The Fault Is Not in Our Stars 67his interest as both extraordinary and culpable. Accusations of supersti-
tious belief in astrology featured increasingly prominently among the
complaints about him which they repeatedly pressed on the emperor
during the later stages of his career, a belief which they equated with
atheism in an attempt to play on the religious susceptibilities of the
ultra-Catholic Ferdinand. Although the press was still in its infancy its
potential as a medium for scurrilous attacks on opponents was soon real-
ised, and hostile pamphlets bolstered the campaign against Wallenstein,
as well as spreading the claim that he was dependent on astrologers to
guide his military decisions. By the time of his death such claims had
been reiterated so often that they had become widely accepted as fact,
following which they were quickly taken up by the early historians of
the period, from whom they have been successively repeated almost up
to the present day. Thus are historical myths created.