~ 67 ~
Propertius' allusions are still fuller. Later again we hear of astrological predictions in connexion with Tiberius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian, while Juvenal launches his satire against the ladies who regulate every action by their astrological books[1]. Above all we read frequently of edicts against astrologers and astrology, a superstition which Tacitus says will always be forbidden and always retained in the Roman state. All this evidence, which is merely a selection from what is available, undoubtedly shews that astrology had made very great headway during these centuries, but it does not to my mind completely account for such a phenomenon as the establishment of the week.
In the first place, striking as is the rapid spread of astrological belief during this period, when we compare it with the complete absence of any such ideas in earlier times, it must not be exaggerated. The evidence we get is largely of the nature of gossip about great persons. It is no doubt more than could be accumulated by future historians with regard to any single one of what I may, I hope with the minimum offence, call the eccentricities of our time. But if we combined these 'eccentricities'—Christian science, theosophy, spiritualism, the various forms of fortune-telling, and psycho-analysis— a considerable body of proof of their currency could be collected from memoirs, newspapers
- ↑ Sat. VI, 553 ff.
