16

THE INVASIONS

Late in September 539 BCE, beside the river Tigris in the area of modern-day Baghdad, two armies faced each other.

Nabonidus, king of Babylon, had recently returned from ten years’ campaigning in Arabia, but his experienced army, commanded in the field by his son, Belshazzar, was seriously outnumbered.1 Opposing Nabonidus and his army were the massive forces of Cyrus II, king of Persia, who had invaded Babylonian territory some weeks earlier. There was but one possible outcome: Nabonidus was to be the last king of Babylon.

The seeds of this impending defeat, which had its roots in religion, had been sown many years before. Nabonidus, whose mother was the high priestess of Sin at Harran, had early in his reign developed a devotion to this god and cult to the point where he was evincing a tendency toward monotheism. As we have already noted, archaeologists have revealed evidence that he worshipped Sin as the supreme god: inscriptions carved at his command at Harran show that he regarded Sin as “King of the Gods” and “Greatest of the Gods.”*40

Whether Nabonidus was actually thinking of monotheism or rather of simple political unity, it appears that he was intending to unify his kingdom under the worship of one supreme deity. Certainly the later anonymous author of the hostile “Verse Account of Nabonidus” thought so.2 He complains bitterly that Nabonidus had built a temple to Sin in Babylon and had canceled the annual New Year festival, thus rejecting the worship of Marduk. One fragment in this account states bluntly, “the King is mad.”

This account further reveals that Marduk delivered Nabonidus up to Cyrus because of this rejection. It states explicitly that Marduk chose Cyrus to become the “ruler of all the world.”3 In return for this approbation, Cyrus restored the statues of the gods and goddesses back to their proper temples and “brought them back to life because their food is served to them regularly!”4

This work is evidently a production of the Persian propaganda department, seeking to prove that Cyrus thus had divine sanction for his conquest. It would seem, though, that most of the native inhabitants of Babylon tended to agree. The “Nabonidus Chronicle,” a less obviously partisan production, records that in the seventh year of his reign Nabonidus canceled the New Year festival, and it was not reinstated until ten years later, the year in which his kingdom was invaded by the Persians. The clear implication is that this festival was reinstated under pressure in an attempt to regain the support of the Babylonians, but they had already turned their sights toward Cyrus.

The Babylonian and Persian armies were facing one another and battle was about to erupt when the military governor of Assyria and his entire contingent abruptly changed sides. This was the end for Nabonidus. The Assyrian governor, Gobryas, had evidently been in secret negotiations with Cyrus, who then attacked, defeating the Babylonian army and killing Belshazzar. The combined forces then attacked Sippar, which fell without a struggle. Nabonidus, in residence there, fled. Gobryas and the combined army then attacked Babylon, which, after a short resistance, also surrendered. Nabonidus was soon captured and from that point fades from the historical record. Seventeen days later, in October 539 BCE, Cyrus entered the city as conqueror. Eight days later the Assyrian governor, Gobryas, conveniently died—of what, is not recorded.

Babylon was neither looted nor destroyed by Cyrus’s invasion: he maintained control over his troops and thus gained even more goodwill from the conquered population. Neither did he change any of the religious or administrative institutions, except that at the subsequent New Year festival, his son, Cambyses, ritually received the divine approval of Marduk prior to taking over as governor of Babylonia. Thus was the Persian dynasty’s hold over the Babylonian Empire consolidated.

The ensuing period of Persian domination, which lasted more than two hundred years, maintained and encouraged the existing intellectual and civic activity so that it further flourished under this apparently benign rule. Even the writers of the Old Testament, not normally noted for their tolerance of foreign pagan rulers, allowed Cyrus a favorable press—for setting free the Jewish exiles who had been brought to Babylon as captives by Nebuchadnezzar forty-seven years earlier.5

Stability and economic prosperity were maintained throughout the reign of Cyrus’s son, Cambyses, but upon the latter’s death rebellions broke out across the empire. After two years of internecine fighting, the rebels were finally defeated by a relative, Darius, who then became king and instigated another long period of stability. To commemorate this victory over his enemies Darius ordered a great monument to be carved in cuneiform upon the rock at Behistun, the same rock upon which Henry Rawlinson risked his life to make copies of the ancient inscriptions.

