Recovering the Lost World,
A Saturnian Cosmology --Jno Cook
Part 13: The Sibylline Star Wars.

[Table of Contents]

$Revision: 23.2 $
Contents of this chapter: [The Sibylline Star Wars] [The Great Year] [The Opening Text] [New Locations of the Stars] [Conclusions About Dates] [Nonnos' Dionysiaca] [Two Meteors] [Endnotes]

The Sibylline Star Wars

(rewrite, May 2008) The information below bears on the flareup of Venus and Mercury in 685 BC, the relocation of the polar axis, and the change in the location of the equinox. It is from a document written 800 years later, but clearly from extant sources. It is probably also the most spectacular confirmation of the reality of the events of 685 BC.

Franz Xavier Kugler, an early 20th century translater of Babylonian cuniform astronomical tablets, in a book titled "The Sibylline Battle of the Stars and Phaethon Seen as Natural History" (1927), analyzed the ending of the fifth volume of the Sibylline Oracle Books, originally completed (it is today estimated) in about AD 115 in Egypt. He suggests that the text deals in specifics, of an event yet to come, for which details were garnered from older records, although in his opinion the details date from 1500 BC. In my opinion the details describe the nova event of Venus in 685 BC.

The Sibylline Oracle books were written in Greek in lower Egypt between 100 BC and AD 200. They are mostly Jewish in sentiment and philosophy, as they are in politics. Using an established style for prophesies, as in the Delphic oracles and in the writings of the prophets of Israel, "Babylon" is substituted for Imperial Rome, while "Rome" might be a substitute for the real name of an Emperor. This makes interpretation difficult at times. The Books were still in circulation in 16th century as manuscripts. German and English translations (from the original Greek) appeared late in the 19th century.

Livio Stecchini, in "Cuniform Atronomical Records and Celestial Instabilities" in "The Velikovsky Affair" (1966), reiterates Kugler's idea that the Sibylline prophesies were based on extant data from antiquity. He also notes that the scientific philosophies which had developed by this time (100 BC to AD 100), required specifics in prophesies. There are additional comments by Malcomb Lowery in the article "Father Kugler's Falling Star" in Kronos (1977), and by Bob Kobres in "The Path of a Comet and Phaethon's Ride" in "The World & I" Volume 10, No. 2 (1995). Stecchini writes, about Kugler..

"Kugler wanted to indicate that the writers of the oracle were so preoccupied with solid astronomical facts that they described the successive phases of the episode of Phaethon according to what they knew about the position of the heavenly bodies in the several months of the year. It is his contention that the writers of this oracle, far from being maniacs breathing gibberish, were trying to make their prediction (based on a past historical occurrence) credible by framing it in an accurate astronomical timetable."

Stecchini continues to advance his own viewpoint..

"This group of philosophers was fathering modern uniformitarianism, because they were fitting the historical tradition of 'catastrophes' into a cyclical pattern of phenomena recurring at fixed intervals of time, past and future, according to an absolutely unchangeable and predictable order of the heavenly cosmos."

I disagree with the date of 1500 BC (for the description of the Star Wars), for it is doubtful if such detailed data was recorded that far back, or that it would have survived as astronomical data, when the social milieu of that remote time still held fast to attributing all such events to the Gods. And I do not think we could hope for a clear calendaric record if the land had been devastated repeatedly and the skies were obscured for years. Much more likely the specific data records the flareup of Venus in 685 BC. By 685 BC Babylonian astronomical records had appeared.

The Great Year

I should note a numismatic oddity among the coins of the Roman Imperial period. This involves the reverse side depiction of an upfacing crescent with seven stars above. These occur in the reigns of the Roman emperors Hadrian (reigned AD 117 to AD 138), Commodus, reigned to AD 192, and the Severan dynasty (Septimius Severus, to AD 211; Geta, to AD 211; Caracalla, to AD 217), all dated to late in the second century AD and early third century. These coins thus coincide or closely follow the writing of the Sibylline Star Wars text. [note 1]

I looked at hundreds of coins from the Roman Imperial era (starting with Hadrian). All the coins depict a head (generally the emperor) in profile and the scene of a full sized figure on the reverse -- at times mythological, at times as allegorical personifications (Victory, Africa), at times a temple structure or sacrificial devices. One even shows the double ended triple-tined thunderbolt of the eastern Mediterranean on the side of a cart drawn by four horses. There are also infrequent depictions of a star within an upturned crescent. In one case this is sitting directly above a pillar of sorts.

There are also some Partian coins with the crescent and seven stars of the same dates. And then, after the third century AD, it fades, except for occasional uses into the current era. In antiquity Isis, holding baby Horus, is shown standing on the crescent with seven stars surrounding her head, as is, today, Mary holding baby Jesus.

Image: Roman coin of the Imperial era after Hadrian.

Curtis L Clay, posting at http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board, in November, 2005, writes, with respect to Roman coins with a "crescent and seven stars" design on the reverse...

Strack, noting that the same type is labeled SAECVLI FELICITAS, "The Happiness of the Age", on Eastern denarii of Septimius Severus [reigned AD 192 to AD 211], interprets Hadrian's type as indicating the return of the seven movable heavenly bodies to their original positions, signaling the beginning of a new golden age.

He cites.. (1) Festus: "The mathematicians call it the Great Year when the seven wandering stars complete their individual courses and return to harmony with each other", and (2)Servius [4th century Roman grammarian] on Vergil's [Virgil] Eclogues: "At the completion of the Great Year all of the stars return to their places and begin the next cycle of identical movements. If the movements of the stars are repeated, it follows that everything that happened will recur again, since it is obvious that everything is determined by the motions of the stars. For this reason Vergil says that the Golden Age will return and everything that happened before will be repeated."

I cannot find the related text in Virgil. Clay continues with..

On this interpretation, we have to assume that the moon is depicted twice in the type: it is represented not only by the crescent, but also by one of the seven stars above the crescent, since it is one of the seven wandering heavenly bodies, but is also by far the most prominent of them at night, and the only one that waxes and wanes.

But I suspect that the Moon is not depicted twice. The upturned crescent has nothing to do with the Moon. Although the seven stars are grouped in various ways to reflect graphic convenience and representative shorthand, the crescent is always shown as upturned -- a condition which the Moon never achieves, except in the tropics.

