That is the pattern the planets trace in the sky and for thousands of years people thought that was literally their path.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_retrograde_motion

In the ptolemeic system, the planets were thought to move with epicycles, or "wheels within wheels". This is why astrolabes had gears attached to gears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle

Then copernicus came along and blew that all away with his heliocentric model, which was then given mathematical foundation by Johannes Kepler and his laws of planetary motion.