Konrad wrote: I think it is pretty clear that Valens is using whole signs in every section apart from the couple where he explicitly describes Porphyry houses and then equal houses. For me, some of the strongest evidence is found when he talks about houses from Fortune (as he does in 7:5) as I find it a huge leap to say that he was counting them in equal houses, particularly since he had ample opportunity to introduce equal houses and never does in any of his practical examples. It is much less of a convoluted argument to assume he is using what he apparently presents to us in his example charts from the beginning - whole sign houses.
But it's not from the beginning to the end. He explicitly gives us examples of charts not apparently cast in whole sign houses, I've already provided one such example.
He also describes two methods of house division explicitly: equal and porphyry. He does not describe any whole sign method of house division.
So what's going on?
Here's my theory, and you can tell me what you think of it. Valens begins the first portion of his work being as broad as he can possibly be, not only does his chart examples not include a degree for the ascendant, they also don't include a degree for the planets. He's conveying broad principles instead. He then explains how to calculate the exact degree of the Ascendant from the Sun or Moon's degree and various tables. The first step of his calculations suggests to find the sign, and then subsequently the degree.
Once you have the ascendant, you can then calculate the MC via rising times and Valens tells us how to do that. So all you really need is a given set of table with the degree of the Sun and Moon and you can calculate the Ascendant and MC to the degree.
This is very important and seems to be utterly missed by modern commentators who go on to infer that the lack of a degree rising suggests that the authors could not possibly be using a degree based house system. But this is not the case and the evidence cannot be drawn to give that conclusion. Instead, just as if I have your date of birth I will not need to ask your age, it could be that some charts which provide degree positions for the Sun or Moon do not need to record the degree position of the Ascendant or provide any information about the MC because all you need is a set of tables for the given klima and you can do the rest yourself.
A perfect example of the kind of thinking which ignores this information can be seen in Chris Brennan's (impressive) book on hellenistic astrology where he surveys the existing charts.
I'm cutting up the argument not to reword Brennan's argument, but because it spans several pages and people should really buy the book to understand his argument more broadly.
p.370
One of the most compelling pieces of evidence about the persuasiveness of whole signs in the Hellenistic tradition is the fact that while hundreds of horoscopes survive, the vast majority of them only list the sign...and they usually do not mention the exact degree of the Ascendant, nor do they record the degree of the meridian-Midheaven. This point is important because the whole sign system is the only approach where you only need to know the rising sign in order to calculate the twelve houses.
By meridian-Midheaven, he means of course the degree of the MC, not to be confused with the nonagesimal etc.
He goes on to conclude, upon a survey of the horoscopes, that only three horoscopes are included in Greek Horoscopes that include both the degree of the MC and Asc, and therefore:
p.372
it is only these three charts that quadrant houses could have been calculated at all, whereas there are seven charts that could have been used to calculate equal houses
But this way of thinking completely excludes the very methods that people like Valens explicitly set down in order to calculate the Ascendant and MC. It assumes, anachronistically, that ways of calculating houses rest upon principles that contemporary astrologers are familiar with.
Valens provides one example of calculating the MC which results in an ascendant of 15º Capricorn, and MC at 2º Scorpio. He does this in Book One.
By the end of Book III however, he has covered most of the introductory matters and the uses of tables and so on. He concludes Book III with what I believe to be a very important statement:
Book III (/157K/ 15K;13P.), p.70, Riley
These chapters which I have composed may seem unprofessional because they have been addressed to a youthful audience, my students, in such a way that they might find my introduction to this art comprehensible. In view of this fact, I had wished to revise them for greater accuracy, but I have not had the opportunity because my vision has been troubled and my intellectual capacity has been enfeebled by my deep sorrow for a precious student who has died. May the reader pardon me.
Later, in Book IV, he reminds us of the importance of exact degree positions where he says:
Book IV 11, p.78, Riley
I urge them to observe the position of the stars in degrees when necessary for determinations to the degree, to observe their positions by sign when that level of accuracy is appropriate, so that what is said will have been said truly. ...Consequently, it is necessary to make the determination <of> only after first discovering in which signs or degrees the stars—and particularly the Ascendant—are located
I've already provided an example of where Valens tell us that the the signification of the 10th derives from the MC but affected the 9th sign.
My personal belief then is that many of Valens's examples are deliberately simplified with minimal information to prove only the point he's currently having his students examined - and I think this point is so often ignored. Valens is not writing a textbook of examples of his own client work and the interpretations he provided his client, he's writing a manual for "young students" and he simplifies his examples accordingly so that the method being taught can be understood by example.
However, when we get a bit further into his work, he now advises the student to start being accurate and not long after this we start to get houses by degree.
Whereas before he had imagined the Lots as just being in one or other sign, by the end the Lots have specific degrees. Whereas before the ascendant was just given in this or that sign, now it's listed by degree. And so too for the houses.
For me Valens clearly allows for a rough and ready use of the sign based positions not just for houses but also for planets and for Lots but when it comes to the more advanced methods where such rough and ready examples are not appropriate, he drops them like a hot potato and degree based specificity takes over.
I'm open to the idea that, like with whole sign aspects, Valens allowed signs to be demarcators of influence of some kind, such that having the MC in any sign will mean that the sign has a whole sign conjunction with the MC and anything in that sign, like with any aspect by sign, will be coloured by that aspect. I'm also open to the idea that 'zoidion' can be imagined as any division of the zodiac, though this is much more difficult to prove.
