Whole Signs Today

waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Dr. Farr, you are a scholar and a gentleman!

Just a few footnotes to add here. One of the difficulties with historical (and archaeological) research in the astrology of antiquity, is that the surviving evidence is very fragmentary-- possible only a small portion of the literature and word-of-mouth "common knowledge" that existed so long ago. Sor our understanding of the past is skewed initially by what information survived and what information vanished.

Similarly, many of the ancient astrology texts and treatises have survived as a kind of "deposit of faith," albeit one we can only understand through our own contemporary lenses-- as well as the various glosses and interpretations given by various commentators over the centuries.

Some of these interpretations become a kind of "received wisdom," such that many readers today wouldn't think to go back to the early sources with a fresh pair of eyes. But the sceptic might start asking questions like, "Did Ptolemy really use whole sign houses? What is the evidence for that? Did Manilius? What is the evidence?"

My opinion (and I'm no expert, just an interested amateur) is that once we take this kind of critical approach, we find that many of the ancient astrologers said very little about, (in this instance) what kind of house system they used. We have to infer it indirectly through their treatment of various astrological themes.

Then we have to become astro-detectives.

If we look internally to a work of astrology, it is useful to ask, does an astrologer's treatment of a particular practice (such as terms and faces, or house cusp lords) make sense only if he used the whole sign system? Or mightn't it work with a quadrant or equal house system, as well?

If the answer is that his techniques make sense only within the context of a whole-sign system, then score one for whole signs! If, on the other hand, the techniques might also work with other house systems, then maybe at the very least we have to be brutally honest and say that actually we don't know what system the astrologer used, let alone unknown astrologers who used his book. In fact Ptolemy, astrology's Grand Old Man, seems hardly to have used houses at all

We also need to look externally at the context of the technological (instrumentation), scientific (astronomy), and mathematical state of knowledge in the astrologer's day. We have to consider what the old astrologers could have thought about different matters; and what else we know about them likely influenced their astrological works.

Ptolemy, for example, was a great synthesizer and cataloger. He had a perfect disdain for the more magical side of astrology, and apparently was concerned to place astrology on a more systematic footing-- as he did in his non-astrological works that have survived. Manilius, on the other hand, was a poet; and myths about constellations were an area where he could demonstrate his literary talent. Nevertheless, he clearly transmitted legitimate astrological information as best he understood it. Poetry, moreover, was a common means in antiquity of conveying all sorts of information.

One thing we know very clearly is that long before the emergence of Hellenistic astrology, anyone living sufficiently north of the equator was aware of vastly different periods of daylight and darkness during the course of the seasons. If they based any kind of a house of quadrant system on the passage of the sun, they knew that realistically the signs did not occupy precise two-hour periods as they rotated around the geocentric earth. Whether or how they would have incorporated this knowledge into their house systems depends upon the astrologer; and is oftentimes an open question.

This kind of internl/external analysis takes an awful lot of homework-- probably best suited to someone with solid credentials in ancient languages and history, both of which I lack. Or maybe someone working on a Master's thesis.

I've enjoyed our discussion as well, Dr. Farr! Kind of like some people really enjoy a good tennis match, even when they are on opposite sides of the net.

p. s. I am sorry to have missed your longer response! Sometimes it's worthwhile repeatedly saving on-line messages-in-progress, or typing them first on a word-processing feature. Hope you can infill more of it.
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
dr. farr said:
Had a very lengthy further comment and information , but the AW system timed it out and when I tried to post it, it vanished! Will not attempt to post this extensive material again (spent over an hour on it but the AW system timed it out)

Waybread, I enjoyed this discussion!

Basically we both agree that the antiquity or modernity of a domification format does not make any difference-that how well that fomat works for the person using it, and how reliable it is for that practitioner, is all that matters.

Our discussion here is mostly of an academic, historical nature:
-Waybread's view is that in antiquity there were a number of different house systems, and that none were universal or predominant, pretty much like the situation is today. Waybread has presented some evidence and excellent discussions to support this view, and it is a very reasonable point of view!