The crescent is the backlighted portion of Saturn, last seen in 3147 BC. Or the horns of Jupiter seen in approaching Saturn on the same date. It has no significance for 2349 BC or 1492 BC, or for June and July of 685 BC, except to signify the endpoint of creation -- destruction of the heavens. The grouping together of all the planets was still remembered or understood as significant from before 3147 BC, although during the "Age of the Gods" the seven objects grouped together were the satellites of Saturn.

... Berossus

This idea of "grouping together" and the start of a new epoch was reinforced at the beginning of the calendar year following the nova event of 685 BC. In spring of 684 BC, on the day of the equinox, all seven planets presented themselves in the eastern sky just before sunrise.

On March 15th of 684 BC, Julian (which is March 8th, Gregorian), the planets extending from the east horizon, were: the Sun (before rising), Saturn, the new crescent Moon, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus (almost conjunct), then a large gap and Mars over the southwest. The first six are all grouped in two houses. Geometrically the center of the distance between the Sun (at the far east) and Mars (at the west end) is located in the constellation Capricorn. Berossus, a priest from Babylon who moved to Greece after 300 BC, had noted that Capricorn of the Great Year is associated with a deluge.

Image: The sky on on March 15, 684 BC, Julian.

I should also note that March 8, Gregorian, is the 'old' date of the vernal equinox, which had moved to March 23 in 684 BC, as I have shown elsewhere. This was the first instance of the new date of the spring equinox. The conjunction was also not a unique event. By the end of the same year another conjunction showed up on December 15th: the Moon, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury (these two both in Capricorn) and the setting Sun.

The initial conjunction includes all the elements of the "Great Year" from antiquity: a long interval between catastrophic destructions of the world, the grouping together of all the planets so that they will restart their orbits, the start of the first of a year in the new era, and, lastly, the identification of the start of the Great Year with the constellation Capricorn.

... van der Sluijs

Marinus van der Sluijs, in "A Possible Babylonian Precursor to the Theory of Ecpyrosis," Culture and Cosmos (2005), in an analysis of a Babylonian text "Erra and Isum," suggests a precursor to the concept of a Great Year as shown in the poem's dialog between Marduk (Jupiter) and Erra (Mars). Mars has usurped Marduk's power but relents after being warned how the world will end with fire if he persists. It does, of course, nearly end with fire, although in 685 BC Marduk takes control again.

The narrative compares the 'water catastrophe' of Marduk with the 'fire catastrophe' of Erra -- as if these two directly followed each other. They did not, of course, as we know. The fall of the Absu in 2349 BC would be the 'water catastrophe,' but the Exodus event intervened, which, actually, might be considered as another 'water catastrophe' in that it would also have caused adjacent tsunamies and flooding.

The crucial details of a common element allowing for the comparison, and the reason for selecting the 2349 BC 'fall of the Absu' event rather than Exodus, is that in both instances, 2349 BC and 685 BC, Jupiter (Marduk) is involved in an identical gesture -- he gets up from his seat, then sits down again. The moment he rises, creation starts to come undone.

"Getting up from his throne," in the "Erra and Isum" narrative is a up-country version of the same incident recorded in the Babylonian "Enuma Elish:" the disappearance and reappearance of Marduk's garment. In both cases -- in the "Enuma Elish" and in "Erra and Isum" -- it was the disappearance of the lower mountain-like plasma expulsion of Jupiter. In these two instances, in 2349 BC and 685 BC, as I have detailed already, there was the sudden reappearance of the lower plumes or 'throne' of Jupiter after the catastrophe -- as if to suggest that the act of reseating Jupiter stabilized creation. The sequence in both cases is extensive for the time lag between unseating and reseating is measured in decades or centuries, but a causality was affirmed.

This is among the details brought forward by vd Sluijs, although without reference to actual events and dates. We posses only portions of the narative, and thus we do not know how the conflict between Jupiter and Mars was resolved, although we could guess. The "Erra and Isum" text is dated to the period of 1200 BC to 600 BC. Because of the revolt by Mars and the warning of devastation to come, I would opt for a creation date after 650 BC.

What we have here is an example of myth creation (narratization) for two historic events which identify the agents involved. We know both the events and the protagonists, having met them already in the text I have so far presented. Most interesting is that the author is willing to tie together events 1500 years apart with the single gesture to the reseating of Jupiter. The reseating we know of already also. The number of years between these events is certainly much longer than the 684 year span of the Great Year as suggested directly below.

... Clube and Napier

Even in antiquity (as we know from texts in the first century AD), the length of the Great Year was in question. Why this was so will soon becomes clear.

There are some obvious values for the span of time of a Great Year which could be calculated. Victor Clube and Bill Napier, in "The Cosmic Serpent" (1982), pick up a time span of 684 years, based on B.L. van der Waerden's "Science awakening II: the birth of astronomy" (1974). Clube and Napier then use the the date of second Earth shock identified by Velikovsky in the 7th century BC, 686 or 687 BC, along with a made-up date for Exodus, 1369 BC, to fit the time span of 684 years. But this last fiction of a new date for Exodus is not needed. The span between the more generally accepted date of 1492 BC for the Exodus, and the first 'attack' by Mars in 806 BC, spans 686 years -- close enough to van der Waerden's value of 684. [note 2]

What is interesting, of course, is that the Babylonians were attempting to impose some order to the planets in the sky. The dreadful 120 years of assaults by Mars were real, and were remembered. So were the 684 quiet years which preceded that period. The date of AD 2 might have been viable for a long time as forewarning of another catastrophe, but apparently nothing happened. I looked for 7-planet conjunctions between 7 BC and AD 1 (Julian astronomical dates, thus to AD 4), checking month to month during the time of a new Moon. These conjunctions are not uncommon. A list of the five found during this 8 year period is shown in the endnotes. [note 3]

By AD 2 it must have been realized that the theory needed to be adjusted. The next logical time interval most likely resulted from the similar calculation of, from 1492 BC to 685 BC is 807 years, and thus, 807 years after 685 BC is AD 122 (both dates as atronomical). AD 122 represents AD 126 in eastern Mediterranean chronology -- certainly a viable date for a book of prophesies collated in AD 115.

