A God for Every Sign – yay
I find reading old astrology books a very good way to get to sleep. Dane Rudhyar is marvellously soporific. I hope some of it will filter into my dreams, and be reborn as a brilliant insight.
Last night I turned to CEO Carter, who is an old stand-by in the wee small hours. And in the footnotes I found this reference to Manilius, the Roman astrologer and poet.
“It is interesting to note that there was an allocation preserved by Manilius, of the 12 signs to the Twelve Great Gods. In this Aries is ruled Minerva, Gemini by Apollo, Cancer by Mercury, Leo by Jupiter, Virgo by Ceres, Libra by Vulcan, Sagittarius by Diana, Capricorn by Vesta, Aquarius by Juno, and Pisces by Neptune. Taurus and Scorpio are unchanged.”
So Taurus is ruled by Venus and Scorpio by Mars. The lover gods were in opposition then as they are today.
Minerva opposes Vulcan. (Wisdom vs craft? Not sure about this pair yet.)
Diana opposes Apollo. (They were twins, were they not.)
Vesta opposes Mercury. (Goddess of the hearth vs god of speed.)
Jupiter opposes Juno. (It’s an institute you can’t disparage.)
Ceres opposes Neptune. (Land vs sea.)
Welcome back to the Zodiac ladies.
well I never!
Nice post. I would put Vulcan w/ Aries (as raw craft/thought) & Minerva w/ Libra (as refined craft/wisdom), but in astrology opposite/shadow energies abound, no? My favorite & again a pair I think are visa versa is Vesta & Mercury. Vesta representing agrarian society (Cancer’s love of domesticity?) vs. modern society (Capricorn’s drive for status).
I like what you say and I agree about the Vulcan Minerva reversal, especially. I was particularly surprised by Vulcan ruling Libra and wondered if Carter had it right. But he’s awfully meticulous.
I need to look it up but I think Vesta was actually honoured in the month of January so that makes more sense.
I suppose the real thing to do is read the original but so far I have only found it in Latin, which, regretfully is no good to me. i got excited when I found that A E Housman had devoted his career to Manilius but unfortunately his notes appear to be in Latin too!!
[…] a female counterpart.And now I’m getting to the point of today’s post.A while back I posted about the Roman astrologer, Marcus Manilius, who wrote a book called Astronomica, which is […]
[…] first century poet Manilius is our earliest written source on astrology. In his poem, Astronomica, he gives rulership of the […]