The period of Persian rule brought about an important advance in the practice of astrology—the adoption of mathematical discipline. While the Babylonian year normally, as ours, contained twelve months, it was necessary occasionally to add a thirteenth intercalary month to bring the calendar back into harmony with the seasons. These intercalary months were added whenever the astrologers considered it necessary, without any apparent systematic order—that is, until 529 BCE. From this date regularity was observed in the intercalation of months that, with three exceptions, was maintained until 73 CE, the latest date for which we have records.6 This is evidence that the astrologers had gained a much greater understanding of the celestial cycles upon which calendrical regularity depended.

The search for regularity in stellar movement continued with the discovery of the synodic periods of the planets. The synodic period is the period between consecutive conjunctions of a planet with the sun, as seen from the earth. Additional to this was the concept of the sidereal period, which is the length of time taken by a planet to pass through the entire twelve signs of the zodiac and return to its starting point. These in turn led to the formulation of larger planetary periods that were used for predicting future movements. The period used for Saturn, for example, was fifty-nine years, being made up of two sidereal periods, each of twenty-nine and a half years—or fifty-seven synodic periods. Similar accurate periods for all the planets were fixed early in the Persian era, and together with the mathematical techniques, this knowledge was used to calculate future planetary movements.7

Around this time, too, the planets became established in zodiacal signs rather than in zodiacal constellations. Mathematical concerns had led to the sky being uniformly divided up into twelve signs of equal length. It is thought that one of the major factors contributing to this development was the need to calculate the future movements of the sun. Unlike the moon and planets it could not possibly be related to the fixed stars—there being none visible during the day. Once established, the names of the zodiacal signs were derived from, and identical with, the names of the zodiacal constellations, which leads in some cases to uncertainty over which is being referred to. For this reason it is difficult to be sure when the first use of the zodiac occurred.

Nevertheless, a tablet recording Venus setting in the sign Pisces dates from 446 BCE,8 and the Babylonian diary for 464 BCE used both zodiacal signs and fixed stars to coordinate stellar geography.*41 In addition to these and in order that no doubt should remain regarding the possible confusion of constellations with zodiacal signs, a tablet dated 454 BCE mentions “Mercury’s last appearance in the east in the end of Aquarius.”9 This terminology makes it quite clear that here the zodiacal sign is being specified.

While these tablets indicate the use of the zodiac, none offers any indication regarding its form. However, an even earlier text provides both the first mention of the zodiac and the first indication that it was divided mathematically into twelve regular signs. This is a Babylonian moon text that dates from 475 BCE, sixty-four years after the capture of the city by Cyrus.10 According to Professor Van der Waerden, the data contained in this text cannot be understood without the existence of a regular zodiac.11 It is, though, fair to conclude that the zodiac had already been devised prior to the writing of this tablet, suggesting a date for the discovery at around the beginning of the fifth century BCE.

Astrology, during this era, not only modified its structure as a result of adding mathematical techniques but also altered its orientation. We find a remarkable and radical shift in the concerns of astrology. It changed from the political, mass-oriented “mundane” astrology to that in which the individual was important. This change reflected one that had occurred in society as a result of the Persian invasion. Professor Van der Waerden, an expert on the early history of astrology, argues that just as there is a close connection between the classical Babylonian astrology of the Enuma Anu Enlil and the Babylonian polytheistic religion, there is also a corresponding relationship between the astrology based upon a natal horoscope and the monotheistic Persian religion—Zoroastrianism.12

Natal astrology would not have arisen, argues Professor Van der Waerden, without a change in cosmological perspective. An important part of this new perspective, he believes, was supplied by Zoroastrianism. The basis of this religion is found in the writings of Zoroaster, which reveal a supreme god, Ahura Mazda, together with a concept of an individual immortal soul that has a free choice between good and evil. Professor Van der Waerden sees this doctrine as influencing the Greeks through Pythagoras and Plato. He writes, “I believe that . . . Persian myth had a decisive influence on the rise of birth horoscopy.”13

The first known natal chart, from Babylon, dates from 410 BCE, probably April 29.14 While it uses the zodiacal signs, it does not reveal any use of degrees. It states merely that the particular individual was born at that date and then simply states the signs within which the moon and planets were to be found. It ends, apparently, with a prediction, although the damaged state of the tablet does not make this reading certain.

