Astrological feats by the Greeks

Many reports of early astronomical/astrological feats by the Greeks must be regarded with suspicion. It has often been suggested, for instance, that Thales predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 585BC, thus ending a battle between the Lydians and Medes, who stopped fighting in sheer surprise. This seems unlikely. The knowledge simply did not exist by which it could have been done, although it is possible Thales might simply have made a spectacularly successful guess. There is a little more substance, perhaps, in Pliny’s report that Cleostratus of Tenedos observed the zodiacal constellations as they appeared behind Mount Ida towards the end of the 6th century. But it is only on looking at the calendars devised by Eudoxos of Cnidus (c 408-355 BC), a Greek scientist and astronomer, that we definitely find use being made of the Greek zodiac (it was he who, in the Phainomena, divided the ecliptic into twelve equal signs).

Adopted the zodiac

The Greeks seem to have adopted the zodiac as early as the 6th century BC; it may have been Democritus, round about 420, who popularized it and the idea that the planets influenced man as they travelled through the signs. It is said that he spent much time in Egypt and the east; certainly he visited Persia, and he may have been more decided in advancing his view that the planets governed men’s lives than any Greek before him. He agreed with Zeno that nothing could happen in the world by chance. It has been claimed that he gave the zodiac signs their Greek names, although other historians have suggested that Anaxagoras, born in lonia about 500 BC, may have had a hand in that — he was an adventurous astronomer, the first to explain that the Moon shone because of the reflected light of the Sun. He was thrown out of Athens, where he lived for thirty years, for attempting to rationalize astronomy, and teaching rationalist theories about ‘the things on high’. The Greeks, who sacrificed to the Sun and Moon, were outraged at his suggestion that they were paying court to a ‘fiery star’ and a lump of earth.

Astronomical theory

The Greeks pioneered enormous developments in astronomical theory. Aristotle disproved Anaximander’s theory that the Earth floats freely and without support; Pythagoras was probably the first man to ‘know’ (if without proof) that the world was one of the planets, and round. This theory, first put forward it seems by Philolaus of Thebes at the end of the 5th century BC, was based on intuition rather than on reason, but the guess was an important one. It was clear by this time, too — at least to some astronomers — that the Sun was much larger than the Earth, and therefore probably the latter was not the centre of the universe. And by 230 BC, Aristarchus of Samos, centuries before Copernicus, argued that the Earth and all the planets revolved in circles round the Sun, the Earth turning on its axis once in twenty-four hours. But the time was against him, and only his colleague Seleucus accepted his theory, which otherwise sank like a stone — although Copernicus was heartened, pursuing it in his own age, to find evidence of an ancient conviction of the hypothesis.

Ignore Philostratus’

If we can safely ignore Philostratus’ claim (made in the 3rd century AD) that astrology was known and practised in Greece as early as 1184 BC, it is certainly the case that Hesiod, a poet who lived in the 8th century BC, paid attention to the positions of the planets and stars in his Works and Days. In this long poem he suggested among other things that they should be used to predict good times at which to start certain tasks.

The Greek expertise

There is also, of course, the Greek expertise at astronomy and mathematics, and ingenuity in constructing machines to match that expertise: Ptolemy describes the construction of an astrolabe, an instrument for measuring the positions of the stars; and a little machine with geared wheels, discovered in the sunken wreck of a vessel of the 1st century BC, seems to have been devised to work out the motions of the planets. If some Greek ideas about the constitution of the solar system were distinctly eccentric (Ptolemy’s not least so) their grasp of mechanics and mathematics was brilliant — much more so than many historians of the 18th century believed.

Astrology’s success :

One of the reasons for astrology’s success in the Greek world may well have been the atmosphere during the period after Alexander’s death, when the ancient ideal of the Greek republic was being replaced by the concept of universal monarchy. Religion was in a sense internationalized, and the worship of the planets and stars as deities became stronger as the cities lost their individual powers and personalities. The planets spread their influences indiscriminately, and such philosophers as Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, believing that nothing was determined by chance (indeed, that there was no such thing as chance) emphasized in the 4th century BC the idea that earthly happenings were rigidly determined by natural laws. What then was more obvious than that the planets, coolly moving in their predetermined courses, were the governors of events?

the Chaldeans had arrived :

It seems almost certain that the reason is that by then the Chaldeans had arrived with their barbaric names for the planets — Nebo, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk and Ninib. The Greeks simply substituted their own deities’ names for the foreign ones — so today we call the planets by names that are English renderings of Latin translations of Greek translations of the original Babylonian ones!

the Chaldeans had arrived :

It seems almost certain that the reason is that by then the Chaldeans had arrived with their barbaric names for the planets — Nebo, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk and Ninib. The Greeks simply substituted their own deities’ names for the foreign ones — so today we call the planets by names that are English renderings of Latin translations of Greek translations of the original Babylonian ones!

Evidence of Astrology

If any evidence was needed of the fact that much astronomical and astrological lore came directly from Babylonia to Greece, we have only to look at the names of the planets. When the Greeks first recognised these, they called them Herald of the Dawn (Venus, noted even by Homer for its brightness, although sometimes it was called Vespertine, as the star of the evening), the Twinkling Star (Mercury), the Fiery Star (Mars), the Luminous Star (Jupiter), and the Brilliant Star (Saturn). But after the 4th century, these names begin to disappear, and others take their place — Aphrodite, Hermes, Ares, Zeus and Cronos.

Historian Gilbert Murray

But they were in a tiny minority. In general, as the historian Gilbert Murray was to put it, ‘astrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon some remote island people’. Through such outposts as Daphnae, a Greek settlement in Egypt between 610 and 560 BC, and especially through the ports of Egypt opened to Greek ships after 640 BC, travelling Chaldean astrologers descended on Greece in considerable numbers, bringing with them the apparently age-old wisdom they had hoarded, which was received warmly by Greeks already better practised in mathematics and astronomy than they.

Alexander made use of astrology :

It has always been understood that Alexander made use of astrology throughout his campaigns, though whether because he believed in it, or knew that others believed, and took advantage of the fact, is far from clear. It seems unlikely that he almost alone among educated people of his time placed the influence of the planets at naught — although one or two philosophers did so: Eudoxus (c 408-355 BC), for instance, the inventor of the geometrical theory of proportion, who demanded that ‘no credence should be given to the Chaldeans, who predict and mark out the life of every man according to the day of his nativity’. And the Greek Academy under Carneades and Clitomachus, in the 1st century BC, was to set itself firmly against divination, magic and astrology.

Alexander’s tutor:

Nectanebus is said to have become Alexander’s tutor, using as text-book The Secret of Secrets, a book by Aristotle, later lost. This, among other things, circulated a knowledge of and respect for astrology. It did Nectanebus no good, however, for when the child was 12 years old he tipped the astrologer over a cliff to prove that he could not foretell the time of his own death. But at least it apparently provide tips for the future world general — such as that he should never take a laxative except when the Moon was in Scorpio, Libra or Pisces, and that severe constipation would result were he to be unwise enough to take one while the Moon was in Capricorn.

Volume III :Through the Doors of Greece

When her term came, Nectanebus came to her room and set up at her bedside a tablet made of gold, silver and acacia wood, which stood on a tripod and consisted of three belts — one with Zeus on it, surrounded by the thirty-six decans; then one bearing the twelve signs of the zodiac; and on the innermost the Sun and Moon. To these he fitted eight precious stones showing the positions of the planets. He begged her not to give birth until these were propitious — and when they were, with a flash of lightning and a thump of thunder, Alexander was born. We are not told of King Philip’s reaction on returning to discover the fait accompli; and indeed other accounts suggest that he and the queen merely employed an astrologer to tell the new-born child’s fortune. But of Alexander’s later successes, history tells us at length.

Alexander the Great was born, history tells us, the son of King Philip II of Macedon. Legend has it, however, that the boy’s real father was a King of Egypt, Nectanebus, among whose accomplishments was the art of summoning immense armies out of thin air. In 356 BC, the planets informed him that his enemies would triumph over him, however efficient his aerial forces, so he packed his bags and made off, heavily disguised, to Macedon, where he set up as an astrologer and ingratiated himself at court. While the king was away, Nectanebus, with the aid of wax dolls and other magical means, transported himself into the queen’s bedroom disguised as the god Ammon, to whose blandishments Olympias naturally felt bound to accede. She became pregnant.

