Skyscript Astrology Forum

Graham F wrote:Hello

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But I don't think my initial question, to which I kept trying to return, was really so difficult to understand: I was asking about the relationship of the classical rulership scheme to the tropical year, i.e. to the solstice/equinox (antiscial/contra-antiscial) axis), not about names of constellations which have been applied to the 30? sections of the ecliptic.

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...once more : I asked if anyone, apart from Fagan, had floated the idea that they could logically be expected to match, to be organised around the same axis.

It turns out Ptolemy did, unambiguously if only implicitly, in the chapter on the "Houses of the Planets" :

of the twelve signs the most northern, which are closer than the others to our zenith and therefore most productive of heat and of warmth are Cancer and Leo

(the zenith of the annual cycle, the most northern point, is of course what is conventionally called the tropic of Capricorn, the "most northern part" being the segments to each side of it, before and after). If one of you who knows Ptolemy well had pointed this chapter out, adding perhaps that "it must be a mistake or an oversight, as elsewhere he is clear that the VP is at 0? Aries, and in various places [e.g. chapter on triplicities] it's clear that he considers Aries to be ruled by Mars, etc", I'd have had my answer straight away: end of story.)

If this was a mistake, it pre-dated Ptolemy. Deb cited an earlier horoscope (archaeological find) with this system. It is also in Dorotheus. There is little doubt that Dorotheus lived in the first century CE but it is unclear how much of his work was modified by his Muslim translator/editor, however.

Moreover if the Cancer-Leo axis was a mistake, we might question why none of the astrologers who followed Ptolemy (that I know of, anyway) sought to correct it.

By "most northern point" do you mean the tropic of Cancer? Today it passes through southern Egypt. It was probably discovered/invented by Eratosthenes who lived in Egypt in the third century BCE.

I've tried to make it clear that I was asking (myself, first, but you also) a question not about constellation-derived sign-names, but about the relation between the classical rulership scheme and the annual tropical cycle, as structured by the solstices and equinoxes.
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I feel that the conventional rulership scheme (in terms of its solar and lunar halves) is not symbolically appropriate in terms of its placement with regard to the solstice axis.

If you are arguing that a Gemini-Cancer symmetrical sign arrangement around the summer solstice point makes more sense than a Cancer-Leo arrangement, it has to be said that Ptolemy, wearing his weather and geography hats, had additional considerations. He itemizes them in Book 2 of Tetrabiblos. There is more than one kind of symmetry needing correlation, plus some sort of "deposit of faith" from Aristotelian proto-science, ancient Greek cultural astronomy, Babylonian astrology, and ambient astrological conventions that would either have to be worked in or discarded for good reason.
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I feel there's an analogy between the mirror pattern of the antiscia and the mirror pattern of the rulerships scheme, if you don't see an analogy there, fair enough, analogy is rather subjective by nature. But I agree with Michael that "analogy is the foundation of all the occult sciences".

OK, but this is kind of a misreading of Ptolemy as a scientist. He didn't see astrology as occult, but as a systematic type of analysis and prediction. His contemporary Valens is full of exasperation at the woo-woo writings of some of his predecessors (whom he names, like Petosiris,) whereas Ptolemy simply strips out most of the metaphysics.

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Waybread, I agree that if you think the the most useful analogy to draw with the rulership scheme is not with the cycle of the Sun's maximum and minimum light, but with the temperature cycle in the Egyptian desert, then yes, Leo may well be better started 30? after the summer solstice, as it is conventionally. But even in Egypt the Sun is higher, and burns you more quickly, at the summer solstice than five or six weeks later.

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Graham

I'm not questioning the position of the sun at or around the summer solstice, nor refuting some kind of "mad dogs and Englishmen" argument about ancient people who were intimately acquainted with their desert environment. I do suggest that climate was one of Ptolemy's considerations. He says so in Book 2. Further, if you need two signs surrounding 0 degrees Cancer, Associating the hot drying sun with the hotter drier month makes sense.

Another consideration might be hours of daylight during the astrological months. This site gives sunrise and sunset data at Alexandria, Egypt, http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/egypt/alexandria?month=1 for anyone who would like to work this out for astrological months.

One other thing that Ptolemy talks about is the known world in relation to triplicities and planetary rulers. An astronomical/astrological basis for dividing up territory was known to the Israelites, ancient Egyptians, Babylonians and Greeks.

