Written in the Stars Shangrila Publications Zodiac Mosaic Book by Lester Ness

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MPM1: Written in the Stars Ancient Zodiac Mosaics
by Lester Ness
Contents __________________________________________ ii-iii...Foreword iv.......Acknowledgements v-vi.....Illustrations vii......Introduction 1-38.....1: Astrology in Synagogue Art 39-80....2: Astrology in Mesopotamia 81-106...3: Hellenistic Scientific Astrology 107-136..4: Astral Religion 137-174..5: Jewish Astrology 175-226..Extended Annotated Bibliography 227-229..Index 230-258..Illustrations	ORDER NOW Have you ever wondered about the history of astrology? Well this book will answer your questions! ISBN 0-9677201-1-7 Cloth Bound Price $39.50 US Single Orders Volume Orders Excerpt Below
The Author Dr. Ness is the leading expert in the history of astrology. This work is an extensively enhanced and augmented edition of his very popular doctoral dissertation. He explains why zodiac mosaics appear in Israeli synagogues. More broadly, this landmark study explains how and why Hellenic Jews used astrology. This volume explores origins of synagogue mosaics and provides useful information concerning astrology around the world. Review "For those interested in archaeology and the history of astrology, this is a valuable work, copiously illustrated and extensively documented. Where the author is less familiar with some forms of astrology, notably Far Eastern ones, he humbly notes this." - Reviewer for ESOTERICA, Volume V, College of Arts and Letters, Michigan State University.
EXCERPTS

CHAPTER TWO
 HELLENISTIC SCIENTIFIC ASTROLOGY
 
 
 Our goal in this chapter is to demonstrate how astrology in its various forms came to pervade the Hellenistic world, including Judaea. We will concentrate on horoscopy. Our account may seem very detailed, but it will serve to demonstrate the all-encompassing nature of astrology, potentially touching every aspect of life. We will emphasize, too, that astrology worked because the planet-gods made it work. We do not claim that everyone believed in the doctrines of horoscopy or worshipped the planet-gods.

 What we do hope to demonstrate is that when ordinary people throughout the Hellenized Near East looked into the sky, they thought they saw living creatures, who caused the changes in the seasons and the changes in their lives./1/ 
 We hope, too, that the reader will see the beauty of the system, as elegant in its proportions and intricate in its details as a Doric temple. This, too, was part of the appeal of astrology.
 
      ADOPTION OF ASTROLOGY
 
   In chapter one we saw how horoscopy grew up as an adjunct to Mesopotamian religion. By 410 BC, when Socrates was an old man, and Plato a young one,/2/  a Mesopotamian could find out what the gods planned for him by calculating the future positions of the planet-gods.
 
   Astrology continued to be associated with the "Chaldaeans," but it was the version of horoscopy developed by the Greeks which conquered the world. By far the majority of the horoscopes surviving from antiquity are in Greek, as well as almost all the treatises on how actually to cast a horoscope./3/  Some of this, of course, is due to the accidents of preservation. Also, cuneiform is much harder to learn than Greek, and far fewer cuneiform tablets have been published than Greek manuscripts. But there is a more important reason. Cuneiform literature is the relic of a completely dead civilization, without any direct descendant continuing to read its writings, nearly indestructible though they are. Greek civilization went through great changes, but the Greek language has not died out, and the literature of the Hellenistic astrologers and other writers was copied and used by their Byzantine descendants. Most of the Hellenistic astrological treatises come to us in medieval copies, and the astrology used in our own society is a direct descendant of the astrology created in the Hellenistic era.
 
   Greek astrology is a product of the Hellenistic era, although there is some slight evidence that a few Greeks knew that horoscopy existed before that. Eudoxus of Knidos, for example, a contemporary of Plato and Aristotle, is quoted by Cicero as saying that one should not believe the claim of the "Chaldaeans" that they could predict a person's future from their birthdate./4/  But how the Greeks learned of this practice and how they turned it into a Greek science, the practical branch of astronomy,/5/  we know only in faint outline./6/
 
