Skyscript Astrology Forum

Paul, The following is highly speculative (due to my lack of expertise,) but my best-guess is that we can look to the Babylonians and Egyptians for very rough prototypes of Ptolemy's sign rulerships.

What they established were: (a) exaltations generically as the idea of a planet being particularly powerful in a given place; and (b) the idea of deities presiding over constellations, signs, asterisms, or individual stars, based upon earlier ideas that stars and planets were divine beings. Ishtar (Innanna=the planet Venus) was the deity of Virgo in the Babylonian calendar I linked in my previous post, for example.

When I have a moment I'd like to go back over Graham F's idea that our Aries-point tropical zodiac has a kind of palimpsest of an earlier zodiac based upon the spring equinox in Taurus. Of the planetary gods listed in the Babylonian calendar linked above, there seems to be a one-off displacement for those gods identified with planets (and not all calendar gods were,) but I'll have to check and see if they're consistent For sure, the Pleiades were a major figure in ancient celestial calendars.

Ptolemy's genius, if I can call it that, seems to have been in taking all kinds of Hellenistic, Egyptian, and Babylonian empirical and religious materials, and organizing them in a systematic way. Out goes the magic, but he seems to have retained some of the more fundamental meta-narratives stripped of their religious origins. He retained the meta-narrative of signs presided over by planetary gods, and then remodeled it to fit with more "rational" concepts of secular planets' distance from the sun and time from the summer solstice.

This is different than Manilius, who retains the (Babylonian?)meta-narrative of signs having tutelary gods whether or not they are planets.

Manilius's scheme (2:440 ff)

Pallas: Aries (the warrior goddess!)
Venus: Taurus (!)
Phoebus (sun): Gemini
Mercury: Cancer
Jupiter/Juno: Leo
Ceres: Virgo
Vulcan: Libra
Mars: Scorpio (!)
Diana (moon): Sagittarius
Vesta: Capricorn
Jupiter/Juno: Aquarius
Neptune: Pisces

Then Vettius Valens has a partial Ptolemaic system of domiciles in book 1, suggesting that sign rulerships predate both him and Ptolemy, in saying that Aries is the house of Mars, Gemini is the house of Mercury, &c; but he gives other tutelary deities, as well. Some of these are the same as in Manilius (italicized):

Aries: (house of Mars)
Taurus: (no planet house) Venus, the moon, Ceres, Vesta, Mars, Mercury
Gemini: house of Mercury. "The gods Apollo, Hercules, Vulcan, Juno, Saturn are associated with it."

Cancer (house of the moon) Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Neptune, Venus
Leo: (house of the sun)
Virgo: (house of Mercury)

Libra through Sagittarius: our conventional domiciles, without additional tutelary gods

Capricorn: (house of Saturn) "These are the gods: Venus, the moon, Ceres, Mercury."
Aquarius: (no planet house) or deities listed
Pisces: (no planet house) Neptune, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter

If Valens has got the notion of domiciles, he's more of a teacher and an eclectic compiler than a systematizer and textbook author, as Ptolemy was.

Graham, we've crossed in the mail. More later, but I'd be interested in what you think of the Babylonian religious and civic calendar as the prototype tropical zodiac.

Hi Graham - is this what you are looking for from Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos?

The beginnings of the signs, and likewise those of the terms, are to be taken from the equinoctial and tropical points. This rule is not only clearly stated by writers on the subject, but is also especially evident by the demonstration constantly afforded, that their natures, influences and familiarities have no other origin than from the tropics and equinoxes, as has been already plainly shown. And, if other beginnings were allowed, it would either be necessary to exclude the natures of the signs from the theory of prognostication, or impossible to avoid error in then retaining and making use of them ... (Ashmand I.25 Robbins and Schmidt, I.22)

Are people in this thread doubting that the planetary rulership scheme existed prior to Ptolemy? We know that it did because we have extant texts that show it being employed before the lifespan of Ptolemy. [For example]

Deb wrote:

I don't want to misunderstand you Therese and it might save time to be clear about what concept are you referring to - the notion that the zodiac should use the vernal point as its commencement point, or the concept of planetary rulership of signs ("planets to domiciles")?

