Skyscript Astrology Forum

Hi Deb and fellows,

as I see the conversation has turned to restart a debate about which we should take as favourable and which as dismissed house system. Personally, I'm much more interested in historical facts because, while there are endless arguments and counter-arguments in favour of several systems, we still possess relatively little information about the history of domification. And it ought not to be overlooked. Don't forget that the emerge of modern astrology stems back to the overall rule of reason that in turn wasn't rooted enough in tradition. Sorry, I don't want to critisize; I'm almost indifferent when it comes to modern astrology or favourable house system. Even then, I must say, without any evaluation, that Regiomontanus chose a system later named of him not because it was good for him, but because in a certain geometrical ground this system (originally devised by al-Jayy?n? in the 11th century) seemed to be more logical to him than the so-called Gazulus-Campanus system. That's why he calls it methodus rationalis. And, if I'm entitled to do that, I'd also challenge a widespread legend about Lilly: he seems to have used Regiomontanus' system not because he had experienced each system and this was the one that worked; simply he followed the practice of his age, using the only available tables, those of Regiomontanus, supported by the authority of a reknown astronomer, or in other words, he adapted for the fashion. Of course, not only he was the one who did so, and it doesn't mean that he was mistaken. It's only a plausible historical assumption, nothing more.

Now I'd reply to the terminological issue.

Deb wrote:I have a different perspective because, for some time now, I have been increasingly convinced that ancient (pre-Ptolemaic) astrology was much more integrally bound to concepts of time than we currently make allowance for. The tropical zodiac was designed to represent the year; the zodiac signs were designed to represent the months of the year; the degrees were intended to represent the days of the month; and therefore it seems quite possible that, even from the start, houses were intended to represent the 2-hourly divisions of the day.

Well, I can agree that, in a certain form, the zodiac with its portions represents a clockface. It may be true in the case of a year, a month or a day, but if we turn to the day as a 24-hours unit, we are perhaps supposed to use the celestial equator instead of the ecliptic. So while in a sense it can be similar to a regular clock with a face and two hands, in this case actually we should assume that there are two clockfaces: the first is the zodiac for the "hour" (i.e. month) hand while the second is the equator for the "minute" (i.e. double-hour) hand. But it's only theory and the pantry is always full of theories.

Deb wrote:There seems to be a number of ancient references where terminology related to houses and hours is used interchangeably (just as words related to days and degrees are often used interchangeably too).

Deb wrote:Dorotheus ? 1.8 (Pingree p.167). Pingree translates the word as 'days' but includes a bracket to show that 'degrees' are meant. (The same section is possibly interchanging terminology for hours and houses. It is entitled ?Knowledge of the masculine and feminine ?hours? of the nativity?).

This section is highly problematic. It's hardly understandable, the terms (s??a or ?hour? which also means ?time? and yaum or ?day?) used in this environment are awkward and, as a matter of fact, there's no corresponding Greek testimonium. While Pingree cites the Greek sources, Rhetorius V 18 (known both from Epitome II and III) and the anonymous commentary to Ptolemy I 22, they only say that, at counting the twelfth-division (d?dekat?morion), Dorotheus preferred multiplication by 12. This is similar to but not identical with the Arabic description. Moreover, in this section the text gives uses the word-by-word expression, al-ajz?? for ?division? albeit in other parts, namely in Book V, the translator, ?Umar exclusively uses Persian bahr?. It makes me suspicious about the originality of the whole section which seems to have been inserted later and this appears on folio 4 of the older manuscript, Yeni Cami 784. But I may be mistaken.

Deb wrote:Liber Hermetis, XII (Robert Zoller?s Latin translation reads ?on the 13th degree of February? and is corrected by Robert Hand?s footnote 2 (p.31) where he says that clearly the text means ?the day of February, not the ?degree??).

