Current Sign Ruler Influence On Transiting Moon Did Ancients use Tropical or Sidereal

JUPITERASC said:

keep in mind that
Ptolemy did not observe Australian skies

and so
did not factor in
that Aries
for Southern Hemisphere
heralds Autumn

Nor did Ptolemy consider people living on the Equator.
The crux is, do signs to derive their meanings from the seasons or from the stars.
Both have their problems
and
Ptolemy has done nothing but confuse the issue

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JA, you might enjoy reading more on the history with astrology, perhaps starting with Nicholas Campion's Dawn of Astrology (vol. 1 of his 2 vol. history of astrology,) or Francesca Rochberg's The Heavenly Writing, which a survey of Babylonian astronomy-astrology.

As you know, astrology diffused into the Greek- and Latin-speaking worlds from Mesopotamia. The Hellenists, including your favourite Vettius Valens, adopted the Babylonian system of signs and planets in signs. based upon seasons in the lands they knew about.

The Babylonians apparently believed in a flat earth, but the Greeks determined it to be round from an early date, based partly on philosophical grounds, but also on empirical evidence.

None of the Greeks, however, including your favourite Vettius Valens, knew anything about the southern hemisphere. European exploration and discovery of land south of the equator has been attributed to the Egyptian pharaoh Neko's sponsorship of an expedition, or to the Phoenicians, but serious European knowledge of sub-Saharan Africa awaited the 15th century CE. Australia wasn't discovered by Europeans until the 17th century.

The seasons and signs as understood by Vettius Valens were those of the northern hemisphere. We know this because of the star-calendar climatic account that he gives at the beginning of his Anthologies.

I've attached Ptolemy's map which shows the world as known to the Greeks and Romans.

JA, you've been on an anti-Ptolemy hobby horse for a long time know. The reasons escape me. He wasn't a fraud by the standards of scholarship for his own day, although he was in error about a number of his claims. Hellenistic plagiarism standards were minimal, and with such early works we don't know how heavily they may have been edited over the centuries. Notably in hindsight, we can see the problems with Aristotelian proto-science.

But given Ptolemy's huge impact on the astrology and astronomy that followed his life, it seems rather curious to get fussed about him. The traditional western astrology that you personally find so meaningful owes a tremendous amount to Ptolemy's popularity with astrologers who followed him.

Valens and Ptolemy were never in any kind of competition so far as I know. Have you ever found any evidence that they even knew each other?

The OP is on Sidereal-Tropical influences
as measured by the MOON


"Aristotle's most important contribution to the theory of Greek Medicine
was his doctrine of the Four Basic Qualities Hot, Cold, Wet, and Dry.
Later philosopher-physicians would apply these qualities
to characterize the Four Elements, Four Humors, and Four Temperaments.
The Four Basic Qualities are the foundations for all notions of balance
and homeostasis in Greek Medicine."
http//www.greekmedicine.net/whos_who/Aristotle.html

Aristotle's four basic qualities are hot, cold, wet and dry

Therese Hamilton remarked that later philosopher-physicians
linked the four elements to the humors and temperaments
and
tropical astrology has incorporated these into its sign trigons.
These don't transfer to the sidereal zodiac
just as the four qualities can't be transferred to the tropical zodiac.

However

the tropical elements don't follow Aristotle's pattern
where Fire is opposite Water and Air is opposite Earth.

In the sidereal zodiac the four qualities are in correct opposition to each other.
(hot-cold and wet-dry)
Aristotle's elements are made up of combinations of the four qualities
so these have very different meanings than the basic qualities themselves.

JA, if you want to do sidereal astrology, do sidereal astrology. But you will have to drop your affiliation with western tropical astrology of the past 2000 years to do that.

Your call.

waybread said:

JA, if you want to do sidereal astrology, do sidereal astrology.
But you will have to drop your affiliation with western tropical astrology of the past 2000 years to do that.

Your call.

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WB I have on this thread
frequently drawn to your attention that
this thread discusses THE ANCIENTS
and whether a TROPICAL or a SIDEREAL zodiac was their astrological modus operandi

with a focus on the swiftest moving planet the MOON
in particular regarding its SIGN ruler
whether tropical or sidereal
being utilised for purposes of discussion

WB if you have any on topic comment to make
then do contribute
otherwise no one is forcing you to follow this topic

Oddity said:

Jupiter, to be utterly pragmatic here - how does it work out in horaries?

