Yeah, Phelice, you have too much time on your hands...LOL. It looks to me like ther is another word farther up on the left of the globe, too, by the equator. What I can't figure out is why it says "polus" somtheing, then "articus" (well, an abbreviation for articus). Shouldn't it be polus australus, as in South Pole, rather than polus articus? It's hard to say when you can't make the two other words out, since Latin is one of thopse languages where contect is everything. In Latin, polus can mean pole as in north pole, but also heaven/sky.
Polus was the name of the Titan son of Heaven and Earth in Roman mythology (can't remember their names, Earth was called Gaia in Greek). That is why he gave his name to the axis around which the earth spins, because he connects heaven and earth. However, as you may know, after the Titan war, Zeus sent all the Titans off into exile (into Tartarus?? Damn, I forget...), but during the war, it was really the Titans "vs. the World".
