A BRIEF HISTORY OF MUNDANE ASTROLOGY
Mundane astrology probably has its roots in ancient Chaldean or Babylonian «omen» astrology that was largely centred on the fates of kings and kingdoms. When western astrology first coalesced in the Hellenistic era, somewhere in the late second century BC, there appears to be very, very little written or mentioned about mundane considerations. It would appear that the extent of mundane considerations did not stretch much further than general interrogations and elections called katarchai, but these were closely associated to the personal or genethlialogical astrology of the Greeks. The only early Greek author to deal with mundane considerations was Ptolemy, although it must have been known of in the Greek astrology of the first and second century (C.E.) . Even early writers such as Vettius Valens includes mundane places in his descriptions of the signs.
In the early Hellenistic approaches to mundane presented by Ptolemy it is called the general division of astrology 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 oppositions 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 8th 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 principal 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. In spite of 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. A few scholars survived for another generation until the
murder of Hypatia in 415 AD. After the Byzantine Emperor Justinian closed all of the schools in Athens (527 C.E.) the last refuges of science and knowledge were yet to be found in Alexandria, but even more so, the old traditions flourished in Persia.
It should be no surprise then that in the three centuries that followed, from the Vandal conquest and the occupation of Rome until the coronation of Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor (c.800), the structure of western Roman society disintegrated and in particular education and knowledge of the sciences. Only in the Byzantine Empire and in spite of «radical» Christianity was there relative stability ensuring that the arts and sciences were not totally eradicated.
In Europe, these were the «Dark Ages» but in the midst of the degeneration, there arose in the Middle East «The Religion» and with it came the conquest of the centres of the remaining civilised nations by this new Arab power: in 635 Syria fell; in 637, Iraq; Persia by 641 and Egypt following in 642. By 670, the Islamic Empire had spread to occupy most of North Africa. By 711, they had conquered Visigoth Spain and had it not been for their defeat at Poitiers, France in 732 by Charles Martel they would have occupied the greater part of Southern Europe. While their empire rose quickly, unlike their Germanic counterparts in Europe, their conquests left societies and cultures, for the most part, intact enabling them to take possession of an intellectual world rich in philosophy and science.
In 813, the House of Knowledge (Bait ha Hikma) was founded in Baghdad establishing a place in which to assimilate the wealth of knowledge the new empire had inherited. Observatories were constructed near Baghdad and Damascus. Translation of Greek, Syriac, Persian and Sanskrit literature, philosophical and scientific works were enthusiastically, if not passionately, pursued. Astrologers, who had long fallen from favour in both Byzantine and Roman cultures, now found benefactors and patrons in the Sunni Caliphs of the Islamic Empire.
It was amongst this cultural rebirth that mundane astrology re-emerges. What is evident is that this period saw the congregation of several lines of astrology, i.e. that of the predominant Hellenistic astrologers, Persian (or Chaldean) astrologers, and elements from Indian Astrology. Without a doubt, this period and place became a «crossroads» and «conjunction» of the main astrological influences, cultures and teachings.