, although it also was Princeps armenti, the Leader of the herd, and Bubulcus, the peasant Driver of the Oxen, a title more usual and more correct, however, for Boötes La Lande quoting it as Bubulum Caput. In Syria it was Taurā in Persia, Tora, Ghav, or Gāu in Turkey, Ughuz and in Judaea, Shōr, although also known there as Rᵋ᾽ēm, a word that zoölogically appears in the Authorized Version of our Bible as the "unicorn," but better in the Revised as the "wild ox." It bore synonymous titles in various languages: in Arabia, Al Thaur, which degenerated to El Taur, Altor, Ataur, Altauro, by Schickard Tur, by Riccioli and even now Taur, in our Standard Dictionary. The sign Taurus may have been the Cretan Bull and a transit through that sign may have been the celestial Βόσπορος of the Argonautic voyage. Writing of the Pleiades as cauda tauri, so implying a complete animal.Īratos qualified his Ταῦρος by πεπτηώς, "crouching" Cicero, by inflexoque genu, "on bended knee" Manilius, by nixus, "striving" and further, in Creech's translation: Ancient drawings generally showed the figure as we do, although some gave the entire shape, Pliny and Vitruvius
This incomplete figuring of Taurus induced the frequent designation, in early catalogues, Sectio Tauri, which the Arabians adopted, dividing the figure at the star ο, but retaining the hind quarters as a sub-constellation, Al Ḥaṭṭ, recognized by Ulug Beg, and, in its translation, as Sectio, by Tycho, the line being marked by ο, ξ, s, and f. This association with Europa led to the constellation titles Portitor, or Proditor, Europae Agenoreus, used by Ovid, referring to her father and Tyrius, by Martial, to her country. Which the mythologists accounted for by saying that, as Taurus personified the animal that swam away with Europa, his flanks were immersed in the waves.