The Astronomica was written c. AD 30–40 by a Roman poet whose name was likely Marcus Manilius. The poem was rediscovered c. 1416–1417 by the Italian humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini. According to Katharina Volk, the poem is the earliest work on astrology that is extensive, comprehensible, and mostly intact. The fifth book contains a lacuna, which has led to debate about the original size of the poem.
About Astronomica (Manilius) in brief
The Astronomica was written c. AD 30–40 by a Roman poet whose name was likely Marcus Manilius. The poem was rediscovered c. 1416–1417 by the Italian humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini, who had a copy made from which the modern text derives. According to Katharina Volk, the poem is the earliest work on astrology that is extensive, comprehensible, and mostly intact. The fifth book contains a lacuna, which has led to debate about the original size of the poem. Some scholars have argued that whole books have been lost over the years, whereas others believe only a small section of the work is missing. The Astronomicon is written in hexameters, which opens with the words: “The astronomer has engendered his interest in the celestial bodies since his god, Mercury”. In the poem, he claims that he is the first to sing of astrology, and that he also dedicates the poem to Mercury since he also claims that the god engendered him in the first place. It is the only historical event to which there is a clear reference is the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, a decisive loss for Rome, forcing her to withdraw from Magna Germania in AD 9. The work’s date has been debated, but scholars have proposed three hypotheses: that it was written entirely under Augustus, under the reigns of both Augustus and Tiberius, or entirely under Tiberian. The first conjecture was favored primarily from the Renaissance until the 19th century, when Karl Lachmann argued that references to the emperor in the poem made more sense if they were referring to Tiberious.
The second conjecture has not been settled, although Volk has argued that the poem should be dated to c. AD 10–20. It has been published in five books, with the last two under Augustus and the third under Tibiberius, and the fifth under Augustus, although it has not yet been edited. The last two books were written under Augustus. It was also written under TIBERIAN, and it has been argued that this makes the poem more likely to have been written in the second half of the first century of the century. The third book was written under the third century, but it is not clear if this is the case or if the poem was written during the first or second century of that century. It describes celestial phenomena, and, in particular, the zodiac and astrology. In the fifth book, the poet claims that Mercury is the god of the stars and that the stars held great fascination for the Romans of ManiliUS’ period. He also claims the stars hold great interest for him since the stars are of his god and his god is the creator of the universe. The poet’s name was probably Manilius, but there is no surviving works explicitly quote him. The name of the poet has been confused with Manilus Antiochus, Flavius Manlius Theodorus and Boëthius.
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