The invention of the modern zodiac is credited to the Babylonians. Cicero, the famous Roman orator who lived during the last century B.C., had an explanation for why the Babylonians were such acute astrologers: “They reside in vast plains where no mountains obstruct their view of the entire hemisphere, and so they have applied themselves mainly to that kind of divination called astrology.”
It was the early Babylonian priest-astrologers who set down the basic principles of astrology that have remained almost unchanged until today. They divided the sky into twelve equal parts, through which the Sun and Moon traveled. One theory is that they patterned the twelve divisions after the twelve months in the Babylonian year, one month for each lunar cycle. The sky was thought of as a circle of 360 degrees with each division being 30 degrees. This is the way astrologers measure the sky today. The twelve sky divisions, or signs as we call them, were given names: Aries, Pleiades, Gemini, Praesepe, Leo, Spica, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces. The Greeks later changed Pleiades to Taurus, Praesepe to Cancer, and Spica to Virgo. These are the names we still use for the twelve signs of the zodiac.
Each of the signs had a precise influence over events on Earth. Each ruled a plant, an animal, a precious stone, and a color. The Babylonians also named twelve Houses. These are divisions of the zodiac that govern various areas of life. The Babylonian Houses were 1) Life; 2) Riches and Poverty; 3) Brothers; 4) Parents; 5) Children; 6) Health and Illness; 7) Wife and Husband; 8) Death; 9) Religion 10) Dignities; 11) Friendship; 12) Enmity. With some exceptions, these are more or less what the Houses in modern astrology govern.
By the time of the reign of King Assurbanipal in the middle of the seventh century B.C., the basic tenets of astrology had been set down. One of the reasons we know so much about King Assurbanipal is that he left behind a great library, much of which survives. We even have some memoranda written to the king by his astrologers. One of them (which reflects a narrowly monarchist point of view) reads in part as follows:
To my Lord the King of all Countries—If an eclipse occurs but is not observed in the capital, such an eclipse is considered not to have happened. The capital means the city in which the King is staying.
Astrology was mainly used for wide-scale predictions: weather forecasts, floods, good and bad harvests, eclipses, war, and the fortunes of the king. Around the fifth century B.C. astrology became more personal. There is a Babylonian horoscope dated 409 B.C. that is still in existence. We also have a translation of a horoscope cast in 234 B.C. for a man named Aristokrates:
The position of Jupiter means that his life will be regular. He will become rich and will grow old. The position of Venus means that wherever he may go it will be favorable for him. Mercury in Gemini means that he will have sons and daughters.
In Babylonian astrology the constellation of Cassiopeia rules over Syria and Palestine. This constellation was called the Woman with Child because every 300 years it produced an unusually bright star. Astrologers calculate that this star appeared after the birth of Christ, and may be the very Star that the Three Wise Men followed to the Manger.
The Jews of that era are also known to have practiced astrology. Among modern-day Jews the expression mazel tov is used on occasions of joy, such as birthdays, weddings, anniversaries. Few people know that mazel tov has its roots in astrology. The word mazelot in biblical Hebrew meant “sign of the zodiac” or “constellation,” and thus to wish anyone mazel tov literally means to wish them a “good constellation.”
GREEK (900 b.c.-a.d. 150)
The Greeks, who came later to the study of astrology, were not as patient observers of the skies as the Babylonians. Not until the ninth century B.C. did the Grecian astrologers learn to differentiate between the stars and the planets. When they did discover there were five planets, they gave them names based on their appearance: Venus was the Herald of the Dawn because it appeared in the morning. (The Greeks did not yet realize that at times Venus also appeared in the evening. They thought that was a different planet, which they named Vespertine.) Mercury was the Twinkling Star. Mars was the Fiery Star. Jupiter was the Luminous Star, and Saturn the Brilliant Star.
