Astrology through the Ages
Astrology in Greece was the best astrology of antiquity. It rose to a level that the ancient astrology texts of Babylon never reached. Ancient Roman astrology, especially after the introduction of Ptolemaic astrology in the 1st Century AD, would be used for millennia. Greek scientists determined that the Earth was not flat, and that it orbited the Sun. They figured a precise method of determining an eclipse, and of predicting mathematically the New Moon. This enabled astronomer/astrologers to compute more accurate ephemerides (it was the work of Kepler and Newton, developing the mathematics of ellipses that made them even more accurate). Many of these ancient astrology texts, including Hipparchus’ star charts and Ptolemy’s mathematics, survive today. Greek science, and the astrology of ancient Greece and ancient Roman astrology, are the foundations of Western astrology. By the 1st century A.D., Greek and Roman astrology had spread as far as India, and some of its elements are still used there today.
In Greece and Rome, astronomers were astrologers. Unlike the earlier astrologers, we know their names, some of their works, and even certain details about their lives.
Thales lived in the 6th century B.C. It is said that he predicted an eclipse, although good scientific arguments prove that this was impossible for him to do.
For example, the myth of the Saros is often used as an “explanation” of the alleged prediction by Thales of the solar eclipse of May 28, 584 B.C. . There exists no cycle for solar eclipses visible at a given place; all modern cycles concern the Earth as a whole. No Babylonian theory for predicting a solar eclipse existed at 600 B.C., nor did the Babylonians ever develop any theory which took the influence of geographical latitude into account. One can safely say that the story about Thales’s predicting a solar eclipse is no more reliable than the other story about his predicting the fall of meteors.
(Neugebaurer, Otto The Exact Sciences in Antiquity Providence Rhode Island: Brown University Press: 1957, page 142)
Pythagoras (581 to 497 B.C.?) of Samos was a famous astrologer of ancient Greece. He taught astrology, reincarnation, and various metaphysical systems, plus mathematics. Pythagoras introduced pi and phi into Greek science. The Pythagorean Theorem is named after him. Plutarch says:
For it is said of Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his call, and stoop down to him in his flight; and that as he passed among the people assembled at the Olympic games, he showed them his golden thigh; besides many other strange and miraculous seeming practices…
Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans. John Dryden, trans. New York: the Modern Library, 1955 ed.) p 80
Pythagoras founded a school of philosophy. In the following century, a philosopher from the Pythagorean School named Philolaus, another Greek scientist, introduced the concept that the Earth is in motion. This revolutionary notion was supported by other astrologer/astronomers, including Hicetas, Ecphantus, and Heracleides.
Aristotle and Astrology
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), the philosopher, was also a famous astrologer/astronomer, and is still famous. His influence extended millennia into the future. Some of his more important work involved a study of the Moon and its phases (Abel, Morrison, Wolff. Exploration of the Universe. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1987 p. 15)
Ancient Astrology Texts
One of the first Greek astrologers to advance the body of knowledge about the heavens was Aristarchus of Samos (310-230 B.C.). His discoveries went far beyond Babylonian or Egyptian science. Aristarchus developed the remarkable theory that the Earth actually revolved around the Sun. One of his manuscripts, “On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and the Moon” survives today.
Alexandria was a great city situated at the mouth of the Nile River in Egypt. It was founded by Alexander the Great who, in his youth, was taught by Aristotle. Alexander hoped his city would become a center of learning. And so it did, one of the greatest of antiquity.
In this city, in one of the observatories for astronomer/astrologers, Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.) determined the size of the Earth’s diameter. His technique for measuring is still used by today’s scientists. (Abel, Morrison, Wolff. Exploration of the Universe. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1987 p. 2)
This discovery went beyond anything the Babylonians had achieved.
Hipparchus the Astrologer
Hipparchus was one of the greatest astrologers in history. He was born in Nicaea, worked for years in Rhodes, and possibly in Alexandria from 160 to 127 B.C. (exact date of birth/death not known). He devised a star catalogue, giving precise celestial coordinates for about 850 bright stars. He discovered the precession of the equinoxes, which gave astrology the ability to calculate long ages. His mathematics gave Ptolemy the scientific foundations to develop the precise math of an eclipse. (Abel, Morrison, Wolff. Exploration of the Universe. New York: Holt, Reinhart & Winston, 1987 p. 21)
Plato (427?-347B.C.) was not himself a practicing astrologer, but he wrote The Epinomis, a book supporting astrology. He may have studied it during his twenty years in Egypt.