The concept of the domiciles of planets, as I suggested two other possible scenarios of their origin: The Thema Mundi and Babylonian hypsoma which became the Hellenistic exaltations.

Ok, but your earlier comment was "There is no evidence that I know of that suggests this concept originated earlier than Ptolemy".

This is what confused me - it seemed you were suggesting that there is no evidence of knowledge or use of planetary sign-rulerships in astrology prior to Ptolemy.

Sorry that the following will be rambling, but this is how I think sometimes, in my dotage.

Graham, I'm not sure yet if this is what you are looking for, but are you familiar with Gavin White's remarkable book, Babylonian Star Lore? The author gives capsule discussions of each of the constellations known from ancient Mesopotamia.

He notes that the constellations did not remain constant throughout Mesopotamian ancient history, but older constellations disappeared and younger ones-- that were often similar in meaning-- took their places. White attributes much of this changeover to precession, which would have appeared as zodiacal constellations migrating westward.

Further, the constellations were associated with specific deities, some planetary, some not. White inferred the significance of a planet-constellation affinity from what the ancient omen sources said about a given planet-in-constellation episode, as well as mythology showing a particular affinity between a deity and a constellations.

Unsurprisingly, given the earlier pre-eminence of exaltations, affinities between planets in the signs of their exaltations were prominent.

White noted the affinity of Jupiter with Leo in early Babylonian star lore, but thought that this affinity shifted to the west over time, resulting in Jupiter's exaltation in Cancer. Conversely an association of a Mercury-precursor goddess with an early constellation formulation of Virgo persisted when The Furrow constellation was followed by the more western The (palm) Frond, and the two combined for one very large constellation.

White noted that the Pleiades in Taurus initially led off the Babylonian calendar year, to be succeeded by Aries by the 7th century BCE.

In terms of modern sign rulerships, there was a close mythological relationship between Inanna (Venus) and Taurus, and Nergal (Mars) and Scorpio. Other planet-constellation affinities like Libra and the sun seem to have disappeared.

I've got the Riley translation of Valens Anthologies, which unfortunately isn't indexed, but I've been scanning it quickly since my last post, and came across this nugget in book 2 (p. 48 ) where Valens introduces medical astrology according to sign-body part rulerships. He says,

"This becomes obvious if one begins with Leo and Cancer, then goes in order, since the moon <Cancer> is the Fortune of the Universe, and the sun <Leo> is Mind and Divinity.
"That is what the earlier astrologers stated."

The "one-off" placement you noted with antiscia might have been an amalgam with metaphysical treatments such as the above, which Valens liberally cites.

Subsequently in book 3 (p. 63) Valens itemizes rulerships and exaltations in a somewhat different system than he used in book one, with tutelary deities.

Good call, Deb, on that early horoscope with planetary sign rulers. My guess, from looking at it plus Manilius and Valens, is that our current sign rulership system was thought of earlier in the history of horoscopic astrology, but it wasn't the only way of considering the nature of sign rulerships. Eventually it got standardized, and we no longer think of Vesta or Pallas as tutelary deities of their signs.

Deb

This isn't quite the same as what you say

[Ptolemy explains] that when the VP moves out of Aries we shall continue to call the first division of the zodiac Aries and commence it from the VP instead of the constellation it was originally attached to.

Ptolemy doesn't spceifically say that the first sign "has to be Aries", or indeed that an equinox rather than a solstice should be taken as the first sign, though I agree that is clear from his saying elsewhere that the VP is at the start of Aries (as it more or less was sidereally when he was writing). I never doubted that in tropical astrology, as derived from Ptolemy, the signs must start at the equinoctial and solstice points.

