Auguste Bouchleclercq

Vocation

Astrology researcher with a focus on ancient religious history and the history of Hellenism. Auguste Bouché-Leclercq was the son of farmers Louis-Thomas Bouché and Marie-Joséphine Leclercq. He attended several seminaries and graduated from high school in Paris in 1861. On a journey of several months through Italian and German cities, he acted as a private teacher. After that he was a grammar school teacher in Meaux in 1866 and received his doctorate in philosophy in 1872. 1873-1878 he was professor of ancient literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Montpellier. In 1876 he married Marie Julie Guillaume and had three sons (Paul Joseph 1877, Heinri 1878 and Émile 1884) and one daughter (Marianne). In 1887 he became Professor of Ancient History in Paris, a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1898, and an officer of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He retired in 1918 and died on 19 July 1923 at the age of 81 in Nogent sur Marne. The focus of Bouché-Leclercq's research was on ancient religious history and the history of Hellenism. Here he also wrote three works on the history of astrology, on the forerunners of Greek astrology, Greek astrology itself, and astrology in the Roman Empire.