CHAPTER III

SENECA AND PTOLEMY: NATURAL DIVINATION AND ASTROLOGY Seneca’s _Natural Questions_—Nature study as an ethical substitute for existing religion—Limited field of Seneca’s work—Marvels accepted, questioned, or denied—Belief in natural divination and astrology—Divination from thunder—Ptolemy—His two chief works—His mathematical method—Attitude towards authority and observation—The _Optics_—Medieval translations of _Almagest_—_Tetrabiblos_ or _Quadripartitum_—A genuine reflection of Ptolemy’s approval of astrology—Validity of Astrology—Influence of the stars not inevitable—Astrology as natural science—Properties of the planets—Remaining contents of Book One—Book Two: regions—Nativities—Future influence of the _Tetrabiblos_. “_When the stars twinkle through the loops of time._” —_Byron._ [Sidenote: Seneca’s _Natural Questions_.] In this chapter we shall preface the main theme of Ptolemy and his sanction of astrology by a consideration of another and earlier ancient writer on natural science who was very favorable to divination of the future, namely, the famous philosopher, statesman, man of letters, and tutor of Nero, Lucius Annaeus Seneca. In point of time his _Natural Questions_, or _Problems of Nature_, is a work slightly antedating even the _Natural History_ of Pliny, but it is hardly of such importance in the history of science as the more voluminous works of the three great representatives of ancient science, Pliny, Galen, and Ptolemy. Nevertheless Seneca was well known and much cited in the middle ages as an ethical or moral philosopher, and the title, _Natural Questions_, was to be employed by one of the first medieval pioneers of natural science, Adelard of Bath. Seneca in any case is a name of which ancient science need not be ashamed. He tells us that in his youth he had already written a treatise on earthquakes;[475] and in the present treatise his aim is to inquire into the natural causes of phenomena; he wants to know why things are so. He is aware that his own age has only entered the vestibule of the knowledge of natural phenomena and forces, that it has but just begun to know five of the many stars, that “there will come a time when our descendants will wonder that we were ignorant of matters so evident.”[476] [Sidenote: Study of nature as an ethical substitute for existing religion.] In one passage Seneca perhaps expresses his consciousness of the very imperfect scientific knowledge of his own age a little too mystically. “There are sacred things which are not revealed all at once. Eleusis reserves sights for those who revisit her. Nature does not disclose her mysteries in a moment. We think ourselves initiated; we stand but at her portal. Those secrets open not promiscuously nor to every comer. They are remote of access, enshrined in the inner sanctuary.”[477] Indeed, he shows a tendency to regard scientific research as a sort of religious exercise or perhaps as a substitute for existing religion and a basis for moral philosophy. He relates physics to ethics. His enthusiasm in the study of natural forces appears largely due to the fact that he believes them to be of a sublime and divine character and above the petty affairs of men. He also as constantly and more fulsomely than Pliny inveighs against the luxury, vice, and immorality of his own day, and moralizes as to the beneficent influence which natural law and phenomena should exert upon human conduct. It is interesting to note that this habit of drawing moral lessons from the facts of nature was not peculiar to medieval or Christian writers. [Sidenote: Limited field of Seneca’s work.] With such subjects as zoology, botany, and mineralogy Seneca’s work has little to do; it does not, like Pliny’s _Natural History_, include medicine and the industrial arts; neither does he, like Pliny, cite the lore of the _magi_. The phenomena of which he treats are mainly meteorological manifestations, such as winds, rain, hail, snow, comets, rainbows, and what he regards as allied subjects, earthquakes, springs, and rivers. Perhaps he would not have regarded the study of vegetables, animals, and minerals as so lofty and sublime a pursuit. At any rate, in consequence of the restricted field which Seneca covers we find very little of the marvelous medicinal and magical properties of plants, animals, and other objects, or the superstitious procedure which fill the pages of Pliny. [Sidenote: Marvels accepted, questioned, or denied.] Seneca nevertheless has occasion to repeat some tall stories, such as that the river Alpheus of Greece reappears as the Arethusa in Sicily and there every four years casts up filth from its depths on the very days when victims are slaughtered at the Olympic games.[478] He also affirms that living beings are generated in fire; he believes in such effects of lightning as removing the venom from snakes which it strikes; and he recounts the old stories of floating islands and of waters with the virtue of turning white sheep black.