Celestial Inclinations by Anne-Marie Lewis;

Author:Anne-Marie Lewis;
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Octavianus’ actions and behavior have generally been interpreted in a negative way because, as Suetonius suggests (putem), Antonius later used the episode to discredit and diminish Octavianus.15 But Antonius was not at this battle. He must have heard a version of what happened from eyewitnesses or reworked the report of what he had heard in order to add damaging evidence to his claims that Octavianus was an incompetent if not an unhinged commander, a claim not found in the accounts of the battle written by the historians Appian and Dio. A reconsideration of Suetonius’ account of the episode in view of Octavianus’ celestial interests, however, leads to a different possible conclusion regarding this episode and to a more positive interpretation of the actions of Octavianus before the battle. Suetonius reports that Octavianus had to be roused by his comrades from the sound sleep into which he had suddenly dropped before the hour at which the battle began (sub horam pugnae) in order to give the battle signal. Such a deep sleep after prior wakefulness before a major battle was not unknown. The same thing had happened to Pompeius Magnus in the early hours of the morning before the Battle of Pharsalus. Antonius’ version of the behavior of Octavianus may have been nothing more than a misrepresentation of the nature of a normal activity that Octavianus undertook each morning—observation of the nature of the celestial display before sunrise.16 Octavianus did not accept the day of his encounter with Sextus Pompeius, September 3, 36 b.c., only with an eye to celestial display, but about an hour before sunrise during morning nautical twilight on the day of the Battle of Naulochus, Octavianus would have seen an impressive sky that presented several of the meaningful celestial elements that had been in the heavens at his past public events (see the central area of visibility in Fig. 10.1). The constellation Gemini [Gem], representing the brothers Pollux and Castor, who were the protectors of mariners, was centrally located in the zodiac. The planets Mercury and Mars were in conjunction in Leo [Leo] in the east. A bright Moon, 88% full, appeared in Aries [Ari] toward the west. In addition, the watery constellations Hydra [Hya], Argo [Pup], Flumen [Eri], Pistrix [Cet], and Pisces [Psc] could be seen in the south. Octavianus would also have known from a study of paranatellonta and from direct observations of the heavens on the days prior to the battle that the Sun in Virgo [Vir] was beginning to rise above the eastern horizon on the morning of the battle.

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