Somehow this all had to work out, and perhaps Ptolemy has satisfied that he had made the best job of a difficult challenge.

Mark wrote:Michael Sternbach wrote:

Of course, there would be no cause for question if today the equinoxes and solstices were still marked by the "four pillar stars" of the ancients, Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut, as in Sumerian astrology.

Hi Michael,

I would be interested in any sources you have that support a Sumerian use of these stars in that way. Certainly the commonly used term 'Persian Royal Stars' in relation to explicitly Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut was shown to be an error decades ago. The identity of these stars is far from clear or agreed upon by researchers. It is therefore disappointing to see supposed authorities on fixed stars such as Bernadette Brady still confidently repeating such outdated notions in her book on the subject. That is not to deny that these stars later assumed this kind of role in hellenistic astrology and sources like Firmicus Maternus explicity refer to these stars as 'royal stars'. But a Sumerian origin to this? That is something I would like to see some evidence for.

Thanks

Mark

Mark,

My source for this is Bruno Huber's Astro-Glossarium, Vol. 1, published in 1995. According to Huber, the Sumerians started using the "four pillars" (although one of them may have been Sadalmelik rather than Fomalhaut) as markers for the equinoxes/solstices around 3250 BCE and continued regarding them as "pivots" for their zodiac into the 17th century BCE - although by then, they had already realized for quite some time that those stars were no longer in their former prominent positions.

Huber further writes that creating a new (autumn) equinoctial marker was their motivation behind turning most of the scissors of Scorpio into a constellation of its own (Libra).

I must admit that I haven't done any research into this myself so far. If you know any sources that prove Huber's information wrong, I would like to hear it.

Thanks.

Michael

Hi Michael,

I would be very interested in learning what ancient sources Bruno Huber's cites in that article to support his view.

Maybe I am conflating Persian and Mesopotamian traditions but this sounds synonymous to what is said about the four royal stars of ancient Persia. However, in reality these stars were more seen as guardians or watchers of the of the night sky rather than ?royal stars?. The identification of what these stars ( or asterisms) were has been a subject of academic debate for decades.

There is absolutely no evidence they were all linked into the ecliptic. If anything current scholarship seems to be strongly leaning towards the view that Sirius was one of these watchers. It was undeniably very important in ancient Persian religion (as it was in ancient Egypt). There is also a fair amount of support for Ursa Major as another one of the Persian watchers or guardians.

There seems to be a widespread confusion in the astrological community today that the 4 guardians/watchers of ancient Persia are synonymous with the 4 royal stars of Hellenistic astrology. This is a misconception I have seen repeated by some of the biggest names in astrology today.

One of the principle sources that seems to have disseminated this error was the book Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, by Richard Hinckley Allen, (1899, 1963). The book relied on many older sources that have subsequently been academically discredited. In this context the theories of the 18th century French astronomer Jean Bailly appears to have been the first to suggest that Aldebaran, Antares, Formalhaut, and Regulus were the four 'royal stars' of ancient Persia.

Hinckley Allen seems to have been an important influence on Vivian Robson in the writing of his famous book ?The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology?. Robson?s book was published in 1923 before any modern scholarship had examined the issue in depth.

The first article to challenge such ideas appeared about 70 years ago and was written by George A. Davis, Jr., who published an article entitled The So Called Royal Stars of Persia, Popular Astronomy, vol. LIII, No 4, April 1945. Important recent research into this topic has come from the Italian academic Antonio Panaino. For example, "Tistrya, Part 1: The Avestan hymn to Sirius." (1990) and "Tistrya, Part 2: The Avestan hymn to Sirius." (1995).

Academics have come up with a wide variety of potential identifications of of the Persian leader stars (so-called four royal stars) which include: Tishtya which has been variously identified as Aldebaran, Sirius, Arcturus, and the Summer Solstice. Antonio Panaino. seems to support the view this was Sirius. Vanant (or Wanand) has been variously identified as Regulus, Vega, Altair (earlier Corvus), Sirius, and Procyon. Satavaesa (or Sadw?s) has been variously identified as Antares, Aldebaran, the stars of Musca Australis (the actual constellation being invented circa 1595), and Crux. The Haptoiringas (or Haftoreng) have been variously identified as Formalhaut, and Ursa Major. (The Haptoiringas are described in the Sirozas as a group of seven stars.)

