Astrology, religion and astral eschatology in ancient world: The testimony of Cicero and Macrobius
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Abstract
Greeks and Romans imagined different theological systems of eschatology. Among them, an afterlife associated with the stars stands out. These beliefs emerged within Pythagorean tradition, with possible oriental influences, and Platonism, Stoicism and Neoplatonism made their own. The belief in a transcendence linked to the stars developed greatly in the period between the 1st century BC. and the end of Antiquity, as witnessed by the Ciceronian Somnium and the commentary that Macrobius elaborated on it, which both we will analyze in detail in this paper. This development, which is also attested by funerary epigraphy, was not unrelated to the growing interest in astrolatry, as a result of astrological divination, whose first outcomes were the cult of the Sol Invictus and the popular mystery cults. These cults, with an incresing presence of astral elements, promised their followers a survival of the soul after death.
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