[Sidenote: The astrologer Tarrutius.] As for the stars apart from demons, Plutarch discusses the art of astrology as little as he does “magic” by that name. Mentions of individuals as skilled in “astrology” may simply mean that they were trained astronomers. When a veritable astrologer in our sense of the word is mentioned in one of Plutarch’s _Lives_,[946] he is described as a μαθηματικός—a word often used for a caster of horoscopes and predicter of the future. Here, however, it carries no reproach of charlatanism, since in the same phrase he is called a philosopher. This Tarrutius was a friend of Varro, who asked him to work out the horoscope of Romulus backward from what was known of the later life and character of the founder of Rome. “For it was possible for the same science which predicted man’s life from the time of his birth to infer the time of his birth from the events of his life.” Tarrutius set to work and from the data at his disposal figured out that Romulus was conceived in the first year of the second Olympiad, on the twenty-third day of the Egyptian month Khoeak at the third hour when there was a total eclipse of the sun; and that he was born on the twenty-first day of the month Thoth about sunrise. He further estimated that Rome was founded by him on the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi between the second and third hour. For, adds Plutarch, they think that the fortunes of cities are also controlled by the hour of their genesis. Plutarch, however, seems to look upon such doctrines as rather strange and fabulous.[947] Varro, on the other hand, may have regarded it as the most scientific method possible of settling disputed questions of historical chronology [Sidenote: The _De fato_.]