[479] On the other hand, he qualifies by the phrases, “it is believed” and “they say,” the assertions that certain waters produce foul skin-diseases and that dew in particular, if collected in any quantity, has this evil property; and he doubts whether bathing in the Nile would enable a woman to bear more children.[480] He ridicules the custom of the city which had public watchmen appointed to warn the inhabitants of the approach of hail-storms, so that they might avert the danger by timely sacrifice or simply by pricking their own fingers so that they bled a trifle. He adds that some suggest that blood may possess some occult property of repelling storm-clouds, but he does not see how there can be such force in a drop or two and thinks it simpler to regard the whole thing as false. In the same chapter he states that uncivilized antiquity used to believe that rain could be brought on or driven off by incantations, but that now-a-days no one needs a philosopher to teach him that this is impossible.[481] [Sidenote: Belief in natural divination and astrology.] But while he thus rejects incantations and is practically silent on the subject of natural magic, Seneca accepts natural divination in well-nigh all its branches: sacrificial, augury, astrology, and divination from thunder. He believes that whatever is caused is a sign of some future event.[482] Only Seneca holds that every flight of a bird is not caused by a direct act of God, nor the vitals of the victim altered under the axe by divine interference, but that all has been prearranged in a fatal and causal series.[483] He believes that all unusual celestial phenomena are to be looked upon as prodigies and portents. A meteor “as big as the moon appeared when Paulus was engaged in the war against Perseus”; similar portents marked the death of Augustus and execution of Sejanus, and gave warning of the death of Germanicus.[484] But no less truly do the planets in their unvarying courses signify the future. The stars are of divine nature, and we ought to approach the discussion of them with as reverent an air as when with lowered countenance we enter the temples for worship.[485] Not only do the stars influence the upper atmosphere as earth’s exhalations affect the lower, but they announce what is to occur.[486] Seneca employs the statement of Aristotle that comets signify the coming of storms and winds and foul weather to prove that they are stars; and declares that a comet is a portent of bad weather during the ensuing year in the same way that the Chaldeans or astrologers say that a man’s natal star determines the whole course of his life.[487] In fact, Seneca’s chief, if not sole, objection to the Chaldeans or astrologers would seem to be that in their predictions they take only five stars[488] into account. “What? Think you so many thousand stars shine on in vain? What else, indeed, is it which causes those skilled in nativities to err than that they assign us to a few stars, although all those that are above us have a share in the control of our fate? Perhaps those which are nearer direct their influence upon us more closely; perhaps those of more rapid motion look down on us and other animals from more varied aspects. But even those stars that are motionless, or because of their speed keep equal pace with the rest of the universe and seem not to move, are not without rule and dominion over us.”[489] Seneca accepts the theory of Berosus that whenever all the stars are in conjunction in the sign of Cancer there will be a universal conflagration, and a second deluge when they all unite in Capricorn.[490] [Sidenote: Divination from thunder.] It is on thunderbolts as portents of the future that Seneca dwells longest, however.[491] “They give,” he declares, “not signs of this or that event merely, but often announce a whole series of events destined to occur, and that by manifest decrees and ones far clearer than if they were set down in writing.”[492] He will not accept, however, the theory that lightning has such great power that its intervention nullifies any previous and contradictory portents. He insists that divination by other methods is of equal truth, though possibly of minor importance and significance. Next he attempts to explain how the dangers of which we are warned by divination may be averted by prayer, expiation, or sacrifice, and yet the chain of events wrought by destiny not be broken. He maintains that just as we employ the services of doctors to preserve our health, despite any belief we may have in fate, so it is useful to consult a _haruspex_. Then he goes on to speak of various classifications of thunderbolts according to the nature of the warnings or encouragements which they bring. [Sidenote: Ptolemy.] We pass on from Seneca to a later and greater exponent of natural science and divination, Ptolemy, in the following century. He was perhaps born at Ptolemaïs in Egypt but lived at Alexandria. The exact years of his birth and death are unknown, and very little is recorded of his life or personality. The time when he flourished is sufficiently indicated, however, by the fact that his first recorded astronomical observation was in 127 and his last in 151 A. D. Thus most of his work was probably done during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, but he appears to have lived on into the reign of Marcus Aurelius. His strictly scientific style scorns rhetorical devices and literary felicities, and while it is clear and correct, is dry and impersonal.