Skyscript Astrology Forum

Pankajdubey wrote:

A few names changed and the posts of ?Steven missing.
9 years and so many missing fragments ;why blame the ancients if whole texts got lost in a millennia

Just to make clear Steven Birchfield unlilaterally chose to delete all his posts on Skyscript himself before leaving the forum. Neither action had anything to do with the moderators here. I have no idea why someone would do something like that. It took no account on the effect it would have on forum discussions for others. It has meant some threads Steven contributed to no longer make as much sense. Fortunately, with the quotes I gave from him it should be easy to follow this one.

Mark

Hello,

I am a new user on this forum. I am interested on that subject of moira and I have some questions about it. Firstly, I don't have the translations of Paulus & Olympiodorus yet. Also I feel dumb about it but I don't really understand how the texts are referenced in CCAG. About the "Liber Hermetis" when I search for it on the web I always get to the Po?mandres and the summary of it on Project Hindsight.
Is there at least an untranslated version pdf to download somewhere?
Is the T.A.R.E.S. volume II from Project Hindsight a collection of translations of thoses classical texts?

From what I have read on this topic there is at least three kind of moira used in hellenistic period: one based on chaldean order, one based on triplicities by day or night, another is based on triplicities by day and night. but the description is ambiguous and I am not sure if I have not misunderstood it. So I have made a quick schema diagram to be clear because I am not a native english speaker.
edit:I updated the table Am I correct or not?

Fran?ois F. wrote:Hello,

I am a new user on this forum. I am interested on that subject of moira and I have some questions about it.

Hi Fran?ois,

I've been waiting for one of the moderators to welcome you, but everyone may be a bit slow in getting back to the forum after the holidays. Your English is flawless, quite excellent!! Superior to so-called English here in the States.

Firstly, I don't have the translations of Paulus & Olympiodorus yet. Also I feel dumb about it but I don't really understand how the texts are referenced in CCAG.

I don't think any of us are experts on CCAG references.

About the "Liber Hermetis" when I search for it on the web I always get to the Po?mandres and the summary of it on Project Hindsight. Is there at least an untranslated version pdf to download somewhere?

I only know about Robert Zoller's translation through Project Hindsight which is out of print. I do have a copy as one of the original Project Hindsight subscribers. We were very fortunate to be there "at the moment."

Is the T.A.R.E.S. volume II from Project Hindsight a collection of translations of those classical texts?

Volume II is a translation and commentary on Antiochus with additions from Porphyry, Rhetorius, Serapio, Thrasyllus, Antigonus et al. (from the cover) The book could easily form the basis for a semester-long university course. The text has to be studied rather than simply read.

From what I have read on this topic there is at least three kind of moira used in hellenistic period: one based on chaldean order, one based on triplicities by day or night, another is based on triplicities by day and night. but the description is ambiguous and I am not sure if I have not misunderstood it. So I have made a quick schema diagram to be clear because I am not a native English speaker.

I think that perhaps you have learned more about the kinds of moira than anyone else on this forum! The diagram you submitted is very helpful. This is really the study of degrees of the zodiac. I have been studying the half degrees in Jyotish, the shastyamsas.

I am going to take up the influence of degrees on the subject of Mars for boxers (and tennis players). The forum topic here is "Accidental Dignity." http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 939#100939

Welcome to the forum, Fran?ois!

Therese

Indeed, welcome to the forum! I didn't reply in this thread because I haven't studied the classical sources on the degrees and so have little to add. And I am no expert in the CCAG either, but I'd be happy to try and help if you tell me more precisely what the problem is. Then again, perhaps Chris Brennan or someone else working more closely with Greek sources would be a better help.

Hi Fran?ois,

your diagrams seem to represent the monomoiria (individual degree-assignments) correctly. I think the second version of "Paulus 2" is the correct one, but let me give some remarks on the whole issue.

The individual degree-assignments apparently stem back to the mythical Egyptian founders of classical astrology, perhaps to Nechepsos himself. The key evidence is the remark in Paul of Alexandria's Introduction, chapter 33, who refers to the Egyptian sages who used the degree-assignment according to trigon lords (your "Paulus 2") to ascertain the exact degree of the ascendant. Perhaps the same system is referenced in Valens 9.7-8, but the exact procedure is rather obscure most likely due to both the difficult wording of the original source and the faulty transmission of Valens' text. The exact rationale of the assignment of planets to individual degrees itself, reported in Paul 32, may also be a riddle, as it also seems a faithful rendering of the obscure source text. Anyway, the scribes of Paul's (and Rhetorius') manuscripts struggled with the text so much that none of their tabulations give correct results. (The current scholarly consensus holds that Paul's work was abbreviated and incorporated into the still unpublished Book VI of Rhetorius; I have my doubts on the authorship.) Fortunately the reasoning is not desperately difficult to reconstruct a table (which you did in the second version of "Paulus 2"), which rationale can be corroborated with lectures 34-35 of Olympiodorus on Paul. (Where the manuscripts commit mistakes again.)

