Eighth constellation of the Zodiaco, the Balance represents the only not
connected to a living being. Anciently the Greeks did not see an independent
constellation to us, but an extension of the Scorpion, just its pliers, in
facts is that its more luminous stars alpha and beta librae are calls
Zubenelgenubi (than in Arab wants to say "plier to south") and Zubeneschamali
("plier to north"). The constellation of the Balance born with the Roman in
the period of Giulio Cesar: the motivations of its introduction are still dark.
The Roman loved this constellation in how much thought that Rome had been
founded when the Moon was in Balance. It was moreover easy for the Roman to
approach it to the Vergine neighbor, that is Diche or Astrea, the goddess of
the Justice: we know in fact that the goddess comes normally represented with
the balance in hand. Some students think that the name is from attributing to
the equilibrium ages them that the zodiacale sign represents, since when the
Sun is in the Balance, that is in the solstice of autumn, the duration of the
day and the night they are equivalent. The historian Gwyneth Heuter, instead,
finds that already the Sumeri 2,000 years before called it ZIB.BA AN.NA, that
is the balance of the sky, and for this reason it thinks that the Roman has not
introduced it ex-novo, but they have only inherited the name.