Crossword-Solution: HELIACAL 8 letters, 5 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 13

The more precise fixing of new year's day was accomplished through observation of the time of the so-called heliacal rising of the dog-star, Sirius, which bore the Egyptian name Sothis.

Yet, according to the calculations of Biot, the heliacal rising of Sothis at the solstice was noted as early as the year 3285 B.C., and it is certain that this star continued throughout subsequent centuries to keep this position of peculiar prestige.

Obviously with a calendar of 365 days only, at the end of four years, the calendar year, or vague year, as the Egyptians came to call it, had gained by one full day upon the actual solar year--that is to say, the heliacal rising of Sothis, the dog-star, would not occur on new year's day of the faulty calendar, but a day later.

And with each succeeding period of four years the day of heliacal rising, which marked the true beginning of the year--and which still, of course, coincided with the inundation--would have fallen another day behind the calendar.

Now Ilioneus, whom Virgil twice employs in embassies as the best speaker of the Trojans, attributes that tempest to Orion in his speech to Dido:— “Cum subito assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion.” He must mean either the heliacal or achronical rising of that sign.