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This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (June 2012)

Template:Hist ast Astrology, the belief in a connection between the cosmos and terrestrial matters has played an important part in human history.

Regional branches of astrology include Western astrology, Indian astrology, and Chinese or East Asian astrology.

Early origins

Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. It has therefore been argued that astrology began as a study as soon as human beings made conscious attempts to measure, record, and then predict, seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles.

Early evidence of such practices appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the Moon’s influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar. Agriculture needs were also met by increasing knowledge of constellations, whose appearances change with the seasons, allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities. By the third millennium BCE, widespread civilizations had developed sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and are believed to have consciously oriented their temples to create alignment with the heliacal risings of the stars.

There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made during this period. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon round 1700 BCE) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BCE). Another, showing an early use of electional astrology, is ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (ca. 2144-2124 BCE). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favourable for the planned construction of a temple. However, controversy attends the question of whether they were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records that emerge from the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950-1651 BC).

Ancient world

Babylonian astrology was the first organized system of astrology, arising in the second millennium B.C. There is speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC, but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an integrated theory of astrology. The history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late Old Babylonian texts (c. 1800 B.C.), continuing through the Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian periods (c. 1200 B.C.).

By the 16th century B.C. the extensive employment of omen-based astrology can be evidenced in the compilation of a comprehensive reference work known as Enuma Anu Enlil. Its contents consisted of 70 cunieform tablets comprising 7,000 celestial omens. Texts from this time also refer to an oral tradition - the origin and content of which can only be speculated upon. At this time Babylonian astrology was solely mundane, and prior to the 7th century B.C. the practitioners' understanding of astronomy was fairly rudimentary. By the 4th century, their mathematical methods had progressed enough to calculate future planetary positions with reasonable accuracy, at which point extensive ephemerides began to appear.

Babylonian astrology developed within the context of divination. A collection of 32 tablets with inscribed liver models, dating from about 1875 BC, are the oldest known detailed texts of Babylonian divination, and these demonstrate the same interpretational format as that employed in celestial omen analysis. Blemishes and marks found on the liver of the sacrificial animal were interpreted as symbolic signs which presented messages from the gods to the king.

The gods were also believed to present themselves in the celestial images of the planets or stars with whom they were associated. Evil celestial omens attached to any particular planet were therefore seen as indications of dissatisfaction or disturbance of the god that planet represented. Such indications were met with attempts to appease the god and find manageable ways by which the god’s expression could be realised without significant harm to the king and his nation. An astronomical report to the king Esarhaddon concerning a lunar eclipse of January 673 B.C. shows how the ritualistic use of substitute kings, or substitute events, combined an unquestioning belief in magic and omens with a purely mechanical view that the astrological event must have some kind of correlate within the natural world:

… In the beginning of the year a flood will come and break the dikes. When the Moon has made the eclipse, the king, my lord, should write to me. As a substitute for the king, I will cut through a dike, here in Babylonia, in the middle of the night. No one will know about it.

Ulla Koch-Westenholz, in her 1995 book Mesopotamian Astrology, argues that this ambivalence between a theistic and mechanic worldview defines the Babylonian concept of celestial divination as one which, despite its heavy reliance on magic, remains free of implications of targeted punishment with the purpose of revenge, and so “shares some of the defining traits of modern science: it is objective and value-free, it operates according to known rules, and its data are considered universally valid and can be looked up in written tabulations”. Koch-Westenholz also establishes the most important distinction between ancient Babylonian astrology and other divinatory disciplines as being that the former was originally exclusively mundane, being geographically oriented and specifically applied to countries cities and nations, and almost wholly concerned with the welfare of the state and the king as the governing head of the nation.

Astrology in Hellenistic Egypt

Main article: Hellenistic astrology

In 525 BCE Egypt was conquered by the Persians so there is likely to have been some Mesopotamian influence on Egyptian astrology. Arguing in favour of this, Barton gives an example of what appears to be Mesopotamian influence on the zodiac, which included two signs – the Balance and the Scorpion, as evidenced in the Dendera Zodiac (in the Greek version the Balance was known as the Scorpion’s Claws).