This still doesn't state that the rulerships are to be fixed as they seemed to have been sidereally at the time, with the first sign after the spring equinox point ruled by Mars, the first after the Summer solstice by Moon, etc. And i think it interesting that weh Ptolemy did expose the logic of the rulership system (Ch 17), he "got it wrong" and put the solstice between Cancer and Leo, as I do find more logical.

To answer your second question, I for one do not doubt that the planetary rulership scheme existed prior to Ptolemy. Not only do we have records like those you link to, but as I said, it looks like it was first designed for a time when the solstice was indeed between (sidereal) Cancer and Leo, making those "the most northerly", "at our zenith".

Graham

lifestudent wrote:

No astrologer that has played an important part in the history and development of western astrology appeared to have questioned that

Actually a few have actually questioned that. Fagan, Bradley f.ex. and the Gauquelin's data seems to fit much better with the Fagan Bradley sidereal zodiac than it does to tropical. That is the biggest sample of data and research that has been undertaken on astrology.

I emphasised part of Deb's text, because, at least as I would see it, I wouldn't include Fagan or Bradley as part of the history or development of western astrology - of course technically anything which happened yesterday or a second ago is part of history, it's not in the context of how I read Deb's post.

Therese Hamilton wrote: There is no evidence that I know of that suggests this concept originated earlier than Ptolemy.

What do you mean Therese? Do you mean the concept of domicile rulership itself? Because obviously we have recognition of rulership before Ptolemy, or is this what you contest? I can't help but think you mean this and are putting a question mark on the dating of those texts which may precede Ptolemy which mention rulership in some form?
Or do you mean the explicit linking of domicile rulership based on the seasons?

Graham F wrote:I can't find where Ptolemy says that so explicity, I would like to have the reference.
If he was so explicit, then we probably can assume he would intend the rulership scheme to be kept associated with the old names, otherwise it's just a sidereal zodiac "in jumps", with the names of the signs periodically changing.

Speaking only for myself, I'm okay with other rationales for the origin of rulership. I always read Ptolemy as making an explanation that more or less makes sense to him - not necessarily that this explanation was an accurate description of its development. This is the point I was trying to make in the other thread, and for myself, I am happy to continue to make it. I realise that a lot of others may disagree with that, but I'm okay with that. For me, Ptolemy provides an explanation, but I see no reason to assume his explanation is correct, especially as the scheme predates him.

I agree with Deb that some of the comments seem to suggest that the scheme never existed prior to Ptolemy, but I'm not sure why anyone might think that. And when we recognise the pattern with the exaltations schema, which we know far far predates Ptolemy's lifetime, then it seems sensible to me that the two are linked to one another, and may have been for several centuries prior to Ptolemy's life. After that, in my opinion, all we can do is make educated guesses and inference.

We know that the planetary order based on orbital periods was known for centuries prior to Ptolemy (Plato cites a similar list but gets venus and mercury wrong). There are, for me, a whole host of ways in which we may have placed these in the zodiac. But it seems sensible that the order of the zodiac itself would feature in some way, and in that sense, with the order of the zodiac commencing in that sign which began the civil year in turn likely based on the vernal equinox which occurred more or less at the same time as the new civil year, that by extension the rulerships be associated with tropical positions - but personally I would happy to see the zodiac more abstract and so would be comfortable with sidereal astrologers applying the same rulerships to the sidereal zodiac.

If he was so explicit, then we probably can assume he would intend the rulership scheme to be kept associated with the old names, otherwise it's just a sidereal zodiac "in jumps", with the names of the signs periodically changing.

I don't follow your thinking. If Ptolemy suggested the first sign be always aries, and that the sign of aries begins at the equinox, and also that the rulerships are based on the seasons, then in no way can it be sidereal zodiac in jumps. In fact you could ignore the stars altogether.

