Poets, Painters, and Starry-eyed Prophets

According to a story that lies somewhere between truth and legend, on October 28, 312 AD (Julian Calendar), just before an important battle he was to fight near the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber River in Rome, Constantine the Great had a vision in which he saw a large symbol on which was written, “by this sign conquer.” Constantine was victorious, and the next day he entered Rome as the most powerful of the Tetrachs in the system of shared power that governed the Roman Empire at that time. The Christian symbol (known as the Chi Rho) soon became a fixture on the shields of the troops he led, and not only did that vision give him confidence for that particular battle, but it may also have inspired him some time afterward to order the end of ongoing persecution of the Christians.

Looking at the planets on the date of Constantine’s vision (using local noon and a 0° Aries chart), we find that the Sun is conjunct Mercury in Scorpio. The Sun is the astrological symbol that specifies how we define our identity, and Mercury is the planet that rules our minds and imaginations, our thought processes, and how we express our thoughts to others. There are various versions of Constantine’s vision, as well as modern scientific theories meant to explain it away, but there is no doubt that in Constantine’s rise to become the ruler of the Empire, something