I'm pretty sure that the individual degree-assignments given in chapter 35 of On the 36 decans (De triginta sex decanis, also known as Liber Hermetis) is only a variation of this "Egyptian" scheme. This book, fully extant only in a 15th century manuscript, is probably a 13th century Latin translation of one or more Greek texts, which is attributed to Hermes (to whom hundreds of texts of different languages were attributed over the centuries), although only chapter 1 is Hermetic in strict sense. Chapter 35 is fairly impossible to date, but other portions of the text were written not earlier than 480, thus it might represent a late 5th century assemblage, a century older than Paul. Here the lot of fortune is scrutinized to see how many years one can expect to live, and given the obscurity of the source text and the convoluted textual history of the passage, it's not surprising that the scheme somewhat differs from the "Egyptian" one.

An entirely different system (your "Paulus 1") is attributed to the 1st century astrologer Critodemus by Valens (4.26), who based a time-lord system on it. Perhaps the system, based on the seven zone (also known as the "Chaldean order" in the modern parlance), is not Critodemus' own but might also go back to the "Egyptians", since their purposes clearly differ. This is reported in Paulus 5 (the related Olympiodorus lecture is lost). Here only one passage (faultily) edited as "scholium 15" in one of the best manuscripts of Paul, Paris, BNF, gr. 2506 (where it is a part of chapter 441), elucidates what to do with the degree-assignments: it constitutes a sort of sympathy between degrees of different signs even if these signs are unconfigured with each other. This is the system used in the elaborate horoscope attributed to Eutocius, dated to 497, in Rhetorius 6.52, which has been only partially edited and then translated in Greek Horoscopes, and perhaps the same is referred in chapter 22 of Epitome IV of Rhetorius and its adaptation as chapter 218 of the Paris manuscript referred above. These latter texts were translated together in the Project Hindsight Companion to the Greek Track under the title of "The Byzantine Synthesis in Rhetorius". Unfortunately, neither the Eutocius horoscope nor the instructions of Rhetorius gives us any hint what to use the individual degree-assignments for.

The last source I know is an undatable horoscope from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. astron. 4277), which is from the late 2nd or early 3rd century. (You can find its edition in Alexander Jones's Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus.) It allots 7 Capricorn to Venus, 28 Taurus to Mercury, 28 Scorpio to Jupiter (here identical with the "Paulus 1" version), and either of 8, 9, or 10 Virgo to Venus. Since this is a primary document (a remnant of an elaborated horoscope on papyrus) and textual corruption can be excluded, it is an evidence for further alternatives in degree-assignments.

All this said, there don't seem to be more extant sources in Greek astrological literature regarding monomoiria (I haven't found any more information in CCAG, which is basically a catalogue of Greek manuscripts related to astrology), nor would it be received in Arabic astrology.

Wonderful, Levente (as always)! Your grasp of the sources is both impressive and inspiring.

Thank you for this excellent welcome Therese, Martin.

I was about to make this post but Levente Lazlo was faster and wonderfully clarified most of the question. I'll make this post anyway.

I only know about Robert Zoller's translation through Project Hindsight which is out of print. I do have a copy as one of the original Project Hindsight subscribers. We were very fortunate to be there "at the moment."

Thanks no problem. it seems not public domain book from Gundel "Neue astrologische Texte des Hermes Trismegistos" so I will not find a pdf.

I don't think any of us are experts on CCAG references.

No problem but are all known astrological texts of Paulus of Alexandria,Olympiodorus the younger, Balbilius, Hephaistio, Porphyry, Rhetorius, Serapio, Thrasyllus, Antigonus ... are contained in CCAG? I might take a look until I'll get the translation.

I think that perhaps you have learned more about the kinds of moira than anyone else on this forum! The diagram you submitted is very helpful. This is really the study of degrees of the zodiac.

In spite of my knowledge on this topic I am confused and hesitate about trigon ways of attributing degrees from what I have read there are some unclear points. I'll try to sum up:
Clear rules:

1-Attribute two first degree with diurnal and nocturnal lords of trigon then continue with next trigon in the order of the zodiac.

2
a-Reverse sect when day or night chart with Paulus
b-and not with Hermes.

Ambiguous rules:

3
Do not repeat a planet before all septener being attributed to a degree. this is for nocturnal trigons where Venus rule both.
a-every trigons(earth:Venus-Moon...water:Mars)
b-other cases:
earth duo comes first(earth:Venus-Moon...water:Mars)
water duo comes first(water:Venus-Mars...earth:Moon)

4
a-go straightforward from 1? to 360? or
b-start a sign with its trigon ruler couple?
(for example watery sign start with Venus-Mars and earthy sign start with venus-moon)

5
a-Start all triplicities couples with diurnal lord of trigon always.
(for watery it would be Venus then Mars then Sun then jupiter)
b-Or start with diurnal lord of trigon in diurnals trigons and nocturnal lord of trigon in nocturnals trigons.
(for watery sign it would be Mars then Venus then Sun then Jupiter etc.)
c-Or start with diurnal lord of trigon in diurnals signs and nocturnal lord of trigon in nocturnals signs.
(for watery sign it would be Mars then Venus then Jupiter then Sun etc.)

