SAVol7Dec09WesternCo.. - Saptarishis Astrology

institutions”. (1)From this point of view the life of the emperor Hadrian would be a particularly difficult casestudy: a man who believed in astrology but was also an astrologer himself, just like themembers of the Medici family in Florence and the enlightened Mughal emperors of India,whom they resembled so much, the object but also the active subject of astrology’s skills increating emperors – and also gods – at the time of the Caesars in Rome. (2)Hadrian, who “explored all branches of science”, united within himself, in an apotheosis ofthe late ancient world, two souls and two cultures, the Roman and the Greek, withoutfavouring one over the other: by praising the wise administration of the former – which alsoincluded his very unusual interest in the education of soldiers, his passion for architecture,his love of travelling – and his passion for the arts, his versatility, his scientific curiosity,which included a deep and reverent attention for the guidance of the stars. It is the union ofthe opposites – to quote Jung (3) – which produces an increase of positive energy; it is not bychance that it is under Hadrian’s rule that the long period of peace of the Antonine dynasty,the happiest period of Roman history, begins; “Under Hadrian there almost was no longertalk of war” writes Aelius Spartianus, the writer of the Historia Augusta, (4) who testifies tothe man’s and the emperor’s interest for astrology:” Emperor Hadrian’s family has itsremotest origins in the Picenum, its more recent ones in Spain … he was born in Rome onthe 24 th of January 76 A.D…. Exactly in the last years of Domitian’s rule he was sent toLower Mesia where it is said that an astrologer predicted his future imperial dignity, thusconfirming a prophecy by his paternal uncle Aelius Hadrian, a great expert in the study ofthe stars …The Emperor HadrianHe believed he was so skilled in astrologythat, on the first of January he had alreadywritten all that would happen to him duringthe year, hence in the year when he died, hehad already written all that he would do tothe last hour of his life…” Hadrian’spredecessors had already made use ofastrology: Nero with his astrologerBalbillus, whom he nominated prefect ofEgypt, and whose niece, Julia Balbilla,would accompany Hadrian to the oracle ofthe Colossus of Memnon; and Tiberius withTrasillus. It had been known for a long timein the Rome of the Caesars that astrologycould be used not only to advise butsometimes to create emperors, and also gods,187