[493] [Sidenote: His two chief works.] Ptolemy’s two chief works, the _Geography_ in eight books, and ἡ μαθηματικὴ σύνταξις, or _Almagest_ (al-μεγίστη) as the Arabs called it, in thirteen books, have been so often described in histories of mathematics, astronomy, geography, and discovery that such outline of their contents need not be repeated here. The erroneous Ptolemaic theories of a geocentric universe and of an earth’s surface on which dry land preponderated are equally well known. What is more to the point at present is to note that one of these theories was so well fitted to actual scientific observations and the other was thought to be so similarly based, that they stood the test of theory, criticism, and practice for over a thousand years.[494] It should, however, be said that the _Geography_ does not seem to have been translated into Latin until the opening of the fifteenth century,[495] when Jacobus Angelus made a translation for Pope Alexander V, (1409-1410), which is extant in many manuscripts[496] as well as in print.[497] It therefore did not have the influence and fame in the Latin middle ages that the _Almagest_ did or the briefer astrological writings, genuine and spurious, current under Ptolemy’s name. [Sidenote: His mathematical method.] We may briefly state one or two of Ptolemy’s greatest contributions to mathematical and natural science and his probable position in the history of experimental method. Perhaps of greater consequence in the history of science than any one specific thing he did was his continual reliance upon mathematical method both in his astronomy and his geography. In particular may be noted his important contribution to trigonometry in his table of chords, which modern scholars have found correct to five decimal places, and his contribution to the science of cartography by his successful projection of spherical surfaces upon flat maps. [Sidenote: Attitude towards authority and observation.] Ptolemy based his two great works partly upon the results already attained by earlier scientists, following Hipparchus especially in astronomy and Marinus in geography. He duly acknowledged his debts to these and other writers; praised Hipparchus and recounted his discoveries; and where he corrected Marinus, did so with reason. But while Ptolemy used previous authorities, he was far from relying upon them solely. In the _Geography_ he adds a good deal concerning the orient and northern lands from the reports of Roman merchants and soldiers. His intention was to repeat briefly what the ancients had already made clear, and to devote his works chiefly to points which had remained obscure. His ideal was to rest his conclusions upon the surest possible observation; and where such materials were meager, as in the case of the _Geography_, he says so at the start. He also recognized that delicate observations should be repeated at long intervals in order to minimize the possibility of error. He devised and described some scientific instruments and conducted a long series of astronomical observations. He anteceded Comte in holding that one should adopt the simplest possible hypothesis consistent with the facts to be explained. [Sidenote: The _Optics_.] Besides some minor astronomical works and a treatise on music which seems to be largely a compilation an important work on optics is ascribed to Ptolemy.[498] It is the most experimental in method of his writings, although Alexander von Humboldt’s characterization of it as the only work in ancient literature which reveals an investigator of nature in the act of physical experimentation[499] must be regarded as an exaggeration in view of our knowledge of the writings of other Alexandrines such as Hero and Ctesibius. As in the case of some of Ptolemy’s other minor works, the Greek original is lost and also the Arabic text from which was presumably made the medieval Latin version which alone has come down to us. Yet there are at least sixteen manuscripts of this Latin version still in existence.[500] The translation was made in the twelfth century by Eugene of Palermo, admiral of Sicily, whose name is attached to other translations and who was also the author of a number of Greek poems.[501] Heller states that the _Optics_ was lost at the beginning of the seventeenth century but that manuscripts of it were rediscovered by Laplace and Delambre.[502] At any rate the first of the five books is no longer extant, although Bridges thinks that Roger Bacon was acquainted with it in the thirteenth century.