waybread wrote:Of course it is just possible that half-dozen actual men who practiced astrology coincidentally just happened to have the names of gods and mythical mortals. But all of them in FM's list of founders? This is highly unlikely; notably given naming practices in antiquity and the relationship of each god/hero cited by FM to the solar themes of death and return from the dead.!

I have never said that there was a one to one correspondence between authors and pseudonyms or that any of these were ever practicing astrologers.

The bold is indeed interesting, isn't it?

This thread has wandered so far off its original theme that it's become unhelpful for anyone who spends time reading it in the hope of finding information on that point. Hence, the new point of discussion should not be developed further here, although it would probably make an interesting new discussion if Waybread feels inclined to develop that. The same applies to other points that have been introduced as part of a meandering discussion.

I suggest that this thread is now closed, and that any final posts are only to resolve or add information on points related to the original question.

It's early on Christmas morning, and although a little over 6, I don't share Nixx's view that Christmas is an irrelevance, so to all who have contributed, or check into the forum today:

Nixx, now that the house has quieted down in my time zone, and not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse, I have some time for what I really enjoy: discussing astrology's origins. But if I hear a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer on the roof, I will have to postpone the discussion. Since we have just a stovepipe, not a proper chimney; any jolly old elf up there may need some assistance.

If your taking me to task involves haggling over whether Robert Schmidt proposed an essentially unified astrology (as his article you linked surely suggests) or something more diverse-- I don't think this particular game is worth it. No doubt his views have changed over time. If you want to argue that he or the corps of neo-Hellenistic astrologers today acknowledge the diversity of Hellenistic astrology in antiquity, I am happy. I think it was diverse, too.

No, I don't think that Hellenistic astrology emerged fully formed, like Aphrodite on the half-shell. Few things do. Since this particular thread is about houses (ranging from whole signs vs. quadrant systems to thematic house contents) I will restrict most of my comments to houses.

Differences, if not actual contradictions, appear in the early itemization of topical house contents. I became intrigued by the question as to why this should be the case. For house #2, why should it simultaneously be the Gates of Hades and the house of provisionment? Why should the third be the house of the goddess, the moon, and brothers? We might see a goddess-moon connection and an opposition to the house of god in the 10th, but brothers? Then Egyptians, where some of the early astrologers worked, encoded the moon deity as male, not female. And these are just the simple ones.

And why the early attribution of astrological origins to Nechepso and Petosiris? Even if these were fictional people, does the text point us to a Hellenistic belief in mythical Egyptian origins?

Why should Maternus (IV:xxii) talk about decans as "fearful secrets which the revered ancients left wrapped in obscurity so that they should not come to the ears of the profane"? Why should he attribute "divine power" to them? This doesn't sound like a fully fledged Hellenistic astrology to me. It does sound like an Egyptian cultural astronomy with pretty ancient routes-- and roots-- in the matter of decans.

Why should a copyist/editor of Dorotheus (V:1) say that he is "following the tracks of the of the learned men... of Babylon and Egypt ... so that he might extract from their books..." if Hellenistic astrology emerged ex nihilo?

Why doesn't "scientist" Ptolemy name houses 2-6 at all? Is he avoiding something?

So what I am working on now is a theory that the content of astrological houses has a lot to do with Egyptian beliefs about the passage of the sun (as Deb has suggested), the deceased pharoah, and eventually the human soul through different specifically demarcated states in the underworld.

Shoot me and send me the reference, please, if you know someone who worked this out already.

We also have to think about the Graeco-Egyptian culture that existed in Egypt (including Alexandria) from about the 2nd century BC till late antiquity-- i.e., during the same time frame that Hellenistic astrology flourished. It shows up in the hermetic literature, in the Greek magical papyri, and actual horoscopes that have been uncovered in Egyptian archaeological finds (cf Otto Neugebauer's publications.) This was a real time and place of synthesis of Greek and Egyptian ideas; oftentimes with older Egyptian ideas merely being rescripted in Greek idioms.

And some of this material in Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 2nd ed. vol. 1 (University of Chicago Press, 1992) shows syncretistic, magical uses for astrology that goes way beyond sober-sides Valens or Ptolemy. Ot look at Neugebauer, ("Demotic Horoscopes, J. of the American Oriental Society 63:115-127, 1943) who translated 1st century Graeco-Roman AD horoscopes that call the 4th house "the lake of Dwat"-- Dwat (duat, tuat) being the Egyptian underworld, with various water bodies therein. The 10th house ("lake of the sky") also refers to the northern heavens, probably around Orion.

Ptolemy himself talks about Egyptian and Babylonian terms. Alexander Jones and John M. Steele ("A New Discovery of a Component of Greek Astrology in Babylonian Tablets..." ISAW Paper 1 (2011) http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/1/ think they've found evidence of the Babylonian terms in cuniform tablets that could date back several centuries BCE. See also F. Rochberg-Halton, "Elements of the Babylonian Contribution to Hellenistic Astrology," (1988) J. of the American Oriental Society (108:51-62) ( and her 2004 book, The Heavenly Writing.

