A curious development took place in the astrology of Rome as the strife-torn Republic was convulsed into an orderly Empire at the close of 1st century B.C.E. This article explains how two very different events, separated by 164 years, shed light on the now evident shift from a sidereal zodiac, reflecting the visible constellations in the sky, to the tropical zodiac, with its ceaseless drift away from its visible moorings. This articles purports to explain the underpinnings of the shift. Beware Caesar!
Julius Caesar's stunning military successes in Gallia made him suspect among the landowning Senatorial class in Rome. While they prized civic duty of leading a Roman army, they abhored any man that usurped too much power in so doing, as he thereby created a threat to their ability to manage the delicate balance of power the Republic relied on. The example of dictatorial rule by the early Roman kings had made republicans afraid of a relapse into it. While their own Senatorial rule had devolved into an indefensible exploitation of the Roman masses, that was secondary for most of them. Making things more delicate, Caesar was a professed 'populares'. Upon his long awaited return to Rome, the Senators demanded that Caesar relinquish his military power and submit to a trial over his actions in Gallia. Rather than comply, Caesar violated a cardinal rule and entered Rome with his troops, setting off a bloody civil war. After handily winning that war, Caesar tried to placate his surviving enemies, but his actions, including to declare himself Dictator for life in 46. B.C.E., made them only more adamant to secretly conspire to "kill the tyrant".
According to Suetonius (69 A.D. – 122 A.D.), the Roman historian, it was Spurinna, alternatingly referred to as a haruspex, seer or soothsayer, who warned Julius Caesar of danger to his person leading up to the Ides of March [1]. "Beware the Ides of March, Caesar!" is a phrase forever etched in the collective memory. A haruspex was the term for those who studied the entrails of animals as a form of divination. However, it is more than likely Spurinna knew astrology, as the practice was already established in Rome at that time, and Spurinna used an astrological concept, Eidus, or Ides, to warn Caesar. The Ides are imbued with astrological meaning, as they represents the time when the Sun passes from one sign to another. Indeed, the word means "divide," as between two signs and the month itself, as the Ides took place in the middle of the month. Thus, on March 15, the Sun moved from Pisces to Aries. In the Systems' Approach astrology, the Sun becomes weak as it passes from old age of one sign to infancy in another, much like the journey of a soul from a frail body at the close of one earthly existence, to the birth in a small and dependent new one.
Importantly, the Eidus Martiae" coin, seen above, which was commissioned by Brutus in 42 B.C.E. to celebrate Caesar´s death and the restoration of "freedom" in Rome, is clear evidence of the importance of the Ides of March legend in the death of Caesar. For archeologists there is no better proof.
The famous interaction between Caesar and Spurinna is reported as follows.
"In grave tones, Spurinna warned the dictator that his life would be in danger for a period of 30 days, which would expire on the 15th of March. Caesar dismissed the concerns. [...] As the 30 days passed, nothing whatsoever happened. Yet when the 15th of March dawned, Caesar’s wife awoke distressed after dreaming she held his bloodied body. Fearing for his life, she begged him not to leave the house. His dreams, too, had also been unsettling. He had been flying through the air, and shaken hands with Jupiter. But he pushed any concerns aside. The day was an important annual celebration in Rome’s religious calendar, and he had called a special meeting of the Senate. His first appointment of the day was a quick sacrifice at a friend’s house. Spurinna the seer was also there. Caesar joked that his prophecies must be off as nothing had happened. Spurinna muttered that the day was not yet over."
This exchange suggests that Spurinna considered the 30 day threat over once the Sun moved out of Pisces and into Aries, it's exaltation sign. Indeed, it takes the Sun 30 days to move through one sign. By comparison, the weakness from old age to infancy only lasts for 10 days. This interpretation gains more credence when we consider a possible horoscope for Caesar.
Caesar's tall height would be explained by 5th lord Saturn, which rules tall height, being in the MEP of the 4th house from where it aspects the 1st house of self and 1st lord Venus in the 10th house MEP. An additional influence is that, 3rd lord Jupiter, ruling growth, is in the 8th house MEP from where it aspects Saturn.