This text (which is sometimes also called Epitome V of Rhetorius) is a translation of Valens V, 4, 18 (Pingree, p. 205,9-10). It's oldest, 13th century manuscript, Vaticanus graecus 191 which is also the only surviving hyparchetypus, contains this text on folio 97: est? de epi hupodeigmatos Hadrianou etos d?, Mecheir ig?, h?ra nukterin? a? (Pingree emends ?Mecheir? to the orthographically more correct ?Mechir?). The translation: ?let it be as an example the 4th year of the era of Hadrian, the 13th month Mechir, the 1st nighly hour?. The text contains neither ?portion? (moira) nor ?day? (h?mera) but it doesn't mean it couldn't.
Comparing to it, the sole surviving manuscript, Harleianus 3731 of the Latin translation writes neither gradus nor dies. On folio 6vb the manuscript reads: uerbi gracia adriani est in tertio decimo g februarii hora prima nocturna. The letter ?g? is out of place, so the first editor, Gundel suggested to supply it as gradus while Pingree uses dies; however, the latest critical edition (Feraboli, p. 31,30-31) gives the text as ?verbi gratia Hadriani [annus quartus] est in tertio decimo Februarii hora prima nocturna?, having adopted a completion suggested by Kroll.
What happened? One scenario is that this ?g? is an abbreviation. In this case it should have existed in the original but the manuscript tradition doesn't support it. Certainly, it could have been dropped in an earlier stage of transmission. But there's another scenario: the Latin translator who transscribed the Greek digits to Latin words of numerals, by mistake put a ?g? after ?decimo? as a partial repeating of the Greek digit for 13. Nobody knows which is correct but I'd prefer the latter one.

I'm going on later.

Levente

Hi Levente

I?m not sure if your final comment meant that you have more to add, but as I have little time over the weekend I want to thank you now for the minefield of information in your post. I am going to carefully read your comments ? some of them I will probably wish to discuss when I have more time, and some of them, I think, will be better as separate threads in their own right. As I only have a little time this morning I just want to make a couple of quick and (hopefully) non-controversial comments.

And, if I'm entitled to do that, I'd also challenge a widespread legend about Lilly: he seems to have used Regiomontanus' system not because he had experienced each system and this was the one that worked; simply he followed the practice of his age, using the only available tables, those of Regiomontanus, supported by the authority of a reknown astronomer, or in other words, he adapted for the fashion. Of course, not only he was the one who did so, and it doesn't mean that he was mistaken. It's only a plausible historical assumption, nothing more.

I absolutely agree, but then I wasn?t aware of any legend to the contrary. Surely people don?t think that Lilly was a mathematical genius? He admits that he struggled with some of the technical concepts. He also, without doubt, followed Regiomontanus because at that time all the intellectual impetus in astrology came from that region and that group of German scholars. Lilly states this in the foreword of his work. What I meant, by saying if it was good enough for Regiomontanus and Lilly then it is good enough for me, is that the former committed more to the study of its technicalities than I ever could, and Lilly made great use of the system in practice.

On the theory in your pantry (And I know you were being free-flowing with your thoughts ?)

but if we turn to the day as a 24-hours unit, we are perhaps supposed to use the celestial equator instead of the ecliptic.

This is where I see the matter as relevant to this thread. Because whilst the civil hours relate to the equator, the planetary (or seasonal hours) are more related to the ecliptic, and that is one of the important points of connection between Ptolemy?s Almagest passage and the system we call Placidus. The seasonal hours are integrally bound to the order of the planetary rulership of days and the order of the decans (faces), so they were much more than mere markers for time ? they were deeply symbolic and the system as a whole was a fundamental astrological concept.

Again, thank you for the extra information you have provided in your other comments. I appreciate you going to this much trouble, and obviously want to give those historical remarks the attention they deserve.

Regards
Deb

Hi Deb,

Deb wrote:I absolutely agree, but then I wasn?t aware of any legend to the contrary.

Well, then it means the legend isn't as widespread as I thought.

Deb wrote:This is where I see the matter as relevant to this thread. Because whilst the civil hours relate to the equator, the planetary (or seasonal hours) are more related to the ecliptic, and that is one of the important points of connection between Ptolemy?s Almagest passage and the system we call Placidus. The seasonal hours are integrally bound to the order of the planetary rulership of days and the order of the decans (faces), so they were much more than mere markers for time ? they were deeply symbolic and the system as a whole was a fundamental astrological concept.

That's true but there's a real problem with time: a day is either a sidereal day or a solar day, and the latter loses its sense passing through the polar circles. Its a deeply complicated issue.

But now I'll go back to the terminological issue.

