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may reasonably be supposed to have a reference to the horoscope of the owner: for that persons who had been blessed with an "auspicious nativity" indulged in the vanity of parading it before the public eye is well-known from many historical allusions. Thus Severus selected for his second wife Julia Domna, because she had a "Royal Nativity," and many a senator was sacrificed by the timid tyrants of the Empire for the same reason as was Metius Pomposianus by Domitian: quia imperatoriam genesin habere ferebatur. One of the most auspicious horoscopes was Capricorn,

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in Augusti felix qui fulserit ortus"-Manilius, "Who shone propitious on Augustus' birth;"

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a fact commemorated by this emperor on the reverse of one of his denarii, as Suetonius has noted. Hence this Sign often accompanies the portrait of Augustus on gems. Firmicus lays down that, "on the rising of the third degree of Capricorn, emperors, kings, and persons destined to fill the highest offices are born." He gives a very detailed list of the "Apotelesmata Signorum," or the influences exerted by

the

each degree of the respective Signs, in its ascension, upon future destiny of the infant born under it: for this influence was greatly modified by their various altitudes in the heavens. Manilius also gives a similar list, though less full, describing only the influences of the Signs at their rising, or when attended by the ascensions of certain constellations. Thus under Aries the native will be a great traveller; under Leo, a warrior; under Cancer, a sailor; under Aquarius, honest, chaste, and religious, &c. Pisces, strangely enough, brought to light the talkative and slanderous.

Capricorn is for the above reason a very favorite device, as are also Leo, and Virgo figured as Victory but distinguished by her helmet and the wheat-ears in her hand. Scorpio is, next to Leo, the most frequent of all, and with good reason, if we can credit Manilius as to his influence on the native's fortunes. These figures are generally accompanied by a cornucopia, to define their astrological intention. A magnificent Sardonyx intaglio (Fould) has Jupiter seated, between Mars and Mercury standing, upon an arch under which is a bearded River-god; thus giving us the nativity of Rome, for cities had their nativities like men.

Two or three sometimes occur in combination on the same intaglio, as Virgo seated between Taurus and Capricorn. This expresses the joint influence for good of these Signs; for some were accounted as hostile, others as friendly to each other. The three so united are a trine, or the three

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respectively touched by the points of any equilateral triangle inscribed within the zodiacal circle.

When they appear as adjuncts to the figures of planetary deities, they denote the power that god or planet exerts when placed in that particular Sign; a power varying in nature and in degree according to the part of the Sign in which he happened to be at the moment of the nativity: points all laid down with the greatest exactness by the accurate Firmicus,10 in his Decreta Saturni, Jovis, &c., e.g. "If Mercury be found in Scorpio the native will be handsome, fond of dress, honourable, and liberal. If he be found in Leo the native will be a soldier, and gain glory and fame. If Jove be in Cancer the native will be the friend and faithful confidant of the secrets of the rich and powerful," &c., &c. Again the Signs attend the representations of other deities besides those of the planets: for, according to Manilius, each one was under the patronage of its own tutelary god or goddess, whose choice seems to have been dictated by the use or disposition of the animal or personage thereby symbolized.

"Pallas the Ram, Venus the Bull defends,

The beauteous Twins their guardian Phœbus tends.
Cyllenian Hermes o'er the Crab presides,
Jove with Cybele the fierce Lion guides.

The Virgin with her Sheaf is Ceres' dower;
The artful Balance owns swart Vulcan's power.
Still close to Mars the warlike Scorpion's seen;
The Centaur huntsman claims the sylvan queen ;
Whilst Capricorn's shrunk stars old Vesta loves,
The Urn is Juno's Sign, opposed to Jove's;
And Neptune, o'er the scaly race supreme,
Claims his own Fishes in the falling stream.”

10 His voluminous treatise on Astrology, addressed to the Count

Lollian, was written under Constantinus Junior in the 4th century.

These combinations also represent the Planets and their Houses,' for

"The planets look most kindly on the birth

When from his proper House each views the earth,
For there th' auspicious larger blessings shower,
And the malign are shorn of half their power."

The engravings of the Signs were evidently worn in later times as amulets for the protection from disease and accident to those portions of the body under their especial influence. For each member was under a particular Sign, a belief of the highest antiquity, and scarcely yet extinct. Hephaestion expressly observes, "the star Chnumis in the breast of Leo, protects against all diseases of the chest." The Greek astrologer quoted by Salmasius (De An. Clim.), speaks of the wearing of figures of the decani, or three chief stars, in each Sign (of which Chnumis is one), cut upon rings as charms against disease and accidents. These decani are, as Scaliger observes with justice, the curious winged figures, sometimes holding a Sign in their hands, so often appearing on the Abraxas gems. Such were the "constellation stones" of the mediæval astrologer.3 Scaliger gives, as borrowed by the Arabians from the Greeks, a catalogue of most strange figures and groups, intended to express the particular in

1 Dorotheus and Manetho (ii. 141) animal, the figure of which they lay down that

"Chiefest of these, with aspect most benign
When in Aquarius doth old Saturn shine:
Jove in the Archer joys; th' impetuous Mars
Of right exults in fiery Scorpio's stars;
Soft Venus loves the Bull; the Virgin fair
Hermes regards as his peculiar care.
For to each planet that illumes the skies
His proper House some favourite Sign sup-
plies."

2 The Arabian astrologers speak of these gems as defending the

wearer against the attacks of the

bear; thus Leo against the assaults of lions and wild beasts, Scorpio against scorpions and reptiles, &c.; but so extremely material an interpretation was certainly not accepted by the ancients.

3 u My moondial and Napier's bones,

And several constellation stones."

HUDIBRAS.

4 Notæ in Manilium. Lib. V.

fluence of each degree of every Sign on the destiny of the native. Probably a careful study of these descriptions would enable the inquirer to decipher the intent of many of the inexplicable combinations engraved on the later talismanic stones.

In the combinations above mentioned Sol appears as a star with eight rays; the planets sometimes are symbolized by their attributes placed over a star: thus the caduceus figures for Mercury; the dove for Venus; the spear for Mars, &c. But the Signs even in the most hasty antique work are always given as full figures, however sketchily indicated; never as the hieroglyphics by which we are accustomed to see them denoted in almanacs. When such do occur on a stone it may be safely assigned to the Italians of the Revival and following century, when astrological gems and amulets were produced in even greater abundance than at any period of the ancient Empire, the belief in the science being then far stronger and more universal than in the times of pagan Rome. These hieroglyphic abbreviations probably originated with the Arabian writers, the founders of astrology in medieval Europe, and were due to their religious prejudices against representations of the human figure, which actually led them to substitute new symbols of their own for many of the Greek constellations, as well as for some of the Signs-as Gemini, Virgo, and Aquarius.

Another not uncommon device is a crescent and seven stars, the Pleiades: this may be assumed to have been a lady's signet from its occurring as a reverse on the medals of many of the empresses-as Sabina and Faustina. The

5 These tables are termed "Myriogeneses Signorum," a corruption of Moeriogeneses, the influence of each part or degree upon the nativity.

Gemini they rendered by two peacocks; Virgo by a bunch of wheat-ears; Aquarius by a mule carrying two buckets.

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