[36] i. e. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury.
—— Quid mirum noscere mundum
Si possent homines, quibus est et mundus in ipsis;
Exemplumque Dei quisque est in imagine parva?
Manilius.
[38] By the companions of perpetuity, Firmicus means the stars, whose nature, and motions, and influences are perpetual. Hence, in the Orphic Hymn to the Stars, they are invoked as
—— αει γενετηρες απαντων,
“Th’ eternal fathers of whate’er exists.”
[39] Of the astrological Æsculapius, I have not been able to obtain any information; and of Anubius nothing more is to be learnt than that he was a most ancient poet, and wrote an elegy de Horoscopo. Vid. Salmas. de Annis Climactericis, pp. 87, 602, &c.