Deb wrote:Haly, ?Judgements?; Pars Sexta, p.295

If I understand it well, you point to Chapter 15 of Book 6 in Kit?b al-b?ri? of Ab? 'l-Hasan ?Al?. Perhaps I'm mistaken but it seems to be a description how to count the months and days in a solar revolution. I don't really know what you mean.

Deb wrote:Masha?allah: Chapter IV: A question from a sick man

I checked two editions of De receptione of M?sh??all?h (1491 and 1549). The texts run as follows (interpunction omitted):

1491 edition by Boneto Locatello wrote:Aspexi ergo quis planetarum septem iungeretur ei uel quis eorum separaretur ab eo a Saturno scilicet qui erat in infirmitate dignior inuenique Venerem separatam a Saturno qui erat dominus domus infirmitatis septem diebus a domo infirmitatis qui erat Venus in domo infirmitatis. Significauit igitur Venus diminutionem morbi eo quod separaretur a Saturno qui erat dominus domus infirmitatis per septem gradus et iungebatur Marti qui eam recipit et ipsa recipit eum.

1549 edition by Joachim Heller wrote:Aspexi ergo quis planetarum septem iungeretur ei uel quis eorum separaretur ab eo a Saturno scilicet qui erat in infirmitate dignior inuenique Venerem separatam a Saturno qui erat dominus domus infirmitatis septem diebus a domo infirmitatis quia erat Venus in domo infirmitatis. Significauit igitur Venus diminutionem morbi eo quod separaretur a Saturno quia erat dominus domus infirmitatis per septem gradus et iungebatur Marti qui recipit eam et uicissim ab ea recipitur.

I marked the differences in words and phrases with bold. Assuming that the Heller version is a stylistically improved one, the ending must have been changed. But even then, the first ?qui? should be emended so as to be grammatically correct. (This isn't the case with the second one which was corrected ineptly.) Any further emendation ought to be carried on the ground of manuscripts but as there's neither critical edition nor access to the manuscripts, I'd risk it on my own.
This short portion is very garbled: it refers to the ?house of infirmity? no less than five times and it mentions Saturn being the ?lord of the house of infirmity? three times, whilst it's already been announced at the beginning of the paragraph as well. On this ground I'd seclude several phrases in the text, to emend it to this form (asterisks for the missing phrases):

Aspexi ergo quis planetarum septem iungeretur ei uel quis eorum separaretur ab eo * inuenique Venerem separatam a Saturno *, qu[ae] erat * in domo infirmitatis. Significauit igitur Venus diminutionem morbi eo quod separaretur a Saturno, qui erat dominus domus infirmitatis, per septem gradus et iungebatur Marti, qui eam recipit et ipsa recipit eum.

This gives an acceptable translation (based on Dykes):

Therefore I looked to see which of the seven planets was being joined to him, or which of them was being separated from him, and I found Venus, separated from Saturn, who (i.e. Venus) was in the house of infirmity. Therefore Venus signified the decrease of the disease, because she was being separated from Saturn, the lord of the house of infirmity, by seven degrees, and she was being joined to Mars, who received her, and she herself received him.

Perhaps it's too much abridgement but even then I'm convinced that the text severely suffers from dittography which is the case in the seven degrees, mistakenly written days in the first instance.

Deb wrote:Lilly ? Look at the text under his picture in the frontispiece, where the 1st of May is written as 1 (degree symbol) May.

Well, ?1? MA?? seems to be an abbreviation for ?primo Maii?. This little ring isn't a degree symbol but a so-called masculine ordinal indicator.

Regards,

Levente

Hi Levente

That's true but there's a real problem with time: a day is either a sidereal day or a solar day, and the latter loses its sense passing through the polar circles. Its a deeply complicated issue.

I agree that time is a complicated issue - ancient time-keeping systems are really quite fantastic mathematical and astronomical achievements, bursting with symbolic consequence! But I would suggest that the problems connected to polar circles are modern concerns and were not of relevance to ancient astrologers working around the Mediterranean region. They also had a much more essential view of the Sun as being (or at least being representative of) 'the day'. This is one of the reasons why ancient astrologers were happy to use a measure of 1 degree per day, because of the philiosophical connection between the two.

