This collection of conference proceedings, with additional invited contributions, has been published belatedly, owing to the untimely death of its principal organiser, J.-H. Abry, in 2008. The book brings together an international contingent of scholars, with papers predominantly in French (there are two contributions in Italian and one in English).
The papers centre on the topic of astrology in poetry, with each scholar taking (broadly speaking) one astrological author as their focus. Arranged chronologically, the papers cover an impressively broad scope: from Nechepso-Petosiris in the late seventh century b.c., through the astrological poets of the Roman Empire (Manilius, Dorotheus, Manetho, Anubion, Antiochus, Maximus), to Jean Camatère in the twelfth century a.d. Abry's introduction provides basic information about the nature and chronology of the central poetic texts under discussion, and sets out some of the questions to be explored in the present volume and beyond, including the tension between technical subject matter and both poetic medium and didactic intent, and the social context that gives rise to these texts. The essays are diverse in their approach. They range from technical discussions of metre, textual transmission and scholarly editions (see respectively, Calderon on Anubion, Colace on Maximus, H. on David Pingree's edition of Dorotheus) to matters literary and intertextual (e.g. Cusset on Manetho's use of Aratus, B. on Maximus' Homeric language) and socio-political (Wolff).
The collection is not unified thematically in any strong sense, and the papers find their appeal as individual works of scholarship, with the reader naturally latching on to papers which chime with his/her own particular interests in astrological poetry.
S. Heilen's contribution is the longest and possibly the most valuable. Dealing with two mercurial astrological figures from seventh-century b.c. Egypt, Nechepsos and Petosiris, Heilen provides both a detailed history of scholarship and a new commentary on selected fragments, which brings to light, in particular, the poetic/lyric quality of these early texts. Although their fragmentary nature inevitably leaves much unanswered, especially their social context and target audience, the fragments do reveal something of the poetic language, motifs and didactic intent that will feed into later astrological authors.
J.-H. Abry's piece on Manilius (printed as it was found, unedited) places Manilius effectively within the tradition of astrological poetry: the Astronomica provides, in part, an astrological ‘updating’ of Aratus, in line with contemporary imperial interest in the science, and reveals themes and approaches to the material which resonate with later authors. Abry also provides new thoughts on the vexed question of the implications of and reasons behind the absence of the planets from Manilius' work.
C. Wolff takes a range of imperial texts to construct a fascinating picture of the importance of astrology for victims of theft, who would apparently consult astrologers to find out both the whereabouts of their lost items and the nature/identity of the thief. From the variety of valuables mentioned in the texts, one can assume that the astrologer was a service used by all levels of Roman society, and there is an intriguing deterioration in sympathy for the perpetrators from earlier to later texts which may point to an increase in violence in the later centuries of the Roman Empire.
This attractive and varied collection brings together little-studied texts in a way which allows one to appreciate more fully their value as part of a living tradition of astrology in poetry.
