De astrologia

It was the Aethiopians that first delivered this doctrine unto men. The ground thereof was in part the wisdom of that nation, the Aethiopians being in all else wiser than all men; but in part also the benignity of their clime, since clear skyes and calm weather ever invest them, and they are not subjected to the vicissitudes of the yeere, but live in onely one season.[*](In Lucian’s day current theory ascribed the origin of astronomy to the Egyptians. We must applaud his insight in favo the Ethiopians, since Diodorus (III, 2,1; doubtless on good authority) records that they were the first men, that they first taught people to worship the gods, that the Egyptians were their colonists, and that most of the Egyptian institutions were Ethiopian. And if, as we read in the Platonic Epinomis and in Macrobius (Comm. in Cic. Somn. Scip., I, 21, 9), the climate of Egypt is conducive to the study of the heavens, that of Ethiopia, naturally, would be far more so. ) Therefore when they discerned, first of all, that the moon hath not perpetually the same appearance, but carrieth a various aspect and changeth into divers figures, they accounted the thing good reason for wonder and empuzzlement. In consequence they sought and found the cause thereof, that the lustre of the moon is not her own but cometh to her from the sun.

And they determined also the course of the other stars, which we call planets or wanderers because they alone of all the stars do move; also their nature and potency, and the works that are brought to pass by each of them. Also, they ascribed names unto them, that yet were not names, as they seemed, but symboles.

All which the Aethiopians observed in the skye, and afterwards they transmitted their doctrine incompleat to the Aegyptians. And the Aegyptians, deriving from them the auspiciall art but half consummated, advanced it; and they indicated the measure of each planet’s motion, and determined the numericall extension of yeares and moneths and hours. The moneths they measured by the moon

And they devised other inventions much greater than these. For they divided the entire skye and the other stars that are inerrant and fixed, and do never move, into twelve segments for such as move: which they styled “houses,” although they resemble living creatures, each patterned after the figure of a different kind, whereof some are sea-monsters, some humans, some wild beasts, some volatiles, some juments.

For this reason, indeed, the Aegyptian deities are portrayed in various aspects.[*](In accrediting the invention of the signs of the Zodiac to the Egyptians, our author is at one with his contemporaries (cf. Macrobius, loc. cit.), but in deriving from these signs the animal forms of the Egyptian gods, and in connecting the fishtaboo in that country with the constellation Pisces he presents the results of original research. ) For it is not to be supposed that all Aegyptians were wont to draw prognosticks from all the twelve signs; but some had one sign in use, others another. The ram is reverenced by those who looked up unto Aries, fish is not eaten by those who attached signality unto Pisces, the goat is not slain by those who had knowledge of Capricorn, and the other creatures are severally venerated by other folk. Assuredly the bull too is adored in honour of the celestial Taurus, and Apis, esteemed by them an object of the uttermost sanctity, depastureth their land, and they that inhabit it vouchsafe him an oracle in token of the auspiciality of Taurus.

Not long after, the Libyans also espoused the science; for the Libyan oracle of Ammon was founded in regard of the heavens and his knowledge thereof;

And the Babylonians came to know all these things, even before the others, as they themselves say; but I think that the science reached them long afterward.[*](In the Goddesse of Surrye (2) Lucian is similarly minded as to Babylonian claims of priority in religion; and in the Runaways Philosophy goes successively to India, Ethiopia, Egypt, Babylon, and Greece. )

As for the Greeks, they learned not a whit of astrology either from the Aethiopians or from the Aegyptians. It was Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus and Calliope, that first declared these matters unto them, but not at all plainly, nor did he bring the science forth unto illucidation but unto ingannation and pious fraude, such being the humour of the man.[*](It seems better established that Atlas was the first astronomer; cf. Cicero, 7’usc. Disp., V, 3, 8, and Vergil, Aen., I, 740. He taught the doctrine of the sphere to Heracles, and the fact that Heracles introduced it into Greece underlies the story of the golden apples of the Hesperides—so, at all events, says Diodorus. Orpheus, however, was no doubt a very active person in many ways; e.g. in connection with philosophy (Runaways, 8) and very likely dancing (Dance, 15), and the mathematician Nicomachus of Gerasa (pp. 241, 271, 274 Jan.), Lucian’s contemporary, agrees with him that the lyre of Orpheus had seven strings to match the number of the planets and played the harmony of the spheres. )_ For he made a harp and exposed his mystick rites in poesy and his theology in song; and the harp, that had seven chords, discoursed the harmony of the errant spheres. It was by investigating and ventilating these matters that he enchanted and enthralled all creatures; for he regarded not that harp of his nor yet concerned himselfe with other musick, but this was the mightie harp of Orpheus,[*](The thought is that the planets form the only musical instrument and render the only music in which Orpheus, as primarily an astronomer, had any real interest. ) and to honour these things, the Greeks set apart a station in the heavens and numerous stars are denominated Orpheus his harp.

If ever you see Orpheus pictured in mosaick stones or in pigment, he sitteth in the centre, in the simili-

They say, moreover, that Tiresias, a Boeotian man, whose fame as touching prophecie is greatly cried up, declared, unto the Greeks that of the errant stars some are masle, some female, and that they do not engender like effects; wherefore they fable that Tiresias himself was bisexous and amphibious, now masle, now female.[*](Here again we have “indepeniiont thought.” A widely variant explanation of the myth had previously been offered by Cephalio (cf. J. Malalas, Chron., p. 40, 1, in the Bonn ition), according to which Tiresias was a student of medicine who concerned himself with the mysteries of parturition. )