ASTROLOGIA MUNDA - Classical Astrologer Weblog

Book IV – Astrologia Munda
Introduction
In the early Hellenistic approaches to mundane presented by Ptolemy it is
called the general division of astrology 1
which relates to races of people,
countries and cities. Its judgments were principally derived for the more general
periodic conditions, such as wars, famines, pestilence, earthquakes, floods etc.
To a lesser extent, it dealt with the occasional changes of temperatures and
seasons, storms, heat, wind and the conditions for crops etc. The two main
components used by Ptolemy were the ecliptical conjunctions and preventions
of the Sun and the Moon and the transits of the planets at rising and at their
station periods. A few of these early considerations make their way into later
Arabic Astrology with some revisions: in particular the syzygies of the Sun and
the Moon.
There is then, a rather long period where we have little or no mundane accounts
until we come to the 8 th century. As an introduction to this era though, let us
take a little retrospective look at political history.
Under Alexander’s Greek Empire and the subsequent kingdoms, resulting from
his death, the knowledge, science and history of the world was valued very
greatly and great efforts were taken to preserve that knowledge. The Royal
(Great) Library was established in Alexandria as well as several other «sister»
repositories such as was located in the Great Temple of Serapis, simply called
«the Serapeum», which was in the south-western quarter of the city of
Alexandria but was considerably smaller.
Under the Roman Empire, this knowledge was not held in as high esteem and
several unfortunate civil wars led to the burning and sacking of the Royal
Library. In fact, under the Roman Empire it was punishable to use astrology to
predict anything concerning the Dynasty, government and rulers and may be
the principle reason why we don’t hear anything concerning mundane astrology
in this time period. As the decline of the Roman Empire drew near, some
astrological records were either moved or copied and archived in
Constantinople. Yet for this, with the rise of the influence of Christianity in the
Byzantine Empire, further historical records were destroyed. For example, in
the fourth century the Emperor Theodosius (of the Byzantine Empire) in 391
AD forbade by decree all non-Christian religions. Theophilus, who was the
Bishop of Alexandria from 385 to 412 C.E., moved ahead under this decree and
destroyed the Serapeum and its «sister library», condemning them as being the
house of pagan doctrines. Some few scholars survived for another generation
1 Katholikon, to kath’hola
3