ASTROLOGY. 
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by water, and desirous to comniimicate this information to his pos- 
terity, he engraved characters declaratory of it upon two pillars, the 
one of brick, the other of stone. The brick pillar was destroyed by 
the flood ; the pillar of stone, as Josephus relates, was still existing 
in his days in Syria. Seth learned this art from Adam ; and he, as 
well as Abel, Cain, Enoch, Noah, and Nimrod, were all expert astro- 
logers; the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs having been prolonged 
to a duration of many hundred years, purposely in order that they 
might have time to bring their knowledge of astrology to perfection. 
Abraham, in his migration from Chaldsea, brought the art with him 
into Egypt, and hence it flowed first to the Greeks, and afterwards 
to the Latins ; although the Ethiopians, the Carians, the Magi, and 
the Arabs, all claim the merit of its propagation. 
In imperial Rome, astrology was held in great repute, especially 
under the reign of Tiberius. “Do you wish,” says Juvenal, in his 
sublimest Satire, 
“ — tutor haberi 
Principis angusta Caprearum in rupe sedentis 
Cum grege Chaldseo 
It w'as from Thrasyllus, the origin of whose influence over his 
master is so finely related by Tacitus, {Annales, vii. 21.) that Tiberius 
acquired the knowledge which enabled him to foretell to Galba, when 
he was only consul, “Thou too, Galba, shalt some day taste the sweets of 
empire thus alluding to his late and brief possession of sovereignty. 
When Claudius was dying from the effects of Locusta’s poison, Agrip- 
pina cautiously dissembled his progressive illness ; nor would she 
announce his decease till the very moment arrived which the astrolo- 
gers had pronounced for the accession of Nero, although the ambi- 
tious mother had been warned from the same source, that her own 
death would be the consequence of her son’s enthronement. “ If he 
reigns,” said the Chaldaeans, “ he shall kill his mother.” “ Let him 
kill me,” was the reply, “ so that he but reigns.” 
Augustus had discouraged this empty science, by banishing astro- 
logers from Rome, but the favour of his successors recalled them ; and 
though occasional edicts, in subsequent reigns, restrained, and even 
punished, all who divined by the stars — and though Vitellius and 
Domitian revived the edict of Augustus — the practices of the astro- 
logers were secretly encouraged, and their predictions extensively 
believed. Domitian himself, in spite of his hostility, trembled at their 
denouncements. They prophesied the year, the hour, and the manner 
of his death ; and ggreed with his father in foretelling that he should 
perish, not by poison, but by the dagger. On the evening of his 
assassination he spoke of the entrance of the moon into Aquarius on 
the morrow. “Aquarius,” said he, “shall no longer be a watery, but 
a bloody sign: for a deed shall there be done, which shall be the 
talk of all mankind.” The dreaded hour of eleven approached ; his 
attendants told him it was passed; and he admitted the conspirators, 
and fell : Suet, in Dorn. 16. 
Adrian was by turns a believer in, and a persecutor of, astrology. 
He is said to have kept an astrological diary, and to have prognosti- 
cated his own death with correctness ; and in his days, and those of 