This is one of six charts published in 1952 by the late Professor Abraham Sachs, and it is still the earliest known. The subsequent five natal charts all date from the Greek period of domination, the earliest being from Uruk, circa April 4, 263 BCE. This differs from the first in now mentioning the specific degrees of the sign within which the planets were placed:

Year 48 of the Seleucid Era, month Adar, the child was born. That day the sun was in 13.30° Aries, the moon in 10° Aquarius, Jupiter at the beginning of Leo, Venus with the sun, Mercury with the sun, Saturn in Cancer, Mars at the end of Cancer.15

After a break of several lines caused by damage, a number of specific predictions are given:

He will be lacking in wealth. . . . His food will not suffice for his hunger. The wealth which he had in his youth will not remain. The 36th year he will have wealth. His days will be long in number.*42

The next three tablets range from 258 BCE—which produces both a conception and a birth date—to 235 BCE, which gives zodiacal degrees for the sun and all the planets, the moon alone being without a mathematical placement. This latest tablet, also from Uruk, records a number of predictions:

Jupiter . . . in 18° Sagittarius. The place of Jupiter means: His life will be regular, well; he will become rich, he will grow old, his days will be numerous. Venus in 4° Taurus. The place of Venus means: Wherever he may go, it will be favourable for him; he will have sons and daughters. Mercury in Gemini, with the Sun. The place of Mercury means: The brave one will be first in rank, he will be more important than his brothers.16

During the course of the fifth century BCE, the Greeks first appeared to become seriously interested in the systematized Babylonian astrology. It is true that there was an earlier awareness of omina derived from celestial occurrences; Homer gives many examples, but they were very simple and had no apparent relation to contemporary Babylonian practice. However, in time Greek intellectuals realized the necessity of studying within the ancient intellectual traditions of other places. To what extent the Greek scholars were already studying and working in Assyria and Babylonia during the latter years of the native dynasties, and to what extent they continued to do so during the period of Persian domination, is not known. But some scholars were certainly there.

A famous example—though he is unlikely to have been the first—was Pythagoras, who was born around 558 BCE*43 and was thus nineteen years old when Cyrus took Babylon. If we can believe his later biographers, Pythagoras at age twenty went to study in Egypt. He remained there for about twenty-five years, until he was captured by the Persians, who invaded under Cambyses in 525 BCE. Pythagoras was then taken in captivity to Babylon. While there he was taught for some years by a leading Zoroastrian priest, Zaratas, and was received into the highest esoteric mysteries of Zoroastrianism, which included, so the chronicles state, the doctrine for which Pythagoras is famous—that of the musical harmony of the universe.

Yet the truth about the origins of this doctrine might owe more to the Babylonians themselves than the Persian Magi. Professor Van der Waerden notes the parallels between the measurements of distances between stars and the doctrine of the Pythagoreans. He comments that “the Pythagorean ‘harmony of the spheres’ presupposes that the distances between the planetary spheres have the ratios of simple whole numbers. These speculations might well be related to Babylonian cosmology and number speculation.”17 Indeed, it is legitimate to suggest that this doctrine might have formed part of some esoteric teaching of the Babylonian priests. And what else might they have taught? Some form of proto-Kabbalah associated with their curious Tree of Life? Some version of the reincarnation teaching that was later promulgated by Plato?18

It is recorded that, prior to his death in 399 BCE, Socrates encountered a “magus” who had come to Athens. This astrologer made a number of predictions to Socrates, including that of his violent death.19 This information comes from the Greek philosopher Diogenes Laertius, who was about age thirteen at the time. If his comments are accurate, natal horoscopes were being used in Greece at the beginning of the fourth century BCE.

