...This chapter provides a conclusion by looking at some of the dialogues that went on between Manilius and his contemporaries with regard to astrology. The chapter also stands back and takes stock of the age of Augustus as a period of considerable creative literary engagement with astrological...

...Figure 1. The two‐sphere universe Figure 2. Stars of the northern hemisphere Figure 3. Stars of the southern hemisphere Figure 4. The celestial circles The chapter discusses the first Book of Manilius' Astronomica, his description of the universe, before the background...

... physics predict ions prognosticate Ptolemy astronomer and mathematician Antigonus of Nicaea astrology catarchic decans Dorotheus of Sidon Zeno Byzantine Emperor Manilius Vettius Valens astrologer astronomy Firmicus Maternus Posidonius of Apamea and later Rhodes tables mathematical...

...0 25 11 2024 © Oxford University Press 2025 2025 Oxford University Press For Manilius, the ultimate mode of natural inquiry is poetic astronomy/astrology, a pursuit grounded in mathematics and able to reveal the divine. This exhilaratingly endless adventure embodies the sublime: the ecstatic...

...Stoicism supplies much of the intellectual infrastructure for Manilius’ poem. The continuity physics of the Stoics, together with related teachings on theology, biology, and perception, informs Manilius’ language to an even greater extent than has been previously recognized. In two respects...

...This chapter considers Manilius' use of multiple explanations in the Astronomica with the purpose of shedding light on the broader question of the roles of ‘myth’ and ‘science’, two modes of explanation that in the history of the sciences have often been viewed as incompatible. In discussions...

...This chapter concentrates on the run of summarized astronomic basics given in Manilius, Astronomica 1.215-46 to ground the main work of delivering astrology to Roman epic. The three points dealt with in this passage are defended from supposed ‘error’ in various magnitudes by close...

... meaning, including mythical examples, comparison, repetition, verbal oxy­moron, and nominal polyptoton, as do such tropes as—beside metaphor and its special case, hyperbole—metonymy, ambiguity, and polysemy. It is thus all the more dangerous to try to interpret Manilius without taking account...

...This chapter examines two metaphors through which Manilius describes both the universe and the astrological poet as fundamentally economic. The imagery of cosmic wealth (census) presents the heavens and knowledge of them as valuable commodities that the astrologer can physically...

..., offering a clear opportunity for the poet to situate his own work within a range of (in a broad sense) political frameworks. This hypothesis is explored through detailed analysis of three passages of Manilius’ Astronomica: the history of civilization at the beginning of Book 1...

... that Manilius’ Astronomica, dedicated to Augustus, was composed in the last five years of the emperor’s life (AD 9-14). It discusses a passage from Claudian’s In Rufinum (1.363-6), which shows how Claudian is indebted to certain lines in Astronomica 4 (542-6...

...This chapter examines the reception of Manilius’ anthropology in the works of two fifteenth-century Renaissance astrological poets, Lorenzo Bonincontri and Giovanni Pontano. Bonincontri, in the story of Endymion in De rebus naturalibus et divinis II, and Pontano, in the conception...

...This comparison of Bonincontri’s De rebus naturalibus et divinis I.1.474-591 with Astr. 1.809-926 includes Bonincontri’s respective commentaries on both poems. While our humanist imitated Manilius at multiple levels, there are also differen­ces regarding...

... in the work of Vitruvius, Manilius, Propertius, and Vergil, arguing that the specific form each author gives to city-building impacts the way in which the reader is asked to envisage and appreciate the poetic task. The authors’ mutual engagement through their competing city-foundations also allows them...

...This book describes the Latin astrological poet Marcus Manilius. Manilius, about whose life nothing is known, composed his didactic poem Astronomica in the second decade of the 1st century AD. The work is our earliest extant comprehensive treatment of astrology, a discipline...

... and division. Lucretius, Virgil's Georgics, Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, and Manilius are looked at in turn; there are implications for Ovid's design. The final myth of Georgics 4 is related to Cicero, De Re Publica...

...: Manilius’ Astronomica and one of Marcus Argentarius’ epigrams. Following comparison of their figures of the solitary singer with the companionate model of reading evinced by other works before, during, and after the age of Virgil, it shows how Tiberianus’ Amnis ibat took...

... of astrologia. During the saeculum Augustum, astrology was considered a form of divination, and the Romans of the period recognized Hellenistic astrology as a serious pursuit that demanded technical expertise. ¹⁷ Manilius, the author of the longest and earliest Roman...

... letters alphabetic characters Lucretius poesis ποίησις poetry making Venus Vitruvius De architectura Volk Katharina Aratus Phaenomena Augustus Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero Cicero Quintus brother of Marcus coterie Ennius epic Jerome Saint letters epistles Manilius Marcus Astronomica...

... Figure 8. Aspect: trigons Figure 11. Aspect: opposition Figure 9. Aspect: squares Figure 10. Aspect: hexagons The chapter dicusses the system of astrology that Manilius describes in Books 2-5 of his Astronomica. It begins with an exposition of the tenets of ancient astrology...