... Hadrian

Meanwhile, the conjunctions kept on coming, without any apparent catastrophic effects. I checked, but no conjunction happened anywhere near the death of Julius Caesar, despite his deification in response to a sighted comet. I also started to check for the time period of the emperor Hadrian from the year AD 100 on. Conjunctions of all the planets spread across the sky happen on the following dates (I may have missed some)..

AD 107, Sep 19, Moon (rising), Sat, Mar, Mer, Ven, Jup, Sun (setting)
AD 109, Oct 27, Moon (rising), Mar, Sat, Ven, Jup, Mer, Sun (setting)
AD 115, Jun 5, Sun (rising), Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Mars, Moon.

Image: The sky on June 5, AD 115, Julian (AD 119 in eastern Mediterranean chronology) Looking south.

The last of these corresponds to AD 119 in eastern Mediterranean chronology. Hadrian became emperor in AD 117, two years before this conjunction. The first coinage of the crescent and seven stars occurs in AD 119 or 120. (I have not been able to verify this from other sources.) Hadrian was in Britain at this time, busy with Hadrian's Wall.

Considering that I found 5 conjunction in the last 8 years of the last century before the current era, it could be suggested that the conjunctions were simply worked into the propaganda of political discourse. The Romans were acutely aware of astrology, and nothing would have been missed. Additionally, the future locations of the planets in the sky could at this time be calculated in advance. [note 4a]

"There was an obsession with astrology," writes Tom Buggey, "during the reign of Septimius Severus and successors, the reliance on astrology became a mania." (At http://tjbuggey.ancients.info.) Buggey means the Severn Dynasty, AD 193 to AD 235, which followed directly after the emperor Hadrian.

In AD 126 Hadrian completed the building of the Pantheon in Rome -- the temple to all the Gods, all seven -- an absolutely magnificent building, which still stands today. AD 126 is the astronomical year AD 122. On June 30 there was a clear conjunction (a lineup) with Jupiter in Sagittarius in the southeast, Mars and the new Moon in Libra, and Venus, Saturn, and Mercury in Leo, with the Sun setting in the northwest. All the Gods stood in the sky.

... Stecchini

It thus seems likely that the prophesies of the Sibylline Books accomplish what Livio Stecchini proposes, that is, to present a "cyclical pattern of phenomena recurring at fixed intervals of time," even though Stecchini offers no indication of the measure of the repeating cycle.

"It appeared in the East sky more brilliant than the Sun," Stecchini paraphrasing Kugler.

He writes, additionally..

"The lines purport to describe the circumstances of the coming end of the world; they were written in the century before the birth of Christ [but collated with other information in the second century AD] by Greek-speaking inhabitants of Egypt, when the ancient world was agitated by the Messianic expectation of a cosmic upheaval. But the lines give an account that is so exact and technical that it must be something more than a mere mystical vision of coming destruction. Such precise astronomical details are given that, calculating by the position of the constellations around 100 B. C., the crisis began in September and reached a climax in seven months ... after the 7th or the 8th of April."

"... According to Kugler, the crisis described as the Battle of the Stars began with the appearance in the eastern sky of a body as bright as the sun and similar in apparent diameter to the sun and the moon. The light of the sun was replaced by long streams of flame crossing each other."

"After the mention of these streams of flame that replaced the sun as a source of light, there follows the line, 'the Morning Star fought the battle riding on the back of Leo.'"

Stecchini explains, after Kugler, that "Venus [the Morning Star] riding on a lion" was a well known and "feared emblem for disaster" in the eastern Mediterranean region, and gives examples of unconnected goddesses all depicted as riding on lions. I would point out, of course, that the "emblem" was well known because it had been experienced in 685 BC. Phaethon appeared not in remote antiquity, but in 685 BC. In the Star Wars description we again find Jupiter (Zeus) coming to deliver a mortal thunderbolt, as in the 'legendary' event of Phaethon. Mercury, by the way, was probably the Morning Star, not Venus, although since antiquity the honor of being the Morning Star has gone to Venus. After all, once the event concluded Mercury would disappear against the sky again. But Venus remained visible.

There is no question that the Phaethon legend describes the nova event of Venus and Mercury in June and July of 685 BC, although the Roman author Ovid (before AD 17), who narratised the 'legend,' places all the action in the span of one day rather than 40 days. The descriptive details stand out, however. Ovid notes that large regions of the Earth were burned up ("Ignis Coelis" -- fire falling from the sky), that Phaethon had to struggle against "the whirling poles" (which may have reference to a polar plasma plume) and was swept away by the "swift axis" (the relocation of the polar axis), that the normal path of the Sun through the skies was not followed, that the northern constellations attempted to dip into the sea (as the equatorial moved), and ends with the note that the Earth "sank back a little lower than her wonted place." (paraphrased by Velikovsky)

Plato (ca 300 BC) quotes Solon to the effect that Phaethon's ride ended when he was hit with a thunderbolt delivered by Jupiter. Hesiod (ca 650 BC) mentions the birth of Phaethon to Eos (Dawn) and his abduction by Aphrodite (Venus). Phaethon is Mercury. A year earlier Mercury had been involved in a plasmasphere contact with Earth which reduced its orbit to fall entirely within the orbit of Venus. With this in mind, his 'birth' as a Morningstar, the child of Dawn, plus his spectacular 'abduction' by Venus will start to make sense.

Mercury's abduction is the conjunction of Venus and Mercury on June 15th of 685 BC. It was seen as an abduction because Mersury was previously only seen just above the horizon before sunrise or after sunset (after sunset in June of 685 BC). It would not have been seen as traveling across the sky with the Sun, except that on June 15th, while very near each other in the sky, both Venus and Mercury started to blaze like suns during the day.

With shafts of light streaking across the sky -- directed toward the Sun and away, as likely as well at right angles -- the two planets looked like comets. Later astronomers, inspecting ancient records, came to the obvious conclusion that comets are generated when planets meet in conjunction. This opinion was held from Roman times through the Middle Ages.

... a starting date

My estimates, made before I ran across the text by Stecchini, was also of an initial appearance in the East and a course of 8 months. Originally I selected a period starting at the earliest in March/April and lasting to January of the following year (rather than Kugler's September to April of 100 BC). At the first writing of this text I had no idea at all of when Venus would first have flared up, and used the first date of its appearance in the east, going by ephemeris information. Only in early 2008 did I manage to derive a reasonable set of dates for the event, based on diverse records. At this time I would hold that the blazing of Venus started on June 15, Gregorian, and ended on July 25th (June 22 to August 1, Julian). The general details of these two dates were presented in a previous chapter. (Fine detail is presented in Chapter 16, "The Chilam Balam Books.") Finding these dates simplified a reading of the Sibylline Oracle texts, which I will address below.

