314 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



ing terrour, and at last declared that, " the present 

 hour was for him critical, perhaps fatal." Tiberius 

 embraced him, and told him " he was right in 

 supposing he had been in danger, but that he 

 should escape it;" and made him thenceforth his 

 confidential counsellor. 



The belief in the power of astrological predic- 

 tion which thus obtained dominion over the minds 

 of men of literary cultivation and practical energy, 

 naturally had a more complete sway among the 

 speculative but unstable minds of the later philo- 

 sophical schools of Alexandria, Athens, and Rome. 

 We have a treatise on astrology by Proclus, which 

 will serve to exemplify the mystical principle in 

 this form. It appears as a commentary on a work 

 on the same subject called " Tetrabiblos," ascribed 

 to Ptolemy; though we may reasonably doubt whe- 

 ther the author of the " Megale Syntaxis" was also 

 the writer of the astrological work. A few notices 

 of the commentary of Proclus will suffice 18 . The 

 science is defended by urging how powerful we 

 know the physical effects of the heavenly bodies to 

 be. " The sun regulates all things on earth ; the 

 birth of animals, the growth of fruits, the flowing 

 of waters, the change of health, according to the 

 seasons ; he produces heat, moisture, dryness, cold, 

 according to his approach to our zenith. The moon, 

 which is the nearest of all bodies to the earth, gives 

 out much influence ; and all things, animate and 



18 I. 2. 



