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happens not in this science alone, but likewise in all the sciences, which are imparted by the Gods to men. For time always proceeding the divine mode of knowledge becomes evanescent, through being frequently mingled and contaminated with much of what is mortal. This divine mode is indeed [in astrology also], and a certain clear indication of truth, though it is but small, is at the same time preserved in it. For it places before our eyes manifest signs of the mensuration of the divine periods, when it predicts the eclipses of the sun and moon, and the concursions[1] of the moon with the fixed stars, and when the experience of the sight is seen to accord with the prediction. Moreover, the observations of the celestial bodies through the whole of time,[2] both by the Chaldeans and by us, testify that this science is true. Indications, also, more known than these might be adduced, if the present discussion was precedaneously about these particulars. But
- ↑ i. e. The joint risings and settings.
- ↑ i. e. Through a period of 300,000 years; and Procl. in Tim. lib. iv. p. 277, informs us that the Chaldeans had observations of the stars which embraced whole mundane periods. What Proclus likewise asserts of the Chaldeans is confirmed by Cicero in his first book on Divination, who says that they had records of the stars for the space of 370,000 years; and by Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. lib. xi. p. 118, who says that their observations comprehended the space of 473,000 years.