-Based on my own studies I cannot agree with that point of view. I believe that both in the West and as far East as India, there once was a universal (or nearly so) domification format-whole sign-with very few deviating from it for delineative purposes; that a modification of whole sign, Equal house, MIGHT have become a secondary house system (Ptolemy maybe, Firmicus Maternus too) and that this did in fact supplant whole sign in the East (India) around the 7th century AD.
I believe that in the West, by the beginning of the 6th century AD, whole sign was beginning to lose its predominance to the first quadrant house system, "Porphyry", and that by the late 9th century had become entirely supplanted by the quadrant based Rhetorius/Alchabitius house format, with some in Medieval Europe continuing with the earlier Porphyry format.
Certainly, in Western astrology, quadrant based domification formats have predominated over the past 1200 years, the ancient whole sign house format becoming known again in the West only since the late 1990's, and in very limited use (maybe 3-5% of practitioners at most) at the present time.
..I, of course, am one of those few...
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So farr so good, Dr. Farr. But my limited understanding of traditional astrology is that it matters a lot whether one has a day or a night birth, because it affects a bunch of stuff in the horoscope-- triplicities, and how one calculates the part of fortune, for example.

So if you have a birth near the summer solstice in even a moderately northern or southern latitude (as in central Italy,-- which is nearly on the same latitude as New York, for instance) you should have a bunch more signs above the horizon than below the horizon at that time. Because the Asc and DC can occur in one sign only, no matter how buried in it they might be. This was the whole point of Hipsicles and Ptolemy's calculations, mentioned above.

Manilius is really clear that he means the degree or point of the ascendant, from which one then calculates the trailing edge of the 12th house, and of the 6th house, using the point of the setting sun (descendant.) He is really clear that there is a point (midheaven) at which "Phoebus" (the sun,) stops rising and begins setting, and from these we see the beginning edge of the 10th house and the trailing edge of the 9th house. Ditto for the IC and it's relationship to the 3rd and 4th houses.

My only question is where he set the succedant and other cadent house cusps not whether he might have recommended a whole sign system.
 
waybread

waybread

Well-known member
dr. farr said:
There is substantial literature to the effect that "horoscope" meant the "hour observer" and was applied to the ascendant; that would be to the ascendant sign; "horoscopic point" was frequently used as a qualifying term to refer to any POINT in the map, and most frequently used in application to the ascending DEGREE. In a reading of Manilius descriptions of signs/places, it is clear that when using the generic term "horoscope" he was referring-as the Greco/Romans consistently did when using that term-to the the ASCENDING SIGN. He would have used the term "point" to qualify the term "horoscope" if he had intended to describe the ascending DEGREE...
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But this is precisely what he did!!
 
byjove

byjove

Account Closed
- If a page times out, click back, and oftentimes the info. taken away, comes back. Otherwise, I know the pain of that, so I generally copy all of the writing on the page frequently, then paste if necessary. On Windows hold CTRL then press A, otherwise the mouse right-click.

- So, is the point established then, that numerous house systems were in use in antiquity, and that whole sign must renounce it's kingdom pre-Porphry? Whole sign users often say it was the only game in town back then, therefore everything since is an unnecessary mess, but if there were multiple house systems...and 8 system houses...then this is not the case.

- Is it agreed that the ancient's instruments were likely too ill-suited for reliability, and so they chose to bury the angles in the 'places'? I've ASC 27 degrees, so if it's the case, I'll consider quadrents again.

- There is to-and-fro about equal, is it -as is said- a misinterpretation of Ptolemic work?

- Does Valens not provide far more reliable (less gaping holes, no avoidance of topics, complete work and he was a praticsing astrologer, not a war general like Ptolemy) work to study?

If I manage to figure out some of this, I could integrate the great research and debate above ^^ (I'm still in college and cannot buy many books right now).

P.s. check out this link. Scientists were ashamed when it found: the oldest known mathematical device in ancient history was an astrological device. I can't find a more credible link now, this one looks like a consiracy-type site, but the find is the same. Perhaps their instruments weren't so fragile?

http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_4.htm
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
-ByJove:
- I stand by-and accept as my own-the position of Hand (and others) that prior to the early 6th century Whole sign was, essentially, the "only game in town" both in the West and as far east as India (early Vedic astrology), and that numerous domification formats were NOT being used in those ancient times. Here is where I disagree with Waybread's position (ie, that various domification formats were in use during the Greco/Roman period prior to the 6th century AD) So, as far as I am concerned, no the point that numerous domification formats were being used in the ancient times has NOT been established in this current discussion.

