ABSTRACT
Examples, describing eclipses on days of the month upon which eclipses cannot happen, indicate that from the earliest times astral omens were not collections of observations, correlated with simultaneous happenings on earth, but were the literate creations of certain scholars who embellished them with historical allusions, internal cross-referencing, word-play, and a raft of cultural prejudices. (An analysis is offered in Brown 2000: Ch. 3.) The simple associations between a planet, Mars say, and the portending of ill, show that the linkage between celestial event and earthly prognostication bore little or no relationship to observation. The planets, the constellations, and certain phenomena had long since been categorised and assigned benefic or malefic values. Eclipses, for example, tended to predict ill for the monarch. Indeed, virtually all celestial phenomena were believed to provide information on the future of the monarchy or the land. Other forms of divination catered to the needs of the private individual. In common with all forms of divination, the prognostications were not real predictions as to what would happen, but rather of what might happen if the appropriate counter measures were not enacted, and a system of apotropaic rituals ran parallel to the omen-interpreting industry.
