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(IV.) HISTORY - The Imperial Planets

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Bianca
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« on: August 17, 2007, 02:58:45 pm »









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.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2007, 08:50:35 am by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.


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