From what I have read I would favor 4-b and 5-b.

The exact rationale of the assignment of planets to individual degrees itself, reported in Paul 32, may also be a riddle, as it also seems a faithful rendering of the obscure source text. Anyway, the scribes of Paul's (and Rhetorius') manuscripts struggled with the text so much that none of their tabulations give correct results. (The current scholarly consensus holds that Paul's work was abbreviated and incorporated into the still unpublished Book VI of Rhetorius; I have my doubts on the authorship.) Fortunately the reasoning is not desperately difficult to reconstruct a table (which you did in the second version of "Paulus 2"), which rationale can be corroborated with lectures 34-35 of Olympiodorus on Paul. (Where the manuscripts commit mistakes again.)

I found a table in a scan that a man named Gundel speculated from text and he favor 4-a and 5-b (Sun,Jupiter,Moon,Venus,Saturn,Mercury,Mars...from 1? to 360?)
Erratum: In fact Gundel postulate 2-b, 3-a, 4-b and 5-b.

I have been studying the half degrees in Jyotish, the shastyamsas

I quickly know shastiamsa but there is a special trimsamsa calculation by degrees in Jagannatha Hora software which degree attribution is by sign in zodiac order: Aries start with Aries, Taurus with Taurus, etc. But I haven't find any informations yet. If anyone know where this version of trimsamsa come from and wether the use is the same?

Anyway, thanks Levente Laszlo for responses to most of my questions.

By the way are you the same Laszlo as:
https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orosz_L%C ... 3_Wladimir

Thanks, Martin, for your compliments!

Fran?ois, as I wrote, CCAG is first and foremost a catalogue of Greek astrological manuscripts, and the appendices contain some editions of chapters and treatises that were deemed worthy of publication by the editors, but in this way hundreds of interesting texts remained unpublished. The editors rarely published full works, but this is the case with e.g. Porphyry's so-called Introduction to Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos (which is a misnomer, since Porphyry's commentary is largely lost, and this work is a pastiche from Antiochus and others). However, for most fragments of astrological authors (e.g. Thrasyllus, Balbillus, Serapio, and Rhetorius) CCAG remains the only available edition, but even then several fragments are still left unpublished.

I feel important to remark that none of the Greek astrologers' works are extant in their "original" form with the partial exception of Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. These texts were always subjects of conscious or semi-conscious alteration of copyists and editors, and, as a result, the texts survived in different forms, sometimes only as isolated chapters. Some works extant in a comprehensible form have been published in monographs: Paul of Alexandria (a summary, a condensed version and its adaptations, and at least three fuller versions, and a number of excerpts) in 1958 and Olympiodorus (at least two different versions and a number of excerpts) in 1962 by Emilie Boer (both editions contain conflated texts that never existed in this form), then Hephaestio of Thebes (a badly transmitted version, at least three adaptations and more than three excepts) in 1973-1974 and Vettius Valens (a badly transmitted compilation from the 5th century with a number of excerpts and adaptations) in 1986 by David Pingree (who rightly attempted to publish the different version separately, but omitted a couple of testimonies and extracts) as well as editions of minor astrological authors (Anubio of Diospolis, pseudo-Manetho and the Manethoniana, Maximus), not to speak about Manilius, Dorotheus of Sidon, and Firmicus Maternus. Nearly all of these texts have been translated to various languages, sometimes more than once, but almost in every case the translation is only the rendering of the text of the available, mostly imperfect edition. I can give a detailed bibliography for the issue of the monomoiria if needed.

By the way are you the same Laszlo as:

I'm not.

Hi

Perhaps the system, based on the seven zone (also known as the "Chaldean order" in the modern parlance)

Levante, does the "seven zones" you wrote about are the original greek names for this in ancients books ? Were they called "hepta something" ?
Does someone already made glossary of those names?

Well, Fran?ois, first I must admit that I was somewhat hard with this "Chaldean order in the modern parlance", since the early 5th century Macrobius already names (Commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio 1.9.2) a "system of the Chaldeans" (Chaldaeorum ratio) with which, he says, Cicero and Archimedes both agree; so it's not exactly a modern label. Cicero's order is of course Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon, but neither of the two planetary orders reconstructed using Hippolytus' account on Archimedes by Otto Neugebauer (HAMA, p. 468-469) is identical; this somewhat unsubstantiantes Macrobius' claim.

In any case, Cicero's order, which is attested from the first century BCE onwards, is routinely called hept?z?nos (?????????) in astrological texts (e.g., Thrasyllus, Antiochus, Valens, Paul, and Olympiodorus), and not "Chaldean", and the two sequences attested in cuneiform sources, which are Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars (Neo-Babylonian), or Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn, and Mars (Seleucid), don't conform with the system of the seven zones, nor does the reasoning of the system of terms called "Chaldean" by Ptolemy.

Does someone already made glossary of those names?

Which names do you mean?