On sources regarding philosophical underpinnings of Graeco-Roman astrology, surely you are familiar with Nicholas Campion, The Dawn of Astrology, chapters 9-13. Also: M. R. Right, Cosmology in Antiquity (Routledge, 1995). A recent source on ancient philosophers with relevance for astrology is Marilyn Lawrence, "Hellenistic Astrology," Internet Ecyclopedia of Philosophy (2010) http://www.iep.utm.edu. It goes some distance beyond Platonism. Mark T. Riley has written about Ptolemy's links to the "natural philosophy" of his day. These articles are linked on his website.

If you would be willing to link RS's article on middle Platonism, I would appreciate it.

Although RS talks about "universal astrology" I don't know how well the non-genethliacal branches of astrology are incorporated into contemporary Hellenistic astrology. Once we open them up, the case for the sudden emergence of a Hellenistic astrology diminishes even further.

I am puzzled by a kind of anti-intellectual current among some people interested in the history of astrology. We want to discover the past, but we don't want to cite our sources in self-published on-line articles? It doesn't compute for me.

Ours just crossed in the mail Deb-- and I am hearing reindeer on the roof just now, so "Merry Christimas to all, and to all a good night."

(Or one's holiday of choice.)

waybread wrote:Although RS talks about "universal astrology" I don't know how well the non-genethliacal branches of astrology are incorporated into contemporary Hellenistic astrology. Once we open them up, the case for the sudden emergence of a Hellenistic astrology diminishes even further.

I am puzzled by a kind of anti-intellectual current among some people interested in the history of astrology. We want to discover the past, but we don't want to cite our sources in self-published on-line articles? It doesn't compute for me.

It doesn't compute for me either. Please cite your sources / reasons for why you think what I've highlighted in bold is the case (i.e. - why a founding group could not have made a systematic effort at reworking the Mesopotamian concepts for example). I've never heard Schmidt say that the "founders" worked in a vacuum. It's easy to mistake "signal" for "noise" if one doesn't know what to look for, so please make it explicit with references so that I may be more convinced that your argument has sufficient intellectual merit.

I've already asked for everyone to make any further comments on matters not related to the opening topic their last one. So if Waybread does want to continue on this topic; it will have to be in a new thread. (See my note above - I'll repeat it below in case it gets overlooked).

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This thread has wandered so far off its original theme that it's become unhelpful for anyone who spends time reading it in the hope of finding information on that point. Hence, the new point of discussion should not be developed further here, although it would probably make an interesting new discussion if Waybread feels inclined to develop that. The same applies to other points that have been introduced as part of a meandering discussion.

I suggest that this thread is now closed, and that any final posts are only to resolve or add information on points related to the original question.

It's early on Christmas morning, and although a little over 6, I don't share Nixx's view that Christmas is an irrelevance, so to all who have contributed, or check into the forum today:

Deb,

Oekey dokey, I think we have reached a bit of an impasse here now anyway.

It was my niece who said (kind of) no Xmas aged 6+ she is 5. I put her right on it being 7+. Youth today, I ask you........


Waybread,

The article had 2005 at the end, and I think his ideas - re-DEFINITONS AND FOUNDATIONS - have solidified.

Bringing the discussion back to House division more directly. Schmidt's hypothesis would presumably be there was one , agreed and fully worked out, system but as to whether this was Whole and/or a Quadrant?
Even if you discovered a tablet dated 13,847bce with the inscription WHOLE SIGN IS GREAT (OR RUBBISH) this would not, in itself, unduly compromise Schmidt's perception. His theory appears to be, crudely, a bunch of ''Middle Platonists'' went on a weekend retreat, selected the (ir) best bits of - Time is the Mind of Space - discovered to date, brainstormed them and then constructed a system which was largely original.

You are, a little pedantically, going back to the - if so then how come this topic/theme/meaning was put in this house here and not there. To reiterate, various authors were not privy to, or misunderstood, or mistranslated, or failed to decrypt........ the ?system?. Therefore arguably the only person in the world today who knows whether or not brothers, moon, goddess...were in this ??fully formed?? Hellenistic system?s third house is Schmidt. (You may have noticed earlier these types of conundrums appeared to be outside of Hermes ??comfort zone??).

I am familiar with some of your references, and would anticipate Schmidt being more familiar with them. I was requesting one which examined his recent theory directly, written by a Philosopher au fait with Middle Platonism. I do not know if he has written an article entitled ''Middle Platonism'' but wouldn't most of his publications pivot around this thought stream?

We have been instructed to call it a day on this thread. If you wish to undertake this list of predictive techniques challenge then I see you are instructed to start another thread? It may take you until next Christmas to cover the ground, and then some. Rather you than me. As someone who is superglued to the fence on this one, I would be most curious to see the results, if done properly.



Merry Xmas to all, may your parsnips be truly roasted.