With regard to the Masha?allah quote, I had made my own (quite literal) translation from the Joachim Heller edition. Unabridged, it reads:

Therefore I considered which of the seven planets were joining to him, or which of them were separating from him, that is from Saturn, who was dignified in [the matter of] infirmity. I found Venus separating from Saturn, who was the lord of the house of sickness, seven degrees from the lord of sickness, because Venus is in the house of sickness. Venus therefore signifies the diminishing of the sickness, because of her separation from Saturn, who was the lord of the house of sickness, by seven degrees, and because of her joining with Mars who receives her, and in turn is received by her. Indeed, he receives her from his exaltation, and she receives him from her house.

I take your point about the dittography, but I would need much more experience and confidence in Latin before I dared to make the kind of abridgement that you have done (and even then I'm not sure that I ever should). Comparing the two we seem to have come to the same place regarding the essential meaning of this little piece of text (however, I am open to improvement on the Latin).
My main interest in this passage is to suggest the word diebus, found in both Latin sources, translated as 'days' by Hand and Dykes, should, in this context, mean 'degrees'. This is how you have translated it, although you say:

Perhaps it's too much abridgement but even then I'm convinced that the text severely suffers from dittography which is the case in the seven degrees, mistakenly written days in the first instance.

This is my point ? that it was not necessarily a mistake, but that the word could have an extended meaning because of the identification between the concepts of the day and the ecliptic degree. The word appears in both Latin editions so it would have had to have been overlooked twice. However, a great deal of explanation is necesary for me to illustrate my full argument, or support little points such as this, so as I said at the start, in this thread I am only offering a few speculative thoughts that others may wish to keep in mind. (But I do hope to come back to some more of your points when I have finished the piece of work that I am currently struggling to get finished).

Well, ?1? MA?? seems to be an abbreviation for ?primo Maii?. This little ring isn't a degree symbol but a so-called masculine ordinal indicator.

- Yes, I agree with that. I had noted this as something I wanted to check, and you have spared me the trouble. (looking into this briefly this morning, I am now intrigued by how little is known about the history of the degree symbol).

Thanks again for your comments,
Deb

Well, ?1? MA?? seems to be an abbreviation for ?primo Maii?. This little ring isn't a degree symbol but a so-called masculine ordinal indicator.

Perhaps interesting to know that the Germans write "Der 1. Mai". They use a point, maybe this is related to that 'degree' like mark.

Hi Deb and fellows,

Deb wrote:But I would suggest that the problems connected to polar circles are modern concerns and were not of relevance to ancient astrologers working around the Mediterranean region.

I couldn't agree more.

Deb wrote:They also had a much more essential view of the Sun as being (or at least being representative of) 'the day'. This is one of the reasons why ancient astrologers were happy to use a measure of 1 degree per day, because of the philiosophical connection between the two.

Yes, it's clearly true. I would also say that this frame is based upon the reason of Egyptian calendar which used 12 months, each having 30 days. Only the epagomenal days were missing.

Deb wrote:I take your point about the dittography, but I would need much more experience and confidence in Latin before I dared to make the kind of abridgement that you have done (and even then I'm not sure that I ever should). Comparing the two we seem to have come to the same place regarding the essential meaning of this little piece of text (however, I am open to improvement on the Latin).
My main interest in this passage is to suggest the word diebus, found in both Latin sources, translated as 'days' by Hand and Dykes, should, in this context, mean 'degrees'. This is how you have translated it, although you say:

Perhaps it's too much abridgement but even then I'm convinced that the text severely suffers from dittography which is the case in the seven degrees, mistakenly written days in the first instance.

This is my point ? that it was not necessarily a mistake, but that the word could have an extended meaning because of the identification between the concepts of the day and the ecliptic degree. The word appears in both Latin editions so it would have had to have been overlooked twice. However, a great deal of explanation is necesary for me to illustrate my full argument, or support little points such as this, so as I said at the start, in this thread I am only offering a few speculative thoughts that others may wish to keep in mind.