   The Hellenistic era began when Alexander conquered the Persian Empire. Politically, it did not last very long. The kingdoms founded by Alexander's generals were quickly supplanted by the Roman and Parthian Empires. By contrast, Greek culture dominated the Near East for nearly a thousand years, until the Arab conquests. This was partly due to the large number of Greek colonies which Alexander and his successors founded throughout their realms. There had been Greek colonies before, of course, but the Hellenistic era saw a different sort of colony. They were not independent communities founded by a city-state, as Miletus or Syracuse had been. The Hellenistic colonies had local autonomy, but not true independence or freedom. They were meant to provide security and local government for the Macedonian kings. Thus, they were founded wherever Alexander or one of his successors ruled, from Egypt to India. The colonies also helped spread, more widely than before, the Greek language and the Greek way of life, which proved very attractive to non-Greeks as well. Greek was not only the language of administration, but of business and high culture as well. Any writer or thinker who wanted to address an international audience, be he Josephus the Jew, or Asoka Maurya in India, had to do so in Greek, no matter what his vernacular was./7/
 
   Horoscopy was "Hellenized" in this society, although just how and where remain puzzling. We know that there were Greek colonies in Mesopotamia, the home of astrology. Indeed, one of the two capitals of the Seleucid kingdom was Seleucia on the Tigris, some 90 miles north of Babylon. When it was founded, many of Babylon's inhabitants were deported to the new city. Babylon itself also had a Greek settlement. Remains of Greek-style houses, a theater, a gymnasium, and Greek inscriptions were found there by the excavators./8/ The same was true of many other cities, and even those which did not receive colonists were still partly hellenized./9/ 

   Cuneiform tablets with Greek superscriptions are known, and native Mesopotamians sometimes took Greek names as well./10/  Likewise, we know that Greek astronomers had access to data collected by their Mesopotamian colleagues./11/  Ptolemy, for example, explicitly says that he had access to records of eclipses from seventh century BCE Mesopotamia. He also tells us that his greatest predecessor, Hipparchus, was using Mesopotamian values for the periods of the planets in the second century BCE./12/ We know from other sources that Hipparchus was interested in astrology; the first remark Pliny makes in his <i>Natural History</i> is to say that Hipparchus had done more to prove humanity's connection with the stars than any other man. Mesopotamian and Greek astronomy both reached their heights during the Hellenistic period, and there was ample opportunity for Greeks to learn of horoscopy as they learned the contents of the ephemerides. But of how they actually did work together, we know virtually nothing. It is probably a safe speculation that Greek-speaking Mesopotamians played the major role;/13/  it was almost unknown for a Greek to learn a "barbarian" language./14/  Both Oppenheim and Pingree have speculated that at least some of the cuneiform scholarly literature was translated into the Aramaic language and script, which was the vernacular of Mesopotamia from Assyrian times. They believe that it was this Aramaic Mesopotamian literature which was transmitted to neighboring civilizations. But until some of these hypothetical documents are discovered, the theory remains only an intriguing possibility./15/
 
   We do know of one Mesopotamian scholar, Berossos, a priest of Bel, who moved to Greece, settling on the island of Kos in the mid-third century BCE. Berossos wrote an introduction to Mesopotamian culture about 281 BCE,/16/  called the <i>Babyloniaca</i>, which brought astrology to Greece proper./17/  Like much written in the Hellenistic era, it survives only in fragments quoted by later writers./18/  In its own day, however, it was so popular that the Athenians voted Berossos an honorary statue with a golden tongue--a very unusual honor for a "barbarian" whose Greek was not very elegant./19/
 
   Berossos was probably not the only Mesopotamian astrologer to tell Greeks about his art. We do know of others who worked as professional diviners at Hellenistic courts, such as Sudines at Pergamon in the generation after Berossos./20/  But despite horoscopy's Mesopotamian origins, the distinctively Hellenistic version of horoscopy seems to have been formulated, not in Mesopotamia, but in Hellenistic Egypt. Alexandria, the capital of the Ptolemaic dynasty ruling Egypt, was the greatest economic and intellectual center of the Hellenistic world, and the Ptolemies promoted scientific research. Astronomy, in particular, made spectacular advances during this time,/21/  and it was probably as a part of research into Mesopotamian astronomy that horoscopy came to Egypt. Certainly there is no hint of any horoscopy in Pharaonic Egypt, which had only the simplest astronomical knowledge./22/  There are some examples of the sort of omens found in <i>Enuma Anu Enlil</i> from Achaemenian period Egypt when both Egypt and Mesopotamia shared the same rulers./23/  Egyptian priests of the Hellenistic period definitely added astrology to their stock of traditional learning, and even claimed that astrology was invented in Egypt, by their god Thoth./24/
 