After the occupation by Alexander the Great in 332BC, Egypt came under Greek rule and influence. The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander after the conquest and during the third and second centuries BCE, the scholars of Alexandria were prolific writers. It was in 'Alexandrian Egypt' that Babylonian astrology was mixed with the Egyptian tradition of Decanic astrology to create Horoscopic astrology. This contained the Babylonian zodiac with its system of planetary exaltations, the triplicities of the signs and the importance of eclipses. Along with this it incorporated the Egyptian concept of dividing the zodiac into thirty-six decans of ten degrees each, with an emphasis on the rising decan, the Greek system of planetary Gods, sign rulership and four elements.

The decans were a system of time measurement according to the constellations. They were led by the constellation Sothis or Sirius. The risings of the decans in the night were used to divide the night into ‘hours’. The rising of a constellation just before sunrise (its heliacal rising) was considered the last hour of the night. Over the course of the year, each constellation rose just before sunrise for ten days. When they became part of the astrology of the Hellenistic Age, each decan was associated with ten degrees of the zodiac.Texts from the second century BCE list predictions relating to the positions of planets in zodiac signs at the time of the rising of certain decans, particularly Sothis.

Particularly important in the development of horoscopic astrology was the astrologer and astronomer Ptolemy, who lived in Alexandria in Egypt. Ptolemy's work the Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the Western astrological tradition. The earliest Zodiac found in Egypt dates to the first century BC, the Dendera Zodiac.

According to Firmicus Maternus (4th century), the system of horoscopic astrology was given early on to an Egyptian pharaoh named Nechepso and his priest Petosiris. The Hermetic texts were also put together during this period and Clement of Alexandria, writing in the Roman era, demonstrates the degree to which astrologers were expected to have knowledge of the texts in his description of Egyptian sacred rites:

This is principally shown by their sacred ceremonial. For first advances the Singer, bearing some one of the symbols of music. For they say that he must learn two of the books of Hermes, the one of which contains the hymns of the gods, the second the regulations for the king's life. And after the Singer advances the Astrologer, with a horologe in his hand, and a palm, the symbols of astrology. He must have the astrological books of Hermes, which are four in number, always in his mouth.

Astrology in Greece and Rome

The conquest of Asia by Alexander the Great exposed the Greeks to the cultures and cosmological ideas of Syria, Babylon, Persia and central Asia. Greek overtook cuneiform script as the international language of intellectual communication and part of this process was the transmission of astrology from Cuneiform to Greek. Sometime around 280 BCE, Berossus, a priest of Bel from Babylon, moved to the Greek island of Kos in order to teach astrology and Babylonian culture to the Greeks.With this, what Campion calls, ‘the innovative energy’ in astrology moved west to the Hellenistic world of Greece and Egypt. According to Campion, the astrology that arrived from the East was marked by its complexity, with different forms of astrology emerging. By the first century BCE two varieties of astrology were in existence, one that required the reading of horoscopes in order to establish precise details about the past, present and future, the other being theurgic, meaning literally ‘god-work’, and emphasised the soul’s ascent to the stars. While they were not mutually exclusive, the former sought information about the life, while the latter was concerned with personal transformation, where astrology served as a form of dialogue with the divine.

Like so much else, astrology came to Rome due to Greek influence. Among the Greeks and Romans, Babylonia or Chaldea was so identified with astrology that "Chaldaean wisdom" became the synonym of divination through the planets and stars. Astrologers became very much in vogue in Imperial Rome. Indeed the emperor Tiberius had had his destiny predicted for him at birth, and so surrounded himself with astrologers such as Thrasyllus of Mendes. According to Juvenal 'there are people who cannot appear in public, dine or bathe, without having first consulted an ephemeris'. Claudius, on the other hand favoured augury and banned astrologers from Rome altogether. It is perhaps not surprising, that in the course of time, to be known as a "Chaldaean" carried with it frequently the suspicion of charlatanry and of more or less willful deception.

Islamic world

Abū Maʿshar
A Latin translation of Abū Maʿshar's De Magnis Coniunctionibus ("Of the great conjunctions"), Venice, 1515.
Born	c. 787 Balkh, Khurasan
Died	c. 886 Wāsiṭ, Iraq

Academic background
Influences	Aristotle, al-Kindi
Academic work
Era	Islamic Golden Age
Main interests	Astrology, Astronomy
Influenced	Al-Sijzi, Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Pierre d'Ailly, Pico della Mirandola.

