Interpreting the horoscope of Octavian

The young Octavian was encouraged in his political ambitions by a consultation with an astrologer, and he later published his own horoscope in some form. So much is well known, but details on the form of this horoscope are lacking from the historical record. New research on early original horoscopes on papyrus and other media gives some clues to how the horoscope of the princeps might have been constructed. A still largely unexplored genre of Greek astrological treatises on papyrus, dating to late Hellenistic and early Roman Imperial times, also sheds light on how the data of this and other horoscopes would have been interpreted to yield forecasts. The results suggest how extensively the astral sciences were entwined with contemporary society, from the court astrologers of the successors of Augustus to readers of more modest copies of astrological books in the villages and temples of Graeco-Roman Egypt.