rious Changes and remarkable effects in the Air, boding
good and bad, not only to Nations in general, but to Kings and Private
Persons in particular. Under the course of these Planets, they say are
Thirty Stars, which they call Counselling Gods, half of whom observe
what is done under the Earth, and the other half take notice of the
actions of Men upon the Earth, and what is transacted in the Heavens.
Once every Ten Days space (they say) one of the highest Order of these
Stars descends to them that are of the lowest, like a Messenger sent
from them above; and then again another ascends from those below to them
above, and that this is their constant natural motion to continue for
ever. The chief of these Gods, they say, are Twelve in number, to each
of which they attribute a Month, and one Sign of the Twelve in the
Zodiack.

"Through these Twelve Signs the Sun, Moon, and the other Five Planets
run their Course. The Sun in a Years time, and the Moon in the space
of a Month. To every one of the Planets they assign their own proper
Courses, which are perform'd variously in lesser or shorter time
according as their several motions are quicker or slower. These Stars,
they say, have a great influence both as to good and bad in Mens
Nativities; and from the consideration of their several Natures, may
be foreknown what will befal Men afterwards. As they foretold things
to come to other Kings formerly, so they did to Alexander who conquer'd
Darius, and to his Successors Antigonus and Seleucus Nicator; and
accordingly things fell out as they declar'd; which we shall relate
particularly hereafter in a more convenient time. They tell likewise
private Men their Fortunes so certainly, that those who have found the
thing true by Experience, have esteem'd it a Miracle, and above the
reach of man to perform. Out of the Circle of the Zodiack they describe
Four and Twenty Stars, Twelve towards the North Pole, and as many to the
South.

"Those which we see, they assign to the living; and the other that do
not appear, they conceive are Constellations for the Dead; and they term
them Judges of all things. The Moon, they say, is in the lowest Orb;
and being therefore next to the Earth (because she is so small), she
finishes her Course in a little time, not through the swiftness of her
Motion, but the shortness of her Sphear. In that which they affirm (that
she has but a borrow'd light, and that when she is eclips'd, it's caus'd
by the interp