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Odd that would certainly be a pragmatic discussion
and
since you are a Tropical horary astrologer

then any of our Sidereal horary astrologer members reading this thread
are welcome to post comparisons for our discussion

JUPITERASC said:

also keep in mind
Hipparchus 190 BC – 120 BC compiled a catalogue of 850 fixed stars
and then
compared his catalogue with star catalogues of two earlier observers Timocharis and Aristillus
which detailed observations covering the previous 150 years.
Timocharis and Aristillus had created their own different methods of keeping track of the sky:

Hipparchus realized
that in order to compare data
and/or
discuss observations with others
- as well as pass accurate observations to later generations -
there was a need for a common or conventional map of the sky

i.e.
The most fundamental point on a map is the “Origin” – the (0) location.

Hipparchus then selected the Vernal Equinox
as the Origin for his map of the sky
and fixed it at 0º Aries
even though he did observe
and also recorded
that the Vernal Equinox was drifting very slowly westward
being at the time of Hipparchus at approximately 12º Aries or thereabouts

Hipparchus noticed as well
that all the stars seemed to continually change their places with reference to his Origin (0) point
– the Vernal Equinox -
but he offered no written explanation.


Hipparchus
and others
undoubtedly conjectured that an explanation was that our Earth must have moved
- but all clearly refrained from mentioning that officially -
for fear of the old testament-style biblical organized religion retribution
which, almost two thousand years ago
- would have punished them with death/exile/persecution
for challenging the Status Quo

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The Greeks were very easy-going when it came to religion. The Jews weren't hugely relevant to Rhodes, and didn't proselytise anyway, and they had a soli-lunar calendar. Not really relevant, but earth being the centre of the universe wasn't relevant to them, either, and not an idea that would have got anyone punished or killed.

It would be some centuries before the Persians and the Hindus started their discussions on whether the earth moved round the sun instead of vice-versa (700 CE or so? I don't remember exactly, so don't quote me). That went on for several hundreds of years, and whilst there were opinions on both sides, no firm conclusions were reached. Nor did anyone lose his head over it.

I haven't read about any religious persecution on that score before late medieval Europe. Who went after Greeks who thought the earth might move round the sun before the common era?

Oddity said:

The Greeks were very easy-going when it came to religion.

Click to expand...

Ptolemy lived in Egypt, not Greece

Oddity said:

The Jews weren't hugely relevant to Rhodes, and didn't proselytise anyway, and they had a soli-lunar calendar.
Not really relevant, but earth being the centre of the universe wasn't relevant to them, either,
and not an idea that would have got anyone punished or killed.

It would be some centuries before the Persians and the Hindus started their discussions
on whether the earth moved round the sun instead of vice-versa (700 CE or so? I don't remember exactly, so don't quote me).
That went on for several hundreds of years,
and whilst there were opinions on both sides, no firm conclusions were reached.
Nor did anyone lose his head over it.

I haven't read about any religious persecution on that score before late medieval Europe.
Who went after Greeks who thought the earth might move round the sun before the common era?

Click to expand...

Very little of Ptolemy's life is known
except
that he made astronomical observations
from Alexandria in Egypt
during the years AD 127-41.

Claudius Ptolemy is a mixture of the Greek Egyptian 'Ptolemy'
and the Roman 'Claudius'
indicating he was descended from a Greek family living in Egypt
and
was a citizen of Rome
as a consequence of a Roman emperor giving that 'reward' to one of Ptolemy's ancestors.

Alexandria had a tradition for scholarship
which would mean Ptolemy would have access to libraries
where he would have found the valuable reference material of which he made good use.


"...Hipparchus treatment of precession was not at all straightforward.
All that is known of Hipparchus study
of what we now call the precession
is contained in Almagest 3.1 and 7.1-3
and it is evident from Ptolemy's account that it was highly technical, highly tentative
and did not necessarily indicate anything like a motion of the entire sphere of the fixed stars with respect to the equinoxes." Noel Swerdlow


Hipparchus must have lived some time after 127 BC
because he analyzed and published his observations from that year.
Hipparchus obtained information from Alexandria as well as Babylon but
it is not known when or if he visited these places

Hipparchus is thought to be the first to calculate a heliocentric system
but he abandoned his work
because the calculations showed the orbits were not perfectly circular
as believed to be mandatory by the science of the time.
As an astronomer of antiquity his influence, supported by ideas from Aristotle, held sway for nearly 2000 years
until the heliocentric model of Copernicus


Hipparchus probably compiled a list of Babylonian astronomical observations
G.J Toomer a historian of astronomy suggests that
Ptolemy's knowledge of eclipse records
and other Babylonian observations in the Almagest
came from a list made by Hipparchus.
Hipparchus's use of Babylonian sources has always been known in a general way
because of Ptolemy's statements.


[SIZE=-1]Pharaoh Nectanebo II died 343 B.C. and Egypt fell in the hands of the Persians.
332 B.C. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and initiated some 300 years of Greek rule over Egypt
Having lost the battle of Actium to Octavian in 30 B.C the legendary Cleopatra VII lost the country to the Romans.
Octavian became Augustus Caesar the first Roman emperor.