   In any case, it was a work written in Egypt by some unknown person and falsely ascribed to "Nechepso/25/  and Petosiris"/26/  which popularized horoscopy for the Hellenistic world. Like so many other Hellenistic writings, "Nechepso and Petosiris" survive only in quotes in later writers./27/  But the way later astrologers love to cite "the Egyptians" or "the Ancients" as authorities for their favorite practices is a witness to Nechepso's prestige, while it also makes it hard to recognize the genuine fragments./28/  It was this formulation of horoscopy which spread across the known world, even back to Mesopotamia, and which is with us today./29/
 
   A number of factors in Greek life and thought prepared the way for horoscopy. Greek religion was basically similar to that of Mesopotamia. It was polytheistic, and the heavenly bodies were thought to be divine, although they were not major deities. Few Greek cities had cults of the sun and moon, let alone the lesser planets. Divination was definitely an important institution, just as in Mesopotamia./30/
 
   Several important philosophers and scientists did promote the divinity of the planets, notably Plato and Aristotle. In his <i>Timaeus</i>, Plato offers a remarkable creation story, unlike any other in Greek literture before his time. The spherical universe was created by a Creator, or <i>Demiurge</i> (divine Workman),/31/  who gave it an intelligent Soul, concentrated in the celestial equator and the ecliptic. The ecliptic is subdivided into seven paths for the planets, the "visible gods," who run the universe for the Demiurge./32/  Subordinate to the planets are four kinds of living creatures, one for each of the four elements. The farther from the celestial sphere and the closer to the earth they were, the less divine they were. The fiery animals lived closest to the planet-gods, the aerial animals in a zone within the fiery ones, next the watery creatures, and finally the earthy ones, who were not divine at all. The gods of mythology were fit in somewhere between the airy and the earthy creatures./33/
 
   Human beings were earthy creatures and human bodies were filled from the stars with souls, who return to the sky if they have behaved justly./34/  The human head was made an imitation of the spherical heavens surrounding the earth, and just as the intelligent Soul of the universe inhabits the sky, so the human soul inhabits the head./35/  This is an early example of the idea of the macrocosm and the microcosm, the idea that the human being is a miniature copy of the universe, which played an important role in the scientific and philosophical justification of horoscopy. The picture given in <i>Timaeus</i> provided a sort of theology for astral religion, connecting the technique of horoscopy with the belief that the planets were personal gods. In _Laws_ and <i>Epinomis</i>, Plato went farther, even calling for the formal worship of the planet-gods./36/
 
   By Plato's time, it had become customary to name the planets for the Olympian gods, and, generally speaking, the Greek names corresponded to their Mesopotamian equivalents./37/  The planet Mercury, for example, named for Nabu in Mesopotamia, was called "the star of Hermes," in Greek. Eventually, the circumlocution "the star of--" was abandoned, and the planet Mercury was just Hermes. The change in name does imply a certain change in thinking: from being one of the god's possessions, the planet became the god himself. We use the Latin equivalents of the Greek divine names./38/
 
   There was also a set of descriptive, scientific, names for the planets, which lacked the religious implications of the divine names.  These names were most popular among Alexandrian scientists, but were not used exclusively even by them. By the time of the Antonine emperors, the descriptive names were forgotten, save by scholars of earlier literature./39/
 
   The development of astronomy in Greece also played a role. As in Mesopotamia, the stimulus for astronomy was the calendar. The earliest references to simple astronomy are in Hesiod's <i>Works and Days</i> (ca. 700 BCE), where seasonal chores and seasonal changes in the weather are dated by means of heliacal risings of, e.g., the Pleiades./40/  Many later astronomers also wrote calendars, called <i>parapegmata</i>, correlating seasonal shifts in the weather with the rising and setting of prominent stars./41/  This helped promote the assumption that the stars _caused_ the changes in weather, which in turn made astrology's assumptions about the planets more believable.
 