Further information: Astrology in medieval Islam

Astrology was taken up enthusiastically by Islamic scholars following the collapse of Alexandria to the Arabs in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th. The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as Bayt al-Hikma ‘Storehouse of Wisdom’, which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts. The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr (a.k.a. Zael), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century, the effect of which was to help initiate the European Renaissance.

Amongst the important names of Arabic astrologers, one of the most influential was Albumasur, whose work Introductorium in Astronomiam later became a popular treatise in medieval Europe. Another was Al Khwarizmi, the Persian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and geographer, who is considered to be the father of algebra and the algorithm. The Arabs greatly increased the knowledge of astronomy, and many of the star names that are commonly known today, such as Aldebaran, Altair, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Vega retain the legacy of their language. They also developed the list of Hellenistic lots to the extent that they became historically known as Arabic parts, for which reason it is often wrongly claimed that the Arabic astrologers invented their use, whereas they are clearly known to have been an important feature of Hellenistic astrology.

During the advance of Islamic science some of the practices of astrology were refuted on theological grounds by astronomers such as Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) and Avicenna. Their criticisms argued that the methods of astrologers were conjectural rather than empirical, and conflicted with orthodox religious views of Islamic scholars through the suggestion that the Will of God can be precisely known and predicted in advance. Such refutations mainly concerned 'judicial branches' (such as horary astrology), rather than the more 'natural branches' such as medical and meteorological astrology, these being seen as part of the natural sciences of the time.

For example, Avicenna’s 'Refutation against astrology' Resāla fī ebṭāl aḥkām al-nojūm, argues against the practice of astrology while supporting the principle of planets acting as the agents of divine causation which express God's absolute power over creation. Avicenna considered that the movement of the planets influenced life on earth in a deterministic way, but argued against the capability of determining the exact influence of the stars. In essence, Avicenna did not refute the essential dogma of astrology, but denied our ability to understand it to the extent that precise and fatalistic predictions could be made from it.

Medieval and Renaissance Europe

Whilst astrology in the East flourished following the break up of the Roman world, with Indian, Persian and Islamic influences coming together and undergoing intellectual review through an active investment in translation projects, Western astrology in the same period had become “fragmented and unsophisticated … partly due to the loss of Greek scientific astronomy and partly due to condemnations by the Church.” Translations of Arabic works into Latin started to make their way to Spain by the late 10th century, and in the 12th century the transmission of astrological works from Arabia to Europe “acquired great impetus”.

By the 13th century astrology had became a part of everyday medical practice in Europe. Doctors combined Galenic medicine (inherited from the Greek physiologist Galen - AD 129-216) with studies of the stars. By the end of the 1500s, physicians across Europe were required by law to calculate the position of the Moon before carrying out complicated medical procedures, such as surgery or bleeding.

Influential works of the 13th century include those of the British monk Johannes de Sacrobosco (c. 1195–1256) and the Italian astrologer Guido Bonatti from Forlì (Italy). Bonatti served the communal governments of Florence, Siena and Forlì and acted as advisor to Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. His astrological text-book Liber Astronomiae ('Book of Astronomy'), written around 1277, was reputed to be "the most important astrological work produced in Latin in the 13th century". Dante immortalized Bonatti in his Divine Comedy by placing him in the eighth Circle of Hell, a place where those who would divine the future are forced to have their heads turned around (to look backwards instead of forwards).

In medieval Europe, a university education was divided into seven distinct areas, each represented by a particular planet and known as the seven liberal arts. Dante attribued these arts to the planets. As the arts were seen as operating in ascending order, so were the planets and so, in decreasing order of planetary speed, grammar was assigned to the Moon, the quickest moving celestial body, dialectic was assigned to Mercury, rhetoric to Venus, music to the Sun, arithmetic to Mars, geometry to Jupiter and astrology/astronomy to the slowest moving body, Saturn.

During the Renaissance, a form of "scientific astrology" evolved in which court astrologers would compliment their use of horoscopes with genuine discoveries about the nature of the universe. Many individuals now credited with having overturned the old astrological order, such as Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, were themselves practicing astrologers.