-one needs to look at several of the non-Ptolemy influenced Greco/Roman authors to obtain a clear picture of what they did (or probably did) Minimum for study would be the works of Valens, Firmicus Maternus and Paulus Alexandrianus.

-supposed 8 house formats in antiquity are highly dubious, and only referenced in a couple places in the entire Greco/Roman literature; the translator of Manilius has demonstrated that the couple-of-sline reference in the "Astronomica" to the "octotropis" was actually a later interpolation (ie, spurious) and did NOT come from Manilius at all.

-the ancient sundials and their connected waterclocks were very accurate instruments for determing SUN/COSMIC time (Local Apparent Time), which is the kind of time at the center of astrology (modern atomic clocks precisely measure man-made time, originated from international conventions, which time varies from Sun/Cosmic time at any given location on the Earth, from a minute or so up to as many as 14 or 15 minutes!) Since these were the ONLY time measuring instruments the ancients had, why would they doubt them and try to "compensate" for their unreliability by manipulating cusps and angles of the very charts BASED upon those instruments? (Note: there are no ancient records or comments that I am aware of which question the accuracy of the instruments they used for measuring time)

-relative to Ptolemy and Equal house: I continue to believe that Ptolemy did NOT use (or invent) Equal house-in this question all I can do is to direct those interested in this controversy to Robert Hand's discussion of the matter in his "Whole Sign" booklet.

-you want to read a well documented study about just how well the ancients were able to measure things like time, space, geophysical considerations, etc, see Heath's "Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization" (easily availabe from Amazon.com)

-in the extensive post of mine that got timed-out by AW, I answered many of the points Waybread has made, above; looks like I'll have to present the material again (I guess "do it twice to get it right" applies here:andy:!)
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Good comments, Byjove.

I don't know about Ptolemy being a war general, but he was clearly a great compiler and systematizer of all kinds of information about the known world. He wrote star catalogues and descriptions of all of the known nations/ethnic groups of his day. A big example would be his map of the world as it was known in the 2nd century AD. Nobody surpassed it till The Age of Discovery.

If anyone can show me the hard evidence that Ptolemy was not a practicing astrologer, I would love to see it. Sometimes ancient authors of astrology books were simply silent on whether or not they advised clients. We need additional information to determine whether or not they did so. On the other hand, some authors did include horoscopes of common people. But does this matter? Most of the surviving works of astrology in antiquity contain complaints about the "bad" astrologers who were their contemporaries. So having a practice is not the same as good practice.

To me, a strong analogy today is that many academics write textbooks on all kinds of subjects. This doesn't mean that the author of a really good economics textbook is a practicing economist. She might be a university professor. This doesn't mean that the book is in anyway second-rate economics information.

BTW, I just came across evidence of an 8-house system in Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum (transl. David Pingree in 1976, Astrology Classics Publishers, 2005.) Dorotheus lived in Alexandria Egypt, wrote in Greek and lived in the first century AD. Dorotheus gives a 12-house system, as well.

Even if we take Dr. Farr's point that the evidence for an early 8-house system is shaky, I don't think we can overlook Deborah Houlding's thoughtful critique of the thin evidence that Ptolemy used a whole-sign system.

I think we have to go through the authors one at a time, before determining that the whole sign system was ubiquitous in antiquity. Maybe someone has done this. (Anyone?)

Just now I am looking at my copy of Dorotheus of Sidon (1st century AD.) It seems to me that one could use a house system other than whole sign with most of his methods. In astrology today, for example, many of us look at both the signs of the planets, and then also the signs on the house cusps. It's OK if they're different. These signs have different functions in a house and it isn't hard to keep the concepts separate.

But here's the kicker about assuming too much for the whole sign system. Appendix I to Dorotheus gives some charts that Dorotheus cites in his book, in the whole sign system that look very "real." David Pingree died before the 2005 edition was published, so Robert Hand wrote this appendix. He's a big proponent of whole signs, so unsurprisingly he did the charts in the whole sign system. Yet he states, "We do not know how Dorotheus originally presented them in his text, nor do we know anything about the original chart data used to cast them. What has come down to us are the Arabic versions which Pingree copied. With one exception, the data used for these modern constructions are as speculated by Pingree."