In contrast the late Roman astrologer Firmicus Maternus certainly does discuss the so called four ?royal stars?: Aldebaran, Antares, Regulus and Folmalhaut linked to the fixed signs and all on the ecliptic.

I am not clear how old the idea of these 4 'royal stars' was in Hellenistic astrology. The sources I have seen are quite late ie Firmicus ( 4th century CE) or Hephaistio ( 5th century CE).

However, in the case of Regulus it was undeniably regarded as the ?King star? of Babylonian astrology. It is the only royal star I have heard of in Mesopotamian astrology.

I suppose its possible Bruno Huber has unearthed new evidence supporting a Sumerian origin to the later hellenistic idea of royal stars on the ecliptic. If so that would be extremely interesting.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks, that's interesting.

Alas, Huber didn't mention his references in the Astro-Glossarium.

The (same) order of the six brightest star (royal) as Firmicus Maternus in his Mathesis the chapter "De Claris signorum stellis" discusses, there are also in the writings of Hephastion / Antigonos.

See the book "Hadriani Genitura" by Stephan Heilen 1258 p-1259 p. De Gruyter 2015

Antigonos could have lived at the same time as Ptolemaus (27p)

Wolfgang

Michael wrote:
According to Huber, the Sumerians started using the "four pillars" (although one of them may have been Sadalmelik rather than Fomalhaut) as markers for the equinoxes/solstices around 3250 BCE and continued regarding them as "pivots" for their zodiac into the 17th century BCE ...

Mark wrote:
I would be very interested in learning what ancient sources Bruno Huber's cites in that article to support his view...

There seems to be a widespread confusion in the astrological community today that the 4 guardians/watchers of ancient Persia are synonymous with the 4 royal stars of Hellenistic astrology. This is a misconception I have seen repeated by some of the biggest names in astrology today...

I suppose its possible Bruno Huber has unearthed new evidence supporting a Sumerian origin to the later hellenistic idea of royal stars on the ecliptic. If so that would be extremely interesting.

It's very helpful for all of us to have Mark's summary of these stars in the context of scholarship and history. So much research is possible in today's Internet age that wasn't available to earlier authors. The Internet has changed the face of education even at the elementary school level. It's difficult for us to remember that only a few short years ago for any one public school history class, there was one textbook, and that one book might have been published ten years earlier. Today even very young students are sent to the Internet for relevant and up-to-date information.

It doesn't seem possible, however, that there would be a reference for the Sumerians using the "four pillars" as markers for the equinoxes/solstices around 3250 BCE. Using Robert Hand's Chronology of the Astrology of the Middle East and the West by Period (Arhat, 2009), for which he used standard chronological references, the Sumerians developed cuneiform writing only around 3000 BCE, and the oldest surviving tables of systematic observation of planetary movements (The Venus Tables of Ammizaduga) date only from 1646 BCE.

Even in the most careful of earlier historical writings, concepts slipped in that had little or no basis in fact. So although it's much easier today to get a book published than in the past, we are obligated to do much more careful fact checking because the information is now "out there" and easily accessible.

Wolfgang wrote:

The (same) order of the six brightest star (royal) as Firmicus Maternus in his Mathesis the chapter "De Claris signorum stellis" discusses, there are also in the writings of Hephastion / Antigonos.

Thanks Wolfgang. I have translations of Hephaistio and Firmicus Maternus hence my reference to these above in reply to Michael. However, I haven't read the text on the nativity of Emperor Hadrian by Antigonos. Thanks for that. That does date this idea considerably earlier than Firmicus.

Antigonos of Nicaea lived around ca.150 ce so as you point out this puts him in the approximate time frame as Claudius Ptolemy.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 5/abstract

Thank you for that lead. I will look into this further.