Volume IV :The Imperial Planets

Towards the end of the 3rd century BC Greek drama and literature began to seriously interest the Romans. At first, astrology crept in at the lower end of the social scale: while the intelligentsia were enjoying Greek plays and poems, hoi polloi was fascinated by the crowds of fortune-tellers making their way — as quacks always will — towards a new source of easy money. But it was not long before, at first out of an interest in astronomy, intelligent Romans learned about the Greek preoccupation with the influence of the planets on humanity. By the 1st century BC, Cicero, always sceptical about astrology, took it seriously enough to summarize it without irony in his De divinatione: In the starry belt which the Greek calls the Zodiac there is a certain force of such a nature that every part of that belt affects and changes the heavens in a different way, according to the stars that are in this or in an adjoining locality at a given time ... They believe that it is not merely probable, but certain, that just as the temperature of the air is regulated by this celestial force, so also children at their birth are influenced in soul and body, and by this force their minds, manners, disposition, physical condition, career in life and destinies are determined. Cicero’s summary of how astrology worked shows how the intelligent Roman understood the subject: he emphasized that normally only the twelve signs and planets were considered; that it was the ascendant, the rising sign appearing over the eastern horizon at the moment of birth, that was the ‘natal sign’ (not the ‘Sun sign’, which was not to become strongly associated with simplistic astrology until the 20th century); that the astrologer drew his conclusions from the angles between the planets as they were placed in the twelve constellations, and in the ‘houses’, each of which showed an influence in one area of the life of the subject — house four was that of the parents, house five that of children, house ten of honours and house eleven of friends. We are not concerned here with the growth of the star cults among the Romans between 300 and 150 BC; but during those years various new divinities took up residence, among them Asclepius, Cybele, Bacchus, Isis and Mithras (to say nothing of Jehovah); they all, however, had to some extent astrological associations (even Jehovah), and contributed to a growth of serious interest in the subject. Mithras, especially, took that interest out into the Empire, making converts abroad: ‘modern’ astrology undoubtedly first reached Britain in the form of Zodiacal carvings at Mithraic shrines, while Asclepius became the patron saint of astrological medicine. As is usually the case when a country is invaded by a new culture, some reactionaries took great exception to the changing times. But the tide was against them. Scipio Africanus, for instance, the conqueror of Hannibal, whose scandalous interest in things Greek was said to have persuaded him to go about in public in Greek dress, was a great upholder of philhellenism; and even the sceptical and strong-minded Cato, towards the end of his life, was injected with the new spirit, and started to learn Greek. It was Cato who quite properly issued warnings about the innumerable quack astrologers and magicians coming to Rome in and around 200-150 BC. The poet Ennius, a southern Italian brought to Rome by Cato, attacked them too: Of little use are these Marsian quacks, Village-astrologers and fortune-tellers In crowded circuses, or priests of Isis, Pretend-interpreters of all your dreams. These lying conjurers have not the skill To read the future; just a pack of hypocrites Prompted by hunger, they don’t know themselves Let alone others; yet they’ll promise you Enormous fortunes — if you’ll share with them! But the influence of the quack astrologers was far outweighed by the influence of the knowledge accumulated by Greek astronomers, and the Romans were enormously impressed by scientific achievements. When Marcellus conquered Syracuse in 212 BC, and returned to Rome with a magnificent model of the celestial spheres which he had found in the house of Archimedes (killed when the city fell), it was greatly admired — and used. And since the two terms were still synonymous (astronomia is sometimes used where we, today, would expect to find astrologia, and vice versa — Plato uses only astronomia, Aristotle only astrologia) this meant there was at the least increased pressure on intelligent Romans to look at the theory that the planets affected human behaviour. A minority declined to be persuaded: Cicero, as we have seen, but also, a century earlier, the Greek sceptic philosopher Carneades. He was one of the heads of the Platonic Academy, and ambassador from Athens to Rome in 156.BC. He maintained that not only was it virtually impossible to make an accurate observation of the sky at the moment of birth (let alone conception), but that it was clear that astrology did not and could not work because people born at the same moment could have very different destinies, while others born at very different times and places died at precisely the same time; moreover, animals would have the same fate as human beings whose birth moment they shared, and people of different races, customs and creeds born at the same moment would obviously have different fates. He failed to see that his second and last objections cancelled each other out: most astrologers then as now made it quite clear that astrology was only one ingredient of a life, and environment and custom would certainly mitigate its effect. Carneades’ objections have been rehearsed many times since his first statement of them (among others, by St Augustine, who took them wholesale and used them as his own). They are on the whole not very convincing, although they had more significance at the time they were made, when some astrologers at least were highly fatalistic. And certainly they must have had an effect in Rome, where Carneades was sensationally successful as a lecturer — fashionable young Romans eager to keep up with Greek culture and fashion crowded the halls in which he spoke. It would be a mistake to assume, then, that astrology had a walk-over. In 139 BC, an edict was actually passed enabling Rome to expel any foreigner who gave trouble; the arguments of Carneades were used to support the claim that astrologers were simply exploiting the credulous poor, and many of them were thrown out. The attitude of authority — that astrology seemed likely to cause trouble — was borne out in 134-2 BC, when there was a sizeable slave revolt in Sicily, led by one Eunus, who either was or gave an inspired imitation of being an astrologer. He was obviously a very accomplihed charlatan (if we are to believe the historian Florus, who says that among his tricks was the concealment of a nut full of sulphur in his mouth, which flamed with fire and smoke as he spoke), and with the aid of tricks and oratory commanded the force of over 60,000 slaves. Even when the rebellion was crushed, the Romans were sufficiently impressed with Eunus as a seer to capture him alive. Less than thirty years later, Athenio, another astrologer (this time a serious one) led another slave revolt in Sicily; insisting that the planets had revealed that he was to be king of Sicily, he and his followers gave trouble until about 100 BC, when he was killed in a hand-to-hand fight with the consul Manius Aquillius. The first real Roman astrological expert was one Publius Nigidius Figulus — not a mere nobody, but someone who held public office, as an aedile and later as praetor, or magistrate. His reputation as an astrologer was considerable, and he was at the centre of what was virtually the earliest Roman astrological school, and among other books published several on prediction and meteorology, as well as on pure astronomy. Alas, Julius Caesar, when he came to power, was unsympathetic, and banished him (although probably for political rather than astrological reasons). The growth of public interest is illustrated in the work of M. Terentius Varro, a colleague of Nigidius Figulus — not himself an astrologer, but keenly interested in the subject as a means of clarifying history. He commissioned a horoscope of Rome itself and its founder, Romulus — the first example we have of astrology being used to reveal the past by examining the history of a person or place, and from this estimating the probable ‘birth time’. Cicero reports that Lucius Tarutius of Firmum, a mutual friend, calculated that Rome was ‘born’ when the Moon was in Libra, and ‘from that fact unhesitatingly prophesied our destiny’. Plutarch later reported Tarutius’ findings in greater detail, suggesting that ‘these and similar speculations will perhaps attract readers by their novelty and extravagance rather than offend them by their fabulous character.’ Varro, although not an astrologer, included a chapter on astrology in his De disciplinus which was so good and so economically expressed that it was used again and again by later writers. One of his friends seems to have been that C. Fonteius Capito who went’ with Antony to the East, and played an important part in reconciling him, briefly, with Octavianus before returning to Egypt to travel with Cleopatra to Syria. The sceptics were thinning out, and fighting a by no means successful rearguard action. Cicero remained unconvinced, even after a stay on Rhodes with the Greek Stoic Posidonius, and a close friendship with Nigidius Figulus. He seems to tolerate the idea of astrology in his On my consulate, but later unequivocally states his opinion that ‘the condition of the heavenly bodies may, if you will, influence some things, but it certainly will not influence everything.’ He was not silly enough to deny that the Sun influenced the growth of plants, or the Moon the tides, but was very doubtful about any effect the planets might have on human life. And still later, in his essay On divination, he pressed the attack, giving eight specific criticisms, including the old question of the birth of twins, the possibility of astrologers not being able properly to see the sky, and the effect of environment — also bringing in the fact that ‘the parental seed’ contributed to a person’s appearance, habits and outlook, and that the new advances in medicine meant that ‘natural defects’ with which a child might be born could be cured. On divination is perhaps the coolest example of early Roman scepticism; another occurs in Lucretius’ poem De rerum natura, in which he argues in favour of free will, and that the soul is as mortal as the body, and thus no celestial panacea is acceptable. Among the myths perpetuated by some astrological historians is that representing Julius Caesar as a proponent of astrology, or even himself an astrologer. On the contrary, he seems to have been almost entirely sceptical, although he accepted the obvious planetary effect on weather and plant growth. Otherwise, he not only rejected old-fashioned omens, but at least two horoscopes presented to him by celebrated astrologers promising him a happy and peaceful death at the height of years of success. Perhaps the legends of his interest in the subject arose because of his choice of the symbol of the Bull as his legionary standard (Taurus is ‘ruled’ by Venus, and Venus herself was said to be Caesar’s ancestress). Most likely, he chose this deliberately, pandering to the superstition of the ordinary soldiers. There seems to be no reason to reject the story that tells of his refusing to accept his wife Calpurnia’s warning dream of the night before his death; and it seems, too, to be a fact that an astrologer called Spurinna warned him to ‘beware the Ides of March’. He seems to have known Spurinna quite well; he mentions him in his letters. It is also likely that it was this astrologer who, in 46 BC, had advised Caesar against crossing to Africa until after the winter solstice — advice Caesar rejected, and without catastrophe. Cicero knew him well, too, and scorned his abilities. Well, he was accurate enough when he warned Caesar that he ‘should beware a danger which would not threaten him beyond the Ides of March’, as Plutarch reported it; and Cassius Dio, the Roman historian of AD c 150-235, pointed out that here was a good example of the fateful nature of a firm astrological prediction. At Caesar’s death, a splendidly showy comet appeared, to blaze through the night sky for seven consecutive evenings; clearly he had become immortal, and was on his way to shine among the stars. During his student days at Apollonia, when he was regarded as certain to be the next monarch, Octavianus Augustus had visited a well-known local astrologer, Theogenes, who, the moment he set eyes on Octavianus’ birth chart, threw himself at the young man’s feet. Unsurprisingly, Octavianus was extremely impressed, and (so Suetonius says) ‘from that time on had such faith in his destiny that he made his horoscope public and issued a silver coin stamped with the sign of the constellation Capricorn under which he was born.’ At all events, Octavianus saw in the public reaction to the appearance of Caesar’s comet in 44 BC the fact that astrology could be a fine implement of public relations. But only if it was on his side — and most of the astrologers in Rome at the time of Caesar’s death tended to favour the fortunes of Antony, whose identification with the East (and indeed with Cleopatra) appealed to them. Octavianus made Agrippa (a lifelong friend who had been with him on that visit to Theogenes) aedile, and instructed him to expel from the city all astrologers and sorcerers. He was no doubt right. By now, very few men at any level of intelligence or society contested the skills of the astrologers. Vitruvius, the great architect, reflected in his book the attitude of most people: everyone must, he said, accept the calculations of ‘the Chaldeans’, who could explain the past and future from astronomical calculations; He was completely assured that astrology worked, and as a science. Other authors of the time support this view: Horace, Virgil, Propertius, Ovid. And by now it appears that the Emperor Augustus (as Octavianus was proclaimed) shared it. In the first place, he sought the advice of astrologers about a possible marriage for his only child, Julia. His stepsons Tiberius and Drusus were in their teens, and Julia herself only 16; obviously the sooner she was safely married, the better. The astrologers recommended Marcellus, Julia’s first cousin. Consumptive and weakly, the boy died within two years of the wedding. The astrological advisers had better luck, of a sort, the second time. Advised by them, Augustus persuaded his friend Agrippa to divorce his wife and marry Julia. The marriage lasted eleven years and produced a clutch of possible heirs, although none of them in fact succeeded. In 12 BC, Augustus once more ordered measures against the astrologers who had crept back into Rome during the past twenty-five years or so. Many of them were publishing predictions about the succession, some worryingly hare-brained. The Emperor passed a law submitting all prophesies to censorship; most of them perished in the flames before they reached the public. Much of the astrological speculation hinged on a possible third marriage for the notoriously immoral Julia. Now, Augustus ordered his elder stepson Tiberius to divorce a much-loved wife and marry Julia. There was nothing Tiberius could do but comply — unless, of course, he chose suicide. A successful soldier, Tiberius managed to get away from Julia to go campaigning — gaining great honour. But when opportunities for this failed, and he could stand his new wife no longer, he asked Augustus’ permission to retire to Rhodes ‘to study’. The Emperor, who on principle disbelieved anything horrid he heard about his daughter, coldly agreed; so, in 6 BC, Tiberius went to Rhodes, and the general opinion was that, as a possible successor to the Emperor, he was finished. Rhodes was a lonely place for a man straight from the centre of the Empire. Tiberius occupied his time gloomily attending classes given by local scholars, and at one of them met the man who was to become, with him, one of the two most important men in Rome: Thrasyllus, an Alexandrian grammarian, editor of Plato and Democritus, and an astrologer. There are various legends about the manner of that first meeting: that, for instance, Tiberius sought out many astrologers for their opinion about his future, killing them immediately they had interpreted his horoscope. Thrasyllus was the only one to comment on his own danger, which impressed Tiberius so much that he spared him. This is probably nonsense. But that is not to say that Tiberius was not impressed by Thrasyllus’ first-rate mind, and it certainly seems true that he taught Tiberius how to set up and interpret a horoscope, and successfully predicted that he would soon be recalled to Rome and a bright future. When this happened — when Augustus sent for Tiberius in AD 4 and officially proclaimed him his heir — Thrasyllus travelled with him, and on reaching Rome received from his patron the valuable gift of Roman citizenship. Ten years later, after a decade during which Thrasyllus ingratiated himself not only with his Emperor but with Roman society, Augustus died — his death accompanied, if we are to believe Cassius Dio, by a total eclipse of the Sun, a display of fire and glowing embers falling from the sky, and a number of melancholy comets. Tiberius was now Emperor, and Thrasyllus the power behind the throne. Tiberius’ reign lasted for nine years, and during it Thrasyllus was never far from his side. It is clear that he not only advised him on day-to-day matters, but about his close friends and the members of his family. By now, the astrologer had consolidated his status in Rome. His