Similarly, Curtis Mainwaring in an earlier thread re the straight and crooked signs (which are symmetrical around the antiscial axis):

I havne't double checked that thread, but the straight and crooked signs are symmetrical around the contra-antiscial axis. Is that what you meant? I don't know what Curtis' thoughts are on straight/crooked signs and rulership, or whether he'd be surprised. As I recall, rulership wasn't mentioned much or at all in that thread.

Couldn't this error (from a tropical perspective), if corrected from 15? Aries (as given by Manilius, clearly from an earlier tradition), have just as validly been corrected to 30? Aries rather than to 0? (since ephemeral sidereal considerations, the source of the error, shouldn't count in a new tropical perspective)?

I'm not sure what you mean, but I haven't read that article on antiscia (yet). But I have no idea what you mean by moving the point to 30? aries. In Firmicus' time, the vernal point and the beginning of aries weren't so far off. Keep in mind things like antiscia is not based on the zodiac per se, but rather based on declination of the sun, and it's only because so too is the tropical zodiac based on this, that we can make these sign based antiscia matches.

Now we can't simply move this around to suit ourselves, this is an actual astronomical property that we measure - the sun's declination. The only way it would make sense to move to 30? is if the solstice and equinox points are at 30?, because in effect this is what we're measuring here.

And if the error had "accumulated" to 15? and later 8 and 5 Aries, shouldn't we remove the accumulation, rather than adding more, in order to correct it?

What do you mean? Again, remember that the antiscia points are essentially mirror images along the solstice axis.

waybread wrote: Good call, Deb, on that early horoscope with planetary sign rulers. My guess, from looking at it plus Manilius and Valens, is that our current sign rulership system was thought of earlier in the history of horoscopic astrology, but it wasn't the only way of considering the nature of sign rulerships. Eventually it got standardized, and we no longer think of Vesta or Pallas as tutelary deities of their signs.

I'm not sure if this post by Deb puts to one side some of the arguments of your earlier post, so I'm just putting that to one side (not ignoring you).

I'm not really sure what astrological value (if any) Manillius was expecting of the tutelary deities. Of course Manilius actually doesn't give us some of the things on the planets that he had intended or claimed he would, so perhaps some of this was intended to be clarified.

Graham F wrote: This still doesn't state that the rulerships are to be fixed as they seemed to have been sidereally at the time, with the first sign after the spring equinox point ruled by Mars, the first after the Summer solstice by Moon, etc. And i think it interesting that weh Ptolemy did expose the logic of the rulership system (Ch 17), he "got it wrong" and put the solstice between Cancer and Leo, as I do find more logical.

Graham, I may be really misunderstanding some of your basic argument, but why do you suppose that the rulerships seemed to be sidereal in nature at the time? What evidence do you have that they were sidereal?

Once again you talk here, and earlier in some of the points I replied to in my previous reply, but also in the other thread, which I highlighted, as if Ptolemy 'places' the solstice somewhere in a pre-existing sidereally defined zodiac. But really that's not the case. It's not like ptolemy arbitrarily decided where the vernal point might go. These things are astronomical points which are measured. Rather than have the vernal point move into Pisces, he took the notion, basically, that so many of the qualities of Aries derive from the fact that the equinox is there, that he put aries on the equinox point (rather than put the equinox in aries).

So if Ptolemy got something wrong, what he got wrong was a clear definition of why the rulerships are related to the seasons. Not the tropical zodiac itself, which is what you appear to imply.

Not only do we have records like those you link to, but as I said, it looks like it was first designed for a time when the solstice was indeed between (sidereal) Cancer and Leo, making those "the most northerly", "at our zenith".

Which, if it were true, would mean that the scheme of rulership, the logic of which Ptolemy talks about, derives from a time 30? (more or less) prior to where the vernal point was in his own time. Just working out precession to be 1? every 72 years, that's about 2160 years before he was writing. So about 2000 BC - so the same time would have passed between this, and Ptolemy's time, as between the birth of Christ and us writing today.
Considering we just don't have evidence of the rulership scheme anywhere near that far back (instead only within the couple of centuries or so prior to Ptolemy) there's really absolutely no need whatsoever to suggest that the rulership scheme existed 2160BC (or even earlier, but this at the latest) and that the logic for it was preserved for this time, not mentioned by others until a couple of millennia later.