[503] It dealt with the relations between the eye and light. In the second book conditions of visibility are discussed and the dependence of the apparent size of bodies upon the angle of vision. The third and fourth books deal with different kinds of mirrors, plane, convex, concave, conical, and pyramidical. Most important of all is the fifth and last book, in which dioptrics and refraction are discussed for the first and only time in any extant work of antiquity,[504] provided the _Optics_ has really come down in its present form from the time of Ptolemy. His authorship has been questioned because the subject of refraction is not mentioned in the _Almagest_, although even astronomical refraction is discussed in the _Optics_.[505] De Morgan also objects that the author of the _Optics_ is inferior to Ptolemy in knowledge of geometry.[506] Possibly a work by Ptolemy has received medieval additions, either Arabic or Latin, in the version now extant; maybe the entire fifth book is such a supplement. That works which were not Ptolemy’s might be attributed to him in the middle ages is seen from the case of Hero’s _Catoptrica_, the Latin translation of which from the Greek is entitled in the manuscripts _Ptolemaei de speculis_.[507] [Sidenote: Medieval translations of _Almagest_.] If there is, as in other parallel cases, the possibility that the medieval period passed off recent discoveries of its own under the authoritative name of Ptolemy, there also is the certainty that it made Ptolemy’s genuine works very much its own. This may be illustrated by the case of the _Almagest_. On the verge of the medieval period the work was commented upon by Pappus and Theon at Alexandria in the fourth, and by Proclus in the fifth century. The Latin translation by Boethius is not extant, but the book was in great repute among the Arabs, was translated at Bagdad early in the ninth century and revised later in the same century by Tabit ben Corra. During the twelfth century it was translated into Latin both from the Greek and the Arabic. The translation most familiar in the middle ages was that completed at Toledo in 1175 by the famous translator, Gerard of Cremona. There has recently been discovered, however, by Professors Haskins and Lockwood[508] a Sicilian translation made direct from the Greek text some ten or twelve years before Gerard’s translation. There are two manuscripts of this Sicilian translation in the Vatican and one at Florence, showing that it had at least some Italian currency. Gerard’s reputation and his many other astronomical and astrological translations probably account for the greater prevalence of his version, or possibly the theological opposition to natural science of which the anonymous Sicilian translator speaks in his preface had some effect in preventing the spread of his version. [Sidenote: The _Tetrabiblos_ or _Quadripartitum_.] Of Ptolemy’s genuine works the most germane to and significant for our investigation is his _Tetrabiblos_, _Quadripartitum_, or four books on the control of human life by the stars. It seems to have been translated into Latin by Plato of Tivoli in the first half of the twelfth century[509] before _Almagest_ or _Geography_ appeared in Latin. In the middle of the thirteenth century Egidius de Tebaldis, a Lombard of the city of Parma, further translated the commentary of Haly Heben Rodan upon the _Quadripartitum_.[510] In the early Latin editions[511] the text is that of the medieval translation; in the few editions giving a Greek text there is a different Latin version translated directly from this Greek text.[512] [Sidenote: A genuine reflection of Ptolemy’s approval of astrology.] In the _Tetrabiblos_ the art of astrology receives sanction and exposition from perhaps the ablest mathematician and closest scientific observer of the day or at least from one who seemed so to succeeding generations. Hence from that time on astrology was able to take shelter from any criticism under the aegis of his authority. Not that it lacked other exponents and defenders of great name and ability. Naturally the authenticity of the _Tetrabiblos_ has been questioned by modern admirers of Hellenic philosophy and science who would keep the reputations of the great men of the past free from all smudge of superstition. But Franz Boll has shown that it is by Ptolemy by a close comparison of it with his other works.