wife, who seems to have been called Aka, and to have been a minor princess of Commagene, had also been awarded Roman citizenship, and he had managed to arrange a Roman marriage for his daughter Claudia. Her husband was a Roman knight, L. Ennius, and they eventually had a daughter, Ennia Thrasylla, who was herself to become famous if not notorious. Very few citizens of Rome during the reigns of the majority of Emperors were entirely free of fear, and Tiberius was by no means the least cruel or capricious. Thrasyllus was as safe as anyone; some other astrologers must have slept less comfortably. When in AD 16, Scribonius Libo, a slightly dense praetor, attempted to organize a coup against the Emperor, and took the advice of two astrologers — L. Pituanius and P. Marcius — they were arrested with him; the first was thrown from the Tarpeian rock, and the second stripped naked outside the Esquiline Gate, his head fixed in a forked stake, and beaten to death. Some other people suffered because of a mere interest in astrology. In AD 20, Aemilia Lepida, a woman of good family, once the fiancée of Augustus’ grandson, was exiled for consulting an astrologer (although also on suspicion of trying to poison a former husband). During the early years of Tiberius’ reign a complex situation arose which Thrasyllus succeeded in riding like a wave. This concerned the Emperor’s son Drusus, who seems (with reason) to have been jealous of Thrasyllus’ influence with his father. When in the early 20s the Emperor’s favourite, the praetor Sejanus, started a tempestuous affair with Drusus’ wife Livilla, the lovers seem to have consulted Thrasyllus about their actions. Whether or not he played any part in the subsequent poisoning of Drusus, we cannot know. But Thrasyllus was left with the problem whether to support Sejanus or betray him and Livilla to the Emperor. There seems no question that the astrologer played a vital part in Tiberius’ decision to leave Rome in 26, never to live there again; and this meant that Thrasyllus could maintain his influence with both Tiberius and Sejanus, supporting the latter in the battle for the succession which had arisen between him and Agrippina, Augustus’ granddaughter, who wanted the throne for her children. Sejanus, although rising higher and higher in Tiberius’ estimation, continually sought to destroy opposition that might stand between him and the succession. He organized the trial of Agrippina and her son Nero for high treason, banishing one to Pandataria and the other to Pontia. And Thrasyllus further consolidated his position by marrying his granddaughter Ennia to Naevius Sertorius Macro, gaining another Roman knight as a close relative by marriage. Whether Thrasyllus consulted the planets and was prompted by them to engineer a plot against Sejanus, or was simply consulting his own interests without astrological persuasion, he was certainly at the centre of such a plot; his son-in-law Macro not only carried the orders that destroyed Sejanus, but immediately took his place at the centre of Roman life, while Tiberius remained in self-imposed exile on Capri. There, with him, lived Agrippina’s younger son Caius; and it was this youth who now received Thrasyllus’ support as successor to the throne. We know that Tiberius time and time again talked with his astrologer about the succession, and the evidence is that time and time again Thrasyllus persuaded him that the planets revealed that Caius could never succeed — that ‘he had as much chance of becoming Emperor as he had of driving his racing chariot across the Bay of Baiae’. By this means he prevented the perverse Emperor from legally disqualifying Caius from the succession. What Caius felt about this is uncertain, except that we hear that he vowed that one of the first things he would do when he gained the throne would be to drive his chariot across the waters of Baiae. Thrasyllus’ relationship with the old, irritable and nervous Emperor was now extremely tricky. It is not easy to conjecture to what extent he honestly relied on his astrological knowledge, and to what extent concern for his own safety and that of his friends led him to equivocate. He did not hesitate to advise the Emperor to continue to trust the consul Servius Galba, for instance, although at his birth Thrasyllus had told Tiberius that Galba’s horoscope showed signs that he would reach the heights of commanding power. Now, he reassured the Emperor that Galba’s horoscope showed he would only become Emperor in old age — which meant Tiberius was probably safe from him. It is also clear that Thrasyllus could only advise the Emperor on the basis of genuine astrological calculations, for Tiberius himself was quite capable of these, and would have seen through any pretence. This presents the problem of Thrasyllus’ advice to Tiberius, given it seems in about AD 34, that he still had ten years of healthy life ahead of him. It has been taken for granted that Thrasyllus falsified the horoscope in some way, in order to prevent the ever-increasing number of judicial and non-judicial murders the Emperor was undertaking to protect himself against the ambitious. But Tiberius knew his own horoscope backwards; if Thrasyllus foresaw that he would in fact die within three years, he must have found some way of persuading his client otherwise. In fact, Thrasyllus was to predecease Tiberius — although not before one final concern, when he learned that his daughter Ennia, on a visit to Capri, had started an adulterous affair with Caius, now fairly clearly the main contender for the throne after Tiberius’ death. Macro, Ennia’s husband, may or may not have known about the affair; he was by this time almost as unpopular as Sejanus had been at the height of his power, and neither his position nor Ennia’s could have given Thrasyllus much comfort in the few months before his death — which he is said to have foretold to the hour. Ironically, even after his death, Thrasyllus preserved the life of one of the earth’s monsters, the Emperor Nero. Tiberius, continuing to ensure his own safety and juggle with the succession, had arranged several trials of alleged conspirators against the throne; and at the time of his death those a waiting trial included Domitius Ahenobarbus, the husband of Agrippina the Younger. When the Emperor died, Domitius was released from prison, and went home to his wife — who nine months later gave birth to the baby Nero. Had Thrasyllus not assured Tiberius that his life was safe for at least another decade, the trials would swiftly have been concluded, Domitius executed, and Nero would never have been born. (As it was, Suetonius says that the astrologer who calculated the baby’s horoscope almost fainted away on contemplating its horrendous nature!) Rome now had a new Emperor, Caius, who called himself Caligula. A considerable amount of carnage followed his accession, and among those who fled from Rome to avoid this was Thrasyllus’ alleged son, Tiberius Claudius Balbillus. (Jack Lindsay, in Origins of astrology, 1971, argues that Balbillus was no relation of Thrasyllus; but we know that the latter’s son was called ‘Tiberius Claudius’, and the relationship seems a likely one.) He settled in Alexandria, while his niece Ennia, whose lover was now on the throne, stayed to enjoy what seemed likely to be a position of considerable influence. Caligula is said to have given Ennia a written contract promising to marry her after becoming Emperor. If she relied on this, she was a less keen judge of human nature than her grandfather. Her husband Macro, who had done much to help Caligula to the throne, was killed on the Emperor’s orders, and she apparently committed suicide. Not long after hearing of her death, Caligula married Lollia Paulina, who eleven years later was herself executed for consulting astrologers, allegedly to organize a coup against the Emperor Claudius. Although Caligula continued to uphold the edict Augustus had laid down in AD 11, forbidding any astrologer to consult an Emperor’s horoscope, his death was foretold by an Egyptian called Apollonius, who was hauled off to Rome and (according to Cassius Dio) sentenced to die on the very day he had said would be the Emperor’s last. Foolishly, Caligula postponed the execution, the better to say ‘I told you so’; but the Emperor died at the foretold time, assassinated on 24 January in AD 41. Now Claudius became Emperor, and it was safe for Balbillus to return to Rome, for Claudius when a boy had been a constant visitor to Thrasyllus’ house, and with an interest in intellectual matters uncommon in his family, had enjoyed hearing about literature and astrology, and enjoyed too the company of Balbillus, who he now received with enthusiasm. When in 43 he went to help conquer Britain, Balbillus went too, as an officer in the 20th legion — not only to give astrological advice, but to help run the engineers’ corps. Claudius on his return to Rome was honoured