Oh yes, I'm ready to admit that I was a sort of audacious to suggest textual corrections on the sole ground of printed editions. That's only a suspicion of mine which could be strenghtened or disapproved by the examination of manuscripts. It's a pity that the original Arabic isn't extant. I'll see what I could do and if it's possible, I'll try to obtain copies of the manuscripts of the surviving Latin translation. The On Receptions of M?sh??all?h is a very important source (I think only On Questions by Sahl ibn Bishr can be compared to it in importance), so I really deserves a good edition. The late David Pingree planned to make a full publication of the works of M?sh??all?h but I don't know if anyone assumed the project. BTW a good edition of Bonatti would be also welcomed but it's a gigantic enterprise. I say it because, to my mind, there is a severe confusion with the exact rules of radicality, if I want to give an example.
The only thing I say is that a single, perhaps garbled passage by M?sh??all?h and a somewhat dubious section from the ?Umar Dorotheus makes the proof of your theory about interchangeability of ?day? and ?degree? in astrological context really difficult.

Deb wrote:I am now intrigued by how little is known about the history of the degree symbol

Wikipedia says it comes from the glyph of Sun but no reference is added.

Eddy wrote:Perhaps interesting to know that the Germans write "Der 1. Mai". They use a point, maybe this is related to that 'degree' like mark.

Yes, it's possible. However, the usage of full stop is quite common in Central and Northern Europe, for instance, in the orthography of my mother tongue, too.

Just one addition: I checked the references to a Paulus scholium and a part of the Olympiodorus commentary which Deb shared with me generously. It's again about the question whether quadrant system was used by the Greeks.

Deb wrote:We don't have the evidence to determine that Paulus used whole-sign houses exclusively. And this sort of comment ignores the very passionate plea in the scholia of chapter 28 of Paulus' work, which states that he discusses the division of the places, stressing

?the Horoscopos is primary for every inception and nativity ? both foundation and prelude, not only of the pivots, but also the rest of the places?. (Greenbaum p. 61)

This is scholium 82 referring to chapter 28 of Paulus, and the only manuscript containing it is Marcianus graecus 303 which was copied in 14th and 15th centuries. Probably it was made in the circle of Isaac Argyrus in the 14th century.

Deb wrote:This passage then leads into a discussion on the principles of quadrant division. Olympiodorus elaborates further, admitting that there is ambiguity and difference of opinion, but stating that those who define the place as the sign use a reckoning that causes faults. And he states:

But one of the ancients, whose name time has handed down in the depths of forgetfulness, taking as a starting point what has been said by the most divine Ptolemy, that one must take the hour-marking place from 5 degrees of those pre-ascending the hour-marking degree, sets out a method that seems better than all the others (Greenbaum, p.119).

Olympiodorus is quite late, but we find a similar passage, informing the astrologer not to rely upon the signs to define the houses, in the text of Valens, Rhetorius, and others. Hence I personally find it hard to believe that of all the astrologers who wrote out this passage, not one of them took it seriously.

I found that this passage doesn't come from Olympiodorus but from the school of John Abramius which existed in late 14th and early 15th centuries. The only whole and uncontaminated manuscript of Olympiodorus is Vindobonensis philosophicus graecus 115 whose folio 191v has the end of chapter 23 and the beginning of chapter 24 but this very portion, typed in smaller size on pages 75-78 of de Boer's edition, belongs to class ? which is a product of the school of John Abramius.
To conclude, I still haven't found any instance of using a quadrant method in Greek literature. The exceptions are, of course, Valens and the interpreters of Ptolemy.

Regards,

Levente

To conclude, I still haven't found any instance of using a quadrant method in Greek literature. The exceptions are, of course, Valens and the interpreters of Ptolemy.

That comment is loaded with contradiction don't you think? For example, the passages you say are suspect because they come from the translation efforts of later scholars, and are not whole and uncontaminated in the earlier sources, would be suspect if there were no earlier precedent - but since we have the example from Valens, which he ascribes to an earlier source, it doesn't seem sensible to suggest that later translators falsified all the other documents and inserted additional passages of text that looked similar to the one that Valens included; though obviously not the same.

But at this point, of course, I am accepting a lot of your opinions until I can check the details of the manuscript transmissions for myself. For example, going back to the start of your critical analysis of the sources, you say

As I pointed out, the nativity itself might or may not have come really from Rhetorius, but having compared the chart to the other surviving versions, I'm rather convinced that the step-by-step instructions come from Demophilus himself.

