SOURCE: Gee, Emma. “Cicero's Astronomy.” Classical Quarterly 51, no. 2 (2001): 520-36.

In the following essay, Gee assesses Cicero's Aratea—a Latin adaptation of Aratus's Phaenomena—comparing two versions of the work and analyzing the symbolic and philosophical concepts highlighted in Cicero's strongly Stoic interpretation of the poem.

1. Introduction1

Imagine that the only reliable way of telling the time of year was by the stars. The observer would have to know the positions of the constellations and their movements relative to one another, and to be aware of the meteorological phenomena accompanying them. This is the information Aratus' Phaenomena gives us: the poet maps the position of the stars; he provides a celestial relative chronology; and he explains what sort of weather can be expected to accompany which movement of which constellation.

The Julian calendar reform meant that observation of the stars became unnecessary. When the celestial and civil years are...