In the sixth century B.C. the philosopher Pythagoras wrote his famous Harmony of the Spheres. He said that the universe was a giant sphere that contained the earth and the air around it. His thoughts on the subject are poetic:
The Sun, Moon, and planets revolve in concentric circles, each fastened to a sphere or wheel. The swift revolution of each of these bodies causes a swish, or musical hum, in the air. Evidently each planet will hum on a different pitch, depending on the ratios of their respective orbits just as the tone of a string depends on its length. Thus the orbits in which the planets move form a kind of huge lyre whose strings are curved into circles.
Two hundred years after Pythagoras, in the fourth century B.C., a Greek astronomer and mathematician named Eudoxos introduced a calendar, based on the Babylonian one. Eudoxos also divided the sky into twelve equal signs. He was the first Greek astronomer to explain the movements of the planets in scientific terms. (Our word planet, incidentally, comes from the Greek plenetes, meaning “wanderer.” While the stars remain fixed in their positions in the firmament, the planets move in their orbits, so they were thought of as travelers who crossed the sky and collected souls.) Eudoxos’s theory was that the planets were held in place by spherical shells that kept them in their paths.
A turning point in Greek astrology came when Alexander the Great conquered Babylonia in 331 B.C. We know that Alexander consulted astrologers. There is a legend that when he was about to be born, an astrologer named Nektanebos stood by the bedside. Nektanebos asked Alexander’s mother to hold back the birth until all the stars and omens were propitious. At last Nektanebos said, “Queen, you will now give birth to a ruler of the world,” and Alexander was born.
There is another story about Alexander’s entry into Babylon. It seems that Babylonian astrologers had predicted Alexander would die in their city. To avoid this fate, he entered the city by the west gate, which was apparently not the expected route for a conqueror. The prediction did not come true, and Alexander went on to annex all of Babylonia, Persia, and India. However, when he did die, in June 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-three, it was in Babylon.
The Greeks took over Babylonian astrology and made it theirs. They gave the five planets new names, taken from the gods of their mythology. Later, the Romans renamed the planets again, according to their gods of mythology. The Roman names are the ones we use today. Or, to be precise, they are an English translation of a Latin translation of a Greek translation of the original Babylonian nomenclature.
The father of modern astrology is Claudius Ptolemy. In a.d. 140 this Greek astronomer from Alexandria wrote a four-volume treatise called the Tetrabiblos (meaning The Four Books), in which he set down his observations and theories about the universe. The Tetrabiblos is considered the first modern textbook on astrology. Ptolemy described the function of the planets, houses, and signs of the zodiac. He formulated the theory of aspects, in which the distances between the planets in one’s astrological chart have a good or bad influence. The study of aspects is still an important part of modern astrology.
Ptolemy’s teachings remained unchanged for the next 1,400 years. It was not until 1543, when Nicolaus Copernicus published his treatise, that Ptolemy’s vision of the earth as the center of the universe was seriously challenged.
ROMAN (300 b.c.-a.d. 476)
Astrology was brought to Rome by Greek slaves whom the Romans took captive. These early astrologers were sometimes known as “astrologers of the circus”; the Romans liked to bet heavily at chariot races and brought along their Greek astrologer-slaves to predict winners for them.
Astrology soon became a topic of great interest to Romans. By the time of Julius Caesar (102–44 B.C.) just about every important Roman statesman and military man had his horoscope cast. Julius Caesar had a detailed horoscope prepared for him, and M
ark Antony’s astrologer was a “gift” to him from Cleopatra. Caesar, in fact, wrote a book about different kinds of divinations. He was warned of his death by someone versed in astrology, “Beware the Ides of March.”
The Roman emperors who followed Caesar took astrology very seriously. Augustus (27 b.c.-a.d. 14) ordered coins to be minted that bore his astrological sign of Capricorn. Two stories have grown up about his early experiences with astrologers. One is that on the day Augustus was born, his father, who was a senator, arrived late at the Senate because of the happy event. He explained to the assembly that a son had just been born. At that point, Nigid-ius, a famous Roman scholar and astrologer, stood up and predicted that the new child would grow up to be a ruler. The second story is about a time, before he was emperor, when Augustus visited an astrologer. The astrologer did not know who Augustus was. Suddenly, upon learning the birth date, the astrologer threw himself at Augustus’s feet and worshipped him as the future master of the empire.