What is of greater interest are the specifics of the prophesies, not the dates. I disagree with Stecchini's evaluation (after Kugler) that the information "is so exact and technical that it must be something more than a mere mystical vision." I should explain that Kugler sees the progression of the Sibylline description as simply recording the path of the Sun through the constellations between September and April, and that this becomes the basis for the Phaethon event of ca 1500 BC by inference (which is actually the Typhon event).

What I see, instead of a play-by-play, is an opening and closing statement which encloses a long list of damages in terms of relocations of stars, which range over all except a few of the zodiacal constellations. The effect is not unlike the trail ofconstellated animals which follow the depiction of the killing of the bull (Taurus) in the temples of Mithra, or the list of celestial damages presented in the play Thyistes by Seneca. Both of these are contemporaneous with the Sibylline prophesies.

There is an opening statement: the account of the visionary, how the star-war progressed (at which point dates come into play), what the main weapon was, and a summary of the lasting damages. At the end of the text we find a resolution and a windup signifying the end of creation. Enclosed by these is a long list of alterations in the constellations of the zodiac (abd some others), which are neither complete, nor make all that much sense except when the new skies are compared with the old skies -- the dome of the stars before and after 685 BC. But I suspect that the list was not meant to be complete; the main purpose was to suggest the utter derangement and confusion of the stars after the battle.

For Kugler to have used 100 BC is reasonable, since in 1927 it was the best guess for a date for the Fifth Book, and since Kugler only sees an association with the normal path of the Sun, but I will not pursue this. I am more interested in obtaining data for the actual event of 685 BC. I will thus shift attention to an ephemeris for the year 685 BC. The location of the planets and the constellations with respect to each other remains the same before and after 685 BC, but the polar axis and equatorial shifted. The constellations thus showed in the skies in all the wrong location, that is, in the wrong locations with respect to the horizon and the zenith. Additionally, the starting date of the year (the vernal equinox) after 685 BC shifted 15 days into the future. All of the information bearing on this has been covered in the text.

The Opening Text

Image: The sky on June 15, 685 BC, Gregorian. Looking south, at noon, a day of the new Moon. Venus and Mercury are in Leo, to the east of the Sun and Moon, which are in Cancer. (Not corrected for the change in the Earth's axis.)

The text in question, representing the closing lines 688 through 711 of Book Five of the Sibylline Oracles, is from a translation by Milton S. Terry in 1899. The text starts with ... [note 4]

"I saw the threatening of the shining Sun
Among the stars, "

"and in the lightning flash
The dire wrath of the Moon; the stars travailed
With battle; and God gave them up to light."

It is the Sun which is threatened by another body or bodies. The "travail of the stars" involves the relocation of the constellations of the zodiac after the battle is done. This becomes fact after the 40 day battle. More on this below.

"I saw ... in the lightning flash, the dire wrath of the Moon." The author here jumps to the climax of the event, the delivery of the plasmoid lightning bolt of Jupiter on July 25th. Before July 25th (Gregorian), Europe and Asia had seen the bolt approaching from Jupiter for days. The bolt had passed directly by Earth on the day side, but only Mesoamerica had witnessed it at full size. On the 25th of July (August 1, Julian) the bolt was seen approaching Venus and the Sun.

As night fell, and Europe turned away from the path of the plasmoid in the day sky, nothing was seen except the Moon standing in the south, in its first quarter, probably after 9pm in the evening. With the plasmoid traveling at an estimated speed of 40 milliom miles per day it would have reached the Sun in a half day after it disappeared from view to Europe and western Asia. That is when the plasmoid contacted the Sun.

I have previously proposed that the plasmoid would have had a diameter of perhaps 1.5 million miles. That is twice the diameter of the Sun. The plasmoid would have engulfed the Sun. At an estimated length of 15 million miles, the flash of the contact might have lasted 9 hours. It must have been seen all around the horizon, and the Moon would have lit up spectacularly. This describes the concluding event.

Image: The sky on July 25, 685 BC, Gregorian (August 1, Julian), the concluding day of the flare-up. The Sun is in Leo, Venus is in Virgo.

"God gave them up to light" obviously is meant to tell that the battle happened during the day time.

"For long fire-flames rebelled against the Sun;
Lucifer treading upon Leo's back
Began the fight; and the Moon's double horn
Changed its shape;"

The starting position is now indicated as defined by the text, "Lucifer treading upon Leo's back." This was "Venus riding on a lion," the well known and "feared emblem for disaster" in the eastern Mediterranean region, as per Kugler. On June 15 (June 22, Julian), Venus and Mercury are in Leo, to the east of the Sun and Moon, which are in Cancer.

The "long fire-flames" are the plasma tails of Venus and Mercury, which might have extended both away from the Sun and toward the Sun, as well as at right angles to these. Not unlike some comets, there may have been multiple tails which crossed each other (appropriate for Venus which does not have a magnetic field to coerce its plasmasphere tail into a cohesive bundle).

Before and after sunrise the 'flames' would reach up from below the horizon. There would be spikes pointing toward the Sun as well as away from the Sun. Stecchini writes of the plasma plumes as "long streams of flame crossing each other" (quoted from Kugler).

Almost at once after mid June, Mercury starts to move toward the position of the Sun, and passes it by July 3 (July 10, Julian). At that point Mercury, also ablaze, might have sent streams of plasma directed at Earth. Plasma expulsions may have been seen to cross space. (See the "worm-stars" in Chapter 11, "Quetzalcoatl.") The "long fire-flames" might also describe the crossed beams of plasma reaching up from below the eastern horizon to the morning Sun, which I mentioned above.

The coma, the plasma expulsions, and the distorted view of the plasma tail of Mercury when it extended toward Earth (easily confused with the Sun which Mercury was close to), are described by Isaiah and Ezekiel, and even by Assurbanipal, the king of Assyria.