    The first Greek mathematical astronomers we know of were Meton and Euctemon, who offered the Athenians an intercalation system much like the Mesopotamian one during the early fifth century BCE./42/  Eudoxus of Knidos, in the fourth century BCE, was the first Greek to attempt to analyze the intricacies of the planets' movements, using a set of imaginary spheres, concentric, but rotating around different axes./43/  Eventually, this was replaced by the epicyclic model which is usually associated with Claudius Ptolemy,/44/  but which was usually ignored by astrologers. Eudoxus also invented the system of celestial coordinates and compiled the standard map of the constellations and star used throughout antiquity. This map of the heavens became the major source of one of the most popular books of antiquity, Aratus' <i>Phainomena</i>, composed in the fourth century BCE./45/
 
   But Greek astronomers were not only interested in describing the celestial phenomena mathematically. Unlike the Mesopotamians, they also tried to analyze the size and shape of the universe, and how it worked. In <i>Timaeus</i>, as we have seen, Plato assumed that the whole universe, including the earth, was a giant sphere. This remained the standard belief throughout antiquity, assumed by every astrologer.
 
   Aristotle, like Plato, believed that the heavenly bodies were divine./46/  He also accepted Eudoxus' concentric sphere hypothesis to explain the planetary motions, although he changed them from mathematical fictions to actual, physical, spheres pushing each other around./47/  But it was his formulation of physics which proved most important to astrology, because it became the standard view in antiquity./48/  Aristotle said that all that we see around us on earth is compounded from the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water./49/  The elements themselves are made of primal matter, plus two of the four qualities, heat, coldness, moisture, dryness. If the amount of a quality changed in an element, it changed into another element. This and the intermingling of the elements caused physical and chemical changes on earth./50/  Each element had its natural place in the universe, to which it tried to move in a straight line./51/  Earth was at the center, water around it, then air, and finally a sphere of fire before one came to the heavens./52/  The movements of the heavenly bodies made the changes in the elements occur, but the heavens themselves never changed. They were made of a fifth element, ether, which had an eternal circular motion./53/  Astrologers, such as Ptolemy, assumed that the planets' influences changed the qualities in earthly beings.
 
   Zeno the Stoic was a contemporary of Berossos, and, like him, was honored with a statue by the Athenians./54/  It is therefore not surprising that his philosophy, Stoicism, was especially congenial to astrology. Stoicism was as much a system of psychotherapy as a philosophy in the modern sense. Its goal was to teach people how to live without anxiety by living in accordance with Nature. Therefore a physical model of the universe was an important part of Stoicism. The Stoics took for granted the spherical universe and four element physics, but they rejected Aristotle's theory that the stars and planets were made of a fifth, extraterrestrial, element. The same rules of physics held true everywhere. All things were pervaded and connected by _pneuma_ or spirit, a material substance primarily of elementary fire. This phenomenon of connection was called cosmic "sympathy," or "feeling together." _Pneuma_ connected the planets and earth, and was the medium carrying the planets' influences to the earth./55/  Likewise, moisture from the earth rose and nourished the heavenly bodies./56/
 
   An important consequence of Stoic philosophy and physics was determinism. _Pneuma_ was the substance of the human mind and soul. Just as each of us is intelligent because of our _pneuma_, so the _pneuma_ pervading the universe was a giant mind, which was the Stoic God. This God decided everything which happened. All events were the result of previous causes, going back the creation of the universe. Likewise, anything that happened was destined by the Stoic God from Creation. And because everything was planned for a good outcome by a just God, the individual could adjust to the "slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune," knowing that it was for the best./57/  The effects of the planets were among the more obvious parts of this chain of destiny, and Stoic philosophers, especially Posidonios, defended astrology as an illustration of their world-view in action./58/


Research Sources For Astrology

Greek And Roman Astrology
Greeks played an important role in the development of most astrological practices and thinking. It was Hellenistic Greeks who picked up a Mesopotamian practice, reformulated it in the light of their own science and philosophy, and created the phenomenon which has conquered the world. All later astrology is Greek astrology, whether artistic symbolism or practical techniques for improving one's luck.