[513] The astrological _Centiloquium_ or _Karpos_, and other treatises on divination and astrological images ascribed to Ptolemy in medieval Latin manuscripts are probably spurious, but there is no doubt of his belief in astrology. German research as usual regards its favorite Posidonius as the ultimate source of much of the _Tetrabiblos_, but this is not a matter of much consequence for our present investigation. [Sidenote: Validity of astrology.] In the _Tetrabiblos_ Ptolemy first engages in argument as to the validity of the art of judicial astrology. If his remarks in this connection were not already trite contentions, they soon came to be regarded as truisms. The laws of astronomy are beyond dispute, says Ptolemy, but the art of prediction of human affairs from the courses of the stars may be assailed with more show of reason. Opponents of astrology object that the art is uncertain, and that it is useless since the events decreed by the force of the stars are inevitable. Ptolemy opens his argument in favor of the art by assuming as evident that a certain force is diffused from the heavens over all things on earth. If ignorant sailors are able to judge the future weather from the sky, a highly trained astronomer should be able to predict concerning its influence on man. The art itself should not be rejected because impostors frequently abuse it, and Ptolemy admits that it has not yet been brought to the point of perfection and that even the skilful investigator often makes mistakes owing to the incomplete state of human science. For one thing, Ptolemy regards the doctrine of the nature of matter held in his time as hypothetical rather than certain. Another difficulty is that old configurations of the stars cannot safely be used as the basis of present day predictions. Indeed, so manifold are the different possible positions of the stars and the different possible arrangements of terrestrial matter in relation to the stars that it is difficult to collect enough observations on which to base rules of general judgment. Moreover, such considerations as diversity of place, of custom, and of education must be taken into account in foretelling the future of different persons born under the same stars. But although for these reasons predictions frequently fail, yet the art is not to be condemned any more than one rejects the art of navigation because of frequent shipwrecks. [Sidenote: Influence of the stars not inevitable.] Nor is it true that the art is useless because the decrees of the stars are inevitable. It is often an advantage to have previous knowledge even of what cannot be avoided. Even the prediction of disaster serves to break the news gently. But not all predictions are inevitable and immutable; this is true only of the motion of the sky itself and events in which it is exclusively concerned. “But other events which do not arise solely from the sky’s motion, are easily altered by application of opposite remedies,” just as we can in part remedy the hurt of wounds and diseases or counteract the heat of summer by use of cooling things. The Egyptians have always found astrology useful in the practice of medicine. [Sidenote: Astrology as natural science.] Ptolemy next proceeds to set forth the natures and powers of the stars “according to the observations of the ancients and conformably to natural science.” Later, when he comes to the prediction of particulars, he still professes “to follow everywhere the law of natural causation,” and in a third passage he states that he “will omit all those things which do not have a probable natural cause, which many nevertheless scrutinize curiously and to excess: nor will I pile up divinations by lot-castings or from numbers, which are unscientific, but I will treat of those which have an investigated certainty based on the positions of the stars and the properties of places.” Connecting the positions of the stars with earthly regions,—it is an art that fits in well with Ptolemy’s other occupations of astronomer and geographer! The _Tetrabiblos_ has been called “Science’s surrender,”[514] but was it not more truly divination purified and made scientific? [Sidenote: Properties of the planets.] Taking up first the properties of the seven planets, Ptolemy associates with each one or more of the four elemental qualities, hot, cold, dry, and moist. Thus the sun warms and to some extent dries, for the nearer it comes to our pole the more heat and drought it produces. The moon is moist, since it is close to the earth and is affected by the vapors from the latter, while its influence renders other bodies soft and causes putrefaction. But it also warms a little owing to the rays it receives from the sun. Saturn chills and to some extent dries, for it is remote from the sun’s heat and earth’s damp vapors. Mars emits a parching heat, as its color and proximity to the sun indicate. Jupiter, situated between cold Saturn and burning Mars, is of a rather lukewarm nature but tends more to warmth and moisture than to their opposites. So does Venus, but conversely, for it warms less than Jupiter does but moistens more, its large surface catching many vapors from the neighboring earth. In Mercury, situated near sun, moon, and earth alike, neither drought nor dampness predominates, but the velocity of that planet makes it a potent cause of sudden changes. In general, the planets exert a good or evil influence as they abound in the two rich and vivifying qualities, heat and moisture, or in the detrimental ones, cold and drought. Wet stars like the moon and Venus, are feminine; Mercury is neuter; the other planets are masculine. The sex of a planet may also, however, be reckoned