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Astrology for Maecenas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

D.A. Kidd
D.A. Kidd*
Affiliation:
Christchurch, N.Z.
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Extract

Astronomical themes, with a rather limited scope, were a minor but recurrent element in ancient poetry, and Horace makes considerable use of them in the Odes. Most of the examples involve risings and settings as guides to the time of year, and most are within the range of the phenomena mentioned in Hesiod’s Works and Days. But in Odes 3.29.17-20, for the special interest of Maecenas, Horace breaks new ground by drawing more topical material from the Julian calendar, to remind his friend that it is now July and too hot for working in Rome: the (evening) rising of Cepheus on the 9th, the (morning) risings of Procyon on the 15th and Regulus on the 29th, and the entry of the sun into Leo on the 17th. Such an array of calendaric lore is clearly designed to appeal to Maecenas, who must have had a particular interest in astronomical phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 16 , 1982 , pp. 88 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 1982

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References

1 See Columella 11.2.51–3.

2 Boll, F. ‘Paralipomena. I’, Philologus 69 (1910), 164–7;CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Zu Horaz od. II 17’, Zeitschrift für das Gymnasialwesen 65 (1911), 765–7; ‘Sternenfreundschaft’, Sokrates 5 (1917), 1 ff. = Kleine Schriften (Leipzig 1950), 115–24; Dicks, D.R. ‘Astrology and astronomy in Horace‘, Hermes 91 (1963), 60–73;Google ScholarCoutts, R.L., ‘Astrology in Horace, Odes II, 17’, Proceedings of the Classical Association 61 (1964), 26–7;Google ScholarMörland, H. ‘ZuHoraz, Carm. II 17’, Symb. Osi. 40 (1965), 75–80;CrossRefGoogle ScholarNisbet, R.G.M. & Hubbard, M.Commentary on Horace, Odes, Book II (Oxford 1978), 271–87.Google Scholar

3 The moon was more important than the sun in early astrology: cf. Cic. Div. 2.91 cum, ut ipsi dicunt, ortus nascentium luna moderetur; 98 Romamque, in Iugo cum esset luna, natam esse dicebat.

4 Cic. Div. 2.98.

5 Housman, A.E. ‘Manilius, Augustus, Tiberius, Capricornus, and Libra’, CQ 7(1913), 110–11;Google Scholar M. Manilii Astronomicon Liber Primus (Cambridge 1937), 94–5.

6 The name Zνγóν first appears in the second century B.C., e.g. in Hipparchus, Commentarla in Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena 3.1.5 (but this reading is suspect, since in every other instance the constellation is called Χηλαι), and Hypsicles, Αναφορικός, line 109 (De Falco & Krause).

7 Suetonius, Aug. 94.12. Housman, loc. cit., notes that the moon was in Capricorn at the time of Augustus’s birth.

8 See Porphyrio ad loc.: tyrannum nunc ideo dixit quod hiemale signum est.

9 See Geminus, Elementa Astronomiae, 2. 1–26.Google Scholar

10 Boll, (1950), 122;Google Scholar Nisbet & Hubbard 280.

11 See esp. Boll, (1950), 115–24.Google Scholar

12 Most commentators, in fact, evade this problem. Nisbet & Hubbard discuss both constructions and find both unsatisfactory, so that they are tempted to consider emending utrumque to utrique.

13 272

14 See Mòrland (above, n.2.) 78–9.

15 Dicks 72, notes the equivalence of Hermes = Mercury = Pan = Faunus.

16 Nisbet & Hubbard 286.

17 71.

18 Fraenkel, E.Horace (Oxford 1957), 199:Google Scholar ‘the theophany, witnessed fully and directly by the poet himself’.

19 61.

20 See Cramer, F.H.Astrology in Roman Law and Politics (Philadelphia 1954), 57–80.Google Scholar Cramer sums up this phase with: ‘By the time of Julius Caesar’s death the majority of Rome’s upper class had been converted’ (80).

21 ‘Propertius consults his astrologer’, Greece & Rome 26 (1979), 169–80.