The Stars

The Stars (Astra) were honoured as divine beings — the deathless, ever-circling fires of heaven. Far from dead points of light, they were held to be living and intelligent gods: in Plato's Timaeus the heavenly bodies are 'visible gods', ensouled and divine, and their ordered courses are the very pattern of cosmic reason.

The Orphic hymn salutes them as the radiant children of Night, whose risings and settings mark the seasons and were thought to govern the fates of all below — the bright writing of the divine order across the night sky.