Plato was said to have lived between 428/427 or 424/423 – 348 BC. There are several accounts of his death, but only one account of his birth, or nativity;
The accounts of his death (from Wikipedia):
- One story, based on a mutilated manuscript,[22] suggests Plato died in his bed, whilst a young Thracian girl played the flute to him.[23]
- Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast. The account is based on Diogenes Laertius’s reference to an account by Hermippus, a third-century Alexandrian.[24]
- According to Tertullian, Plato simply died in his sleep.[24]
In Mathesis, Fermicus outlines Plato’s birth with the planet positions, but without a date. He says the following:
if the ascendant is in Aquarius, and Mars, Mercury, and Venus are in conjunction in that degree; Jupiter is on the descendant in Leo; the Sun is on the anafora of the ascendant in Pisces; the Moon is in the fifth house in Gemini, in trine to the ascendant; and Saturn is in the ninth house in Libra-this chart produces an interpreter of divine and celestial matters. He possesses a combination of learned speech and divine intelligence and is trained by some kind of heavenly power to give true expression to all secrets of divinity. This chart is said to have been that of Plato. (Mathesis VI.XXX.24)
Using the astrology software Solarfire, I entered all the planets in the signs that he mentioned above and searched going back to 3000 BC. Only one date emerged, 1697 BC.
Fermicus wrote Mathesis for a private audience and lived during the time of Constantine. This was at a time when decisions were being made at the Council of Nicea on what books would be included in the Bible.
Fermicus wrote Mathesis from a collection of writings on Astrology that did not survive due to the outlawing of magic, which included astrology.
Was Fermicus a master of creating archetypal charts? Or was history edited?