Manili Astronomicon Liber II

Abstract

MR. GARROD has by this volume deserved the gratitude of every student of astrology, less-degree of every student of ancient which is constantly illustrated by astrology.If the book which he has edited is of value for the history of astronomical science, it is entitled to a high place in astronomical poetry, and Manilius's imagination may appeal to many who have no independent interest either in astrology or in the history of astronomy. As Mr. Garrod points out in his preface, the second book of Manilius is at once the longest and the most difficult. It requires close attention to geometrical ideas of no value to modern science, and these ideas are made the more difficult through being expressed in verse, and in a verse teeming with poetic metaphor, instead of in prose. “And not only is the second book hard, but the commentaries upon it are hard too. No one commentary suffices,” says. Mr. Garrod. This criticism might' now be more appropriately expressed in the pas tense. The Latin text of the second book is hard;' though Mr. Garrod's painstaking study of the text has done much to make it easier, but there is no difficulty in following it with the aid of the translation and commentary that Mr. Garrod has supplied. In fact, the translation might be read with interest by one who has forgotten his Latin.

Manili Astronomicon Liber II.

Edidit H. W. Garrod. Pp. xcix + 166. (Oxonii: E Typographeo Academico, 1911.) Price 10s. 6d. net.