
Contents
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Establishing a Positive Didactic Framework: Speaker and Addressee(s) in Book 1 Establishing a Positive Didactic Framework: Speaker and Addressee(s) in Book 1
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Inclusion or Exclusion? Complications to the Lesson in Book 2 Inclusion or Exclusion? Complications to the Lesson in Book 2
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Calculations and Complications: Book 3 Calculations and Complications: Book 3
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The Student’s Voice: Darkness and Despondency in Book 4 The Student’s Voice: Darkness and Despondency in Book 4
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Digression and Misdirection: The Final Part of the Lesson in Book 5 Digression and Misdirection: The Final Part of the Lesson in Book 5
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Summarising the Student’s Experience in Manilius Summarising the Student’s Experience in Manilius
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Manilius in Context (1): The Didacticism of Obscurity and Competing Readership Manilius in Context (1): The Didacticism of Obscurity and Competing Readership
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Manilius in Context (2): The Author and His Augustan Contemporaries Manilius in Context (2): The Author and His Augustan Contemporaries
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2 Manilius’ Astronomica: A Lesson in Horoscopic Obscurity
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Published:June 2014
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Abstract
Manilius’ didactic project, Astronomica, purports to teach the lay reader how to construct a horoscope. Though scholars have long recognised the inadequacies of Manilius’ poem as instruction in this regard, this chapter takes this line of enquiry much further by arguing for a systematically deliberate strategy on the part of the poet. By paying particular attention to the deterioration in the relationship between didactic teacher and student in the poem, this chapter argues for the legitimacy of reading the Astronomicaas a deliberately failing lesson. The reason for this poetic strategy relates directly to the contemporary nervousness that surrounds the issue of practising astrology in the early empire. Rather than being the first Roman work on astrology, therefore, Manilius’ poem is central to an appreciation of a discourse of disclosure and discretion on the topic, which develops over the course of the Augustan reign.
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