Flaccus speaks of their danger to ships, and Horace pictures the south wind lashing the deep into storm in the presence of these famous stars. The Romans generally referred to the Pleiades as " Vergiliæ" or "Virgins of Spring."
This star cluster was also of great service to the husband-man in marking the progress of the year. Hesiod thus alludes to the Pleiades:
And forty nights concealed from human eye,
But in the course of the revolving year,
When the swain sharps the scythe, again appear.
He also refers to the rising of the Pleiades as the time for the harvest, while the period at which they disappeared for some time, he termed ploughing time.
The heliacal rising of this star group, that is its rising with the sun, heralded the summer season, while its acronical rising, when it rose as the sun set, marked the beginning of winter, and led to the association of the group with the rainy season, and with floods, so often mentioned by the poets. Aratos thus expressed its acronical rising:
Forerunners of the Winter's gloomy night.
Valerius Flaccus used the word "Pliada" for showers, and Josephus tells us that during the siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes, in 170 b.c., the besieged wanted for wateir until relieved by a large shower of rain which fell at the setting of the Pleiades.
Pope in his "Spring" thus alludes to the showery nature of the Pleiades:
And from the Pleiades fruitful showers descend.
Among the Dyaks of Borneo, the Pleiades regulated the seasons by their periodic return and disappearance, and guided them in their agricultural pursuits.