At the end of the Renaissance the view of astrology as a science collapsed with the breakdown of Aristotelian Physics and rejection of the distinction between the celestial and sublunar realms, which had historically acted as the foundation of astrological theory. Keith Thomas reports that although heliocentrism is consistent with astrology theory and poses no concern in itself, 16th and 17th century astronomical advances which had proven the regularity of comets, and Tycho Bhahe’s ‘new star’ demonstration that the higher heavens were subject to change and decay, meant that “the world could no longer be envisaged as a compact inter-locking organism; it was now a mechanism of infinite dimensions, from which the hierarchical subordination of earth to heaven had irrefutably disappeared”. Initially, amongst the astronomers of the time, “scarcely anyone attempted a serious refutation in the light of the new principles” and in fact astronomers “were reluctant to give up the emotional satisfaction provided by a coherent and interrelated universe”. In response, the mid-17th century astronomers made a determined effort to bring the subject of astrology up to date. However, the problem of astrology no longer having a tenable theoretical basis meant that by the 18th century the intellectual investment which had previously maintained astrology’s standing as a science was ultimately abandoned. Ann Geneva reports:

Astrology in seventeenth cenury England was not a science. It was not a Religion. It was not magic. Nor was it astronomy, mathematics, puritanism, neo Platism, psychology, meterology, alchemy or witchcraft. It used some of these as tools; it held tenets in common with others; and some people were adept at several of these skills. But in the final analysis it was only itself: a unique divinatory and prognostic art embodying centuries of accreted methodology and tradition.

India

Main articles: Indian astronomy and Hindu astrology

The earliest use of the term jyotiṣa is in the sense of a Vedanga, an auxiliary discipline of Vedic religion. The only work of this class to have survived is the Vedanga Jyotisha, which contains rules for tracking the motions of the sun and the moon in the context of a five-year intercalation cycle. The date of this work is uncertain, as its late style of language and composition, consistent with the last centuries BCE, albeit pre-Mauryan, conflicts with some internal evidence of a much earlier date in the second millennium BCE.

The documented history of Jyotish in the subsequent newer sense of modern horoscopic astrology is associated with the interaction of Indian and Hellenistic cultures in the Indo-Greek period. Greek became a lingua franca of the Indus valley region following the military conquests of Alexander the Great and the Bactrian Greeks. The oldest surviving treatises, such as the Yavanajataka or the Brihat-Samhita, date to the early centuries CE. The oldest astrological treatise in Sanskrit is the Yavanajataka ("Sayings of the Greeks"), a versification by Sphujidhvaja in 269/270 CE of a now lost translation of a Greek treatise by Yavanesvara during the 2nd century CE under the patronage of the Western Satrap Saka king Rudradaman I.

Indian astronomy and astrology developed together. The first named authors writing treatises on astronomy are from the 5th century CE, the date when the classical period of Indian astronomy can be said to begin. Besides the theories of Aryabhata in the Aryabhatiya and the lost Arya-siddhānta, there is the Pancha-Siddhāntika of Varahamihira.

China and East Asia

Main article: Chinese astrology

Replica of an oracle bone – turtle shell

Astrology is believed to have originated in China about the 3rd millennium BC. Its system is based on astronomy and calendars and its development is tied to that of astronomy, which came to flourish during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD).

Chinese astrology has a close relation with Chinese philosophy (theory of the three harmony, heaven, earth and water) and uses the principles of yin and yang and concepts that are not found in Western astrology, such as the wu xing teachings, the 10 Celestial stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, the lunisolar calendar (moon calendar and sun calendar), and the time calculation after year, month, day and shichen (時辰).

Astrology was traditionally regarded highly in China, and Confucius is said to have treated astrology with respect saying: "Heaven sends down its good or evil symbols and wise men act accordingly". The 60 year cycle combining the five elements with the twelve animal signs of the zodiac has been documented in China since at least the time of the Shang (Shing or Yin) dynasty (ca 1766 BC – ca 1050 BC). Oracles bones have been found dating from that period with the date according to the 60 year cycle inscribed on them, along with the name of the diviner and the topic being divined about. One of the most famous astrologers in China was Tsou Yen who lived in around 300 BC, and who wrote: "When some new dynasty is going to arise, heaven exhibits auspicious signs for the people".

Mesoamerica

Main articles: Maya calendar and Aztec calendar

The calendars of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica are based upon a system which had been in common use throughout the region, dating back to at least the 6th century BCE. The earliest calendars were employed by peoples such as the Zapotecs and Olmecs, and later by such peoples as the Maya, Mixtec and Aztecs. Although the Mesoamerican calendar did not originate with the Maya, their subsequent extensions and refinements to it were the most sophisticated. Along with those of the Aztecs, the Maya calendars are the best-documented and most completely understood.

