"New" Zodiacal Divisions in POxy LXI 4277 (ZPE 203) (original) (raw)
Platikos and moirikos: Ancient Horoscopic Practice in the Light of Vettius Valens' Anthologies
International Journal of Divination and Prognostication, 2023
From the ancient practice, implied by many textual sources although never formally prescribed, of identifying the twelve horoscopic places (the δωδεκάτροπος dōdekatropos) with the zodiacal signs, recent scholarship has often concluded that such identification constituted a tenet of ancient astrology even at a conceptual level. On the basis of a close reading of Vettius Valens’ Anthologies, supported by other ancient sources, this paper argues that while the places, like other elements of horoscopic practice, were often provisionally approximated by sign position alone, calculation of places by degree, with boundaries differing from those of the zodiacal signs, was consistently upheld in principle as more accurate and useful. Specifically, Valens’ preference appears to have been for places calculated from the quadrants formed by the intersections of horizon and meridian, a method also occasionally used in the Anthologies for defining planetary configurations and for annual transmission (παράδοσις paradosis). In several cases, such methods are explicitly employed even for horoscopes presented in a simple, signs-only format.
Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree, eds Charles Burnett, Jan P. Hogendijk, Kim Plofker and Michio Yano, 2004
Before the age of Arabic-Latin translations of scientific texts in the twelfth century, planetary astronomy (with the exception of lunar and solar cycles needed for the purpose of computus) was in the Western world mainly restricted to information found in ancient encyclopaedias, such as those of Pliny, Calcidius, Macrobius, Martianus Capella and Isidore of ~eville.' None of these authors had taught how to locate the planets in the zodiacal signs at a given time. This knowledge is normally provided by astronomical tables which indicate the position of the planets a t regular intervals over a certain period of time. Such material does not appear to have been known in the West before the Latin translations of the Arabic tables of al-Khwiirizm-and the Toledan Tables in the first half of the twelfth century. A possible exception is the Preceptum Canonis Ptolomei, a set of astronomical tables, together *I a m most grateful to Vera Rodrigues, Charles Burnett and Bruce Eastwood for their comments on earlier versions of this paper, and to Jill Kraye and Kristine Haugen for generously giving their time to improving my English. Early medieval planetary astronomy has only recently begun to receive serious scholarly attention. See in particular W. M. Stevens, 'Astronomy in
Sir Isaac Newton has the following remarks in regard to the origin of Astrology:--"After the study of Astronomy was set on foot for the use of navigation, and the Ægyptians, by the heliacal risings and settings of the stars, had determined the length of the solar year of 365 days, and by other observations had fixed the solstices, and formed the fixed stars into asterisms, all which was done in the reigns of Ammon, Sesac, Orus, and Memnon," (about 1000 years before Christ), "it may be presumed that they continued to observe the motions of the planets, for they called them after the names of their gods; and Nechepsos, or Nicepsos, King of Sais," [772 B.C.], "by the assistance of Petosiris, a priest of Ægypt, invented astrology, grounding it upon the aspects of the planets, and the qualities of the men and women to whom they were dedicated *1; and in the beginning of the reign of Nabonassar, King of Babylon, about which time the Æthiopians, under Sabacon, invaded Ægypt" [751 B.C.], "those Ægyptians who fled from him to Babylon, carried thither the Ægyptian year of 365 days, and the study of astronomy and astrology, and founded the a era of Nabonassar, dating it from the first year of that king's reign" [747 B.C.], "and beginning the year on the same day with the Ægyptians for the sake of their calculations. So Diodorus: 'they say that the Chaldæan in Babylon, being colonies of the Ægyptians, became famous for astrology, having learned it from the priests of Ægypt.'"--Newton's Chronology, pp. 251, 252. The arcana of Astrology constituted a main feature in the doctrines of the Persian Magi; and it further appears, by Newton's Chronology, p. 347, that Zoroaster (although the æra of his life has been erroneously assigned to various remoter periods) lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, about 520 B.C., and assisted Hystaspes, the father of Darius, in reforming the Magi, of whom the said Hystaspes was Master. Newton adds, p. 352, that "about the same time with Hystaspes and Zoroaster, lived also Ostanes, another eminent Magus: Pliny places him under Darius Hystaspis, and Suidas makes him the follower of Zoroaster: he came into Greece with Xerxes about 480 B.C., and seems to be the Otanes of Herodotus. In his book, called the Octateuchus, he taught the same doctrine of the Deity as Zoroaster." The world is divided into two parts, the elemental region and the æthereal. The elemental region is constantly subject to alteration, and comprises the four elements; earth, water, air and fire. The æthereal region, which philosophers call the fifth essence, encompasses, by its concavity, the elemental; its substance remains always unvaried, and consists of ten spheres; of which the greater one always spherically environs the next smaller, and so on in consecutive order. First, therefore, around the sphere of fire, GOD, the creator of the world, placed the sphere of the Moon, then that of Mercury, then that of Venus, then that of the Sun, and afterwards those of Mars, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. Each of these spheres, however, contains but one star: and these stars, in passing through the zodiac, always struggle against the primum mobile, or the motion of the tenth sphere; they are also entirely luminous. In the next place follows the firmament, which is the eighth or starry sphere, and which trembles or vibrates (trepidat) in two small circles at the beginning of Aries and Libra (as placed in the ninth sphere); this motion is called by astronomers the motion of the access and recess of the fixed stars." (Probably in order to account for the procession of the equinoxes.) "This is surrounded by the ninth sphere, called the chrystalline or watery heaven, because no star is discovered in it. Lastly, the primum mobile, styled also the tenth sphere, encompasses all the before-mentioned æthereal spheres, and is continually turned upon the poles of the world, by one revolution in twenty-four hours, from the east through the meridian to the west, again coming round to the east. At the same time, it rolls all the inferior spheres round with it, by its own force; and there is no star in it. Against this primum mobile, the motion of the other spheres, running from the west through the meridian to the east, p. 3 contends. Whatever is beyond this, is fixed and immovable, and the professors of our orthodox faith affirm it to be the empyrean heaven which GOD inhabits with the elect."--Cosmographia of Peter Apianus (named Benewitz), dedicated to the Archbishop of Saltzburg, edited by Gemma Frisius, and printed at Antwerp 1574. The practice of observing the stars began in Ægypt in the days of Ammon, as above, and was propagated from thence, in the reign of his son Sesac, into Afric, Europe, and Asia, by conquest; and then Atlas formed the sphere of the Libyans" [956 B.C.], "and Chiron that of the Greeks [939 B.C.]; and the Chaldæans also made a sphere of their own. But astrology p. xii was invented in Ægypt by Nichepsos, or Necepsos, one of the Kings of the Lower Ægypt, and Petosiris his priest, a little before the days of Sabacon, and propagated thence into Chaldæa, where Zoroaster, the legislator of the Magi, met with it: so Paulinus;