You see this point alone is going to take quite a lot of research, unless I simply accept your opinion without justification for why I should. It is too big a shift from the matter I am currently working on, for me to try to do justice to that discussion right now, but I do hope to be able to spend more time on that, because it is a hugely important passage, and the points made were relevant to the ancient astrologers. Hence, why would it not be authentic? At this moment of time I believe it is, because of so many connecting arguments, but if it is not, an even more interesting question arises of why should someone try to falsify it, and how we moved from a situation where everything was whole sign, and then everything changed so dramatically and suddenly without evidence of massive astrological aguments and internal debate. Simply does not make sense.

You say that you "haven't found any instance of using a quadrant method in Greek literature" but I think it has to be born in mind that Greek charts did not publish house cusp details, which might suggest that they were using a whole sign approach, but it doesn?t disapprove an easy to calculate system such as Porphyry. The only chart diagram which portrays any degree of detail in Neugebauer's and Van Hoesen's Greek Horoscopes (p.163) shows a reproduction of a literary horoscope held in the Laurentian library, which appears in three ancient manuscripts, one of which affirms that it was constructed by the philosopher Eutocius, at Alexandria in 497 AD. The one demonstrated example shows the use of Porphyry house cusps, and although this is a 10th century reproduction we would have to assume that a lot of minor details were being falsified if they were not being simply copied from an older authentic source. Now that we have computers, we can check how perfectly the details of this chart fits to computer reconstruction of the cusps and planetary hours, etc. I can't see what motivation later copyists would have for inventing chart details, for which they would have had to have recalculated using planetary data, original time recording methods, local sunrise information - it would not have been at all easy for them.


On the matter of my speculation re days and degrees:

The only thing I say is that a single, perhaps garbled passage by M?sh??all?h and a somewhat dubious section from the ?Umar Dorotheus makes the proof of your theory about interchangeability of ?day? and ?degree? in astrological context really difficult.

I am still increasingly convinced about what I wrote, but I am happy to accept that. After all, it was hardly a 'theory' or a submission for verification and acceptance From the start, didn?t I make it crystal clear that I was sharing some speculative thoughts that were coming out of some deeper research I am currently working on? I said

However, this is a point that I do need to research more deeply, clarifying the possible purpose of original terms, etc. and it is likely to be some time before I can give this the attention it needs. So I can only offer my view that the notion of the ascendant and the temporal house system is much older than we realise, with the admission that it is currently speculative (but not unreasonable).

The quotes I gave following that were quite casual, offered from a casual collection of casual notes, because I didn?t expect anyone would want to take apart an argument that had not yet been made. (And as I also said, there is some other evidence that I don?t want to offer so casually because it needs explanation and relates to what I am currently working on). The whole point of my post was simply to open other people?s mind to this prospect, which I said then, and say again now, is speculative but not unreasonable - because it is amazing how people see exactly what they are told to see. That?s the reason why, from the start, your explanation of North?s comments sounded suspect to me. I have never read his work, but I do know that at that time, scholars of ancient astrology were not seeing the whole sign house system everywhere as modern scholars are, because they were not being told that they should see it everywhere. I don?t see the evidence as being black and white and I think it is better to admit some ambiguity and confusion than to try to make a stronger argument than the evidence suggests.

So I am happy for the suggestion about the interchangeability of the degree and day to be left as ?currently difficult to prove?. It is not a theory, but something I wanted people to consider. And it has certainly been considered, so that's OK

Regards
Deb

I still haven't found any instance of using a quadrant method in Greek literature. The exceptions are, of course, Valens and the interpreters of Ptolemy.

In:
Babylonian Astronomy. III. The Earliest Astronomical Computations
Author(s): B. L. van der Waerden
Source: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Jan., 1951), pp. 20-34
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/542419
on p. 26-27 ?VIII
I found something that might be seen as a sort of 'Proto-Placidean' method. I don't think that this is wishfull thinking of my side because Placidus isn't my favourite system.

Two used methods of time were used, astronomical and popular/astrological. Astronomical division of the (equatorial) circle was in 12 B?ru of 30 Us each (it resembles the schematical year). Further there was the division into 'seasonal hours'. Based upon three 'watches' per day and three per night divided by two and four.

Every quote in this post is from Van der Waerden's article.

v.d. Waerden wrote:We have seen that the seasonal hours
occurred already on the circular astrolabe,
and that they were obtained by halving
and again halving the three "watches"
of the day.
It is clear that these watches, halfwatches,
and quarter-watches or seasonal
hours, were, in Babylonia, just as well as
in Greece and Rome, popular units of
time.