The distinctive Mayan calendar used two main systems, one plotting the solar year of 360 days, which governed the planting of crops and other domestic matters; the other called the Tzolkin of 260 days, which governed ritual use. Each was linked to an elaborate astrological system to cover every facet of life. On the fifth day after the birth of a boy, the Mayan astrologer-priests would cast his horoscope to see what his profession was to be: soldier, priest, civil servant or sacrificial victim. A 584 day Venus cycle was also maintained, which tracked the appearance and conjunctions of Venus. Venus was seen as a generally inauspicious and baleful influence, and Mayan rulers often planned the beginning of warfare to coincide with when Venus rose. There is evidence that the Maya also tracked the movements of Mercury, Mars and Jupiter, and possessed a zodiac of some kind. The Mayan name for the constellation Scorpio was also 'scorpion', while the name of the constellation Gemini was 'peccary'. There is some evidence for other constellations being named after various beasts. The most famous Mayan astrological observatory still intact is the Caracol observatory in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza in modern day Mexico.

The Aztec calendar shares the same basic structure as the Mayan calendar, with two main cycles of 360 days and 260 days. The 260 day calendar was called Tonalpohualli and was used primarily for divinatory purposes. Like the Mayan calendar, these two cycles formed a 52 year 'century', sometimes called the Calendar Round .

20th century

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United States

In the United States, a surge of interest in astrology took place between 1900 through 1949. A popular astrologer based in New York City named Evangeline Adams helped feed the public's thirst for astrology readings. A court case involving Adams, who was arrested and charged with illegal fortune-telling in 1914 – was later dismissed when Adams correctly read the horoscope of the judge's son with only a birthdate. Her acquittal set an American precedent that if astrologers practiced in a professional manner they were not guilty of any wrong-doing.

The hunger for astrology in the earliest years of the 20th century by such astrologers as Alan Leo, Sepharial (also known as Walter Gorn Old), "Paul Cheisnard" and Charles Carter, among others, further led the surge of interest in astrology by wide distribution of astrological journals, text, papers, and textbooks of astrology throughout the United States.

In the period between 1920 and 1940 the popular media fed the public interest in astrology. Publishers realized that millions of readers were interested in astrological forecasts and the interest grew ever more intense with the advent of America's entry into the First World War. The war heightened interest in astrology. Journalists began to write articles based on character descriptions and astrological "forecasts" were published in newspapers based on the one and only factor known to the public: the month and day of birth, as taken from the position of the Sun when a person is born. The result of this practice led to modern-day publishing of Sun-Sign astrology columns and expanded to some astrological books and magazines in later decades of the 20th century.

Noted predictions

A favourite topic of astrologers is the end of the world. As early as 1186 the Earth had escaped one threatened cataclysm of the astrologers. This did not prevent Stöffler from predicting a universal deluge for the year 1524 – a year, as it turned out, distinguished for drought. His aspect of the heavens told him that in that year three planets would meet in the aqueous sign of Pisces. President Aurial, at Toulouse, built himself a Noah's ark – a curious realization, in fact, of Chaucer's merry invention in the Miller's Tale.

The most famous predictions about European and world affairs were made by the French astrologer Nostradamus (1503–66). Nostradamus became famous after the publication in 1555 of his work Centuries, which was a series of prophecies in cryptic verse. So obscure are the predictions that they have been interpreted as relating to a great variety of events since, including the French and English Revolutions, and the Second World War. In 1556 Nostradamus was summoned to the French court by Catherine de' Medici and commissioned to draw up the horoscope of the royal children. Although Nostradamus later fell out of favour with many in the court and was accused of witchcraft, Catherine continued to support him and patronized him until his death.

Historical figures

Throughout history astrologers have made their mark, including such figures as Ptolemy, Albumasur, Tsou Yen and Nostradamus.

Proponents

The influence of the Medici made astrologers popular in France.

Richelieu, on whose council was Jacques Gaffarel (1601–81), a noted astrologer and Kabbalist, did not despise astrology as an engine of government.

At the birth of Louis XIV a certain Morin de Villefranche was placed behind a curtain to cast the nativity of the future autocrat. A generation back the astrologer would not have been hidden behind a curtain, but would have taken precedence over the doctor. La Bruyère did not dispute this, "for there are perplexing facts affirmed by grave men who were eye-witnesses."

