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UMVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

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M. MAN^ILII ASTEONOMICON^ LIBER QVAKTVS

M. MANILII

ASTRONOMICON LIBER QVARTVS

RECENSVIT ET ENARRAVIT

A. E. HOVSMAN

LONDINII

APVD GRANT RICHARDS MDOCCCXX

114^':

Although this Fourth book preaents more difficultiea of detail than

any other of the five, and has exacted from me the writing of a very long commentary, it has not the essential difficulty, astrological or

astronomical, of books ii and iii ; and the only parts of it which

need to be explained or illustrated in a preface are the verses

294-386, 408-501, and 744-817.

oni ooz? In II 693-737 we were apprised that each of the 12Zyi-6oo . .,..,,. ,» . ,,,11 signs is divided mto 12 portions called dodecatemories,

and that the 12 dodecatemories in each sign are allotted to the

12 signs in order. But this device is not confusing enough to

mantle the frauds of astrology; and the 12 signs, thus parcelled

and mixed by twelfths, are now to be parcelled and mixed anew by thirds. Manilius calls this department of his art decanica.

Every sign is divided into three parts consisting of 10 degrees

each, 30 that the zodiac, with its 360 degrees, contains 36 of them.

These 36 parts, beginning with the P' of Aries, are allotted to the

dominion of the 12 signs, beginning with Aries himself, in regular

succession and triple recurrence, so that each sign dominates three

of them, and those three fall at the three angles of an equilateral

triangle inscribed in the circle.

VI M. MANILII

The'signs are divided and distributed thus

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

l3 Virgo '1 Libra

2 Scorpius

.3 Sagittarius

1 Capricorn

2 Aquarius

3 Pisces

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Leo

Virgo

Libra

Scorpius

Aquarius

Pisces

Scorpius

.3 Sagittarius

'1 Capricorn

2 Aquarius

3 Pisces.

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

1 Cancer

2 Leo

Virgo

1 Libra

2 Scorpius

.3 Sagittarius

1 Capricorn

2 Aquarius

.3 Pisces

Through confusion and negligence Manilius has disturbed the

arrangement by allotting the T* and 2°'* parts of Pisces to Aries and

Taurus instead of Capricorn and Aquarius.

This division of the 12 signs into 36 parts measuring 10 degrees

each is found in other astrologers, and by some of them the thirds

are called SiKavol. But more commonly they use the term ScKavucr

to signify, not 10 degrees of the zodiac, but a power presiding over

them. This power is nowhere except in Manilius a zodiacal sign.

It is natural to connect the triple division of a sign by decads with

the similar though less accurate division of the month which is

eflfected by the Egyptian week of ten days. A special name is assigned to each SeKavocr by Hephaestio l 1, and these names are

easily recognised as Egyptian and as identical in many cases with the names assigned in Egyptian lists (Brugsch Geogr. Inschr.

Altaegypt. Denkm. pp. 131-84, Daressy Annales du Serv. des

ASTRONOMICON IV vii

Antiqu. de 1'^gypte i pp. 79-90) to certain celestial beings, which

however are not called by any Egyptian term akin to BtKavol,

are not attached to zodiacal but rather to extra-zodiacal constella-

tions, and are sometimes more or fewer than 36. Of their emblems

figured by Lepsius Chronol. d. Aegypt. i pp. 66 sq. none presents or

resembles a complete human form, but each consists of an assemblage of signs, among which a bird or a human head or limb is often to be recognised. The names of StKavoi in the Hermes of Pitra's analect.

sacr. et class. v ii pp. 285-90 (codd. Mosqu. 415 et Vind. med. Gr.

23) are further removed than Hephaestio's from the Egyptian ; those

in Firmicus math. iv 22 8-19 further still ; those in C.C. A.G. vi pp. 73-8 (codd. Vind. phil. Gr. 108 et Par. Gr. 2419) have no resemblance

to them, and are said in the Paris MS to be given Kara XaXSatwv

/ X^V' avToi d^tvrj, i)v Kal OkXu diropplxpai, and again in

Westermann's paradoxogr. pp. 147-8 (Psellus, quoting Teucer Baby-

lonius) «iVi yap ev iKadTi^ Ttjv ^wStwv Tpeicr KaT£i,X.(yixivoL 8eKavol

TTOLKLXop.Opf^Ot, 6 /ifV KaTC;i(COV TrkXiKVV, O S' €l

viii M. MANILII

decan more tlian any other planet. In this connexion we encounter

the term Trpoo-WTrov : Paul. Alex. C 2 irepl Siv cTrt^^ovo-i KttTa SeKavoK TT p o(r (aTT

ASTRONOMICON IV ix

SeKavotff oi elprj/j.^voi iv rf l^qidiaKi^ kvkXo) TrapavaT^Wovrecr. ^x^^'^'- ^^ i^^'- irp6

X M. MANILII

90 6 (222 B.C.) SiKaviKoa-, 91 15 (244 or 219 B.c.) SeKaviKoa- with

iStwTvjcr (miles gregarms). SeKavta is employed and explained by

Arrian tact. 6 1 toi/ Se X6xov Kal cttix^^ ^^V TLvea- ovofMd^ova-Lv, 01 8e

SeKavlav, tvxow oUt ck SeKa 6 X6\oa- '^]v (he has said in 5 5 that

the Aoxocr may consist of 8 or 10 or 12 or 16 men). Although these words are not correctly or analogically formed

from SeKa, it seems clear from their use both within and without

astrology that they contain the signification of the number 10.

