Omen interpretation of the Chaldean astrologers (1)

Text
Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 14.1.3-5:
And since they saw that some terrestrial phenomena known to men were caused by the influence and control of the heavenly bodies, as for example the ocean, as though a companion of the moon, grown old and resumes its youth along with her - from this, forsooth, they derived an argument for persuading us to believe that all human affairs, both the greatest and the least, as though bound to the stars and constellations, are influenced and governed by them. But Favorinus said that it was utterly foolish and absurd to suppose, because the tide of the ocean corresponds with the course of the moon, that a suit at law which one happens to have about an aqueduct with his neighbours, or with the man next door about a party wall, is also bound to heaven as if by a kind of chain and is decided by the stars.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 14.1.3-5

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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