I guess ultimately if you really want to feel that this is what Ptolemy meant, then I won't try to convince you otherwise. Ultimately I'm sure we're not likely to change our viewpoints too easily, but can agree to disagree.

So as not to interrupt the flow of conversation, and with family acclivities today including the new Star Wars movie, I want to very briefly clear up two points:

(1) In my comments about the zodiac, I meant that I didn't believe there was mention in early writings prior to Ptolemy that rulerships were related to the Sun's northern hemisphere declination. Of course the rulerships existed earlier, and this relates to the second point,

(2) the "mystery" period between Babylonian astrology and the appearance of an intact Hellenistic system, in many ways very different from the astrology of Mesopotamia.

Robert Schmidt has emphasized this mystery, as there is no history of the development of the basic system of Hellenistic astrology. It just appeared "out of the blue" more or less. Schmidt suggests that it was the brain child of one man or a group of astrologers. Others have suggested that the system was known by priests in the temples and was made public at a certain date. All we have is references here and there to Hermes, Asclepius and Nechepso and Petosiris.

All we have is references here and there to Hermes, Asclepius and Nechepso and Petosiris.

And (from Valens alone): Critodemus, Hermippus of Smyrna, Thrasyllus, Soudines, Kidenas, plus references to the works of Orion, Zoroaster, Abraham, etc.

We know that Berossus migrated from Babylon to Kos around 290 BCE to open a school, so I think the line of transmission is there, but we cannot judge it by the absence of charts because it was not the norm to publish charts (Valens knew he was being exceptional in that regard and criticises the older astrologers for not demonstrating charts out of a sense of possessiveness, or not wanting their teachings to go beyond the circle of their own initiates).

But still, Valens describes such difficulty in being able to dig out the principles from obscure teachings that we can only imagine that it was very difficult to get easy access to astrological works until much later.

Enjoy your Star Wars Therese!

Graham, the prospect that originally the equinoxes and solstices were expected to fall in the middle of the signs is very strong, not only because of the text references that allude to that, but because this fits the timeline of precession: earliest developments towards the zodiac occur around 8th-7th centuries BCE, with the ability to define the ecliptic and the Sun?s four quarters - we cannot assume a history of a Sun-based zodiac that goes back beyond this. So this fits with the VP sliding about 15 degrees to reach the first degree of Aries around the time that Ptolemy wrote about the matter.

There is not only no ancient text reference to suggest awareness of the VP at the end of Aries (rather than from the middle of it onwards); but astronomical reality would require the zodiac to be about 1000 years older than the historical reports we have of a breakthrough occurring around the time of Nabonassar, and that Thales of Miletus (640-545 BCE) had accomplished an astronomical feat by being able to teach knowledge of the Sun?s path from one end of the ecliptic to the other.

So that is the problem I am seeing with your proposal - a VP placement in the centre of Aries makes a lot of sense and has good support, a placement at the end of the sign doesn't.

With regard to how I paraphrased Ptolemy earlier, I was being a bit causal as I don't have a lot of time to follow this thread as closely as I?d like and my internet connection keeps dropping. There are other refs that I don't have time to dig out, but I hope you can see that what has been given already is sufficient to demonstrate the point. If anyone is seriously interested in this topic they should get a copy of the text of Geminios, who lived a couple of centuries before Ptolemy and gives the definition of the zodiac that Ptolemy gives, as well as explaining how Greek astronomers placed the VP at 0 Aries, whilst Babylonian astronomers placed it at 8 Aries (I don't have that book with me right now, so factor in that I am being casual here too).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geminoss-Introd ... 069112339X