Plato, a probable student of Socrates and spiritual heir to Pythagoras, evidently had good contacts with Babylonian thought, although there is no record of his ever having studied in Mesopotamia. According to a manuscript discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum—which was destroyed along with Pompeii in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius—shortly before his death in 347 BCE, Plato met with an astrologer, a “Chaldean.”20 Plato’s dialogue the Timaeus was a gospel for the Greeks of the eastern cosmological speculation and knowledge. In this dialogue Plato deals with the immortal soul, astrology, reincarnation, the mathematical harmony of the universe—all creations of the Divine Architect. His dialogue the Epinomis is in the same tradition and has been described as “the first gospel preached to Hellenes of the stellar religion of Asia.”21

Cicero provides some literary evidence of early knowledge of horoscopy in Greek intellectual circles. He writes that a pupil of Plato, Eudoxus, who was later to earn himself a reputation in astronomy, was very critical of astrology, proclaiming that “no reliance whatever is to be placed in Chaldean astrologers when they profess to forecast a man’s future from the position of the stars on the day of his birth.”22

Assuming that this writing to which Cicero refers was correctly attributed, it would indicate that Babylonian natal astrology—the drawing up of horoscopes of individuals—had, upon its arrival in the Greek world, met with some opposition from the astronomers. This hostility is interesting, for it testifies to a division between astrologers and astronomers, whereas in classical Babylonian days the two professions were identical.*44 It also supports an early fourth century BCE date for the introduction of Babylonian horoscopic techniques into Greece.

The Greeks truly arrived in Mesopotamia with the invading army of Alexander the Great, who, on October 1, 331 BCE, defeated the Persian army and shortly thereafter rode triumphantly into Babylon. Subsequently, thousands of Greeks arrived to visit, study, or live in the new cities that were being founded in the wake of the conquest. Many studied astrology at the astrological schools that flourished. Archaeology has proved the existence of two Babylonian teachers who were mentioned later by the Greeks: Kidinnu, called by the Greeks Cidenas, and Nabu-rimannu, known as Naburianos.23 According to the classical writer Strabo, other schools were in operation in Uruk and Borsippa.24

After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, his empire was divided up by his generals. The eventual winner of Babylonia was the general Seleucus, who dated his “Seleucid” era from April 3, 311 BCE.

The Greeks were concerned with the individual and individual freedom. Their ideological traditions were founded upon the independent city-states, which, until the mid-fourth century BCE, had never been subject to any central authority. They were used to freedom and the questioning of all authority. By contrast, the Mesopotamian tradition was conservative, having arisen in a society that was strongly centralized. The consequence was that the Greeks introduced theory. They were not content simply to predict celestial movement; they wanted to know why these movements occurred in this way. They wanted a rational, intellectual explanation for events in the natural world. These differences can be seen in their opposing attitudes toward astronomy. The Babylonians showed little enthusiasm for theory. While the Greek astronomers sought the expertise to predict the planetary positions at any point in time, the Babylonians were content with being able to calculate certain events in the planetary cycles: risings and settings, retrograde motion, stations, and oppositions.25

We should not then be surprised to find the “scientific” side of astrology and astronomy receiving so much attention during this Hellenistic period. The great number of diaries that have survived from this era testify to this, as do the text ephemerides, the oldest of which—inevitably incomplete—dates from year 4 of the Seleucid era: 307 BCE.26 If the missing piece were to be found, it would probably prove to date from year one. These texts continued for hundreds of years, the latest dating from Seleucid era 353, or 42 CE—about the time Saint Paul began preaching his Christianity at Antioch.27 In fact, by this time Babylonia had long been under Parthian rule, and so the scribes who continued dating their tablets to the Seleucid era were perhaps making some variety of political point.

From this time, too, comes a text bearing the only known illustrations of the constellations and the zodiacal figures. One depicts the seven stars of the Pleiades, together with the moon god Sin standing between the “horns” of a crescent moon and the bull of Taurus.28 A second bears, on the front, Jupiter depicted as an eight-pointed star and a drawing of Hydra with the lion of Leo standing upon it. On the reverse there is a depiction of Mercury, the star Spica, and Virgo as a woman holding an ear of corn.29 Beneath these illustrations are twelve divisions, one for each sign of the zodiac. Each of these signs is, in turn, subdivided into a microzodiac, thus producing a division of 2.5 degrees, or two-and-a-half days. Finally, each zodiacal sign carries a comment regarding its astrological significance.30

Berosus was a priest of Bel in Babylon who, sometime after 281 BCE, left for the West. He settled on the island of Kos, which was already renowned as an intellectual center. Well-established tradition has it that Berosus brought to Kos all the knowledge of the Babylonian astrological tradition, which thus enabled it to be studied by the Greeks. He achieved such fame with his divination and predictions that, according to Pliny, the Athenians raised a statue in his honor.31 Subsequently, the Stoic philosophers—beginning with Zeno, who died in 264 BCE—approved of astrology, and thus thereafter it gained rapid entry into the Greek intellectual world.

