Zodiac
The idea of the 12 Signs of the Zodiac is one that goes back thousands of years, and most people will be able to name several of the Zodiac signs, even if they have no interest in astrology.
The names used today, in the western world, for the 12 Signs of the Zodiac are taken from the Roman period some 2000 years ago. The Romans though were simply building on the work undertaken by Babylonian and Greek astronomers in the centuries before.
Behind each Latin name of a sign of the Zodiac is a story though, a story linked with a tale, or tales, from Greek mythology.
The precession of the equinoxes refers to the observable phenomena of the rotation of the heavens, a cycle which spans a period of (approximately) 25,920 years, over which time the constellations appear to slowly rotate around the earth, taking turns at rising behind the rising sun on the vernal equinox.
