World cycle

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In ancient astronomy, the world cycle or great year is a period of time after which the planets are positioned in their original (linear) arrangement again. The idea of ​​the Great Year is closely linked to speculations about catastrophes taking place at these times in the form of floods ( Kataklysmos ) or world fires ( Ekpyrosis ). After these catastrophes, a creative new beginning follows, the Palingenesis .

Ancient discussion

Seneca quotes a Babylonian priest and astronomer:

Berossos , the interpreter of Bel , says that this is effected by the course of the stars; he even claims that the star's course determines the time of a fire disaster and a flood. For a fire will rage on the earth when all the stars, which are now moving in different orbits, come together in Cancer , i.e. H. when they stand under the same place, so that a straight line can pass through all of their places; but an inundation is imminent when the host of the same stars in Capricorn come together. The former causes the summer turn , the latter the winter turn . These signs have the greatest power when the turning points of the year take place in the transformation of the cosmos.

The exact duration of this cycle was not clear. According to Cicero :

... the mathematicians have calculated from the various movements [of the planets] what they call the 'great year'. This is over when the sun, moon and these five stars have completed their orbit and return to the same positions they were initially in. There is much disagreement about the length of the 'Great Year'; but it is certain that it must have a fixed and defined period .

In fact, very different information was in circulation. At another point near Berossos it can be deduced that the Babylonian great year is a multiple of 432,000 years (120 Sar of 3,600 years each). According to Censorinus , the Great Year lasted 2,484 for Aristarchus , 5,552 for Aretes of Dyrrhachium, 10,800 for Heraclitus and Linus, 10,800 for Dion Chrysostom , 120,000 for Orpheus and 3,600,000 for Cassandrus.

Possibility of confusion

It should be noted that the concept, as described above, has nothing to do with the cycle, also known as the Great or Platonic Year , during which the vernal equinox moves once through the zodiac . The designation of this cycle of precession as the Platonic year comes from a somewhat unclear passage in Plato's dialogue Timaeus , in which Plato seemed to address a movement of the sphere of fixed stars.

Reception in popular culture in recent times

Curiously, the concept of the world cycle in its original form has recently reappeared prominently in popular culture:

  • In the Disney -Zeichentrickfilm Hercules 1997 the linear juxtaposition of the planets is the constellation that allows the envious Hades allows (almost) successfully against father of the gods Zeus to stage a coup, since then in Tartarus captured Titans can be freed and the time for cosmic catastrophes is ripe: "In 18 years, as you can see, the planets will be lined up ..."
  • In the fantasy film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider from 2001 it is again the (here only occurring every 5,000 years) "linear constellation" of planets that makes it possible, with the help of an artifact that has broken and its parts hidden in different places, to unhinge the world (or at least time).
  • Before that, in May 2000, due to a relatively rare, almost linear arrangement of some (not all) planets and the approaching turn of the millennium , the tabloid press had vigorously fomented doomsday fantasies.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Seneca Quaestiones naturales 3.29, quoted from van der Waerden, p. 140
  2. ↑ Cicero de natura deorum 2.51
  3. ↑ Berossos fragment 28-29; quoted in van der Waerden p. 141f
  4. ^ Censorinus de die natali 18
  5. ^ Plato Timaeus 39b
  6. ↑ "Bad Astronomy" in "Tomb Raider" (English)
  7. ↑ "Bad Astronomy" and "Planetary Alignments" (English)