Zeno, a philosopher, the founder of Stoicism, was an astrologer. He founded a school of philosophy which incorporated astrological teachings. Much of his writing remains today.
Some Greek astrologers are not as well known, like Meton (5th century B.C.). He discovered the lunar node cycle that lasts nineteen years. Some Greek astrologers’ works have been completely lost. Epignens of Byzantium, Artemidorus of Parium, and Appolonius of Myndus are among those totally forgotten today. (Cumont, op.cit. p.33) When the library at Alexandria was destroyed in the later years of the Roman Empire, their life works disappeared.
Ancient Roman Astrology: Ptolemy the Astrologer
The greatest astronomer/astrologer of antiquity was Claudius Ptolemy (93-178 A.D.). He finalized the math of casting a chart, much of which is used today, somewhat unfortunately, I think. Ptolemy left behind fascinating interpretations of the meanings of the planets and the stars. He authored two great works. The first, The Almagest or Syntaxis Mathematica consists of thirteen books and is the great treatise on astronomy. It was accepted as scientific law well into the High Renaissance. His second book, The Tetrabiblios, examines the interpretative side of astrology.
Ptolemy was a great codifier. Scientifically, he stood on the shoulders of Aristarchus and Hipparchus, yet he was an original thinker himself. Ptolemy exerted a profound influence on the human mind for almost a millennia and a half. I have included a small statement he makes about the Sun and the Moon:
For the sun … is always in some way affecting everything on the earth, not only by the changes that accompany the seasons of the year to bring about the generation of animals, the productiveness of plants, the flowing of waters, and the changes of bodies, but also by its daily revolutions furnishing heat, moisture, dryness, and cold in regular order and in correspondence with its positions relative to the zenith.
The moon too, as the heavenly body nearest the earth, bestows her effluence most abundantly upon mundane things, for most of them, animate and inanimate, are sympathetic to her and change in company with her; the rivers increase and diminish their streams with her light, the seas turn their own tides with her rising and setting, and plants and animals in whole or in some part wax and wane with her.
(Ptolemy, Claudius. Tetrabiblios F.E. Robbins, ed. & tr., Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1980 ed. Page 7)
Ancient Roman Astrology: Manilius the Astrologer
Posidonius (circa 75 B.C.), was supposed to have been one of the greatest astrologers of antiquity. None of his work has survived. Posidonius taught Cicero and Pompey, both of whom studied but did not really practice astrology. Posidonius is also said to have inspired the still existing Astronomics of Manilius (75 B.C.). Here follows a brief quote on fate and history from Manilius:
The fates rule the world, and all things are established by a settled law; each long age is marked with its settled chances. At our birth we begin to die, and our end depends upon our beginning. Hence flow wealth and power, and poverty, too often found; hence are all given their skills and characters, their faults and virtues, their losses and gains….
And:
Nature is nowhere concealed: we see it all clearly, and hold the universe in our grasp. We, being a part of the universe, see it as our begetter, and being its children, reach to the stars.
Surely no one doubts that some divinity swells in our breasts, and our souls return to the heavens, and come from there; and that just as the universe is constructed out of the four elements of air, and fire and earth and water, the whole being a lodging for the governing Mind within, so we too possess bodies of earthly substance and spirits nourished by the blood, and a mind which governs all and controls every man. Is it so strange if men can understand the universe, seeing that there is a universe within themselves, and each is in small image a likeness of God?
(Jim Tester. A History of Western Astrology New York: Ballantine Books. 1987 Pages 32-33)
If this passage by Manilius reflects the influence of Posidonius, astrology has perhaps lost one of its great teachers.
Both Manilius and Posidonius were astrologers practicing during the Neptune/Pluto synod (roughly at 15⁰ Taurus in 88 b.c.), part of a group who, along with Caesar and Augustus, and earlier, Sulla and Marius, ended the centuries old Roman Republic, which by this time had become corrupt and unworkable, and ushered in the era of the Roman emperors. This era would last for another five hundred year cycle of Neptune/Pluto.
As F.E.Robbins explained in his Introduction to The Tetrabiblos:
…by the second century of our era the triumph of astrology was complete. With few exceptions, everyone, from emperor to the lowest slave believed in it… (Ptolemy. Op. cit. P xi)