So sometimes I think the ubiquity of the whole sign system is a thesis to be tested, author by author.

So far as Dorotheus goes, here's the best that I could find from his book.

Book one, chapter 1: "Always, my son, before everything [else] understand the seven [planets] in longitude and ltitude, divide the four cardines [angles] by their degrees, and know with this the triplicities of the signs."

In book 4 ch. 1 He seems to use "cardines" in the sense of both angles and angular houses., but as with Manilius, the exact degrees seem to be important in setting the house cusps. (Note that some times ancient authors used "ascendant" and first house interchangeably; at other times they meant the ascendant as we do: as a particular degree.)

"...the appraisal of the native is known from the ascendant which is the first cardine..." He goes on the with meanings of the other angular houses. Then Dorotheus states, "....the ascendant gives the matter of youth, from that place at which the Sun rises from the water, and the darkness of their eyes is raised up for the people of the world, and sheds light on the eyes of the messengers who sent them forth to creation."

I think this has to mean that the first house starts with the ascendant, because of your rising sign is at 27 degrees-- depending upon the sign/time of year, it could take close to two hours of darkness before that degree hits the eastern horizon.
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
In Book II ch. 3, we find Dorotheus explaining how to predict how many spouses a man or woman will marry in the course of their lifetime. "Remember this lot: count from Venus to the degree of the seventh sign and add to it the degrees of the ascendent [by day] or subtract it from the ascendent [by night] thirty at a time. Wherever it reaches, there is the lot of happiness and wedding." This doesn't make sense to me unless this degree is the cusp of the 7th house.

Recalling that the classical astrologers played fast and loose with words like "sign", "house", "place", &c., I think the degree of the 7th sign as a whole sign wouldn't make any sense--it would vary from 0 to 29. Rather, I think here Dorotheus refers to a quadrant system.
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Dr. Farr, I'll go back and check out Robert Hand on whole signs if it's on line--but I do have to make a few points. While I think he is probably the greatest living astrologer, I don't think he's infallible.

But by all means, point out any flaws in my references to Manilius or Dorotheus.

The complaint about innacurate time-keeping devices is from Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, III,2; not from a secondary source. He says that you really need an astrolabe for accuracy--one has to ask how common they were in the bedrooms of ancient women giving birth. Apparently, not very. Mr. Pt goes on to say,

"...practically all other horoscopic instruments on which the majority of the more careful practitioners rely are frequently capable of error," specifically sundials and gnomons.

And for sure, anyone whom I've cited who wrote his astrology text long before Ptolemy's birth (like Manilus and Dorotheus) cannot have been influenced by him.
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
IN whole sign the degree of the house/place is determined from the ascending degree: thus each whole sign house has a specific degree (sensitive point, original meaning of the word "cusp", which later got changed to mean the "border" or "start" of a house) So, in the above example, say the ascending degree were the 26th; then the degree (sensitive degree or sensitive point) of the whole sign 7th house would be the 26th degree of the sign of that 7th house. The idea that whole sign houses have no "cusps" (sensitive degree or points) is erroneous. Manilius makes this clear in the "Astronomica" in describing the 12 place Circle of the Athla, where he states that each subsequent place (house) to the Part of Fortune (which is placed at its point in the first house-WHICH HOUSE IS THE ENTIRE SIGN THE POF FALL IN) is set at the same degree of each subsequent SIGN starting in sequence exactly 30 DEGREES away from the degree of the POF in the first sign/house (if Manilius used quadrant domification, why would his teaching here be so crytsal clear regarding whole sign?)

Re to Ptolemy's statement: ok, but then the ancient astrologers DID HAVE ASTROLABES! Including Manilius (more than a century prior to Ptolemy), according to the translators of his "Astronomica".

Note on "Carmen Astrologicum": the book we have in English was a translation first in Pahlavi from extant remains of Dorotheus originals; this was then translated into Arabic, WITH NUMEROUS INTERPOLATIONS BY THE 9th Century ARABIC TRANSLATOR; this can easily be seen in the text by the frequent Islamic salutations to God (Dorotheus of Sidon lived and wrote c50 AD, many hundreds of years before the birth of Mohammed)
By the time of the translation of the Pahlavi translation of the book into Arabic, quadrant domification (as Rhetorius/Alchabitius) had become dominant in the Islamic world (Europe too), and the interpolations of the Arabic translator reflect this (see the introductory material in the book for an account of the Pahlavi and subsequent Arabic translations of Dorotheus material, and Pingree's acknowledgement of later interpolations by the Arabic translator)
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Dr. Farr, but can you comment on my analysis of Manilius (several posts up)?