&

the older astrological
texts use the popular division of
day and night. The omen of an eclipse
depends on the night watch in which it
takes place.

&

If, e.g., the time
of an eclipse was measured in beru and
us by water clocks, this time had to be
converted into watches and quarterwatches
in order to be used for astrological
predictions.

The article mentions a Babylonian recording of an eclipse in astronomical time and a recording by Ptolemy (possibly based upon Hipparchus) of the same eclipse yet expressed in seasonal hours.

The scientific record is found
in line 19 of the text Strm. Kambys. 400
and runs:17
Year 7 Duzu 14 in the night 1 2/3 beru after
sunset a lunar eclipse, visible from the beginning
to the end, extending over the northern
half of the disk.
The other record is found in Ptolemy
(Syntaxis v. 14) and runs:
In the seventh year of Kambyses, in the
night following the seventeenth Egyptian
Phamenoth, one hour before midnight, a lunar
eclipse was seen at Babylon, extending over
half of the diameter from the North.

So a
Babylonian astrologer, starting from the
observed 1 2/3 beru, would convert this time
with the aid of his table and report to his
lord that the eclipse took place five seasonal
hours after sunset, or one hour before
midnight.

So perhaps these seasonal hours inspired the use of (Placidus-like) quadrant systems. I wonder when the planetary hours first came into use.

Thanks for this reference Eddy. This is one of the sources I used years ago when I was researching my book on the houses, but all the old research notes are lost now, and I had forgotten about this. I do feel that we need to put the probes into this older material to understand how it underlies the techniques of classical astrology.

This again seems to be what Ptolemy is explaining in the Almagest, and I don?t think there is any doubt that this acts as the philosophical basis of the ?Placidean? house system. What we lack at the moment is clear evidence that the inspiration was deliberate, and not mistakenly assumed centuries later. I would only be repeating myself to say that I believe the links between the division of time and space were too relevant to ignore, and this is exactly the kind of material that needs more research.

One point that gets stressed a lot by academic researchers, which astrologers sometimes overlook, is that Ptolemy did not invent the ?Ptolemaic world-view? ? he merely offered an explanation and justification for the system that was in place at his time; and he was doing a similar thing with a lot of the material in the Tetrabiblos and Almagest ? much of it was based on the older material of the Babylonians.

The ascendant was known as the most important point in any nativity ? the rudder, and we shouldn?t overlook its name ?the hour marker?. The oldest example of its use has currently been dated to 4 BC, but we make a big mistake if we say that the ascendant was not used until 4 BC. All this tells us, is that, at least by 4 BC, the ascendant was being marked upon charts. I would bet my life blood that knowledge and notation of the ascendant was much, much more ancient. It had to be, because as Waerden says, one of the first things the Babylonian astronomers learned to compute was the duration of the day and night; and this involved the use of the planetary hours. I know the planetary hours are extremely old, but I?m not sure exactly how old. We also get the use of the decans, of course, which were using the constellations as time markers from the 3rd century BC in Egypt.

Gotta go - Lilly had it right didn?t he? about art being longer than life

Deb wrote:The ascendant was known as the most important point in any nativity ? the rudder, and we shouldn?t overlook its name ?the hour marker?. The oldest example of its use has currently been dated to 4 BC, but we make a big mistake if we say that the ascendant was not used until 4 BC. All this tells us, is that, at least by 4 BC, the ascendant was being marked upon charts. I would bet my life blood that knowledge and notation of the ascendant was much, much more ancient. It had to be, because as Waerden says, one of the first things the Babylonian astronomers learned to compute was the duration of the day and night; and this involved the use of the planetary hours.

In the articles I read about Babylonian astrology it is emphasized that the Babylonians used arithmetical methods, counting the times, rather than geometrical/spherical trigonometry methods used by the Greeks. So I think that the Greeks were the first to use the exact position of the geometrical ascendant while the Babylonians used the rising moment of a planet in their astrology.

Hence we can read in Babylonian texts something like:
"If a child is born when Jupiter comes forth and Venus (had?) set, it will go exceptionally well with that man; his wife will leave......."
http://www.smoe.org/arcana/diss1.html This doesn't only illustrate the Babylonian view of rising/setting but perhaps their view on marriage as well.