“Beyond marking the seasons,the chief interests that actuated the Babylonian astronomer in his observations were astrological.After quoting Diodorus to the effect that the Babylonian priests observed the position of certain stars in order to cast horoscopes,Thompson tells us that from a very early day the very name Chaldean became synonymous with magician.He adds that。"from Mesopotamia,by way of Greece and Rome,a certain amount of Babylonian astrology made its way among the nations of the west,and it is quite probable that many superstitions which wemonly record as the peculiar product of western civilization took their origin from those of the early dwellers on the alluvial lands of Mesopotamia.”