Note 5, 46 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 3)

46. consentire dies: On the Inf., instead of the normal quin with Subj., see G., 551, R. 4; M., 375 c., Obs. 2. For the thought, comp. Hor., Od., 2, 17, 21: utrumque nostrum incredibili modo | consentit astrum.—ab uno sidere duci: Astrology was very popular in Persius’s time, having been brought into vogue by Tiberius. It was the aristocratic mode of divination, and is compared by Friedländer (Sittengesch., 1, 347) with the spiritualism and table-turning of the present day. Philosophy was not proof against it; indeed, the later Stoics always had a leaning to it, and Panaetius was the only one that rejected it (Knickenberg, l.c. p. 79). All people of ‘culture’ talked about ‘horoscope,’ ‘nativity,’ and ‘malign aspect,’ just as the same class in our time speak of ‘the spectroscope,’ ‘heat a mode of motion,’ and ‘the survival of the fittest.’ Horace and Persius, who imitates Horace, have caught up some of the current terms, and travel along the Zodiac in blissful ignorance of their own stars.