The Moon (at night after June 15) would be lighted by both the Sun, Venus, and Mercury, so that its crescents ("horn") would be misshapen from its normal form. The Moon would normally have had sharp waxing horns after June 15. Now, with the additional light of Venus and its extended flares, the horns might have reached further around the edges of the Moon, or the opposite edge of the Moon might have been lighted with a crescent, "the Moon's double horn changed its shape."

During the days of the late summer, with the steep gradient of the zodiac, the plumes would point down at the horizon, since Venus would be below the Sun most of the day. Only late in the day would the flame become horizontal. After nightfall a stream would come up from below the western horizon at a 45 degree angle, lighting up a large portion of the night sky.

Image: The sky on July 25, 685 BC, Gregorian (August 1, Julian), the concluding day of the flare-up, after about 9 pm. The Sun and Venus have set. Sun in Leo, Venus in Virgo. Not shown is the plasmoid just below the western horizon.

The image above is for 9 pm of July 25 (Gregorian). It is the early night sky of the concluding event, as seen from the region of the eastern Mediterranean. Jupiter's plasmoid lightning bolt is headed for the western horizon. In the diagram above the plasmoid has to be imagined as traveling along the circle of the ecliptic. As Europe turned toward the night, the bolt was seen approaching Venus -- the errant Phaethon -- to strike him down. In actuallity the bolt passed by Venus and struck the Sun. The flash of the plasmoid landing at the Sun happened at about 3 AM in the eastern Mediterranean. The morning would see the Sun, Mercury, and Mars all engulfed in a haze.

It is quite possible that the people of the eastern Mediterranean got it right, and knew the thunderbolt struck Mercury, who was primarily identified as Phaethon. The error in this is to misidentify the target, which was the Sun, as Mercury, which was within 15 degrees of the Sun. By next morning Venus and Mercury must have quieted down, although the skies remained obscured for days. [note 5]

Mesoamerica did not see the massive explosion at the Sun, for it happened a few hours after sunset. It was assumed that the bolt was destined for Mars, standing just to the right (west) of the Sun (about 30 degrees). The explosion at the Sun would have visually engulfed the location of Mars in the sky, as well as Mercury. The next day the Sun was still in place, so it was assumed (at least by some of the many literate people of Veracruz and the Valley of Mexico) that Mars had been hit. Mars did not again come close to Earth, but primarily because the aphelion of the Earth had moved in space, as noted by Rose and Vaughan.

The Maya "Book of the Chilam Balam" states that the Sun left its normal path for three months of twenty days. This is counted inclusively, however. The actual period would be 40 days -- June 15th to July 25th, Gregorian. The "Chilam Balam" also places the arrival of lightning bolt from Jupiter, which ended the affair, exactly on July 25, 685 BC (Gregorian), which may also be calculated (from the same text) as the last close pass of Mars 520 days earlier.

The Zend-Avista, in a hymn to Tistrya [Tishtrya] (Venus), proposes a shorter period, giving a total account of the activities of Tistrya which add up to 34 days.

From the Sibylline Oracle it might be suggesting that the end of the drama happened with the Sun and Venus both in Capricorn, which would have been January of the next year. The Sibylline Oracle reads...

"Capricorn smote Taurus' neck;
And Taurus took away from Capricorn
Returning day."

But this might also simply suggest the most obvious aspect of the list of changes which will have been wrought with the war -- the change in the equinox. Jupiter was in Capricorn when the plasmoid was released. So it was Capricorn (in the typically displaced wording of prophesies) that "smote Taurus' neck." The phrase "returning day" is the fact that Taurus has been shifted to below the horizon at the vernal equinox with the change of the zodiac, thus giving up part of the daylight hours.

That prediction will be true for the coming era. Taurus' neck was broken, it would no longer be the constellation that the Sun rose in at the equinox. In the typical stylishly metonymical metaphor of the Sibylline Oracle, whatever "Taurus," the constellation, took away from "Capricorn," Taurus was giving up -- calendar days.

The wording, "smote Taurus' neck," is reminiscent of the Tauroctony of Mithraism, the slaying of the bull Taurus, depicted as having its throat cut. In antiquity Taurus was depicted only as the head of a bull, not the complete body, as is done today, which is also how the constellation was first depicted in the temples of Mithra ca AD 100.

Before 685 BC, with the Sun rising between Aries and Taurus at the vernal equinox, it is the head of the bull which was already (or soon was) above the horizon at the equinox. After 685 BC, with the Sun rising at 15 degrees of Aries at the vernal equinox (using the divisions of the ecliptic of antiquity), the head of Taurus no longer appeared above the horizon as the Sun rose to announce spring. His throat had been cut.

Capricorn is here the agent of change. Jupiter is in Capricorn throughout the 40 day period. In early January of the following year the Sun and Venus are both in Capricorn. By this time the flareup had subsided long ago, and this condition has nothing to do with the lines about Capricorn.

An alternate reading could be derived from the conjunction of March 15, 684 BC (spring of the following year) where Capricorn is the central constellation to the spread of the planets in the sky from east to west.

The Sibylene Star Wars document is obviously based on an ordered record of changes, and the travels of Venus, but that is no guarantee that it correctly incorporates the starting and completion dates. [note 6a]

The display in the sky is nicely wrapped up in the closing lines of the poem..

"And the strength of the mighty Shining One
Aquarius kindled. Uranus himself
Was roused, until he shook the warring ones;
And being incensed he hurled them down on earth."

"Shining One" translates to "Phaethon," and thus refers back to Venus or Mercury. But if it is Aquarius (the constellation) who "kindles the strength," then it was Jupiter who was envigorated. However, Jupiter is not in Aquarius during the 40 days of battle. In July Jupiter was in Capricorn, the next constellation to the west of Aquarius. Jupiter would not be in Aquarius until the following year, together with Venus. I frankly cannot place this phrase. It is possible, however, that in the original record the thunderbolt from Jupiter was first seen when it appeared in Aquarius.

Then "Uranus," who is Jupiter of the family of Uranus, entered the fray, and throws both the Sun and Venus to Earth, that is, below the horizon. "Shook" has to be an understatement.

The oracle (which is a vision of future events) claims that then the world will be set on fire, and the stars will disappear..

"Then swiftly smitten down upon the baths
Of Ocean they set all the earth on fire;
And the high heaven remained without a star."