Alföldi, A., and Alföldi, E., Die Kontorniat-Medaillons (Berlin: de Gruyter and Co., 1976) {Coin-like tokens with pix of gods; one of Sol Invictus is much like Hammath-Tiberias's sun- god}

Amand, D., Fatalisme et liberte dans l'antiquite grecque; Recherches sur la survivance de l'argumentation anti-fataliste de Carneade chez les philosophes grecs et les theologiens Chretiens des quatre premiers siècles (Louvain: Dissertation, 1945) {The classic work on philosophical arguments for and against astrology. Carneades formulated the key anti-astrology arguments, which were followed by most later anti-astrology writers, Christian and non-Christian. Compare Sextus Empiricus.}

Anson, Leo, Numismata Graeca. Greek Coin Types of for Immediate Identification, Pts. I-VI (London: L. Anson, 1910-1916) {A good source for astrological coins; Part VI is on science and the arts, including astronomy}

Aristotle, On Coming To Be and Passing Away [de Generatione et Corruptione], LCL, tr. E. S. Forster, M.A. (London: Wm. Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935; repr. 1969) {An influential work on physics by the most influential Greek scientist. Aristotle's physics was frequently used as the theoretical backing for "scientific" astrology. Compare Claudius Ptolemy.}

Aristotle, On the Cosmos [de Mundo], LCL, tr. D. J. Furley, M.A. (London: Wm. Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955; repr. 1965, 1978) {Probably this is not genuinely by Aristotle, but it has still been influential. It is a good example of Stoic physics, also used as theoretical backing for "scientific" astrology.}

Aristotle, On the Heavens [de Caelo], LCL, tr. W. K. C. Guthrie (London: Wm. Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939) {An influential work on physics by the most influential Greek scientist. Aristotle's physics was frequently used as the theoretical backing for "scientific" astrology. Compare Claudius Ptolemy.}

Beck, Roger, "Mithraism Since Franz Cumont," Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II.17.4 (NY: W. de Gruyter, 1984), 2002-15 {Cumont wrote influential books, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, on the roman era mystery religion of Mithras, which used astrological art for religious symbolism. Beck's bibliography is a useful account of research in the last hundred years. Compare Cumont, Campbell, Ulansey.} 

Beck, Roger, Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988) {A published dissertation on a religious movement which prominently featured astrological art and symbolism. Good bibliography}

Campbell, L. A. Mithraic Iconography and Ideology (Leiden: Brill, 1968) {More on astrological art and symbolism in the popular Roman religious movement.}

Capelle, W., "Älteste Spuren der Astrologie der Griechen," Hermes 60 (1925): 373-95 {Adoption of astrology by Greeks from Mesopotamians.}

Censorinus, Censorini de die natali liber, ed. Fredericus Hultsch (Lipsiae: in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1867) {Ancient Greek work on how to cast horoscopes. Chapter 17 tells how Berossus brought astrology to Greece. Chapter 18.14 describes Mesopotamian calculations methods used by Greeks. cf. Neugebauer, 1957; Tester, 1987, 16.}

Closs, A., Die Steinbücher in kultürhistorischer Überschau, Joanneum. Mineralogisches Mitteilungensblatt 1, 34 seiten (Graz: 1958) {Hellenistic works on the astrological properties of stones, etc.}

Colledge, Malcolm A. R., The Art of Palmyra, Studies in Ancient Art and Archaeology, Gen. Ed., Prof. D. E. Strong (London: Thames and Hudson; Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976) {Palmyra was a rich caravan city, which used a great deal of astrological art in its official religion. Very good illustrations and bibliography. See particularly the zodiac relief from the temple of Bel. Colledge is probably the most notable student of the history and art of the Parthian Empire.}

Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology: The "Timaeus" of Plato with a Running Commentary (Indianapolis; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1945) {A commentary on a work influential on astral religion.}

Cramer, Frederick H., Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1954) {An excellent account of astrology in Roman history, down to the end of the High Empire. The author promises, in notes, a sequel taking story down to Constantine, but it seems never to have appeared. Good bibliographies, many good illustrations.}

Cumont, Franz, "Le mysticime astral dans l'antiquite," Bulletins de l'academie royale des sciences, des lettres, et des beaux-arts de Belgique (1909): 256-279. {An important aspect of astrological religious symbolism by an important scholar.}

