Reproduced on the right is the first extant artwork showing the Sun influencing the course of human life. We see Mars, the God of War, strolling off to battle with the crudely rendered Sun bestowing his blessing. This relic has been carbon dated; it is over 1500 years old, artist unknown. The text is German, and translates as:

Oh Mars! Render thy enemies powerless! Annihilate their women! Castrate their children! Cause havoc! In short, in no way allow them to lead meaningful or fulfilling lives.

The Beginnings
But we must look further back in time to find the true beginnings of Astrology. The Babylonians invented the notion of constellations - we have tablets dating back 5000 years - but seem to have made no reference to their supposed influence over human lives. The Egyptians had an animal representing each twelfth portion of the sky, but they weren't the signs that we know today. For instance, they had a scorpion for Aries, a dog for Pisces, and some dopey looking lizard thing for Cancer.

Ptolemy teaches his students about the stars.

Ptolemy
We have to turn to the Greeks for the innovations that transformed astrology into a modern art, in the form of Ptolemy, who in 70AD wrote his Tetrabiblos or Qaudripartitium. He believed that Neptune himself dictated the words to these works, in which he coined the term "horoscope" (literally "Time's vision") for the first time. When Greek and Roman culture died away the Arabs took up the knowledge and built the world's first observatory, in Baghdad. However, no telescopes had yet been invented. The remains of this building had a bomb dropped on them in 1994.

Horoscope books are today more popular than ever.

The Copernican Revolution
The link between Astrology and Science finally broke in 1520 when Copernicus postulated that the world went round the Sun, and that life wasn't as straightforward as was hitherto believed. Pope Medici IV was not impressed by this opinion, and he forbade the teaching or practise of science, which led astrology to gain credibility. To this day, many people believe that their personality is decided by the stars and planets; they manage to discover deeply personal things about themselves - things they didn't realise until they read it in a book on sun signs.

Your finished chart will look something like this (points of quincunx marked).

How to cast a horoscope
1. Start with the exact time the baby in question was born, then convert it to GMT.
2. Consult a sidereal table for the birth time, then subtract that figure from the time at noon on the day of birth.
3. Add the time from point 1 to point 2.
4. Add 10 seconds for every hour of the time calculated in step 2.
5. Find the latitude of the place of birth, and if the sidereal time is over 24, subtract 24.
6. Consult the Table of Ephemerides, looking up the figure you have across the top. The numbers down the side will give the position of each planet at the time of birth. (Remember that the moon moves faster than the planets, so you must take this into account.)
7. Draw a circular chart, divide it into twelve, one for each zodiacal sign, and fill in the positions of the planets. You may notice that each constellation in the sky does not occupy exactly one twelfth of the sky -- do not worry about this.
8. To interpret the chart, consult a book. For instance, you will find that "Venus in House 11" will cause a strong-willed personality to be born. However, all such effects are tempered by the positions of the other planets, so take care.
10. If you think your chart may be incorrect, or that you might have the wrong time of birth, don't worry too much. You will find that any reading will be sufficiently ambiguous to be accurate.

Today horoscopes are as popular as ever, appearing daily in newspapers and magazines.