The placement of 3rd lord Jupiter in the 8th house also gives obstacles for Caesars initiatives and actions, as well as easy gains. Meanwhile, Ketu in the 2nd house aspects his 2nd lord Sun in the 10th house, suggesting spiritual or misunderstood efforts on behalf of the downtrodden, but also sudden, explosive setbacks to his authority and status. Indeed, as a young man he was marked for death by Sulla, fled Rome, only to be captured by pirates, requiring a ransom, which arrived at the last minute, saving him from certain death. All his conquests in Gallia added enormously to the Roman coffers, but these contributions were overlooked by the Senators, who had grown fearful of him. Caesar, who had made generous offerings to the plebeians in his lifetime, also in his will bequeathed a big part of his estate to them.
In any event, on March 15, 44 B.C.E. the Sun as 11th lord for Librans was in late Pisces, where it was conjunct a debilitated 12th lord Mercury. Functional malefic (FM) planets become more malefic when weak. Importantly, Pisces becomes the 6th house of enemies for Librans. At that time it was possibly in the most effective point of the 6th house, or near Caesar's rising degree, where it has more influence, conjunct the MMP ruling losses. Influential Senators, whom Caesar treated as friends, especially Brutus, betrayed his trust and killed him. Other things, like planetary periods would likely have been involved in such a dramatic event.
The transition from sidereal to tropical astrology
Roman astrology came from Greece. The link between Hellenic and Roman astrology is made clear by Wray (2001):
"Every emperor's biography seems to have featured some omen or prediction of future greatness, so on one level there's no reason to attach any truth value to this story about Augustus and a Greek astrologer. On the other hand, there is nothing impossible or unlikely about an astrologer making a prediction of future greatness and power to Augustus as early as 44 BCE. Astrology was a part of Greek learning and culture, with a high prestige value. And more importantly, individual natal horoscopes tended to be associated in the Hellenistic world with individual power, and specifically with claims to kingship. Publishing your horoscope, in other words, could be read as a way of making a bid for royal power without having to say openly that you were making such a bid. The first "published" horoscope we possess dates from 62 BCE. It is preserved in the form of a relief carved into a rock on the top of Nimrudh Dagh in the Tarsus mountains, and it represents the coronation horoscope of King Antiochus I of Commagene".
There is also an established earlier link between Indian and Hellenic astrology, involving the transmission of ideas associated with the conquest of Alexander the Great in India, in the 4th century B.C.E. It is known that proto-astrology was a part of the ancient Vedas, and that much later, in the 7th century B.C.E., there was a precursor of horoscopic astrology in India. Moreover, later, the Indians were known to use only the sidereal zodiac.
What matters most is that the original Greek horoscopic astrology emphasised the rising sign and related house placements of the planets. The evidence points to the Greeks having also used the sidereal zodiac, and hence the early practice of astrology in Rome did the same. We can see this from the placement of the Sun during the Ides of March in 44 B.C.E., with the Sun at 29° Pisces in the sidereal zodiac, while it was at 24° Pisces in the tropical zodia and outside the old age/infancy zone. Hence, it was clearly the sidereal zodiac Spurinna was basing his astrology on.
We can also see how the placement of the Sun, on this day, have changed over time for each respective zodiac.
15 March, 44 B.C.E.: Sidereal Sun: 28° 52' Pisces; Tropical Sun 24° 19' Pisces.
15 March, 1000 A.D.: Sidereal Sun: 14° 37' Pisces; Tropical Sun 24° 34' Pisces.
15 March 2021 A.D.: Sidereal Sun: 0° 53' Pisces; Tropical Sun 25° 02' Pisces.
Today, the Sun has moved further back in Pisces on March 15 in the sidereal zodiac, in line with the travel of the visible zodical constellations in the sky, due to the precession of the equinoxes. However, the Sun still appears in late Pisces, but not old age, in the tropical zodiac, far out of synch with its constellational moorings.
In the event, it was Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who won the second civil war, following Caesar's murder, besting also his ally Marc Anthony, to usher in the new order, the rule of the emperors, the Caesars.
At the same time, it is in this transformation we can also see how the sidereal zodiac faded out of view in the Roman Empire, to be replaced by a default zodiac, rooted in non-astrological dictates, and which later became known as the tropical zodiac.
In 45 B.C.E. Julius Caesar introduced the Julian calendar, which was, importantly, based on the solar-year. It's predecessor, the Roman calendar, was a very complicated lunar calendar, based on the moon phases, which proved difficult to keep in sync with the astronomical seasons, marked by equinoxes and solstices. The Julian calendar made this easier. This change coincided with making a single leader the nucleus of Roman society.
Hail Caesar!