There is a history of religious persecution in Egypt by the Romans that is well documented[/SIZE]

But that isn't what you claimed before.

Hipparchus
and others
undoubtedly conjectured that an explanation was that our Earth must have moved
- but all clearly refrained from mentioning that officially -
for fear of the old testament-style biblical organized religion retribution
which, almost two thousand years ago
- would have punished them with death/exile/persecution
for challenging the Status Quo

Click to expand...

What biblical organised religion was persecuting astronomers in Rhodes in the second century BCE? Or in Egypt in the second century CE?

Oddity said:

But that isn't what you claimed before.

What biblical organised religion was persecuting astronomers in Rhodes in the second century BCE?

Or in Egypt in the second century CE?

Click to expand...

precisely when Hipparchus lived or how old he was when he died
is not known
and
little is known of Ptolemy

however
the fact is
Hipparchus refrained from going into much detail
on "precession"

and
Ptolemy put forward a Geocentric view


religious persecution can be traced historically
based on biblical accounts
in the first Century of the Christian Era to the present time.
Early Christians were persecuted at the hands of the Roman Empire
which controlled much of the land across which early Christianity was distributed[SIZE=-1]

[/SIZE]

It's a safe bet that neither Hipparchus nor Ptolemy were Christians. We'd have to redate their work by several centuries, Hipparchus by 500 or 600 years?

To the best of my knowledge, nobody outside the Christians got into a snit about the possibility of the earth orbiting the sun, and they weren't a force until post-Constantine, and again,the earliest discussions I know of involving heliocentricity were taking place in at least the 700s. In Persia and India.

Not trying to be argumentative, but your theories are all new to me. Do you have any citations for that 'old testament-type religion' that was keen on perscuting Rhodian astrologer/astronomers for daring think about heliocentricity back in the day?

Oddity said:

It's a safe bet that neither Hipparchus nor Ptolemy were Christians.
We'd have to redate their work by several centuries, Hipparchus by 500 or 600 years?

Click to expand...

It's a safe bet that none of the twelve Apostles were Christians either
We'd have to redate their work by several centuries as well

keep in mind that
historical record has been destroyed
or
ignored


As for Hipparchus
there is no precise date of birth or death
600 years is a s-t-r-e-t-c-h though

If history is bunk, there is no tradition.

Problem solved, I guess.

Oddity said:

To the best of my knowledge,
nobody outside the Christians got into a snit about the possibility of the earth orbiting the sun,
and they weren't a force until post-Constantine,
and again,the earliest discussions I know of
involving heliocentricity were taking place in at least the 700s.
In Persia and India.

Not trying to be argumentative, but your theories are all new to me.
Do you have any citations for that 'old testament-type religion'
that was keen on perscuting Rhodian astrologer/astronomers for daring think about heliocentricity back in the day?

Click to expand...

Status Quo historical records
as acceptable citations
are based on interesting historical records
not accepted by all

Oddity said:

If history is bunk, there is no tradition.

Problem solved, I guess.

Click to expand...

HISTORY FICTION OR SCIENCE? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm8nychBkGc&list=PL388CCA998A79BA5C

JUPITERASC said:

WB I have on this thread
frequently drawn to your attention that
this thread discusses THE ANCIENTS
and whether a TROPICAL or a SIDEREAL zodiac was their astrological modus operandi

with a focus on the swiftest moving planet the MOON
in particular regarding its SIGN ruler
whether tropical or sidereal
being utilised for purposes of discussion

Click to expand...

I've answered this multiple times, JA. The Hellenists used the tropical zodiac. They pretty well understood that by 0 CE the spring equinox had or would sidereally slip/ped back into Pisces. The early siderealists in Mesopotamia centuries earlier, the Babylonians, pegged the equinox to 8 or 5 degrees Aries, but as the equinox continued to slip backwards, the Hellenists decided to discard the sidereal zodiac.

They still used fixed stars for various purposes such as their weather calendar.

Having constructed several of the horoscopes in your favourite Vettius Valens that gave sufficient information, and using the planetary degrees calculated by Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes, with some adjustment as per the chart calculations at Astrodienst, I can assure you that Valens used the tropical zodiac for the moon as well as the other planets. The moon as well as the other planets are in the tropical zodiac.

Greek Horoscopes is on line as a Google book.

Perhaps you'd like to calculate these horoscopes yourself if you feel differently.

Because there is some disagreement as to whether the sidereal and tropical systems are now 24 or 27 degrees off, it is a matter of preference as to when we wish to peg the last date when they coincided. Before and for a few years after that date the two systems would have been identical.