Cumont, Franz, "Les noms des planetes et l'astrolatrie chez les Grecs." L'antiquite classique 4 (1935): pp. 5-45. {Astral religion among the Greeks. Still the standard account, despite its age. Note that the cuneiform signs for the god he equates with Saturn are now read Ninurta, not Ninib.} 

Cumont, Franz, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1912; repr., NY: Dover, 1960) {The best single book on history of astrology in ancient society and religion. In spite of its age, it has not been replaced.} 

Cumont, Franz, L'Egypte des astrologues (Brussells: Fondation egyptologiques reine Elizebeth, 1937) {Astrology as a source for social history.}

Cumont, Franz, Les Religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, 4th edition (Paris: Librairie orientaliste Paul Guethner, 1929) {An older standard reference work. Very good on the religious aspects of magic and astrology.}

Cumont, Franz, Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, second edition (Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1911; repr. NY: Dover, 1960) {English translation of an earlier edition of the above.}

Cumont, Franz, Monumenta Mysteriae Mithraicae {The first collection of Mithraic astrological art. Compare Vermaseren, Corpus, 1965.}

Cumont, Franz, Textes et monuments figures relatifs aux mystères de Mithra (Brussels: 1899) {Corpus of Mithraic writings and art.}

Curtis, Col. James W., "Coinage of Roman Egypt: A Survey; Ch. IV: Mythology and the Zodiac," The Numismatist 69 (1956): 402-8 {Astrological coins in plates 27-8 with text describing them.}

Dicks, D. R. Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1970) {Perhaps the best book on early greek astronomy, and pre-cursors of astrology.}

Dillon, John. The Middle Platonists: 80 BC to AD 220. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. {Survey of an important philosophical school. Very good on spirits, astral religion, and their philosophical justifications.}

Dorotheus Sidonius, Carmen Astrologicum, Interpretationem Arabicum in lingvam Anglicam versam vna cvm Dorothei fragmentis et Graecis et Latinis, edidit D. Pingree (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1976) {Critical text, translations, and commentary of an influential astrological writer, by the most notable contemporary historian of astrology. Dorotheus is particularly important for "elections," that is, selecting the best astrological moment to begin some activity. Win Rowe notes that he was a contemporary of Jesus, in a neighboring region.}

Drijvers, H. J. W., Cults and Beliefs at Edessa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980) {Edessa was an important commercial center in Roman Syria. Astral religion was an important part of its civic religion. Drijvers is an important scholar of the religion of the Roman Near East.} 

Drijvers, H. J. W., The Religion of Edessa (Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1976) {Similar to the above.}

Drijvers, H. J. W. The Religion of Palmyra. Leyden: E. J. Brill, 1976. {Palmyra was the greatest caravan city, which emphasized the astral aspect of its civic religion. Compare Colledge, 1976.}

Empiricus, Sextus. Adversus Astrologos in Adversus Mathamaticos 5, Loeb Classical Library, ed. and trans., R. G. Bury (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1949) {This work summarizes the most common philosophical arguments against "scientific" astrology. Compare Amand, Hippolytus of Rome.}

Festugière, André Marie Jean. La revelation d'Hermes Trismegiste, 4 Volumes. Paris: Lecoffre, 1949-1954. {Hermes Trismegistus was a mythical person, credited with writing a large variety of popular philosophical and occult works. This work thoroughly reviews most hermetic works. Vol. 1 is on astrological hermetica. An appendix by Louis Massignon discusses Arabic hermetism.}

Green, Tamara M. The City of the Moon God ; Religious Traditions of Harran, Religions in the Graeco-Roman World [formerly EPRO] Vol. 114 (NY, Leiden, Köln: E. J. Brill, 1992) {A good recent book on Harran and it's important astral cultus in the Later Roman Empire. Good bibliography.}

Gundel, H. G., Weltbild und Astrologie in den griechischen Zauberpapyri (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1968) {A good discussion of one prominent use for astrological religion.}

Gundel, Wilhelm, and Gundel, H. G., Astrologoumena: die astrologische Literatur in der Antike und ihre Geschichte (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966) {A very good book-length bibliographical essay, discussing nearly all known astrological works from the Greco-Roman world.}

Gundel, Wilhelm, Dekane und Dekansternbilder (Glückstadt und Hamburg: J. J. Augustin, 1936) {Decans are subdivisions of the zodiac, three to each sign, and were important in astrological medicine and magic. This is the classic account of the decans and is quite well-illustrated.} 