with the title Britannicus; Balbillus received a crown of honour. He seems then to have split his time between Rome and Alexandria, for he was appointed high priest of the Temple of Hermes there, and also became head of the state university with its superb library (where he instituted an annual series of lectures in honour of Claudius, at which the Emperor’s own works were recited). Balbillus became, indeed, as respected a figure as his father — although he tried to keep clear of politics. The part he played in advising Claudius is obscure, but it is likely that he was behind at least one edict — that which announced, before the event, that there would be an eclipse of the Moon on one of the Emperor’s birthdays. Much superstition still attached to eclipses, and it was wise to allay in advance any public fears that this one might be a malevolent omen. Claudius was (no doubt encouraged by Balbillus) quite aware of the harm that could be done by intriguers who cared to use astrology to suggest good times at which to organize insurrection or even assassination. In 52, Furius Camillus Scribonianus was executed for alleged plotting against the Emperor; the evidence included a horoscope of Claudius found in his possession. Soon afterwards Claudius passed an edict, which, like the one in 16, banished all astrologers from the country. The very next year, one T. Statilius Taurus committed suicide after being accused of ‘divination’. Two years later Domitia Lepida was accused of using black magic against Agrippina; astrology was mentioned at her trial, too (as at most similar trials). Balbillus, like his father, found it impossible to avoid politics altogether, particularly the intrigues that now began to centre around the ambitions of two mothers — Agrippina the Younger, who wanted the throne for Nero, and Domitia, her sister-in-law, who wanted it for Claudius’ son Britannicus. Agrippina had been told by Balbillus in 41 that Nero would be Emperor, but would murder his mother. This did not dissuade her, and pursuing her ambition she managed to marry Claudius, becoming his fourth wife (his third, Messalina, having met an unpleasant end). Another astrologer now joined the court: Chaeremon, from Alexandria, known for his assertion that comets could presage joy as well as disaster. He was joined by the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, himself an adherent of astrology. The three were mainly responsible for the education of Nero. There seems little doubt that Balbillus took part in the extraordinary events after Claudius’ death when Agrippina personally prevented Britannicus from leaving his room until, at an auspicious moment proposed by astrologers, Nero could be, and was, proclaimed Emperor. Balbillus was rewarded by being appointed Prefect of Egypt, where he stayed until 59. Not long after his return, in 64, the fire that destroyed Rome while Nero allegedly played his fiddle spawned sufficient disCONTENT=to result in a plot to destroy the Emperor. When a spectacular comet appeared, Balbillus told Nero that it presaged disaster for him — unless he deflected its effects by executing some of the noblest men of Rome by way of sacrifice. In the following carnage Petronius, who had directed the entertainments at Nero’s court, Seneca and his brother, his nephew the poet Lucanus, and many others perished. Balbillus did not. His success, if that is what it was, also made him secure against that dangerous rival astrologer, Ptolemy, the favourite of the new Empress Poppaea. Nero disposed of the rival by killing his wife in a fit of drunken pique. Balbillus retired quietly from the scene, vanishing from sight during the years when Nero died and Galba, Otho and Vitellius acceded and fell in their turn. It was probably as well; it has always been said that among Nero’s many victims towards the end of his reign were a number of astrologers — and certainly several Romans who had somehow got hold of the Imperial horoscope, for Nero supposed that the only reason for its possession was an assassination plot. Galba, who succeeded Nero, had been told by Tiberius on the evidence of his horoscope that he would one day be Emperor, but he does not seem to have been uncommonly impressed by astrology. Otho is said by Tacitus to have plotted against Galba with the support of astrologers who ‘urged him to action, predicting from their observation of the heavens, revolutions and a year of glory’. Ptolemy Seleucus positively ordered Otho to seize the propitious moment, and was proved right: Galba was successfully killed, and Otho ascended the throne. However, the Roman legions in Germany had proclaimed Vitellius Emperor, in the face of whose determined assault Otho crumpled, and killed himself. Vitellius was not a follower of the planets, perhaps because the horoscope cast for him revealed that although he would become Emperor after a civil war, his reign would be brief. He continually said he did not believe this; and indeed it was a remarkable prediction to make, for there seemed little chance of its coming true. However, he did become Emperor (in 69), and although he expelled all astrologers by an edict passed a few days afterwards, and executed a number of them, he reigned only for three months. During that short reign, Ptolemy Seleucus, who had got safely out of Rome, threw in his lot with Vespasian, plotting an uprising against Vitellius. Despite the fact that a comet appeared and two eclipses took place (to say nothing of the fact that several people saw two suns in the sky at the same time) Vespasian succeeded in becoming Emperor. This was a good time for Balbillus to return from self-imposed exile, for he and Vespasian had been on good terms since they met at Nero’s court (where Vespasian endeared himself to posterity by falling asleep during one of Nero’s recitations, a comment that happily escaped the Emperor’s notice). Vespasian was as devoted to astrology as some of his predecessors. On the evidence of Cassius Dio, he ‘consulted all the best of them’, and not only showed special interest in what Balbillus had to say, but allowed games to be held at Ephesus in the astrologer’s honour — the Great Balbillean Games were held until well into the 3rd century. He trusted Balbillus, and indeed Ptolemy Seleucus, so implicitly that when it was discovered that Mettius Pompusianus, an ambitious Roman, had been putting it about that he was destined to be Emperor, Vespasian actually had him appointed to the consulate, so sure was he that his own astrologers were right when they said that Mettius had been wrongly advised. Balbillus may have died at about the same time as Vespasian; had he survived there is no reason why the new Emperor, Vespasian’s son Titus, could not have retained him, but his name vanished from record. Titus reigned for only two years, and in 81 was succeeded by his younger brother Domitian, who himself was so convinced by an astrologer’s prediction that he would die by iron that he refused the senate’s offer of a guard of honour to escort him with spears. For safety’s sake, he appears to have believed all astrological predictions on principle. He executed Mettius Pompusianus, believing the prophesy that he would one day be Emperor, and Suetonius says that ‘he had not failed to take careful note of the days and hours when the foremost men had been born, and as a result was destroying in advance not a few who did not feel the least hope of gaining power.’ At least two astrologers seem to have predicted the hour of Domitian’s death, and Suetonius says that as the stated hour approached the Emperor became more and more nervous. On 17 September 96, he told his servants to set aside some truffles for him until next day — in case he was around to eat them, for his death had been foretold for the 18th, when ‘the Moon in Aquarius will be stained with blood’. He summoned the astrologer Ascletarius-Asclation and asked him if he could foresee his own death. The astrologer replied that he would be torn to pieces by dogs. Domitian had him executed immediately; but as the body was awaiting cremation, a sudden rainstorm put out the fire, the undertaker took shelter, and a pack of dogs destroyed the corpse. Early next morning the second astrologer, Larginus Proculus, was brought before Domitian in chains. Domitian ordered his execution, too, but following Caligula’s example postponed this for twenty-four hours, in order that Larginus should see how wrong he had been. It was at the fifth hour that the two astrologers had said Domitian would die. Nervously, Domitian again and again sent to know the time. Finally his bored servants assured him that the hour had passed, and the Emperor; much relieved, decided to bathe. A conspirator, Stephanus, asked if he could read to him for a while in the bath. Domitian agreed. Whereupon Stephanus produced a dagger and stabbed him, a number of other conspirators rushing in to join the execution.