We should be able to imagine what this looked like. The "baths of Ocean" is the zodiac or the region below the zodiac, but also might be the actual ocean, the Mediterranean. In most of the retellings of late antiquity, which all apparently take some 5th century BC play or tale as their source, possible a lost play of Aeschylus, "The Heliades" ("Daughters of Helios"), Phaethon falls in the river Eridanus, which likely was identified as a constellation at an earlier time. [note 6]

But in the later retellings Eridanus is simply localized in the west, in the land of the Celts, also often identified as the Po in northern Italy (which was under Celtic occupation in the early days of Rome), or in Spain, another well known Celtic region. A location in the west would have been correct, for the splashdown of of the plasmoid of Jupiter would have happened after the Sun had set slightly north of directly west, and would have brilliantly lit up the western skies for hours. Setting the world aflame and the disappearance of the stars is also correct, for the stars would have disappeared in the light of the night-long flash.

New Locations of the Stars

Image: East hemisphere of the sky, after 685 BC.

The intervening lines of the text deal with the new locations in the sky of the zodiacal constellations plus Orion, Draco, and the star Sirius. The change in the starting point of the year was probably noted by the next year, 684 BC. But the change in the location of the polar axis was noticed immediately. The change would move some constellations up in the sky and would move others down. Two lines indicate this clearly..

"Draco disavowed his zone."

Draco, a circumpolar constellation, before 685 BC chased the tail of the Big Bear, Ursa Major, where the polar axis was located. When Ursa Major suddenly dropped 'down' by 6.5 degrees, Draco, the most noticeable northern constellation, started to rotate about another space away from Ursa Major. Today it revolves around the star Polaris of Ursa Minor.

"from the Sun's flame Sirius slipped away"

As I noted in the main text, Sirius was formerly located very near the equatorial -- about 2 to 3 degrees below. (See Sirius at the bottom of the diagram above, almost directly on the old equatorial.) After the change Sirius had dropped some 18 degrees below the equatorial. The "slipping away" of Sirius also reveals that it failed to rise or show in June, as it had in the past, and rose instead a month later.

"Orion would no more
Abide his yoke"

In November Orion is seen in the southern sky with Gemini and Taurus above his shoulders. This did not change after the polar axis shifted, except in the spacing of these three constellations as seen in the sky. The equatorial cut across the bottom stars of Orion before 685 BC and through the top stars after. (Today it passes through the center of Orion.) The "yoke" might refer to the belt of three stars.

"the lot of Gemini
Did Virgo change in Aries;"

"Virgo" here is "the virgin," an almost universal appellation for Venus in the eastern Mediterranean region ("the maid"), who changed Gemini's lot by being in Aries. Gemini's lot would have been to have been suppressed further below the horizon at the start of the year. I am either reading this incorrectly or it is recorded incorrectly, for it would suggest a time of the year when Venus appeared in Aries. Otherwise by "Virgo" the constellation is meant.

By today's ephemeris, Venus would have risen helically with the Sun earlier in the year 685 BC on March 12 (Julian), with both in Pisces. By mid March or the end of March Venus and the Sun would both have been in Aries, with Mars. The date of this near conjunction might very well have been determined by a retrocalculation performed in antiquity, which, after 685 BC would have used the same parameters as we would use today. Thus we have here the notion that it was the Sun who stoked the fires of Venus earlier in the year. Not a bad guess for a causal connection, although I am inclined to see this as an obtuse statement about the 15 day delay of the spring equinox, which after 685 BC ocurred later in March. [note 7]

I should point out also that it was this phrase which led Kugler to the conclusion that the Sibylline Star Wars only described the path of the Sun starting in September, when the Sun is in the constellation Virgo (in 100 BC). I read this differently.

"no more shone
The Pleiades;"

The above line is another clear reference to the change in the location of the equinox. With Taurus below the horizon at the start of the year, the Pleiades, located at one of the horns of Taurus, would no longer announce the start of spring and the start of a new year.

Image: West hemisphere of the sky, after 685 BC.

All the constellations moved, not with respect to each other, but with respect to the equatorial and the horizon of the Earth. The equatorial is a circle in the sky connecting east and west which is tilted at an angle above the south horizon which is equal to the compliment of the latitude where it is observed. Thus the stars moved with respect to the horizon and the top of the sky.

"Down into Leo's girdle Pisces went.
Cancer remained not, for he feared Orion;
Scorpio down on dire Leo backwards moved."

Cancer (as well as another half dozen constellations) moved up in the sky, while others sank. "Leo's girdle" is the belt of the ecliptic. It should be remembered that both the ecliptic and the equatorial were still strewn with dust in 685 BC. The 'zodiacal light' of the ecliptic lasted to AD 1840. The dust of the last ring of the equatorial (the remnant of the Absu) probably lasted to AD 400 or 600.

Scorpio did not move backwards. But any review of the zodiac at a later time might note discrepancies which should not be there if the constellations had been designed by God. Scorpio is placed below the ecliptic, as is Sagittarius, and Leo is off the ecliptic in the opposite direction. Both of these locations remained the same with respect to the ecliptic.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, overall these were not minor changes. It is for this reason, plus the lighting up of the day sky by the nova event of Venus and Mercury, plus the enormous flash on the 25th of July, that the event was understood as a war among the stars. When it was over every constellation had moved -- to where it should not be.

Conclusions About Dates

After blazing up in 685 BC, and then failing to disappear in the west (in late December), Venus rose as the Morning Star again in early January of the next year. So say the Venus Tablets of Ammizaduga, or, as Mesoamerican histories have it, "Quetzalcoatl rose in the East as the Morning Star."

I have no question at this point that the shift of the polar axis and the change in the equinox happened, and happened suddenly, especially when combined with such comments from other sources.

I will suggest that the main 'event' concluded on July 25th of 685 BC, with a plasmoid strike from Jupiter. I have detailed the derivation of this date in earlier chapters. The Guatemalan "Popol Vuh" suggest that the ecliptic remained obscured for 5 days after Hunahpu and Xbalanque jumped into the oven of the Xibalbans. Ovid suggests that the Sun did not show for a day (but then, Ovid places all 40 days in one day).

The descriptions of the phenomenon as a "throne," as a "horse without hips," or, as in Ezekiel's vision, of "brass glowing like fire in a furnace" and a "fire with encircling radiance," all speak to a display with much shorter plasma outpourings ("flames"). This would be the condition of Mercury as it reached inferior conjunction with Earth, and its plasma stream was directed towards Earth, and therefore visually foreshortened.