Obviously different astrological techniques get different treatments in any particular ancient source. It's getting late in my time zone, and I'll have to go back over Manilius in more detail tomorrow to look up his Athla material, but he seems to deal in "lots" not "temples" in that section, so I want to make sure we're not mixing up different concepts.

For one thing, in 3:165ff, he says the "athla" "do not remain in permanent abodes or stay attached to the same stars for every person born, but they change them according to time, moving now hither, now thither, through the circle of signs...."

Well, the houses are essentially fixed! They do not move "hither" or "thither" but stay put, while the signs appear to move through them.

BTW, I am very clear on how/where the angles appear in whole sign charts; and how they can be used for various purposes (like "lots"/Arabian parts,) regardless of where they fall in a given sign.

Perhaps, too, I could throw the ball in your court. If you looked at each early classical author with fresh eyes, and with a willingness to assume we might not know what house system he used, where specifically would you find each one's allegiance to the whole sign system?
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
I very much agree with Caprising's point of view regarding "history", as we have been led to think about it according to the generally accepted teachings of the "Academic Establishment" .....
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
Manilius Circle of the Athla is a 12 segment (place-"house") chart which turns out to be a derivative chart of the given nativity. Its description is found in the "Astronomica" from pages 171 through 179. It is NOT a collection of "Lots" (in the sense of "Arabic Parts") but rather uses the Part of Fortune to turn the horoscope, making the POF the 1st place (first segment or first allocation) of the 12 segment/place chart. Now Manilius is very clear: the second segment (place-house) of this derived chart he tells us IS THE SECOND SIGN IN SEQUENCE AFTER THE SIGN THE POF IS IN: the third segment (place-house) is the THIRD SIGN IN SEQUENCE AFTER THE POF SIGN: and so he continues to tell us round to the 12th segment (place-house) Manilius then gives allocations of meaning to each of these 12 segments (places-houses) This is clearly and without question the sign/house (whole sign) method; and here he is using the turned NATAL CHART (turned to make the sign of the POF) the first segment (place-house) of the Athla chart.
It is also obvious that Valens (and other Greco/Roman authors) "Fortunata" chart, is nothing other than Manilius "Circle of Athla", only with different allocations of meanings given by Valens to each of the sequential SIGN DEFINED segments (places-houses)

Why would Manilius (and later Valens) use an unquestionably whole sign house format for the derived natal chart (derived natal to the sign of the POF) but use a totally different domification method (quadrant system) for the "raw" (unturned) natal chart?
 
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dr. farr

Well-known member
Note on an 8 house system in Dorotheus:

On page 171 of "Carmen Astrologicum" we find, in the "Index of Subjects and Definitions" adapted from PINGREE (in other words this is PINGREE's index of the book) the following statement by Pingree:

"Note that the first 4 books are primarily devoted to the TOPICS of the OCTOTOPUS, but not in canonical order".

The word used here is octoTOPOS, not octoTROPIS; tropis/tropus/tropos can mean place (or a turning toward), but the word "TOPOS" means TOPIC; this is not a reference to some kind of 8 house astrological chart or system whatsoever, but is rather merely a statement by Pingree, in his index, that the first 4 Books (of the Carmen Astrologicum) are devoted to 8 basic TOPICS (which Pingree lists as life, wealth, brothers, parents, children, illness, marriage and death)...

Could it be possible that in the times around the 4th century AD the term "octotropus" was used incorrectly for the term "octotopus", meaning 8 TOPICS (from life to death) and not referring at all to some variant chart/domification system with 8 "places" (houses), the "octoTROPIS" ?

PS: Waybread, I am afraid I am going to have to wait and post my comments re to Manilius and his concept of the dodecatropos later, probably tomorrow-I had a thorough discussion of your points in the post which got "timed out", so have to restate it over again.
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Caprising said:
waybread said:
For one thing, in 3:165ff, he says the "athla" "do not remain in permanent abodes or stay attached to the same stars for every person born, but they change them according to time, moving now hither, now thither, through the circle of signs...."