There is no doubt there is a tradition of Regulus as the royal or ''King star' dating back to Babylonian astrology. However, I am not aware of any Mesopotamian or Persian origin to the idea of 4 'royal stars' along the ecliptic focused on the fixed signs. Although I do recall the Cyril Fagan-Donald Bradley reconstitution of the Babylonian zodiac was posited on the idea of an original zodiac measured from Aldebaran and Antares at 15 Taurus and Scorpio. It so happens these two stars are almost exactly adjacent to each other in the zodiac. The same cannot be said for Regulus and Fomalhaut which are over 4 degrees apart. Moreover, unlike the other so called royal stars which are close to the ecliptic Fomalhaut (the mouth of the fish below sidereal Aquarius) is -21.08 degrees below the ecliptic. In constant the brightest star in the constellation of Aquarius Sadalmelik was known to the Arabs as '' the Lucky One of the King, or ''the Lucky One of the Kingdom'' and might seem a better candidate as a royal star as it is only +11.43 by latitude above the centre of zodiac. However, we have no idea how old such associations are before the Arabs.

If anyone knows of any other ancient sources using this concept please do share your knowledge.

Mark

Mark, for what it's worth, I don't think the concept of royal stars shows up in pre-astrological Greek star lore. I haven't checked them all, but the following stars are the ones named in Aratus Phaenomena, ca. 270 BCE. He indicates the location of other stars as prominent parts of constellations, but not by name and not demonstrably affiliated with the royal stars.

Spica (Virgo)
Vintager (Virgo)
the kids (Charioteer)
Hyades (Taurus)
knot of the Tails (Pisces)
Pleiades (Taurus)
Sirius (Orion's dog)
Arcturus (Scorpio)
The Manger (Praesepe) Cancer

Re: my previous conversation on Ptolemy and climate, the older Greeks seemed to have viewed star-lore, weather, and calendar lore (phenology) as one piece. The star calendar was especially important for farming and shipping. This really emerges in Aratus and Hesiod, Works and Days.

The sun in Leo was especially known, according to Aratus, "The Lion with lovely refulgence marks the path of the sun through the summermost heat, for the fields are winnowed of wheat at the time when the sun first enters the Lion. Then the Etesian wind sweeps the howling sea and the season is over for a voyage with oars: I would put my trust then in a ship with broad beams and a pilot who holds the helm to the wind."

I just check Virgil's Georgics, book I, which is also a compendium of Greek star lore related to agriculture, from the first century BC. He alludes to astrology but it's pretty indirect, mostly giving a star calendar related to ideal times of various agricultural activities as set by the rising and setting of visible constellations and stars. But these are not necessarily zodiacal.

He also refers to the earth being divided into different zones: tropical/equatorial, temperate, and polar. (Cf. the geographical sections of Tetrabiblos.)

The autumn equinox in Libra was noted as the time to plow and plant: in that winter-rain climate, farmers planted winter wheat and barley just prior to the rainy season. Saturn is referred to as a "cold planet," of winter.

Virgil mentions a few stars and asterisms, but no royal stars. Again, the Pleiades are prominent, as rising at the time to commence spring plowing. This doesn't relate to an equinox, just a phenology of climate and agriculture.

Despite the problem of precession, which should have been noticeable in the first century BCE, Virgil describes: "... the golden sun commands his ecliptic,
split into fixed segments, through twelve heavenly constellations....We don?t observe the Signs in vain, as they rise and set, nor the year divided into its four varied seasons."
"
Granted, Virgil was writing an agricultural treatise in poetry, not astrology, but there would seem to be some disconnect here between the sidereal and tropical zodiac.

http://www.yorku.ca/pswarney/Texts/verg ... c533589848

Hi Waybread,

I am thinking of opening a fresh thread devoted exclusively to the topic of the four royal stars. It doesn't seem that related to the focus of this thread. I was then thinking of deleting my off topic comments here to help bring this thread on track. Hopefully, you could repost your comments there too?

Mark

OK, Mark-- the royal stars might actually have to do with the solstice & equinox points-- imaginatively if not historically. If, as mod, you can move this section of the thread, that would save a little cut & paste for those of us who have posted here.

See you here-- or there.

Waybread wrote:

OK, Mark-- the royal stars might actually have to do with the solstice & equinox points-- imaginatively if not historically. If, as mod, you can move this section of the thread, that would save a little cut & paste for those of us who have posted here.

This discussion kind of emerged organically in mid thread. Not the kind of thing that lends itself to an easy thread split. So I am am planning a totally new thread. Afraid that will involve a fair bit of cutting and pasting for all of us. Once that is done I would like to prune back our discussion on the topic here by deleting a few posts. It will make things easier to follow for anyone looking in at a future date.

Waybread wrote:

See you here-- or there.

There I think!

Mark