Perhaps they were coined in the camp and are soldier's Greek

;

though SeKapxija- and SeKaSapxoa- ought to have been sufficient.

Salmasius however conteuds, de an. clim. p. 559, that 8e/cavo'o- is ' Chaldaean ', ' nam J

ASTRONOMICON IV XI

PARTES DAMNANDAE

xii M. MANILII

was an exception; the 16*'' and perhaps the l^"" are immune in all but Sagittarius. The 25"" is a jmts damnanda in eight of the twelve, the 27"' in six ; and if the verse or verses now missing after 489 were present the P' or 7'" or 29"* or 30"» might be brought to a level with the 27*.

I have found no counterpart to this scheme anywhere else, and I have discovered no plan or principle at the bottom of it.

Hepbaestio i 1 givss the \a/xirpal ixoipai of the 12 signs. These have no relation to anything visible in the heavens nor to any fact of astrononiy. There are 64 XafjLirpal fioipai out of 360 (Mr Bouch^-Leclercq's table p. 236 omits 2 of them), and their frequency ranges from 7 in the sign of Leo to 4 in Gemini and Libra. The scheme has nothing to do witli that of Manilius, for a good many /jLolpaL vi^hich are Xafnrpai in the one are damnandm in the other : the 27"' of Aries, the l?"' and 28"' and 30''' of Taurus, and so on.

Paulus fol. D 1-2 has a table of novoixoiplai,—that is degrees of the zodiac separately considered,—but this too stands in no relation to Manilius. It attributes all the degrees of a sign in regular and recurring order to the dominion of the seven planets, and it is not represented as signifying any distinctions of good and evil. His table t^ct KaTo. rpiyuvov /xovo/Moipia^r in Q 3-4 is equally foreign to our purpose.

Firmicus viii 19-30 enumerates one by one all the degrees of all the 12 signs and describes their special influence as horoscopes. These chapters too have no relevancy here : for example, in Manilius the 6*'' degree of Aries is non saluhris, but Firmicus says in Arietis imrte vi quiczimqne habuerit horoscopum, erit

omiCMS regum et potentium iudicum maximorum, illustribus ornatus dignitatis insignibus et omnia in se gloriae ornamenta circumferens. The title of another chapter, iv 22, de uacantihns locis et plenis, looks promising at first, but the

scheme wliich it expounds is not even a scheme of /j.ovo/j.oLpiai. According to Firmicus, and, if we take his word for it, to Nechepso, the three decani to whom each sign is attributed do not occupy its whole extent : a certain number of successive degrees they occupy, and these are pleni ; a certain number, also successive, they do not, and these are tiacui. Thus in Aries the three decani occupy only the degrees 4-8, 18-21, 27-30 ; the degrees 1-3, 9-17, 22-26 are unoccupied and therefore inferior, 7iam qui nec horam nec aliquam atellam in plenis hahuerint jMrtibus erunt miseri destituti semper et pauperes.

It is manifeat that this has nothing in common witli Manilius.

744-817 -^^^®^ ^ ^°^g geographical preamble Manilius unfolds the

plan upon which the lands and regions of the earth are

allotted to the dominion of the several signs of the zodiac. It is

one of six or more competing systems, and it differs from all the rest

much more than it agrees with any. Three of these are registered by Hephaestio i 1 (pp. 47-66 Engelbr.) ; and in cod. Laur. xxviii 34

fol. 153"- sqq. printed by A. Ludwich on pp. 112-9 of his Maximus

there is a coUection of five, two or more of which are blended in

C.C.A.G. IV pp. 180-2 and vii pp. 194-212.

ASTRONOMICON IV xiii

The simplest and evidently the oldest is that given by Paulus

Alexandrinus fol. A 2-4 and B 2, recurring in Ludw. Maxim. pp. 112-9, and, with Egyptian constellations named instead of Greek, in

cod. Vat. Gr. 1056 fol. 28" printed by F. Boll on p. 296 of his sphaera,

and again, with only one important difference, in an Armenian MS

from which it has been extracted at C.C.A.G. iv p. 126.

Aries

:

Uepa-ia-

Tau