Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartite: being four books of the influence of the stars / Newly translated from the Greek paraphrase of Proclus. With a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix, containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy; together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's Zodiacal planisphere, and an explanatory plate. By J. M. Ashmand.

  • Ptolemy, active 2nd century.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos, or Quadripartite: being four books of the influence of the stars / Newly translated from the Greek paraphrase of Proclus. With a preface, explanatory notes, and an appendix, containing extracts from the Almagest of Ptolemy and the whole of his Centiloquy; together with a short notice of Mr. Ranger's Zodiacal planisphere, and an explanatory plate. By J. M. Ashmand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Europe, and in every part of the world where learning had “ impress’d the human soil,” Astrology reigned su¬ preme until the middle of the 17th century. It entered “ vented astrology, grounding it upon the aspects of the planets, and “ the qualities of the men and women to whom they were dedi- “ cated*; and in the beginning of the reign of Nabouassar, King of “ Babylon, about which time the -Ethiopians, under Sabacon, invaded “ -Egypt,” [751 B. C.] “those -Egyptians who fled from him to Ba- “ bylon, carried thither the -Egyptian year of 365 days, and the study “ of astronomy and astrology, and founded the aera of Nabonassar, “ dating it from the first year of that king's reign” [747 B. C.], “ and “ beginning the year on the same day with the -Egyptians for the “ sake of their calculations. So Diodorus: ‘they say that the Chal- “ 1 deeans in Babylon, being colonies of the /Egyptians, became famous “ ‘for astrology, having learned it from the priests of /Egypt.’’ ”—New¬ ton’s Chronology, pp. 251, 252. Again, in p. 327: “The practice of observing the stars began in “ ./Egypt in the days of Ammon, as above, and was propagated from “ thence, in the reign of his son Sesac, into Afric, Europe, and Asia, “ by conquest; and then Atlas formed the sphere of the Libyans” [956 B. C.], “ and Chiron that of the Greeks [tl39 B. C.]; and the “ Chaldaeans also made a sphere of their own. But astrology was “ invented in .(Egypt by Nichepsos, or Necepsos, one of the Kings of “ the Lower -Egypt, and Petosiris his priest, a little before the days “ of Sabacon, and propagated thence into Chaldaea, where Zoroaster, “ the legislator of the Magi, met with it: so Paulinus ; “ ‘ Qiticjtie magus docuit mysteria oana Necepsos.' ” The arcana of Astrology constituted a main feature in the doctrines of the Persian Magi; and it further appears, by Newton’s Chronology, p. 347, that Zoroaster (although the sra of his life has been erro¬ neously assigned to various remoter periods) lived in the reign of * It is maintained by astrologers, that the planets, having been ob- se)~ved to produce certain effects, were consequently dedicated to the several personages whose names they respectively bear.