Babylonian astrology in Greece (1)

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Prominent Greek scientists such as the astronomer and mathematician Eudoxus (ca. 390-340 BCE), Plato’s close friend and colleague, and Theophrastus (ca. 372-286 BCE), student and successor of Aristotle, studied the star-worship and astrological practices of the Babylonians. Eudoxus wrote about Babylonian horoscopic astrology, and he was also so familiar with other aspects of Mesopotamian omen literature that he wrote a work called Bad Weather Predictions which was certainly based on traditions preserved in cuneiform sources. Theophrastus also used almanac material of eastern origin - details of correlations between the visibility of stars and changes in weather - which is very closely related to information provided by Eudoxus. One also has to bear in mind the evidence of Theophrastus’s indebtedness to Eudoxus in other respects. According to Proclus in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, Theophrastus, in his book On Signs, credited the Chaldeans of his time with a theory with which they could predict “every event, and the life and death of every person.” Near the end of the 3rd century BCE, professional astrologers from Babylonia set up business among the Greeks. The first of these practitioners was the Babylonian priest Berossus, who moved to Cos and founded an astrological school on the island (ca. 280 BCE). But after 200 BCE the movement reached the proportions of a flood. This was the time when Bolus of Mendes in Egypt (a country that had learnt its astrology from Mesopotamia) compiled a treatise On Sympathies and Antipathies which explained and justified the fictitious correspondence between heavenly bodies and human beings. His book became one of the most influential best-sellers of all time. Another successful work was an astrological textbook, probably written ca. 150-120, which went under the probably fictitious Egyptian names of Nechepso and Petosiris.

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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