al revolutions
took place, led to the conception of divine eternity, how the theory of a
fatal domination of the stars over the earth brought about that of the
omnipotence of the "lord of the heavens," and how the introduction of a
universal religion was the necessary result of the belief that the stars
exerted an influence upon the peoples of every climate. The logic of all
these consequences of the principles of astrology was plain to the Latin as
well as to the Semitic races, and caused a rapid transformation of the
ancient idolatry. As in Syria, the sun, which the astrologers called the
leader of the planetary choir, "who is established as king and leader of
the whole world,"[33] necessarily became the highest power of the Roman
pantheon.

Astrology also modified theology, by introducing into this pantheon a great
number of new gods, some of whom were singularly abstract. Thereafter man
worshiped the constellations of the firmament, particularly the twelve
signs of the zodiac, every one of which had its mythologic legend; the sky
(_Caelus_) itself, because it was considered the first cause, and was
sometimes confused with the supreme being; the four elements, the
antithesis and perpetual transmutations of which produced all tangible
phenomena, and which were often symbolized by a group of animals ready to
devour each other;[34] finally, time and its subdivisions.[35]

The calendars were religious before they were secular; their purpose was
not, primarily, to record fleeting {176} time, but to observe the
recurrence of propitious or inauspicious dates separated by periodic
intervals. It is a matter of experience that the return of certain moments
is associated with the appearance of certain phenomena; they have,
therefore, a special efficacy, and are endowed with a sacred character. By
determining periods with mathematical exactness, astrology continued to see
in them "a divine power,"[36] to use Zeno's term. Time, that regulates the
course of the stars and the transubstantiation of the elements, was
conceived of as the master of the gods and the primordial principle, and
was likened to destiny. Each part of its infinite duration brought with it
some propitious or evil movement of the sky that was anxiously observed,
and transformed the ever modified universe. The centuries, the years and
the seasons, placed into relation with the four winds and the four cardinal
points, the twelve months connected with the zodiac, t