Well, the houses are essentially fixed! They do not move "hither" or "thither" but stay put, while the signs appear to move through them.

Waybread, Isn't what you are describing here "progressions of the house cusps"? The progressed M/C for instance is very telling in a chart, the house cusps do progress....
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No-- I mean house cusps as they would appear in a natal chart, at least according to general understanding of them. Sure, these have varied throughout astrology's history (5 degrees prior to the sign or house cusp, the center of the house, &c) --and also the content of the house has varied considerably over time. This is the sense in which the authors and passages I have cited referred to them.

Interestingly, Ptolemy is also noted as the father of the discipline of geography-- he put forth what is essentially our modern system of latitude and longitude, and did an amazing map of the known world in the 2nd century AD. But they do not like to mention his astrological contributions!
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Caprising said:
.... I don't remember exactly how long it takes for coal to form, but there are many other "finds" that make our present veiw of history look like a fabrication. History is written by the "victors", whoever they are!
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I mostly agree with this interpretation, as well. I worked in an academic environment for many years and read a lot of history and met a lot of historians during that time.

While conservative historians do love their sacred cows, history doesn't get written once by the "victors" and then remain unchanged, however. It changes in what is sometimes termed revisionist history. For example, beginning in the 1970s in the US, minorities and women began writing their own histories, which gave very different versions of events.

So if we apply this to the problem of house systems in antiquity, it would be expected that astrologers and scholars would accept some concensus on which system predominated. But periodically we should expect to rethink and maybe revise the "received wisdom," either in light of new evidence or new ways of understanding the old texts.

While some people might find the give-and-take of academic "progress" unsettling; actually, if you love research, it is the possibility of new ways of interpreting the past that makes it personally rewarding.
 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
dr. farr said:
Manilius Circle of the Athla is a 12 segment (place-"house") chart which turns out to be a derivative chart of the given nativity. Its description is found in the "Astronomica" from pages 171 through 179. It is NOT a collection of "Lots" (in the sense of "Arabic Parts") but rather uses the Part of Fortune to turn the horoscope, making the POF the 1st place (first segment or first allocation) of the 12 segment/place chart. Now Manilius is very clear: the second segment (place-house) of this derived chart he tells us IS THE SECOND SIGN IN SEQUENCE AFTER THE SIGN THE POF IS IN: the third segment (place-house) is the THIRD SIGN IN SEQUENCE AFTER THE POF SIGN: and so he continues to tell us round to the 12th segment (place-house) Manilius then gives allocations of meaning to each of these 12 segments (places-houses) This is clearly and without question the sign/house (whole sign) method; and here he is using the turned NATAL CHART (turned to make the sign of the POF) the first segment (place-house) of the Athla chart.
It is also obvious that Valens (and other Greco/Roman authors) "Fortunata" chart, is nothing other than Manilius "Circle of Athla", only with different allocations of meanings given by Valens to each of the sequential SIGN DEFINED segments (places-houses)

Why would Manilius (and later Valens) use an unquestionably whole sign house format for the derived natal chart (derived natal to the sign of the POF) but use a totally different domification method (quadrant system) for the "raw" (unturned) natal chart?
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Well, let me turn this question on its head? Why shouldn't he? Astrologers past and present are a pretty eclectic bunch. Manilius's poetry about the constellations is essentially building on a tradition of much earlier Hellenistic star lore such as Aratus, Phaenomena (ca. 314-240 BC) and Hesiod's Works and Days (ca. 650-750 BC.) Then his astrology, so far as I have read, seems to be based on a very different Bablyonian tradition. So right away, Manilius looks like Mr. Mix & Match.

James Evans (cited in a previous post) noted that Manilius was inconsistent in describing two techniques to account for different periods of rising signs. He didn't seem to notice that the two methods would produce different results. On p. lvi of Goold's edition of Astronomica, the translater noted that Manilius was inconsistent in his descriptions of the quadrants and ascendant house in relation to the stages of human age.

