Ophiel is the Mercury-associated Olympic governor named in the Arbatel. The 1575 Basel print and Turner’s later English version preserve different forms of his account.
- Planetary category
- Mercury ☿
- 1575 province line
- 14
- Source passage
- Aphorisms 16–17
Place in the seven-name list
Ophiel is sixth among the Arbatel’s Olympic governors and receives 14 provinces in Aphorism 16. Aphorism 17 identifies a Mercury-associated office. Its short profile claims instruction in all arts, ready provision of familiar spirits, and the conversion of quicksilver into the philosopher’s stone for one favored with the character. The language combines a planetary category, learning, and alchemical expectation. None of those claims is an astronomical statement about Mercury, and the text does not provide evidence that the proposed transformation occurs.
What the book attributes
The association with “all arts” can look unusually broad next to Phaleg’s narrow martial paragraph. This unevenness is useful evidence of the source’s actual shape. A modern table with the same number of attributes in every row would hide it. Likewise, the philosopher’s stone belongs to the book’s alchemical vocabulary and cannot be reduced to a modern wellness or productivity promise. The text presents instruction as a claimed office rather than as a curriculum or demonstrated process. Aphorism 17 survives in both the printed Latin and Turner’s later English rendering.
The printed record
Ophiel’s 14 continues the 49, corrected-42, 35, 28, 21, 14, 7 progression that accounts for the 196 total. The source gives names and characters within a specific print tradition. The Basel scan preserves Ophiel’s character in its page context, alongside the preceding and following governors; a detached modern glyph loses that setting and can imply a precision the early print does not warrant.