In England William Lilly and Robert Fludd were influential. The latter gives elaborate rules for the detection of a thief, and tells us that he has had personal experience of their efficacy. "If the lord of the sixth house is found in the second house, or in company with the lord of the second house, the thief is one of the family. If Mercury is in the sign of the Scorpion he will be bald, &c."

Francis Bacon abuses the astrologers of his day no less than the alchemists, but he does so because he envisions a reformed astrology and a reformed alchemy.

Sir Thomas Browne, while he denied the capacity of the astrologers of his day, did not dispute the reality of the science. The idea of the souls of men passing at death to the stars, the blessedness of their particular sphere being assigned them according to their deserts (the metempsychosis of J. Reynaud), may be regarded as a survival of religious astrology, which, even as late as Descartes's day, assigned to the angels the task of moving the planets and the stars.

Joseph de Maistre believed in comets as messengers of divine justice, and in animated planets, and declared that divination by astrology is not an absolutely chimerical science.

Kepler was cautious in his opinion; he spoke of astronomy as the wise mother, and astrology as the foolish daughter, but he added that the existence of the daughter was necessary to the life of the mother. He may have meant by this that the "foolish" work of astrology paid for the serious work of astronomy — as, at the time, the main motivation to fund advancements in astronomy was the desire for better, more accurate astrological predictions.

Opponents

Some distinguished men who ran counter to their age in denying stellar influences are Panaetius, Augustine, Martianus Capella (the precursor of Copernicus), Cicero, Favorinus, Sextus Empiricus, Juvenal, and in a later age Savonarola and Pico della Mirandola, and La Fontaine, a contemporary of the neutral La Bruyère.

In the Hellenistic and Roman Empire eras, a number of philosophers and scientists, such as Diogenes of Babylon (Middle Stoic), Galen, and Pliny accepted some aspects of astrology while rejecting others.

Cultural influence

Main article: Cultural influence of astrology

Astrology has had an influence on both language and literature. For example, influenza, from medieval Latin influentia 'influence', was so named because doctors once believed epidemics to be caused by unfavourable celestial influences. The word "disaster" comes from the Greek δυσαστρία, disastria, derived from the negative prefix δυσ-, dis- and αστήρ, aster 'star', meaning "not-starred" or "badly-starred." The adjectives "lunatic" (Luna/Moon), "mercurial" (Mercury), "venereal" (Venus), "martial" (Mars), "jovial" (Jupiter/Jove), and "saturnine" (Saturn) are all used to describe personal qualities thought to be influenced by the astrological characteristics of predominating personal planets.

Many historical writers whose works have shaped the development of literature have used astrological symbolism in their literary themes. For example, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy (early 14th cent.) builds varied references to planetary associations within his described architecture of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, (such as the seven layers of Purgatory's mountain purging the seven cardinal sins that correspond to astrology's seven classical planets). Similar astrological allegories and planetary themes are pursued through the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (late 14th century), William Shakespeare (late 16th/early 17th cent.) and Milton (17th cent.). Often, an understanding of astrological symbolism is needed to fully appreciate such literature and some passages in the older English poets are unintelligible without a basic knowledge of traditional astrological theory.

Chaucer's astrological passages are particularly frequent and knowledge of astrological basics is often assumed through his work. He knew enough of his period's astrology and astronomy to write a Treatise on the Astrolabe for his son. He pinpoints the early spring season of the Canterbury Tales in the opening verses of the prologue by noting that the Sun "hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne". He makes the Wife of Bath refer to "sturdy hardiness" as an attribute of Mars, and associates Mercury with "clerkes".