One aspect of the Roman empire was the central role of the Emperor himself. His person became the nucleus of the social order and his place in the firmament was that of a divine being. History has witnessed many such kings, who commanded or demanded the absolute acquiescence of all the citizens to not only their rule but to their undisputed greatness. The madness of Caligula and Nero serve as reminders. The modern term for this mental condition and behaviour is megalomania. It was nevertheless an accepted feature of life in Rome at that time, and it was in fact required for the good functioning of the state itself.
In 120 A.D., the Pantheon as we know it today was built by Emperor Hadrian. He seems to have been a good emperor, as they go. An interesting insight concerning the Pantheon is that he was so passionate about its architecture that he had Apollodorus of Damascus, a famous Greek architect of the time, executed due to an argument about the design of the temple. Perhaps the most stunning feature of the Pantheon is its spherical roof with an opening at the top, the Oculus, and its relationship to the huge entrance.
The importance of astrology to Hadrian is well known. His horoscope that survives from the 4th century A.D. was cast in the tropical zodiac. More importantly, Hadrian knew its symbolism, deriving only from the tropical placements, as these became a part of the Pantheon's design. Joost-Gaugier (1998) describes it thus:
"By counting the essential parts of the building and relating those numbers to its shape and function, the structure clearly 'reads' as the Marriage of the Sun and the Moon. Hadrian's horoscope, well known to scholars of classical astrology, sets forth the time of his birth as occurring at a moment of 'coincidence' of the Sun and the Moon. His earliest biographers underline his special interest in the Sun and the Moon which corresponded with his Pythagorean interests."
Moreover, on April 21, 120 A.D. in the uncorrected zodiac, the Sun entered the sign Taurus, a fruitful and earthy sign, fitting the sensible nature and practical philosophy of Hadrian. Perhaps it was to preserve this degree of 'beginning' on that day that a decision, involving the court astrologers, was effectively made to follow the tropical zodiac. Interestingly, this would also place Hadrian's own Sun, Moon and ascendant, all in Aquarius, in the auspicious rulership oriented 10th house. Hence, the Pantheon likely reflects his own horoscope, which is fascinating.
The decision to build with this horoscopic interpretation, based on the tropical zodiac becomes perhaps more understandable as it was only in the 3rd century A.D., with the sideral zodiac having moved 2° with reference to the calendar, that the two zodiacs became identical, the so-called zero point. So, the change to a new zodiac may have been seen as fairly inconsequential at the time.
The tropical zodiac may have been known by the Greek astrologers in the 2nd or 1st centuries B.C.E., however, it was then not widely used. Astrology was still sidereal as is shown above in the time of Julius Caesar, and Augustus. The key to the sidereal zodiac was to keep 0° Libra on the fixed star Spica (Chitra). It is more likely that for the above reason that the correction for the precession of the equinoxes, in order to keep the constellations and signs aligned given the 1° movement every 73 years, was abandoned in casting horoscopes in the Roman Empire. The Pantheon codified the tropical zodiac. Even the ascendant shifted from the top of the horoscope, as is still the case for vedic astrology, to the left, as is still the case for western astrology, and thus reflecting the crimson dawn of the rising Sun in the East. Indeed, the Sun gained primacy in western astrology, while the rising sign remains the focus of horoscopic astrology. Interestingly, the Sun and sign Leo, and sun-like planets, ruling Moolatrikona signs falling in the 2nd, 3rd and 9th houses, have a special power in the modern vedic Systems' Approach astrology. In any event, these changes also ensured that the Emperor could count on being reaffirmed as a divine ruler on this important day, especially, as it ensured the astrology was consistent with the optimal optical effect on April 21 for posterity.
However, the result for astrology was a sad one. It ensured that western astrology continued to devolve from its sidereal horoscopic basis as practiced by the Roman's, with the difference between the zodiacs increasing from the 3rd century A.D. into the Middle Ages and beyond. Today, tropical astrology has become so shorn of its earlier accurate sign placements, that it is almost one sign removed from the original constellations. Moreover, its distorted emphasis on the Sun placed in an imaginary sign, ensures that it misses out on the critical ingredient of the accurate house-based horoscopic astrology. Fortunately, vedic astrology, the original fountain of this knowledge, both in the East and the West, has continued to this day, with the correct zodiac based on the visible constellations, and its true horoscopic approach.
References
1) Suetonius, Divus Julius 81.
2) Holford-Strevens, Leofranc (2020) The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press. Aug 30.
https://issuu.com/376746/docs/the_history_of_time__a_very_short_introduction__ve
