Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

-AST iRONOMIA. ASTRONOMIA. 14S
ordered to quit Italy within tenll days (Val. Max. i. inention specially once for all to avoid the necessity3. ~ 2), and they were again banished from the city of constant references; in the Historisc,ie Unte: —
in B. c. 33, by M. Agrippa, who was then aedile. sucengeen iiber die astronoziscl/en Beobacdtn.qgeen der
(Dion Cass. xlix. 1.) Another severe ordinance was Alten, by the same author (Berlin, 1806); in a
levelled by Augustus against this class (Dion Cass. paper by Buttmann Uber die E ntstektung der Sternlxv. 1, lxvi. 25), but the frequent occurrence of bilder aezfder griec/lisceen f/'bre, contained in the
such phrases as " expulit et mathematicos "- (Suet. Transactions of the Berlin Academy for 1826; and
Tib. 36), " pulsis Italia mathematicis " (Tac. Iist. in the Gesckic.tde der Astrononmsie of Schaubach.
ii. 62), in the historians of the empire prove how 2. The risings and settings of the fixed stars
firm a hold these pretenders must have obtained considered with reference to the position of the sun
over the public mind, and how profitable the oc- in the ecliptic, -a series of phenomena which recupation must have been which could induce them curring regularly every tropical year, served in
to brave disgrace, and sometimes a cruel death the most remote ages as the sole guides for the
(Tac. Ann. ii. 32). Notwithstanding the number operations of the husbandmnan, and which, being
and stringent character of the penal enac+menits by in later times frequently appealed to by the poets,
wvhich they were denounced, they appear to have are sometimes designated the " Poetical Risings
kept their ground, and although from time to and Settings of the Stars." Here we chiefly dotime crushed or terrified into silence, to have re- pend upon the compilations and dissertations,