Footnotes

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Campion (2008) pp.2-3.
Marshack (1972) p.81ff.
Hesiod (c. 8th cent. BCE). Hesiod’s poem Works and Days demonstrates how the heliacal rising and setting of constellations were used as a calendical guide to agricultural events, from which were drawn mundane astrological predictions, e.g.: “Fifty days after the solstice, when the season of wearisome heat is come to an end, is the right time to go sailing. Then you will not wreck your ship, nor will the sea destroy the sailors, unless Poseidon the Earth-Shaker be set upon it, or Zeus, the king of the deathless gods” (II. 663-677).
Kelley and Milone (2005) p.268.
Two texts which refer to the 'omens of Sargon' are reported in E. F. Weidner, ‘Historiches Material in der Babyonischen Omina-Literatur’ Altorientalische Studien, ed. Bruno Meissner, (Leipzig, 1928-9), v. 231 and 236.
From scroll A of the ruler Gudea of Lagash, I 17 – VI 13. O. Kaiser, Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, Bd. 2, 1-3. Gütersloh, 1986-1991. Also quoted in A. Falkenstein, ‘Wahrsagung in der sumerischen Überlieferung’, La divination en Mésopotamie ancienne et dans les régions voisines. Paris, 1966.
Holden (1996) p.1.
Rochberg (1998) p.ix. See also, Neugebauer (1969) pp.29-30.
Rochberg (1998) p.x.
Baigent (1994) p.71.
Holden (1996) p.9.
Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.16.
Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.11.
Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.12. Tablet source given as: State Archives of Assyria 8 250.
Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.13.
Koch-Westenholz (1995) p.19.
Barton (1994) p. 24.
Holden (1996) pp. 11-13.
Barton (1994 p. 20.
Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Petosiris". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
Roberts (1906) p.488.
Campion (2008) p. 173.
Campion (2008) p. 84.
Campion (2008) pp. 173-174.
Parkers (1983) p.16.
Yamamoto 2007. sfn error: no target: CITEREFYamamoto2007 (help)
Houlding (2010) Ch. 8: 'The medieval development of Hellenistic principles concerning aspectual applications and orbs'; pp.12-13.
Albiruni, Chronology (11th c.) Ch.VIII, ‘On the days of the Greek calendar’, re. 23 Tammûz; Sachau.
Houlding (2010) Ch. 6: 'Historical sources and traditional approaches'; pp.2-7.
Saliba (1994) p.60, pp.67-69.
Belo (2007) p.228.
George Saliba, Avicenna: 'viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences'. Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2011, available at http://www.iranica.com/articles/avicenna-viii
^ Nick Kanas, Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography, p.79 (Springer, 2007).
British Library: Learning Bodies of Knowledge ‘Medieval Astrology’ http://www.bl.uk/learning/artimages/bodies/astrology/astrologyhome.html (30 June 2012)
Lewis, James R. (2003). The Astrology Book. Body, Mind & Spirit.
Alighieri, Dante (1867). Divine Comedy. Ticknor and Fields.
The Seven Liberal Arts and the West Door of Chartres Cathedral | Titus Burckhardt | Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Summer, 1969)
^ Keith Thomas, Religion and the decline of magic: studies in popular beliefs in sixteenth and seventeenth century England (Oxford University Press, 1971) p.414-415.
Ann Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars, p.9. (Manchester University Press ND, 1995)
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Pingree, David (1981), Jyotiḥśāstra, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz p.9
Pingree (1981), p.81
Mc Evilley "The shape of ancient thought", p385 ("The Yavanajataka is the earliest surviving Sanskrit text in horoscopy, and constitute the basis of all later Indian developments in horoscopy", himself quoting David Pingree "The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja" p5)
Derek and Julia Parker, Ibid 1991
Parker and Parker Ibid, 1971
Michael D. Coe, 'The Maya', pp. 227–29, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005
Derek and Julia Parker, Ibid, p201, 1990
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A. Kitson (1996). "Astrology and English literature". Contemporary Review, Oct 1996. Retrieved 2006-07-17.M. Allen, J.H. Fisher. "Essential Chaucer: Science, including astrology". University of Texas, San Antonio. Retrieved 2006-07-17.A.B.P. Mattar; et al. "Astronomy and Astrology in the Works of Chaucer" (PDF). University of Singapore. Retrieved 2006-07-17. {{cite web}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)
P. Brown. "Shakespeare, Astrology, and Alchemy: A Critical and Historical Perspective". The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2004.F. Piechoski. "Shakespeare's Astrology".
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

Hellenistic Astrology – An Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry outlining the development of Hellenistic astrology and its interaction with philosophical schools.
History of Astrology The history of astrology and major astrologers through the ages.
Marriage and Divorce of Astronomy and Astrology: History of Astral Prediction from Antiquity to Newton and Beyond by Gordon Fisher
Bibliography of Mesopotamian Astronomy and Astrology
Comprehensive survey of the history of astrology
Survey of History of Astrology An in-depth survey of astrological history, by Julia & Derek Parker.

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