If you like, you can play around with some charts at Astrodienst for ca. 200 BCE and 200 CE, with their sidereal and tropical options, and see how or if they differ.

Have you got a copy of Firmicus Maternus, Matheseos Libri VIII? (ca. 280-360 CE.) In book 2:10, he notes that Aries is equinoctial: "This sign is called equinoctial or solstitial because in it the hours of day and night have equal measure, which the Greeks call tropicon isomerion (equinoctial tropic.) For when the Sun is in Aries it makes the hours of day and night equal, so that the day has twelve hours and the night also. This sign is called Crios by the Greeks for the reason that when the sun is in this sign it judges, so to speak between night and day....This sign is called tropical because when the sun is located in that sign it makes the spring season, for spring begins when the sun has entered the first degree of this sign."

The tropical system, based upon equinoxes with equal lengths of daylight and night, was actually easier to observe.

FM includes several horoscopes in this book, so you could also calculate them at Astrodienst and then compare your results with those of the editor. (Jean Rhys Bram.)

Rhetorius the Egyptian (early 6th century, Holden translation,) gives in his preface a somewhat more inverted interpretation of the order of the signs, but states in his preface, "they have made the seasons in agreement with the tropics, taking the beginning from the vernal sign, I. e., from Aries; for spring symbolizes the the suckling....Four of these signs then are called tropical, and four solid, and four bicorporeal.... when the Sun...is in Aries, a tropical sign, it brings the vernal and equinoctial change...the day grows longer from the equal hours..."

I agree with Oddity.

Ptolemy wrote in the Greek language, regardless of his mother tongue or ethnic blood quantum.

Ptolemy did not invent the concept of the geocentric solar system. In some regards, astronomers still use it today, when they tell you how far the moon is from the earth, or what planets will be visible in tonight's sky. He had two clear precents: one Mesopotamian, and the other from Plato and Astrology, who philosophically postulated the earth as a perfect unmoving sphere.

Not only were ancient standards of plagiarism nowhere near today's standards, but had Ptolemy not transmitted the work of Hipparchus, they would have been lost entirely.

Christianity is completely irrelevant here. All of the major astrological works of Antiquity were written by pagans. Firmicus Maternus converted to Christianity, but only after he published his astrological treatise.

Josephus gives a Jewish tradition that Abraham invented astrology, but we would have to file this in the category of myth and legend.

THE ANCIENTS - '.......The Sumerians gave the world astrology.
Sumerian astrology tablets are the first historical record of astrology
Literally the oldest astrological documents naming many of the constellations
and defining the nature of numerous bodies in the solar system.

Sumerians taught Babylonians astrology.
Ptolemy and others then learned from Babylonians.
History of astrology begins in ancient Sumer
i.e.
present-day Iraq......' Garraty & Gay, eds.,The Columbia History of the World, Page 57).

Sumerian civilization dates back further than Egypt or China or India.
Sumerian writings exist on clay tablets dating back to 3500 B.C. or earlier.
C. Leonard Wolley, THE SUMERIANS New York: W.W. Norton, 1965, Page 184) available currently on amazon


Enuma Anu Enlil is the oldest astrological document in the world
perhaps brought to the Hellenic world by Babylonian astrologers who came West.
Possibly one of the texts of astrology that Ptolemy studied at Alexandria.

For another ancient tropical astrologer, see the poet Manilius, Astronomica, 1st century CE. 3:644ff:

He starts with the solstice signs Cancer and Capricorn, then adds, "Close to these in their influence and displaying variation similar to each other are, they say, the signs which level the hours of light and darkness. For the Ram arrests the Sun, as it reseeks Cancer's stars, between the start and end of its return journey, and diving heaven in half, matches night and day in harmony...."

Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum, also of the first century CE (Pingree translation,) hardly discusses the signs at all, although he uses them in his delineations. Dorotheus he gives verbal data for 8 horoscopes, and Pingree calculated them. You could check his work at Astrodienst.

The fragment or short work in Greek by Serapion of Alexandria, Paranomasiai of Definitions of the Configurations of the Stars at www.hellenisticastrology.com transl. Gramaglia. He uses signs but doesn't discuss them. He's been dated loosely to the 1st century CE. A later ancient editor of his work referred to "the divine Ptolemy."

From Paulus Alexandrinus, Introductory Matters (ca. 378 CE, Greenbaum transl., p. 1)

"The beginning of the zodiacal circle is Aries: Masculine, equinoctial, tropical, of spring, the house of Ares...."

Greek Horoscopes, by Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, contains a number of horoscopes from archaeological, vs. "literary" sources. These may be worth checking out according to the planetary positions calculated by the authors. Neugebauer was a Brown University mathematician and historian of astronomy.