according to its position in relation to the sun and the horizon; and changes in the influences exerted by the planets are noted according to their position or relation to the sun. This discussion of the properties of the planets is neither convincing nor scientific. It seems arguing in a circle to make their effects upon the earth depend to such an extent upon themselves being affected by vapors from the earth. Indeed we are rather surprised that an astronomer like Ptolemy should represent vapors from the earth as affecting the planets at all. But his discussion is at least an effort, albeit a feeble one, to express the potencies of the planets in physical terms. [Sidenote: Remaining contents of Book One.] Ptolemy goes on to discuss the powers of the fixed stars which seem to depend upon their positions in constellations and their relations to the planets. Then he treats of the influence of the four seasons of the year and four cardinal points, each of which he relates to one of the four qualities, hot, cold, dry, and moist. With a discussion of the signs of the zodiac and their division into Houses and relation in _Trigones_ or _Triplicitates_ or groups of three connected with the four qualities, of the exaltation of the planets in the signs and of other divisions of the signs and relations of the planets to them, the first book ends. [Sidenote: Book Two: Regions.] The second book begins by distinguishing prediction of events for whole regions or countries, such as wars, pestilences, famines, earthquakes, winds, drought, and weather, from the prediction of events in the lives of individuals. Ptolemy holds that events which affect large areas or whole peoples and cities are produced by greater and more valid causes than are the acts of individual men, and also that in order to predict aright concerning the individual it is necessary to know his region and nationality. He characterizes the inhabitants of the three great climatic zones,[515] quarters the inhabited world into Europe, Libya, and two parts for Asia in the style of the T maps, and subdivides these into different countries whose peoples are described, including such races as the Amazons. The effects of the stars vary according to time as well as place, so that the period in which any individual lives is as important to take into account as his nationality. Ptolemy also discusses how the heavenly bodies influence the _genus_ of events, a matter which depends largely upon the signs of the zodiac, and also how they determine their quality, good or bad, and species, which depends on the dominant stars and their conjunctions. Consequently he gives a list of the things which belong under the rule of each planet. The remainder of the second book is concerned chiefly with prediction of wind and weather through the year and with other meteorological phenomena such as comets. [Sidenote: Nativities.] The last two books take up the prediction of events in the lives of individuals from the stars, in other words the science of nativities or genethlialogy. The third book discusses conception and birth, how to take the horoscope—Ptolemy insists that the astrolabe is the only reliable instrument for determining the exact time; sun-dials or water-clocks will not do—and how to predict concerning parents, brothers and sisters, sex, twins, monstrous births, length of life, the physical constitution of the child born and what accidents and diseases may befall it, and finally concerning mental traits and defects. The fourth book deals less with the nature of the individual and more with the prediction of external events which befall the individual: honors, office, marriage, offspring, slaves, travel, and the sort of death that he will die. Ptolemy in opening the fourth book makes the distinction that, while in the third book he treated of matters antecedent to birth or immediately related to birth or which concern the temperament of the individual, now he will deal with those external to the body and which happen to the individual from without. But of course it is difficult to maintain such a distinction with entire consistency. [Sidenote: Future influence of the _Tetrabiblos_.] The great influence of the _Tetrabiblos_ is shown not only in medieval Arabic commentaries and Latin translations, but more immediately in the astrological writings of the declining Roman Empire, when such astrologers as Hephaestion of Thebes,[516] Paul of Alexandria, and Julius Firmicus Maternus cite it as a leading authoritative work. Only the opponents of astrology appear to have remained ignorant of the _Tetrabiblos_, continuing to make criticisms of the art which do not apply to Ptolemy’s presentation of it or which had been specifically answered by him. Thus Sextus Empiricus, attacking astrology about 200 A. D., does not mention the _Tetrabiblos_ and some of the Christian critics of astrology apparently had not read it. Whether the Neo-Platonists, Porphyry and Proclus, wrote an introduction to and commentary upon it is disputed.