Hesperiam sua Libra tenet, qua condita Roma […]” Astrologiczne konteksty opowieści o narodzinach i odrodzeniu Rzymu
“Hesperiam sua Libra tenet, qua condita Roma […]” The tale of birth and rebirth of Rome in astrological contexts

Summary/Abstract: The article aims at pinpointing variegated circumstances which yielded astrological ideas during the end of Republic and the early Principate. By assuming as a starting point the enigmatic sentence from Marcus Manilius’ Astronomica, which refers to Rome’s “birth” horoscope and simultaneously to the zodiac sign (Libra) of the princeps, the author attempts to show various contexts that facilitated the appearance of astral symbolism in texts of the epoch in question. The debate regarding the Rome’s horoscope, already quite enliven during the Antiquity, which evoked the mythical times of the Eternal City’s beginnings but, at the same time, reflected the then current affairs, clearly shows that the astrological discourse was not solely a matter of specialised “knowledge” displayed by the authors who grappled with the subject, but it usually entailed traces of complex ideological, political, and worldview related entanglements that to a great extent shaped the nature of cultural Roman “revolution” carried out over two thousand years ago.

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