Phil wrote:Spock, Mark, and anyone else,
Schmidt has noted that in Valens, whole sign houses are used with two exceptions. One is the calculation of planetary strength, in which Valens describes an eightfold division, which he himself postulates could be twelvefold (Anthologies III, 2). I?ve often seen this referred to as a harbinger of the Porphyry house system. But it?s always nagged at me -- I?ve always wondered why we think of this as a house system as opposed to just calling it ?areas of strength? and leaving it at that.
I did some googling, found a link on Chris Brennan's
Hellenistic Astrology Website to a pdf of Mark Riley's translation of Valens'
Anthologies, and downloaded it. The twelve 'places' (sign-houses, evidently) he describes in Book ll are associated with twelve different sets of effects. In each 'place' he refers to the specific effects of benefics and malefics, of particular planets in that 'place' or ruling it, and other not always clear (from my brief reading) combinations. For instance, for Vl: " If Jupiter [in this place?] rules the Lot or the Ascendant, the native will lose his property in civil suits." Clearly he's speaking of twelve interpretive boxes. In Book lll, section 2, the part you referred to, he first states that, measuring from angle to angle, the first
third of each quadrant is 'operative', and 'stars' in this area, whether benefics or malefics, are powerful, with the remaining
two-thirds 'inoperative' and impropitious. He then states, "Now to me the following method seems more scientific," and divides each quadrant into thirds, with the first third being 'operative and powerful', the second 'average', and the third 'crisis-producing and bad'. Interestingly, in Book l, in the section on calculating "the houseruler of the year', he similarly gives a standard or accepted method, then follows with "To me it seems more scientific", and describes a different one. Valens was evidently a 'modern' astrologer willing to supersede handed-down methods with what he felt were better ones. He contrasts his 'more scientific' way with the practices of 'the old astrologers'.
Spock?s interesting point about the areas of Gauquelin not being indicative of a house system certainly brings this idea to my mind. Valens? description does meet Spock?s ?house criteria? in that there are literally 8 or 12 such sectors. But it doesn?t describe 12 different effects, just gradations of strength (either binary strong/weak or strong/middle/weak). This would go against it being considered a house system.
The 'gradations of strength' described in the 'more scientific' version in
Anthologies lll, 2 aren't consistently that. In his tripartite division from the Asc to the IC (and its opposite) the first is operative and powerful, the second average, 'neither completely good or bad', and the third 'crisis-producing and bad'. But with reference to the other two opposed quadrants the third section is 'afflictiing and inoperative'. This resolves the apparent inconsistency. Valens apparently conflates strength and activity, on one hand, and lack of strength and activity on the other with, respectively, goodness and badness.
It is not, however, an aspect system, but an overlay over the house system, much as we see angular, succedent and cadent houses as a continuum from strong to weak. An added complication, and in this Valens really is inconsistent, is that the twelve
different interpretive boxes known as places, now known as houses, are assuming Schmidt is correct a reordering of signs starting with the one containing the Asc, that is, sign-houses, whereas his tripartite strength/goodness overlay is a quadrant division. Perhaps what we're seeing here is a snapshot of an historical transition, the merging of two distinct but related systems into the modern quadrant systems which are both twelve different effects
and, within each quadrant, angular/succedent/cadent or strong/average/weak.
That's history, of course, interesting as, as close as we can ascertain it, 'the truth' about what our predecessors believed but not necessarily 'the truth' per se about reality. The Gauquelin study, which does represent in my opinion an advance in our understanding of astrological effects, being a test of some of Leon Lasson's house interpretations divided the diurnal circle into discrete sections that made the results superficially
look like houses, but actually shows aspect effects which, like Mars hard-angle Saturn for instance, describes a single effect or set of effects that's present when the two planets are within orb of aspect, and absent when they aren't.