... The Chilam Balam

An accurate Mesoamerican source, the Mayan "Chilam Balam" books, reads that the Sun "moved from its place for three months," in Katun 3-Ahau (688 to 668 BC) and would return after "three heaps of years," or at least by the end of Katun 3-Ahau, that is, before the end of a twenty year Katun period.

As I have pointed out, all the time spans recorded in Book 10 of the "Chilam Balam" use inclusive counting. So the "three months" represent a span of two Mesoamerican 'Haab' months of 20 days, a total of 40 days. From the "Popol Vuh" it is obvious that Venus and Mercury need to be close together in the sky (they hold hands) at the start of the nova event. June 15 (Gregorian) qualifies, and is, in fact, 40 days before July 25th.

With respect to the second remark of the "Chilam Balam," we do not really know what "heaps of years" are, but I would guess that they are groups of five, as used on Maya counting boards, and further, that these are Tzolkin cycles of 260 days, and last, that we should count an interval of 14, not 15.

The "place of the Sun" would be measured by its rising or setting location along the horizon and matched against calendar records of when and where this was expected. After the disturbance of the orbit of Earth in 685 BC, and after quiescence had returned, the Sun would rise and set again where expected, that is, on the proper date of our calendar, but not on the same date on the Mesoamerican Tzolkin calendar. It turns out that 14 cycles of 260 are exactly correct in "returning" the zenithal passage of the Sun to the same Tzolkin calendar day name, for a latitude of 17 degrees north. What was important for Mesoamerica in this instance was the fact that the Sun obeyed the strictures of the Tzolkin.

Of course, the Sun did not return to its proper setting place, at least, not on the same dates. The same Tzolkin day-name and day-number correspond to the same Gregorian calendar date only after 20 Tzolkin rotations. Fourteen rotations are 12 days short. It did return to the same horizon locations for zenithal passage over the sites in Mesoamerica, from which we receive the fiction perpetrated by the Olmecs that the Sun had returned to its proper place. I discuss this in Chapter 18, "Olmec Alignments."

Nonnos' Dionysiaca

The writers mentioned above who have commented on Kugler's work have gone on at some length about the fact that Kugler's book does not reach the conclusion it might have originally intended to have. The book is, after all, about Phaethon. Kugler does not place the appearance of Phaethon in 100 BC, but only suggests by the accuracy of the description that we should not neglect the 'legends' from ca 1500 BC, or what is thought to be 1500 BC.

In fact Kugler supplies a series of sources for the dates of the fall of Phaethon which solidly place the event at the time of Moses. I have no disagreement with this as long as it is recognized that the events at the time of Moses (that is, in 1500 BC) are described by the Typhon legends, not the Phaethon legend. But what we also see, of course, is the Typhon legend reworked to fit the later event of 685 BC. The Star Wars prophesy is not the only instance. Another instance used by Kugler is the "Dionysiaca," written another 300 years later, in ca AD 450, by Nonnos.

This is a poem detailing the complete adventures of the God Dionysus, composed in the antique style of Homer and Hesiod. Book 38 has a description of the Phaethon legend, which again describes changes in the sky overhead, with claims of all the constellation moving to different locations. The details of the description are almost incomprehensible in terms of an exact reading, unlike the Sibylline Book, with the zodiacal animals growling and clawing at each other, but the concluding lines are of interest. It reads:

"No longer did the stars in the Bear, moving in a circle fastened around his hips, dance up high near the northerly pole, but moved to the southwest and wet their dry feet in the Lake of Hesperia at the unaccustomed Oceanos."

Here, like in the Sibylline Book, the Phaethon legend is tied to the change of the dome of the stars. This is preceded, earlier in the description, with...

"Even the axis, which turns in the centre, began to totter through the whirling ether."

And....

"But winged Virgo sped past Arcturus, approached the Axis and collided with the Wain. The Morning Star sent erring rays to the western rim, and was even then pushing away the Evening Star, which stood opposite."

This actually describes the concluding dates of the event. Venus (Virgo) stood in the sky below Arcturus, maybe 17 degrees further west, while, with the Sun set already, Mercury (now the Morning Star west of the Sun) who was already below the horizon indeed stood opposite Venus (now identified as the Evening Star, for it followed the setting Sun).

Two Meteors

Kugler sees in the Sibylline Star Wars a description of the arrival of two meteors, but takes this information no further, perhaps suggesting that these phenomena would have disappeared in a few days. Malolm Lowery wrote:

"Kugler recognizes in lines 512, 513 and 515 a description of the arrival of "two enormous meteors of the apparent size and form of the sun and the moon . . . with their characteristic accompanying features", but is happy to leave them out of the further action, accepting them, presumably, as no more than the excuse the ancients needed to write a poem about the events following."

I would suggest that the blazing Venus seen next to the blazing Mercury would be sufficient to explain "two enormous meteors," especially if they are suggested to be of the same size as the Sun and the Moon (the Sun and Moon are the same apparent size). There are Chinese sources in antiquity which recall that at one time "two Suns" were seen battling in the sky.

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Endnotes

Note 1 --

A number of numismatic sites with an interest in astronomy have suggested that the seven stars might represent a culmination (a conjunction) of all the planets in the sky. It is also suggested is that the seven stars represent either Ursa Major or the Pleiades. And, if fact, the earliest coin of this nature dates from AD 76 and is clearly marked TRIO, short for Septentriones, a name for the seven stars of the Wain (Ursa Major) and generally meaning 'north.'
[return to text]

Note 2 --

Victor Clube and Bill Napier, in "The Cosmic Serpent" (1982), write the following, after B.L. van der Waerden "Science awakening II: the birth of astronomy" (1974), giving rather singular credit to Velikovsky after earlier having rejected all of his writings out of hand...

".. if one takes a dispassionate look at the mythological evidence assembled by Velikovsky for example, setting aside his singular astronomy, one may conclude that there was a widespread anticipation of an encounter of the Earth with a comet or its debris in 687 or 686 BC. This event could have been, as he suggests, a significant turning point in the history of civilization, releasing new visions of the nature of the gods, perhaps finally weaning man away from sacred calendars and the view of life in which the world progressed through catastrophe, fire and flood from one 'great year' to the next."

