ABSTRACT
Some scholars have held that all mythology, and particularly the Greek, contains astrological reference. How far this is true does not concern us. Whatever the origin of their myths, the Greeks developed them into Mediterranean poetry; and the cosmological aspects of their religions reflected the non-continental, the Mediterranean life. The Mediterranean quality bred an attitude rather than any specific dogma. If, unlike dogma, it is impossible to sweep away attitude as such, it is yet easily and subtly diverted from more creative, to less creative, beliefs. Through the medium of the Roman empire, oriental cosmological religions, even in classical times, began to oust what we have considered to be the purer Mediterranean paganism. The Roman empire, the Romans themselves, were not by any means a typical growth of Mediterranean climate. Unlike all the other great Mediterranean peoples, the Romans were not by nature seafaring. In Latium, as in Boeotia, the bulk of the people lived on fertile land in the interior. Rome took to sea to fight Carthage and the Tyrrhenian pirates. There is something almost continental about the scale of the Roman Campagna. There was something continental, Asiatic, about the Roman empire from its earliest days. Soon, very ancient oriental religions found favour at Rome, religions that had already permeated Alexander's Hellenistic world, preparing the way for Christianity around the Mediterranean itself. Again, I
Chapel of the Planets paganism, the Renaissance men studied astrology with which paganism was confused.