Volume III : Through the Doors of Greece

Alexander the Great was born, history tells us, the son of King Philip II of Macedon. Legend has it, however, that the boy’s real father was a King of Egypt, Nectanebus, among whose accomplishments was the art of summoning immense armies out of thin air. In 356 BC, the planets informed him that his enemies would triumph over him, however efficient his aerial forces, so he packed his bags and made off, heavily disguised, to Macedon, where he set up as an astrologer and ingratiated himself at court. While the king was away, Nectanebus, with the aid of wax dolls and other magical means, transported himself into the queen’s bedroom disguised as the god Ammon, to whose blandishments Olympias naturally felt bound to accede. She became pregnant. When her term came, Nectanebus came to her room and set up at her bedside a tablet made of gold, silver and acacia wood, which stood on a tripod and consisted of three belts — one with Zeus on it, surrounded by the thirty-six decans; then one bearing the twelve signs of the zodiac; and on the innermost the Sun and Moon. To these he fitted eight precious stones showing the positions of the planets. He begged her not to give birth until these were propitious — and when they were, with a flash of lightning and a thump of thunder, Alexander was born. We are not told of King Philip’s reaction on returning to discover the fait accompli; and indeed other accounts suggest that he and the queen merely employed an astrologer to tell the new-born child’s fortune. But of Alexander’s later successes, history tells us at length. Nectanebus is said to have become Alexander’s tutor, using as text-book The Secret of Secrets, a book by Aristotle, later lost. This, among other things, circulated a knowledge of and respect for astrology. It did Nectanebus no good, however, for when the child was 12 years old he tipped the astrologer over a cliff to prove that he could not foretell the time of his own death. But at least it apparently provide tips for the future world general — such as that he should never take a laxative except when the Moon was in Scorpio, Libra or Pisces, and that severe constipation would result were he to be unwise enough to take one while the Moon was in Capricorn. It has always been understood that Alexander made use of astrology throughout his campaigns, though whether because he believed in it, or knew that others believed, and took advantage of the fact, is far from clear. It seems unlikely that he almost alone among educated people of his time placed the influence of the planets at naught — although one or two philosophers did so: Eudoxus (c 408-355 BC), for instance, the inventor of the geometrical theory of proportion, who demanded that ‘no credence should be given to the Chaldeans, who predict and mark out the life of every man according to the day of his nativity’. And the Greek Academy under Carneades and Clitomachus, in the 1st century BC, was to set itself firmly against divination, magic and astrology. But they were in a tiny minority. In general, as the historian Gilbert Murray was to put it, ‘astrology fell upon the Hellenistic mind as a new disease falls upon some remote island people’. Through such outposts as Daphnae, a Greek settlement in Egypt between 610 and 560 BC, and especially through the ports of Egypt opened to Greek ships after 640 BC, travelling Chaldean astrologers descended on Greece in considerable numbers, bringing with them the apparently age-old wisdom they had hoarded, which was received warmly by Greeks already better practised in mathematics and astronomy than they. If any evidence was needed of the fact that much astronomical and astrological lore came directly from Babylonia to Greece, we have only to look at the names of the planets. When the Greeks first recognised these, they called them Herald of the Dawn (Venus, noted even by Homer for its brightness, although sometimes it was called Vespertine, as the star of the evening), the Twinkling Star (Mercury), the Fiery Star (Mars), the Luminous Star (Jupiter), and the Brilliant Star (Saturn). But after the 4th century, these names begin to disappear, and others take their place — Aphrodite, Hermes, Ares, Zeus and Cronos. It seems almost certain that the reason is that by then the Chaldeans had arrived with their barbaric names for the planets — Nebo, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk and Ninib. The Greeks simply substituted their own deities’ names for the foreign ones — so today we call the planets by names that are English renderings of Latin translations of Greek translations of the original Babylonian ones! One of the reasons for astrology’s success in the Greek world may well have been the atmosphere during the period after Alexander’s death, when the ancient ideal of the Greek republic was being replaced by the concept of universal monarchy. Religion was in a sense internationalized, and the worship of the planets and stars as deities became stronger as the cities lost their individual powers and personalities. The planets spread their influences indiscriminately, and such philosophers as Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, believing that nothing was determined by chance (indeed, that there was no such thing as chance) emphasized in the 4th century BC the idea that earthly happenings were rigidly determined by natural laws. What then was more obvious than that the planets, coolly moving in their predetermined courses, were the governors of events? There is also, of course, the Greek expertise at astronomy and mathematics, and ingenuity in constructing machines to match that expertise: Ptolemy describes the construction of an astrolabe, an instrument for measuring the positions of the stars; and a little machine with geared wheels, discovered in the sunken wreck of a vessel of the 1st century BC, seems to have been devised to work out the motions of the planets. If some Greek ideas about the constitution of the solar system were distinctly eccentric (Ptolemy’s not least so) their grasp of mechanics and mathematics was brilliant — much more so than many historians of the 18th century believed. If we can safely ignore Philostratus’ claim (made in the 3rd century AD) that astrology was known and practised in Greece as early as 1184 BC, it is certainly the case that Hesiod, a poet who lived in the 8th century BC, paid attention to the positions of the planets and stars in his Works and Days. In this long poem he suggested among other things that they should be used to predict good times at which to start certain tasks. The Greeks pioneered enormous developments in astronomical theory. Aristotle disproved Anaximander’s theory that the Earth floats freely and without support; Pythagoras was probably the first man to ‘know’ (if without proof) that the world was one of the planets, and round. This theory, first put forward it seems by Philolaus of Thebes at the end of the 5th century BC, was based on intuition rather than on reason, but the guess was an important one. It was clear by this time, too — at least to some astronomers — that the Sun was much larger than the Earth, and therefore probably the latter was not the centre of the universe. And by 230 BC, Aristarchus of Samos, centuries before Copernicus, argued that the Earth and all the planets revolved in circles round the Sun, the Earth turning on its axis once in twenty-four hours. But the time was against him, and only his colleague Seleucus accepted his theory, which otherwise sank like a stone — although Copernicus was heartened, pursuing it in his own age, to find evidence of an ancient conviction of the hypothesis. The Greeks seem to have adopted the zodiac as early as the 6th century BC; it may have been Democritus, round about 420, who popularized it and the idea that the planets influenced man as they travelled through the signs. It is said that he spent much time in Egypt and the east; certainly he visited Persia, and he may have been more decided in advancing his view that the planets governed men’s lives than any Greek before him. He agreed with Zeno that nothing could happen in the world by chance. It has been claimed that he gave the zodiac signs their Greek names, although other historians have suggested that Anaxagoras, born in lonia about 500 BC, may have had a hand in that — he was an adventurous astronomer, the first to explain that the Moon shone because of the reflected light of the Sun. He was thrown out of Athens, where he lived for thirty years, for attempting to rationalize astronomy, and teaching rationalist theories about ‘the things on high’. The Greeks, who sacrificed to the Sun and Moon, were outraged at his suggestion that they were paying court to a ‘fiery star’ and a lump of earth. Many reports of early astronomical/astrological feats by the Greeks must be regarded with suspicion. It has often been suggested, for instance, that Thales predicted a solar eclipse that occurred in 585BC, thus ending a battle between the Lydians and Medes, who stopped fighting in sheer surprise. This seems unlikely. The knowledge simply did not exist by which it could have been done, although it is possible Thales might simply have made a spectacularly successful guess. There is a little more substance, perhaps, in Pliny’s report that Cleostratus of Tenedos observed the zodiacal constellations as they appeared behind Mount Ida towards the end of the 6th century. But it is only on looking at the calendars devised by Eudoxos of Cnidus (c 408-355 BC), a Greek scientist and astronomer, that we definitely find use being made of the Greek zodiac (it was he who, in the Phainomena, divided the ecliptic into twelve equal signs). Between the 5th century BC and the birth of Christ, astrology appealed to various sections of Greek society, among them not only philosophers and scientists, but such men as Hippocrates, the physician and ‘father of medicine’, who taught astrology to his students so that they could discover the ‘critical days’ in an illness. He is said to have remarked that ‘any man who does not understand astrology is a fool rather than a physician’. And the young intelligentsia often took an intense interest in the subject; when Plato visited Dionysus’ school, he saw two pupils arguing with great vigour about the theories of Anaxagoras, illustrating their argument by imitating the sweep of the ecliptic with their arms. Aristophanes in The Clouds ridicules the study of astrology as one of the cults of the Athens upper classes. It was, as might be expected, a Chaldean — Berosus, a priest of Bel Marduk at Babylon — who in about 260 BC came to the island of Cos, where there was a medical school at which Hipparchus had taught, and set up there a formal school of astrology which was perhaps the earliest such establishment. He seems to have used for his textbook a treatise called The Eye of Bel, which existed in the form of seventy tablets in the library of Assurbanipal, but was compiled much earlier, in the 3rd millenium BC, for Sargon I — or so it was said. Berosus also wrote an enormous history of his homeland, Babylonica, covering some five hundred thousand years from the creation of the world to the death of Alexander the Great, setting out in it a considerable amount of astronomical/astrological lore: about the Great Year, for instance, and the theory that earthquakes were caused by planets being in conjunction with the Sun. He also predicted a cataclysmic world disaster when all the planets were in conjunction in Cancer: the earth would become mud during an inordinate flood, and the world would eventually be