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Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
March 2012
Print publication year:
2011
First published in:
1920
Online ISBN:
9780511841798
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511841798
Subjects:
Classical Studies, Physics and Astronomy, Classical Studies (General), Astronomy: General Interest, Ancient Philosophy
Series:
Cambridge Library Collection - Classics
Information

Book description

Both the author and the date of this five-volume poem, the first Western document to link the houses of the zodiac with the course of human affairs, are uncertain. The author's name may be Marcus Manilius, or Manlius, or Mallius, and the latest datable event mentioned in the books themselves is the disastrous defeat of Varus' Roman legions by the German tribes in 9 CE. The writing shows knowledge of the work of Lucretius, but the work is not referred to by any subsequent writer, suggesting that it was never widely disseminated. A manuscript was rediscovered by Poggio Bracciolini in 1416 or 1417, and editions were produced by Scaliger and Bentley, but this immensely erudite edition of 1903–1930 by the scholar and poet A. E. Housman (1859–1936) is regarded as authoritative. Volume 4 describes the influence of the zodiacal signs on the people born under them.

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