I sometimes use more than one house system, so I have no problem in imagining that an ancient astrologer would, as well. I normally use Placidus, but for a high latitude birth, I will look at the equal house methods, as well. As I've indicated previously, if I want to spend time with a chart, I will run though different commonly-used house systems, including whole signs, to see if they give me different results; or whether a given planet-house-sign combo is consistent regardless. To me, it is a very workmanlike question of, "What tools do you want for the particular job?" Not: one tool fits all!

We have to ask, can one simply assume that an author is internally consistent, or would we have to make the case through a careful critical reading of his text?

While I wouldn't claim that Goold was correct in all of his assessments of Astronomica (he was a professor of Latin literature, not astrology) his introductory material on the athla (p. lxii) is exactly on point:

"...his initial chapter, in which he describes the circle of the twelve athla (or lots), conflicts in principle as well as in detail with the doctrine of the dodecatropos [12-house chart] so recently propounded at the end of Book 2."

So far as I know, the Part of Fortune is considered to be one of the Arabic parts, even though its origin is far earlier than the rise of Muslim astrology.

Manilius uses the words "lots" in connection with the athla. I am merely following his text (in translation.)

I'll get back to them later. But I note that the order that Manilius gives to the athlas' domains of experience is so different from our understanding of houses in a radix (as well as today's derived or turned) chart that he really seems to be talking about a different sort of interpretive technique. This is comparable to other astrologers (like Ptolemy) who don't have much to say about houses, but they used other methods and chart placements to analyse phenomena that today we ascribe to houses.

So this whole discussion really reinforces my belief that the state of house systems in the first centuries of Hellenistic astrology-- not merely later-- was in a state of flux. Did some authors use whole signs? Sure. But was it really the only house system in use until late antiquity? I just don't see the evidence.
 
JUPITERASC

JUPITERASC

Well-known member
Chris Brennan says there was a notion of house division similar to the modern understanding of the concept, where each quadrant is trisected between the degree of the ascendant and the MC, the MC and the degree of the descendant and so forth, but these divisions do not appear to have been assigned topical significations though, but instead they were used to determine planetary strength, or how active or ‘busy’ a planet is in the chart. The closer to an angle a planet is, the more active or ‘busy’ it becomes. This usage of the quadrant style house division to determine planetary activity has been termed a ‘dynamic division’ by Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight.

It is notable that these ‘dynamic divisions’ were almost always brought up within the context of the length of life treatment in Hellenistic astrology, essentially restricting their application to that specific technique.

There is this particularly tricky passage in Ptolemy which many people over the past 1,000 years or so have interpreted to mean that Ptolemy was using quadrant style houses for topics. However, due to recent translations from Project Hindsight we know now that Ptolemy was consistently using whole sign houses to delineate topics throughout the entirety of his work known as the Tetrabiblos.

In the introduction to his translation of Book 3 of the Tetrabiblos Robert Schmidt points out that, outside of his use of the so called ‘dynamic division’ for gauging planetary activity within the context of the length of life treatment “ …there is no reason to believe that Ptolemy regards the Horoskopos, Midheaven, etc., as anything other than whole-sign houses.” Robert Schmidt :smile:

 Albert Timashev refers to the “Prejudice Of Ptolemy” http://astrologer.ru/article/mey.html.en

Today it is well-known, that Greek scientist Claudius Ptolemy was not representative of a traditional Greek astrological school and most likely, he was never a practising astrologer at all. Tetrabiblos reflects his personal and sometimes disputable opinions on many questions.

Also we must keep in mind that Greeks as the Egyptians and Babylonians used the sidereal zodiac - unlike Ptolemy, who according to the available sources, was the first Greek astrologer who used the tropical zodiac and this confirms the reformative direction of his Tetrabiblos.

In classical Greek astrology of 1st-2nd century AD it was considered that the point of the vernal equinox was 8° of Aries - without any doubt, the beginning of the zodiac in the first centuries AD inclusively was never identified with the point of the vernal equinox. :smile:


 
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waybread

waybread

Well-known member
I've been searching for more information on the early house division problem and just came across a really good article by Robert Schmidt, "The Facets of Fate" The Mountain Astrologer, Dec. 22, 2008. (available on-line--sorry, I neglected to copy the link.) For anyone unfamiliar with him, he is probably the best known Hellenistic astrologer.

Here is his take on the antiquity of whole sign vs. quadrant house systems.