covered with water, sweeping away all human life. Berosus was famous in his own time, and it is said that Athens raised a statue of him with a golden tongue, to pay tribute to his oratorical skills. He was succeeded on Cos by Antipatrus and Achinapolus, who taught medical astrology, and seem to have been the first non-Babylonian astrologers to experiment with the idea of drawing up a horoscope for the moment of conception rather than birth. They worked a good deal on the ancient aphorism, preserved in Hermetic literature, to the effect that the sign occupied by the Moon at the moment of conception would be in the ascendant at the time of birth. Interestingly Dr Eugen Jonas, a Czechoslovak psychiatrist, did a great deal of work on the same theory in the 1960s, claiming to be able to predict by the tropical position of the Moon at the time of conception the sex of a child, before birth. The Communist government banned his work in 1970, before his full evidence could be published. Dimly, we hear of other visiting Chaldean travellers to Greece: Soudines, for instance, a visitor to the court of Attalus I, King of Pergamum, who compiled lunar tables which were used for centuries, and one of the earliest lapidaries, associating various precious stones with certain planets and signs. By now, many Greeks were quick to adopt the new celestial theory: Epigenes of Byzantium, Apollonius of Myndus and Artemidorus of Parium all boasted of having been instructed by Babylonia priest-astrologers. Kidenas, who probably lived in the second half of the 3rd century BC, seems to have been responsible for some Babylonian astronomical discoveries, and perhaps was a tutor of Berosus himself (though one of the problems is that the dates of many of these early astrologers are extremely uncertain). Then there was Aratus, a contemporary of Berosus, who in about 276 BC versified the Phainomena of Eudoxos, producing a poem which became required reading for generations of Greeks, with its account of the planets, the zodiac and the other constellations, and its concluding advice to meteorologists: Study the Signs together through the year, Then never of the weather shall a guess Make random nonsense, but assured forecast. Innumerable Greek and Roman commentators published their own editions of Aratus. A misty figure with the name Critodemus appears briefly in a list of the founders of the Greek astrological tradition given by Firmicus Maternus a Latin writer of about AD 356, in his De erroribus profanorum religionum, among purely imaginary personages such as Hermes, Orpheus and Nechepso. This kind of thing plagues anyone attempting to trace astrological history. Was Critodemus imaginary too? Or did he indeed construct the horoscopes he is said to have drawn up? There is a treatise ascribed to him, Horasis, from which later astrologers learned: one, Hephaistion, relied utterly on his astrological formula for determining whether a child would be still-born. Gradually, astrological lore was being drawn together into a more or less coherent body of knowledge. This did not mean, however, that it was free of contradictions, or that it developed with any more coherence than other theories about the nature of the universe. In the three centuries before the birth of Christ, splits occurred between astrologers which continue to this day. Perhaps the chief one concerned free will. On school of ‘scientific’ astrologers took a severely empirical view: everything was predetermined, and the movements of the planets were, so to speak, geared to coming events. Another, the ‘catharchic’ school, believed that some things were predetermined, but by no means all. If you studied the planets’ movements sufficiently minutely you could, by seizing a propitious moment bring about success when to act at another might provoke disaster. Free choice meant the right to chose the moment at which to start a project, conceive a child, be born. There was, by now, a very strong association between certain planets and certain terrestrial events and characteristics. The strongest, of course, was between the Sun and life itself. As one astrologer put it: The Sun, which nourishes the seeds of all plants, is the first also to gather from them the first fruits as soon as he rises; for this gathering of his uses his rays, if one may employ the term, like immense hands. What indeed are hands for him but those rays that gather in the first place the suavest emanations of plants? The different quality of sunlight at different times of the day is now a matter of scientific record, here stated with imagery that is specifically Egyptian. Mars is associated by the same ancient astrologer with war, Venus with love, Mercury with speed and messages, and so on. These associations were not only regarded as traditional, but as matters of scientific fact, although the mythical associations between the planets and ancient legend were still preserved, so that Saturn was also Cronos, Jupiter was still Zeus (there is a horoscope dated AD 8, in which Cronos is in the sign of the Bull, Zeus in that of the Crab, Ares (Mars) in that of the Virgin, and so on). The consensus was that two planets, Jupiter and Venus, were on the whole benevolent, and two were antagonistic, with Mercury neutral. The degree of their influence was geared to their position relative to Earth and the Sun, which was in the middle of the planetary family with Mars, Jupiter and Saturn above, and Venus, Mercury and the Moon below. The lower planets were humid, and colder the further they stood from the Sun. Humidity was thought to be a female element, so the upper planets were believed to be masculine, while Venus and the Moon were feminine, with Mercury a hermaphrodite. As the astrological theory grew more complex, so it became more difficult to resolve anomalies and confusions; and as astronomy developed it became difficult always to fit the known facts to the mythical characteristics. The zodiac signs, too, caused some confusion; the Greeks saw Aries, for instance, as a character in the legend of the Golden Fleece, while astrologers who had learned from the Chaldeans had to accept it as the Ram of Ammon. Aries naturally tended to preside over the fortunes of wool merchants; but since the Golden Ram lost its fleece, it also tended to provoke sudden disasters in the wool trade! Despite the fact that there were innumerable difficulties in the way of a practical valuation of the interpretations offered by the astrologers, some people continued to take the subject very seriously indeed — not only the Seleucids, Lagids and Attalids, but smaller states such as Commagene, under King Antiochus I (c 8o BC). A former antagonist of Pompey, then his ally in the civil war, who repelled an attack on Samosata by Mark Antony (and Antony, incidentally, is said to have been spied on by an astrologer employed by Cleopatra), Antiochus is interred in a giant tomb on the summit of Nimrud Dagh, 7000 feet above sea level, covered with carvings in relief which provide a fascinating anthology of astrological beliefs of the time. Here Greek and Iranian gods became one: Mithra is Apollo, Ares is Hercules, Zeus is Oromazdes. On the western terrace outside the tomb is a great relief of a lion covered with stars, and with the Moon and three planets: Jupiter near the head, Mercury in the middle and Mars at the tail — the planets associated with Zeus, Apollo and Hercules. This is believed to be a visual interpretation of a horoscope for 6 July 62 BC — the day on which Antiochus was crowned after his reinstatement by Pompey. As we turn from Greece towards Rome, where astrology really took its place at the very centre of political events, it is to the city of Alexandria that we must look for a sight of the man who drew together all the skeins of astrological thought of his day and did his best to rationalize them in one book. After the death of Alexander, who founded the city, King Ptolemy Soter — Ptolemy 1 (323-285 BC) — had founded a sort of university at Alexandria, at which the scholars of the city could meet to further their studies. Four hundred years later, the most famous astrologer of ancient times, Claudius Ptolemaeus — Ptolemy — arrived to teach there. Ptolemy is of course known chiefly as a mathematician, astronomer and geographer, who despite his conviction that the Earth was the centre of the universe around which all other heavenly bodies revolved, devised an astronomical system that was to be adopted by the whole of Europe for centuries. His Syntaxis made a great point of insisting on simplicity — no point in inventing complex systems to explain a phenomenon when a simple one would do — and on verification of observation. Astoundingly, without the aid of a telescope, he catalogued 1022 separate stars (compared with the 840 or so catalogued by Hipparchus). The Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy’s lengthy astrological textbook, the first really substantial textbook to come down to us complete, is a compilation of the astrological lore of previous centuries, and was written sometime between AD 161 and 139, when he was working in Alexandria. It is in four books, and begins with a rational enough argument: since it is clear that the Sun and Moon have an effect upon terrestrial life (through the seasons, the movements of the tides, and so on), it is surely well to consider the effects the other heavenly bodies may have. Then, in what is admittedly a giant leap, he proposes that since it is clearly practicable, by an accurate knowledge of the points above enumerated, to make predictions concerning the proper quality of the seasons, there also seems no impediment to the formation of similar prognostications concerning the destiny and disposition of every human being, for ... even at the time of any individual’s primary conformation, the general quality of that individual’s temperament may be perceived; and the corporeal shape and mental capacity with which the person will be endowed at birth may be pronounced; as well as the favourable and unfavourable events indicated ... Ptolemy takes what is an extremely realistic view of the subject, despite his obvious partisanship; he admits, for instance, that the science is imperfect, not only because some astrologers are simply bad astrologers, but because there are other influences than astrological ones to be considered. However, since no weakness is imputed to a physician because he enquires into the individual habit of his patient, as well as into the nature of the disease, no imputation can justly attach to the professor of prognostication because he combines the consideration of species, nurture, education and country with that of the motion of the heavens; for as the physician acts but reasonably in thus considering the proper constitution of the sick person as well as his disease, so, in forming predictions, it must surely be justifiably allowable to comprehend in that consideration every other thing connected with the subject, in addition to the motion of the heavens, and to collect and compare with that motion all other co-operating circumstances arising elsewhere. Completing Book One of the Tetrabiblos, Ptolemy then begins to summarize the workings not only of the Sun, Moon and planets, but of certain fixed stars, going into technical detail. In Book Two, he sets out to ‘confine the whole doctrine within the limits of natural reason’, delineating two chief areas in which astrology can be of use to man — the general (concerned with entire nations, countries or cities) and the particular (concerning individuals). He relates the dispositions of nations to astrology