History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.285.3

v6.c82.285.3

Before the advent of astrology the Greeks tried to peep into the future by oracles, interpretation of dreams and inspection of the entrails and livers of sacrificed animals, from the flight and cries of birds and from prodigies and unusual occurrences such as eclipses, comets and meteors Berossus⁸¹⁴, a priest of the god Bel at Babylon, dedicated to his patron Antiochus I Soter (280-261 B C.) an elaborate work on Babylonian and Chaldean history and it was he who was instrumental in spreading Babylonian astrology in Greece by first introducing it in his school at Cos, an island not far from the south-western corner of Asia Minor. From Greece astrology spread to Rome about the 2nd century B. C The signs of the Zodiac became house-hold words in Greece and Rome. Stoics like Posidonius helped it by defending it. Cato in⁸¹⁵ his work on agriculture warns a farmer against consulting a Chaldean and in 139 B. C. an Edict was passed for expelling Chaldeans from Italy. Diodorus⁸¹⁶ Siculus (a contemporary of Augustus of Rome) describes the theory and method of the Chaldeans in casting horoscopes. Horace⁸¹⁷ (died in 8 B. C) in his ode to Maecenas refers to the influence of the signs Libra, Scorpion and Capricornus and of the protective power of Jove and about baleful Saturn in his horoscope. Strabo,⁸¹⁸ who died in 24 A D., averred (XVI. 1.6) that some Chaldeans were skilled in astronomy and the casting of horoscopes. Petronius (1st century A.