This last part of this is attributable to van der Waerden rather than Velikovsky, and even though all of this is contradicted in the previous text by Clube and Napier (about agricultural calendars) and in the following text (waiting for the next catastrophe in AD 0), the information is used to segue a '684 year period' into their derived date of 1369 BC for the Exodus. Van der Waerden places his sources in the 5th century BC. Clube and Napier write..

"Among the early [although the records date from after 650 or 550 BC] 'planetary' periodicities that emerged from the Babylonian observations was one significantly related to eclipses of the Sun and Moon for which van der Waerden has been unable to find any really satisfactory explanation. It was a period of 684 years. .. The figure occurs several times in astrological texts, yet there is no combination of known lunar periods capable of explaining it."

The authors then suggest that Velikovsky's allowed catastrophe of 687 or 686 BC is 684 years after their rather arbitrarily derived date for Exodus of 1369 BC, 686 BC - 684 = 1370 BC. Similarly, 686 BC + 684 = 2 BC (-1 in astronomical calendar notation), a date when apparently another catastrophe was expected in the eastern Mediterranean region.

Adding 684 years to the Phaethon event of 680 BC (on the eastern Mediterranean calendar) allows us to arrive at AD 4 as the next expected future date of a catastrophe. Use of any of the 'significant' dates of this era (806 BC, 747 BC, 686 BC, and 680 BC) give approximately the same results. But of course by AD 115, the date of the the "Sibylline Star Wars" document, this would have been passed.
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Note 3 --

Some conjunctions only last a day, some last a week. The location of the Moon is not hard and fast, since it moves 12 degrees per day.

Oct 5, 7 BC, Sat, Jup, Moon, Mar, Ven, Mer, Sun (setting)
Jul 5, 6 BC, Sun (rising) Mar, Ven, Mer, Jup, Sat, Moon
Apr 6, 4 BC, Moon, Jup, Mar, Mer, Sat, Ven, Sun (setting)
Mar 7, 2 BC, Jup, Sat, Mar, Ven, Mer, Moon, Sun (setting)
Oct 27, AD 1, Sun (rising), Jup, Mar, Ven, Mer, Moon, Sat
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Note 4a --

To get a glipse at how easy it is to calculate planet positions in the past or future, take a look at how Patten and Windsor make these calculations in "The Mars-Earth Wars" (1996), reaching back 2300 years. Patten and Windsor use data listed to many decimal places, but this would not be much different from what was available in antiquity, which had already accumulated 600 years of data by AD 200.
[return to text]

Note 4 --

The complete Sibyline text follows. I have broken it up into sections to clearly indicate the composition.

The opening lines ...

"I saw the threatening of the shining Sun
Among the stars, and in the lightning flash
The dire wrath of the Moon;"

The battle ...

"the stars travailed
With battle; and God gave them up to light.
For long fire-flames rebelled against the Sun;
Lucifer treading upon Leo's back
Began the fight; and the Moon's double horn
Changed its shape;"

The lasting change ...

"Capricorn smote Taurus' neck;
And Taurus took away from Capricorn
Returning day.

The changes in the sky ...

"Orion would no more
Abide his yoke; the lot of Gemini
Did Virgo change in Aries; no more shone
The Pleiads; Draco disavowed his zone;
Down into Leo's girdle Pisces went.
Cancer remained not, for he feared Orion;
Scorpio down on dire Leo backwards moved;
And from the Sun's flame Sirius slipped away;"

The closing passage ...

"And the strength of the mighty Shining One
Aquarius kindled. Uranus himself
Was roused, until he shook the warring ones;
And being incensed he hurled them down on earth.
Then swiftly smitten down upon the baths
Of Ocean they set all the earth on fire;
And the high heaven remained without a star."

[return to text]

Note 5 --

I have made this statement before, that Venus would have lost its tail and large coma at this time, but this is not at all certain. Only by the time of the writings of Aristotle (384 BC to 322 BC) do we see a definite attempt to separate planets from meteors and more ephemiral phenomena (which last are classified by him as 'weather'-- meteorology). Stecchini writes, "It is significant that, after having described the general topic of meteorology, Aristotle begins the treatment of it by refuting those who say that 'the comet is one of the planets'." The 'comet' here is most likely to be Venus.
[return to text]

Note 6a --

In fact, I have not been able to pinpoint a closing date. The document clearly records all of the travels of Venus between an unexpected flaring up in June and (perhaps) the subsequent easterly reappearance -- except that there was no westerly disappearance of Venus. On this occasion, as an ephemeris will show, Venus rode about 8 degrees above the Sun as it was setting in the west, and reappeared the next day in the east at sunrise.

This would explain the missing data at the close of year eight of the "The Tablets of Ammizaduga." I would suggest furthermore that Venus may have changed its orbit with the relocation of Mercury to within the orbit of Venus in the previous year. That, in turn, explains perhaps the fact that Venus set a month late (about mid-February of 685 BC), as noted by Rose and Vaughan, and which remained inexplicable to them. Normalization of data does not tell one anything about the orbit.
[return to text]

Note 6 --

The constellation Eridanus is identified as a series of stars hanging from the left foot (Rigel) of the constellation Orion and reaching the horizon -- like a river -- even with Orion high in the sky. In July of 685 BC Orion and Eridanus are both west of the Sun and below the horizon at nightfall, but they rise in the east 4 hours before sunrise. Eridanus is located well below the ecliptic and the equatorial. Eridanus starts from the star Rigel, which is at the same relative altitude (44.5 degrees at culmination for Cairo in 685 BC) as Sirius (42.1 degrees). The start of Eridanus, which dips down (toward the southern horizon), would thus be located behind the last red ring of the original Absu which also gave Sirius its red color. The blood in this river -- backlighted perhaps by the flash at the Sun, below the horizon -- would be convincing evidence of the death of Phaethon.
[return to text]

Note 7 --

A more likely actual physical causal connection would be that the orbit of Mercury, which had earlier been equal to the orbit of Mars, was suddenly reduced to its current value on March 23, 686 BC, and thus suddenly came very close to the Sun for perhaps 4 orbital rotations before the Sun blazed up. There are 449 days between March 23, 686 BC and June 15, 685 BC. The synodic period of Mercury is 115 days. A total of 3.9 orbits could have been completed, depending on the insertion point of Mercury to its new orbit.
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