by pointing out that their people seem to have different temperaments, which can be related to the climate of their countries; such climates being, of course, a matter of the heat of the Sun. The people of the extreme north, for instance, who live ‘under the Bears’, or close to the arctic circle, have their zenith far distant from the Zodiac and the Sun’s heat. Their constitutions, therefore, abound in cold, and are also highly imbued with moisture, which is in itself a most nutritive quality, and in these latitudes is not exhausted by heat; hence, they are fair in complexion, with straight hair, of large bodies and full stature. They are cold in disposition, and wild in manners, owing to the constant cold ... Book Two concludes with a passage on how to interpret eclipses, and on the significance of meteors (which is wholly meteorological). In Book Three, Ptolemy turns to personal astrology. He is clear about the difficulty of obtaining an accurate birth time let alone the possibility of noting down the correct time of conception. Both depended on astronomical observation, using an astrolabe, or on having a water clock (and even these, he says, have been known to be leaky and therefore inaccurate!). He is not manic about the choice to be made between working from the time of conception or of birth; ideally, both should be noted. But after all, the conception may in fact be said to be the generation of mere human seed, but the birth that of man himself, since the infant at its birth acquires numerous qualities which it could not possess while in the womb, which are proper to human nature alone. There are detailed instructions about the interpretation of a birth chart or horoscope, and accounts of just what the good astrologer can expect to be able to discover. The physical appearance is certainly one ingredient. The baby born when Saturn is ‘oriental’ (or in the eastern half of the birth chart) would be of a yellowish complexion and a good constitution, with black and curled hair, a broad and stout chest, eyes of ordinary quality, and a proportionate size of body, the temperament of which is compounded principally of moisture and cold. Should he [Saturn] be occidental [in the west of the chart], he makes the personal figure black or dark, thin and small, with scanty hair on the head, the body without hair but well-shaped, the eyes black or dark, and the bodily temperament consisting chiefly of dryness and cold. Illnesses could be foreseen, and therefore guarded against, by studying the birth chart; so could the qualities of mind of the growing individual. A heavy emphasis on the ‘tropical’ or ‘cardinal’ signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn) would generally dispose the mind to enter much into political matters, rendering it eager to engage in public and turbulent affairs, fond of distinction, and busy in theology; at the same time ingenious, acute, inquisitive, inventive, speculative and studious of astrology and divination. The ‘fixed’ signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius), if stressed, make the mind just, uncompromising, constant, firm of purpose, prudent, patient, industrious, strict, chaste, mindful of injuries, steady in pursuing its object, contentious, desirous of honour, seditious, avaricious and pertinacious. Those born with an emphasis on the ‘bicorporeal’ or ‘mutable’ signs, (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius or Pisces) would have minds that were variable, versatile, not easy to be understood, volatile and unsteady, inclined to duplicity, amorous, wily, fond of music, careless, full of expedients, and regretful. But the planets also play their part in shaping the character. Saturn, for instance, in a certain relationship with Venus in the birth chart, and if ‘exalted’ (well-placed within a sympathetic sign), made men averse to women, and renders them fond of governing, prone to solitude, highly reserved, regardless of rank, indifferent to beauty, envious, austere, unsociable, singular in opinion, addicted to divination and to religious services and mysteries, solicitous of the priesthood, fanatical and subservient to religion, solemn, reverential, sedate, studious of wisdom, faithful in friendship, continent, reflective, circumspect, and scrupulous in regard to female friendship. On the other hand if not in association with Venus, and ill-placed, Saturn could make men licentious and libidinous, practisers of lewdness, careless, and impure in sexual intercourse; obscene, treacherous to women, especially to those of their own families; wanton, quarrelsome, sordid, hating elegance, slanderous, drunken, superstitious, adulterous and impious; blasphemers of the gods and scoffers at holy rites. Book Four continues the interpretation of various aspects of the birth chart — how to discern a baby’s future wealth, rank and employment; the probable nature of his or her marriage, and attitude to sex. For instance Mars placed distantly from Venus and Saturn but in proximity to Jupiter would make men ‘pure and decorous in sexual intercourse, and incline them to natural usages only’, while if Mars was supported by Venus, they ‘will become highly licentious and attempt to gratify their desires in every mode’. The Tetrabiblos was enormously influential in its time, and for centuries after. Other astrologers, such as Hephaestion of Thebes, Paul of Alexandria and Julius Firmicus, used it, and saw it as a seminal work. Even today it is read by astrologers, not merely because some of its precepts are part of astrological heritage, but because it offers cogent arguments to support its theory. For instance, Ptolemy grasped the nettle of the Precession of the Equinoxes, pointing out that ‘the beginnings of the signs are to be taken from the equinoctial and tropical points. This rule is not only stated very clearly by writers on the subject, but it is also evident by the demonstrations constantly afforded, that their natures, influences and familiarities have no other origin than from the tropics and equinoxes ...’ In other words, it is the 30 degree section of the ecliptic within which planets may be placed that matters, and not the fact that certain constellations may or may not be behind them. Yet that hoary old argument is still raked up, despite the fact that Ptolemy settled it firmly two thousand years ago. Some astrologers, who like to view the subject mystically rather than practically, have found Ptolemy somewhat dry and uninspiring. Yet he could be intoxicated, like so many of the astronomers of his time, by the sheer romance of the universe: ‘Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day; but when I follow the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the earth; I ascend to Zeus himself to feast me on ambrosia, the food of the gods.’ Ptolemy’s sheer enthusiasm no less than his certainty has always been infectious to generations that followed him; but it is also true that many passages of the Tetrabiblos read today with a peculiarly modern air, in view of the most recent discoveries of previously unsuspected cosmic rays and gravitational effects between the planets. Its errors of fact are no more (indeed, no less) than those of any scientific treaties of its time; and it is a model of the best of its kind. We have only to compare it with other astrological books of roughly the same period to see its superiority. Take, for instance, the existing fragment of the Salmeschnaiko, another influential textbook, full of generalizations: ... This period makes many find their livelihood as advocates, others as wizards, many as singers of gods and kings, and many as translators of languages ... Many, however, also consume the substance of others. [The Lord of Flame] makes many passive homosexuals, and many cohabiting with their aunts and stepmothers so as to debauch them. It is not easy to discover just how far astrology was used by the Greeks at a personal level. Eudoxos, in the 4th century BC, condemned horoscopes used for personal predictions, and Theophrastus, a little later, was surprised to hear from the Chaldeans that they claimed to be able to predict events in the lives of individuals as well as making weather forecasts. Ennius (239-169 BC) is the first Latin writer to mention the people who write down the signs of heaven Noting the Goats or Scorpions of great Jove And other monstrous names of horrid shapes Climbing the Zodiac ... and Cato, who died in 149 BC, warned the manager of his farm not to consult travelling Chaldeans. Stoicism, when it became the fashion in Rome, must have been responsible for an early interest in astrology, too. It is perhaps fair to guess that the forecasts made for Romans during the early centuries after Christ were of much the same sort as those devised for the Greeks in the centuries before: it is simply that more of the former have survived. These Roman examples are extremely various, as Jack Lindsay points out in his exhaustive Origins of Astrology (1971). Few of them, however, attempt to predict the future. Presumably this was done, if at all, in conversation with clients, and on the basis of lengthy files of notes kept by astrologers, showing the positions of the planets at birth and the subsequent career of the subject, as well as of physical characteristics. A man born on 14 December became a deputy-governor but annoyed his superior and ended up working in a quarry with prisoners. Another, born on 23 April 104, had short arms. Yet another was ill and had a close escape at sea, but was saved thanks to the benevolent position of Saturn. Most astrologers have kept notes of that sort, building up dossiers relating the positions of the planets at the birth of an individual to subsequent events or to physical characteristics. Someone born on 10 November 114 had in his forty-second year ‘quarrels and confusion and notoriety through a woman’, and two years later ‘the violent death of a slave and crisis of his father, and accusation of ignoble descent and rape. But he received help and gifts from friends ... ’ Someone else, born on 21 January 116, was effeminate and ‘had unmentionable vices, for Capricorn is lascivious and its ruler [Saturn] was in the Bull, the sign [which would indicate the kind of] weakness, and the Scorpion indicates the kind of lewdery.’ Not unsurprisingly, he seems to have been drummed out of his high position in the army after some undefined incident. By AD 188 Vettius Valens of Antioch, the well-known astrologer, had amassed a fine library of horoscopes, and sets out over a hundred of them in his Anthologiae, illustrating the interpretation of birth charts, and stressing that it is as a result of the detailed examination of how the planets have worked in the life of his clients that he has become so practised and accurate an astrologer. His life is the first we have that can be compared to the lives of other professional astrologers throughout the following ages: he continually recorded his findings, occasionally wrote textbooks (his Teacher’s Manual is, alas, lost), and had continually to defend himself against attacks both from other astrologers and from lay antagonists. But if many astrologers, through the latter centuries BC in Greece and in the early years of the Roman empire, practised relatively quietly with lay men and women who had only the lowest rank in society, we find for the first time in Rome detailed accounts of the part they played in influencing the politics of a country through high-placed clients. For the next eighteen hundred years astrology was to be part of the personal and political lives of most rulers and of their people.