Hajjar, Yousseff, La triade d'Heliopolis-Baalbek; Iconographie, Theologie, Culte, et Sanctuaires (Montreal: Université de Montreal, 1985) {Zeus of Baalbek was usually shown in a robe with the planet gods on it, proclaiming him the Lord of Heaven. This is an important collection of astrological religious art.}

Heliodorus. Heliodori, ut dicitur, in Paulum Alexandrinum commentarium, ed. A. E. Boer, Interpretationes astronomicas addiderunt O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree (Leipzig: Teubner, 1962) {Fifth century CE commentary on Paul of Alexandria by another well-known astrologer. This is a detailed work on casting and interpreting horoscopes.}

Hephaistion, Hephaistionis Thebani Apotelesmaticorum libri tres, 2 Vols., ed. David Pingree (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1973-74) {Hephaistion was a well- known astrologer. This work discusses connections between stars and exta, an animal's internal organs at section 1.3.6.14-17.}

Höpfner, Theodor, Griechisch-ägyptischer Offenbarungszauber, Studien zur Paläographie und Papyruskunde, ed. C. Wessely, 21, 1921 and 23, 1924 (Leipzig: H. Hässel, 1921-24) {A major discussion of astrological magic, along much else. He also wrote a article in Pauly-Wissowa.}

Hübner, Wolfgang, Die Eigenschaften der Tierkreiszeichen in der Antike. Ihre Darstellung und Verwendung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Manilius, Sudhoff's Archiv, Zeitschrift für Wissenschaft Beihefte, Heft 22 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1982) {Discussion of the zodiac signs. Good bibliography, pp. 653-42.}

Julian the Apostate, Hymn to Helios, tr. Wilmer Cave Wright, The Works of Julian the Apostate, 3 Vols. (London: William Heinemann; NY: The Macmillan Co., 1913) {A major work of astrological religion.}

Kaimakis, Dimitris, ed., Die Kyraniden (Meisenheim am Glam: Hain, 1976) {The most recent edition of an important work of astrological medicine. Good introduction and bibliography.}

L'Orange, H. P., Studies in the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the Ancient World (Oslo: 1953) {A god in zodiac ring represents a supreme god, or a supreme king. Excellent argument, excellent notes.}

Luck, Georg, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, A Collection of Texts, Translated, Annotated and Introduced by Georg Luck (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1985) {A very good collection of texts in translation, including astrological texts. Good bibliography.} 

Macmillan, Ramsay, Enemies of the Roman Order; Treason, Unrest and Alienation in the Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966) {Very good on the political and social role of astrology. If there had been a Roman equivalent of the House Un- American Activities Committee, they would have investigated astrologers, M. says}

Manilius, Astronomica, trans. G. P. Good, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: Wm. Heinemann, 1977) {Written in the first century CE, this is one of the oldest surviving works on scientific astrology, besides one of few written in Latin. Manilius was a competitor with Virgil and Lucretius in writing popular science.} 

Manilius, M. Magnolia Astronomicon, 4 vols., ed. A. E. Houseman (London: 1903-1930) {A critical edition of the Latin text. Houseman is probably better known to most readers as a poet than a classical scholar.}

Maternus, Julius Firmicus, Mathesis; Ancient Astrology, Theory and Practice trans. Jean Rhys Bram, (Park Ridge, Jew Jersey, Noyes Press, 1975 {Firmicus was the other well-known Latin writer on astrology, and lived in the fourth century CE. "He achieves almost no astrological influence in his own day, but his works directly transmit late Hellenistic astrological methods to the renaissance practitioners, by-passing arab influence, (and also in another sense paving the way for them). He is the best (most complete) source for the doctrine of the antiscia, see p. 58 and on, of the work. The Mathesis also contains a copy of the famous Thema Mundi, the horoscope of the creation. Firmicus Maternus is essentially a literary astrologer...." -- Win Rowe.}

Mely-Ruelle, Ch. de, Lapidaires grecs (Paris: 1898) {The signs and the astrological properties of stones, used in astrological medicine and magic.}

Murray, Gilbert, Five Stages of Greek Religion, 3rd ed. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1955) {Includes astrology as a religion.}