The astrologers knew that, with the change in perspective wrought by the advent of the individual natal horoscope, new analytical techniques needed to be discovered. That this was the case is demonstrated by a tablet found at Uruk and undated except that it can be attributed to the Seleucid period. It is very similar to modern astrological “cookbooks”; that is, it lists predictions for a systematic combination of planets. This could be evidence for the development of a new type of codified standard text but, unlike the Enuma Anu Enlil, based upon natal astrology:

If a child is born when Jupiter comes forth and Venus had set, it will go excellently with that man; his wife will leave.

If a child is born when Jupiter comes forth and Mercury had set, it will go excellently with that man; his oldest son will die.

If a child is born when Jupiter comes forth and Saturn had set, it will go excellently with that man; his personal enemy will die.

If a child is born when Jupiter comes forth and Mars had set, it will go excellently with that man; he will see his personal enemy in defeat.

If a child is born when Venus comes forth and Jupiter had set, his wife will be stronger than he.

If a child is born when Venus comes forth and Saturn had set, his oldest son will die.

If a child is born when Venus comes forth and Mars had set, he will capture his personal enemy.32

This procedure (if not the predictions) is familiar to modern astrologers. It is a list of the effects expected from opposition aspects. Those for Jupiter and Venus noted here are augmented elsewhere in the text by those for Mercury, Saturn, and Mars. Also discussed is the effect of certain fixed stars appearing at birth.

Two questions arise from this tablet. The first is that, given such a list of oppositions, are there elsewhere, as yet unrecognized, lists of conjunctions and perhaps other aspects—trines (120 degrees), squares (90 degrees), or sextiles (60 degrees)?

The second question is suggested by the list of fixed stars rising at birth that the text also contains. We must ask how much more of a step is the concept of the zodiacal sign rising at birth. In other words, the ascendant. Not much more, I would argue.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, evidence is lacking. No example of an original astrological chart showing the use of an ascendant is known prior to 4 BCE.*45 However, literary evidence can perhaps push the date for the first use of the ascendant back a little further: Balbillus, the astrologer to Roman Emperors Nero and Vespasian, writes of two early charts: December 27, 72 BCE, and January 16, 43 BCE. For both of them he provided an ascendant. The source of the data could have been his father, Thrasyllus, who was also an astrologer, serving the Emperors Tiberius and Claudius. The actual computations used, according to Professor Neugebauer, would not have preceded 22 BCE and were perhaps later, but they indicate that the ascendant had entered astrological practice a decade or so into the Roman imperial era.33

By this time Alexandria and Athens had long replaced Babylon as the great centers of learning and religious syncretism. Those philosophers working in the tradition of Pythagoras and Plato, later becoming known variously—according to their allegiances—as Neoplatonic or Hermetic philosophers, held that works such as the Timaeus and, for the latter, the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, were gospels of the highest truth. These mystical philosophers were a major force in the classical intellectual world until the Christians finally made their lives untenable. Yet they still retained their respect for Babylonian astrology. One of the greatest of their number, and head of the Academy at Athens in the fifth century CE, Proclus, referred in his commentary on Plato’s Timaeus to the Babylonian astrologers “whose observations cover whole cosmic periods and whose predictions are irrefutable both for the individual and public events.”34

The Academy at Athens, also known as the Platonic Academy, was closed in 529 CE by the order of the Emperor Justinian. The last philosophers, hounded by the Christians, moved east, accepting what proved to be a temporary abode at the court of the Persian king. Finding their situation uncongenial, they departed from Persia to an unknown destination. It has been argued that they found their final refuge within the walls of that city dedicated to the moon god, Harran.35