Tiberius (a.d. 14–37), who became emperor after Augustus, studied the horoscopes of political rivals. If he saw any that were likely to gain power in the future, he had those persons put to death. Life under Tiberius was equally hazardous for astrologers. If the emperor was presented with a horoscope he didn’t like, he had the astrologer thrown into the sea. Clearly, Tiberius believed that astrology should be a science in which never is heard a discouraging word.
The infamous Emperor Nero (a.d. 54–68) believed in the auguries of the stars so firmly that he waited until his astrologer told him it was the propitious time before proclaiming himself emperor.
Emperor Hadrian (a.d. 117–138) announced on the first day of each year the events that his charts told him would happen during the coming year. Hadrian correctly predicted the hour of his own death. If that happened today, it would cause the kind of shock among skeptics that would register high on the Richter scale.
MODERN ERA (a.d. 1200��2000)
After the fall of Rome, astrology went into a decline—actually more of a total eclipse—from which it did not recover until after a.d. 1200.
One of the reasons for its decline is that astrology became very linked with superstition during the Roman era. When Christianity became widespread, astrology was opposed as the work of the devil and its study vigorously discouraged. St. Augustine (354–430) was one of those in the early Church who vehemently preached against the practice of astrology.
Though there was little astrology practiced in Europe during this time, it did not disappear completely. It merely changed its principal residence for a time. In the Arab world astrology remained a serious science. One of the great and most renowned Arab astrologers is Albumassar (805–886), and translations of his writings found their way into Europe and were influential in turning the tide back toward astrology.
Another influence in turning the tide was the renowned Church figure St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). He lent legitimacy to the study of the stars when he declared, “The celestial bodies are the cause of all that takes place in the sublunar world.”
By the time of the Renaissance, astrology was in full bloom again. The Catholic popes now used astrology as a matter of course, and Leo X (1475–1521) had many astrologers on staff at the papal court. The di Medici family, the ruling princes of Italy from around 1400 to 1600, were great patrons of astrology along with arts and literature. Catherine di Medici was influenced by Nostradamus, the famous French astrologer and physician. He correctly predicted the death of her husband Henry II—and its exact circumstances—four years before it happened.
In the sixteenth century, a lonely and frightened young princess in prison, facing possible death, had her horoscope read by a Dr. John Dee. Dee told her that she would live to ascend to the throne. Throughout the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Dr. Dee continued to advise her on affairs of state as well as on her more personal affairs.
One of the famous names in astrology at that time is William Lilly (1602–1681), an English astrologer who accurately predicted the Great Fire of London. As a result, he was summoned before Parliament and charged with having conspired to set the fire. He was later acquitted.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, astrology again fell into disfavor. The succeeding century was known as the Age of Enlightenment, and astrology was linked with superstition and occultism.
During these skeptical times, in 1781, Sir William Herschel discovered a new planet, first called Herschel and then renamed Uranus. This contributed to a growing feeling by the public that astrologers simply had their facts wrong when giving their chart of the heavens. Astrologers also had to accommodate to the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846 and the discovery of Pluto in 1930. This did not prove hard to do. Just as astronomers were doing, astrologers simply enlarged their vision of the universe. The three new planets are now very much a part of modern astrology.
The founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875 by Madame Helena Blavatsky started astrology on the comeback trail. The aims of the society were to encourage the study of comparative religions and to investigate unexplained laws of nature. The Theosophical Society played a large part in the revival of intellectual interest in astrology, and many prominent astrologers of the day were active in the society.
Around the turn of the century, two very popular astrologers helped to bring astrology to millions. In effect, they discovered the power of the media to promote ideas. Alan Leo, a British astrologer, published an influential magazine called The Astrologer’s Magazine. In 1914 he was taken to court for being a fortune-teller. The case was dismissed. In 1917 he was prosecuted again, and this time fined twenty-five pounds. Alan Leo’s magazine, renamed Modern Astrology, flourished and gained many new converts to astrology. Leo lectured widely and wrote a number of astrology textbooks, still in use today. His were the first books that explained astrology to the layperson.