1. Hellenistic astrologers used different house systems and meanings for 3 different purposes.
A. Specific areas of life, such as siblings or parents. I. e., a "topical" house meaning. The whole sign system was used for this purpose.

B. 12 sections could be used to determine the relative strength of a planet: a "dynamical house system. The Porphyry system is an example, where the quadrants were bisected into 3 equal parts. For example, angular (cardinal) houses are the strongest, followed by succedent houses, followed by cadent houses (weak.) These two systems became confused by the end of the Hellenistic era.

C. A 12-fold division was used to define "good" and "bad" houses, where planets' effects are more beneficial or malefic. These were determined by the houses' relationship to the ascendant. "Good houses" were 1,4,5,7,9,10, 11. "Bad" houses were 6, 8,12; with authors divided on the effects of the 3rd house.

2. Schmidt left out Manilius from his survey as being too flaky; and Ptolemy, because he "doesn't use houses much." Wow. Schmidt's purpose, apparently is to develop a consistent Hellenistic astrology; not to report what two leading authors of antiquity said about astrology! This is a real "presentist" interpretation of the past that prunes away any roots that don't fit modern notions of consistency, to which which I would give a "no pass," despite an otherwise impressive article.

3. Schmidt has a complex argument to make about fate, and why some houses were considered more fortunate or misfortunate, based on his command of ancient Greek. What I take from it, even though it doesn't appear that Schmidt intended this, is that the angles and distance from them was really crucial in determining the dynamical meaning of a house. I am not sure how his schema works if we find the MC in the 9th house; or even (as I recently saw in the chart of a Finnish woman) in the 12th house, using the whole sign system.

4. In his footnotes, (#2) Schmidt notes that Firmicus Maternus (II: 19, Mathesis) and Vettius Valens (IX: 3, Anthology) seem to favour an equal house system, calculated from the ascending degree. He notes the distinction between "partile" analysis focused on a degree, and sodiacal or "platic" analysis focused on the house.

5. In footnote #4, Schmidt (too briefly and cryptically!) states that the Porphyry system does "stem from the earliest tradition."
 
waybread

waybread

Well-known member
JupiterAsc, I've addressed most of your points about Ptolemy previously. Please refer back to them.

I fear that Ptolemy-bashing has taken hold among people who have never read Tetrabiblos, have no understanding of Ptolemy's larger contribution to the knowledge of his day, ignore the enormous stature he had among subsequent generations of traditional astrologers, and who mistakenly think that nobody can write a decent textbook unless they are a card-carrying practitioner in that field.

I further fear that such people want a consistent, uniform Hellenistic astrology that never existed. They can't handle the messiness and discrepancies of the actual past. Consequently, they try to prune away a few "roots" no matter what violence this does to the historical records.

Please tell me that you are not one of these people, and that you have at least thumbed through Tetrabiblos.

If not, howbeit you read Ptolemy, and see if you agree with both Robert Schmidt and Deborah Houlding that he says next-to-nothing about houses-- of any description. Most of the topics that we today would ascribe to houses, Ptolemy handles in other ways, such as various planet combinations.
 
waybread

waybread

Well-known member
Dr. Farr, I've gone through the "athla" sections of Manilius, Astronomica, and I don't think he was talking about houses in either our contemporary sense (including traditional astrology) or in the sense in which he describes "temples" as discussed above in one of my earlier posts.

These seem to be two very different systems. For one thing, the topical meanings of the two 12-fold divisions are different.

His book 3, 332ff is interesting, though. He discusses the problem I mentioned above, about rising signs occupying different amounts of time along the ecliptic, according to the latitude and time of year. He asks:

"Who could believe with with such uneven periods and such changeable limits of day and darkness, all the signs rise into the sky under a uniform law of heaven? ....It follows that the signs cannot all rise in a period of two hours, since owing to the discrepancy between the hours their duration is not uniform...."

Well, if the signs were all 30 degrees, even in his day, something else in the horoscope has to give.

Unfortunately I can't find an on-line version of either Robert Hand's two-part article in The Mountain Astrologer (subsequently reprinted as his book) on Whole Sign houses. I will probably go ahead and order it, but I'd be surprised if it reaches me before this thread winds down.

If you or anyone else has a copy and would care to paraphrase his hard evidence supporting his thesis, that would be super.
 
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