Nechepso and Petosiris, De Nechepsonis-Petosiridis Isagoge quaestiones selectae, ed. C. Darmstadt (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1916) {Nechepso and Petosiris were the inventors of astrology, according to one Greek legend. The work published under their name popularized Hellenistic astrology. This work gathers fragmentary quotations in later authors.}

Nechepso, and Petosiris, Nechepso et Petosiridis fragmenta magica, ed. E. Riess (Philologus Supplementband 6, Göttingen, 1891-93), pp. 327-88. {A rival attempt to collect the fragments of Nechepso and Petosiris.} 

Neugebauer, Otto, and van Hoesen, H. B., Greek Horoscopes, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Held in Philadelphia for the Promoting of Useful Knowledge, V. 48 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1959) {Q 11 .P612 v.48 folio. This is a collection of all known Greek horoscopes, in translation, thus is an important source. The glossary is one of the best introductions to the terminology of "scientific" astrology.} 

Nilsson, Martin P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 2 Vols., 3d ed., Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft V.2 (Munich: Beck, 1955) {The classic work; good references to astrology on pages 268-80, 486-519.}

Plato, Epinomis, in Plato, Complete Works, 8 Volumes, translated by W. R. M, Lamb, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955) {This work may not be genuinely by Plato, but it belongs to the Platonic tradition of astral religion. The stars are explicitly called gods in section 984a.}

Plato, Laws, in Plato, Complete Works, 8 Volumes, translated by W. R. M, Lamb. Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955) {This is Plato's second ideal state, after Republic, and perhaps his last work. In section 10:899b, the planets are called divine.}

Plato, Timaeus, in Plato, Complete Works, 8 Volumes, translated by W. R. M, Lamb, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955) {This work contains a famous creation myth, which became the equivalent of Genesis for Greek astral religion. A very influential work.}

Salzmann, Michele Renne, On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity, Transformation of the Classical Heritage XVII (Berkeley, CA: U. of Cal. Pr., 1990) {good up-to-date discussion of astrological calendar of 354 CE; cf. Stern, 1953}

Sennak, Labubna Bar, The Teaching of Addai, trans. George Howard, Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations 16; Early Christian Literature Series 4 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981) {Describes the astrological character of the civic religion of an important city in Roman Mesopotamia. Includes Syriac text and English translation.}

Speidel, Michael, Mithras-Orion; Greek Hero and Roman Army God, EPRO 81 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1980) {Another attempt to explain the astral symbolism of this popular religious movement.}

Stern, Henri, Le calendrier de 354, étude sur son texte et ses illustrations (Paris: 1953) {Neugebauer, HAMA, 1975, 1198; 199-202: astrological art; zodiac pictures; calendar very interesting; it was an illustrated Roman calendar drawn for, perhaps, Constantius II; it includes lots of pagan imagery, not only zodiacs, but a gallus dancing to illustrate the month of Cybele's major feast; original evidently survived down to C16; then destroyed in a library fire, but fortunately not before several copies made; Stern's books is a marvel of scholarship from every point of view; now cf. Salzmann, 1990}

Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, with an English Translation by Horace Leonard Jones, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1930) {Section 16.1.6 describes astronomy and astrology in Hellenistic Mesopotamia. Strabo lived late first century BCE.}

Suetonius, C. Tranquillus, Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library, 2 Vols., tr. J. C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913; repr. 1989) {The life of Tiberius tells of his addiction to astrology. This is the source of much in the popular TV series I, Claudius.}

Tubach, Jürgen, Im Schatten de Sonnen Gottes; Der Sonnenkult in Edessa, Harran und Hatra am Vorabend der christlichen Mission (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986) {Discussion of worship of the Sun-god in Roman Syria and Mesopotamia. Outstanding bibliography, pages 489-529.}

Ulansey, David, The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries; Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 1989) {Another attempt to explain the astrological symbolism of Mithraism. The cult image, the Tauroctony was a map of heavens, while Mithras was the constellation Perseus. good bibliography.}

Vermaseren, M. J., Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentum Religionis Mithraicae (The Hague: M. Nijhof, 1956) {After Cumont, this is the chief collection of Mithraic astrological art.}

Vermaseren, M. J., Mithras, the Secret God {A good popular book by a major authority.}
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