The famed astrologer Evangeline Adams has been called the First American Astrologer. Miss Adams’s reputation was established during her first visit to New York when she said that the hotel in which she was staying “was under the worst possible combination of planets, bringing conditions terrifying in their unfriendliness.” That night the hotel burned to the ground.
In 1914 (the same year as Alan Leo’s trial in England), Miss Adams was also brought to trial in America. She, too, was charged as a fortune-teller. In court she was given an anonymous horoscope to interpret. The horoscope was that of the judge’s son. Miss Adams’s reading was so accurate that the judge congratulated her, remarking that “the defendant raises astrology to the dignity of an exact science.” He dismissed the charge against her. By 1930 Evangeline Adams had a very popular radio program on astrology, which won hundreds of thousands of converts.
During World War Two, Nazi leaders used astrology for propaganda purposes. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, had a number of astrologers on his staff, among them one Karl Ernst Krafft, who translated and reinterpreted the predictions of Nostradamus in ways that seemed to favor the Nazi cause. Krafft fell from grace after Rudolph Hess’s defection to England. (The Nazis blamed astrology for Hess’s defection, saying he was “crazed by astrologers.”) Krafft later died in a concentration camp.
Beginning in the 1960s, we have seen a new resurgence of interest in astrology. It is not just popular with the younger generation or with those who read newspaper horoscopes every day. It is also the subject of serious research. More people are learning more about this oldest science all the time.
In 1988, astrology became headline news when a White House adviser revealed that First Lady Nancy Reagan, wife of President Ronald Reagan, regularly consulted a personal astrologer. Mrs. Reagan apparently used her astrologer’s advice to schedule key events and appointments, both for herself and her husband. Understandably, this created a great stir in the media and the general public, who felt that astrology should not be a controlling factor in national politics. Mrs. Reagan defended herself, saying she sought the support
and counsel of an astrologer, who became her confidante, only after her husband’s near-fatal brush with an assassin’s bullet on March 30, 1981. The astrological community has long understood that the Reagans consulted astrologers as far back as the 1960s, when Ronald Reagan was governor of California.
Nancy Reagan’s description of her relationship with her astrologer is interesting. Joan Quigley, the astrologer, became a psychological support for Mrs. Reagan, an intimate friend who listened sympathetically to her problems and anxieties. The value of this role of counselor and supporter is often overlooked when arguing the pros and cons of astrology and, indeed, is in itself a great benefit to those who seek the advice of an astrologer.
More and more, astrology has entered the mainstream of our culture. It is no longer considered out of the ordinary for people in business, commerce, banking, the law, the arts, politics—in fact, almost every major profession—to consult a personal astrologer.
FOOTNOTE
*This is only one version of the legend. In certain Far Eastern countries (e.g., Vietnam), the cat is the astrological symbol instead of the hare.
ARIES, the Ram
THE FIRST SIGN of the zodiac is represented by the Ram. In mythology, the Ram has always been courageous and enterprising, a lively, energetic animal able to bound over obstacles and rocky terrain.
The story of the Ram begins in ancient Greece with a king named Athamus who ruled the province of Boetia. Athamus married a woman called Nephele, and they had two beautiful children, a son and daughter they named Phrixus and Helle.
After a time, Athamus grew tired of Nephele and deserted her. He took a second wife, Ino, and they had two sons. Ino was a jealous and conniving woman who hated her stepchildren Phrixus and Helle, and set about plotting their deaths.
The first thing she did was convince the women of her country to roast the corn before planting it. This effectively cancelled out the crops that year. Famine swept the land. The king sent a messenger to the Oracle at Delphi to find out what caused the crop failure. Apparently, it never occurred to him to ask the women who planted the crops, but this is the sort of oversight of which some modern political leaders are also guilty.
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