The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Also within this zodiac belt appear the Moon and the brightest planets, along their orbital planes. The zodiac is divided along the ecliptic into 12 equal parts ("signs"), each occupying 30° of celestial longitude. These signs roughly correspond to the astronomical constellations with the following modern names: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
Marcus Manilius originally hailing from Syria, was a Roman poet, astrologer, and author of a poem in five books called Astronomica.
The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types where an individual's personality types overlap and they share two or more temperaments. Greek physician Hippocrates described the four temperaments as part of the ancient medical concept of humourism, that four bodily fluids affect human personality traits and behaviours. Modern medical science does not define a fixed relationship between internal secretions and personality, although some psychological personality type systems use categories similar to the Greek temperaments.
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Medical astrology or astrological medicine is an ancient applied branch of astrology based mostly on melothesia, the association of various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs with the nature of the sun, moon, planets, and the twelve astrological signs. The underlying basis for medical astrology is considered to be a pseudoscience as there is no scientific basis for its core beliefs.
In medicine, both ancient and modern, a dyscrasia is any of various disorders. The word has ancient Greek roots meaning "bad mixture". The concept of dyscrasia was developed by the Greek physician Galen, who elaborated a model of health and disease as a structure of elements, qualities, humors, organs, and temperaments. Health was understood in this perspective to be a condition of harmony or balance among these basic components, called eucrasia. Disease was interpreted as the disproportion of bodily fluids or four humours: phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile. The imbalance was called dyscrasia. In modern medicine, the term is still occasionally used in medical context for an unspecified disorder of the blood, such as a plasma cell dyscrasia.
Astrological belief in relation between celestial observations and terrestrial events have influenced various aspects of human history, including world-views, language and many elements of culture. It has been argued that astrology began as a study as soon as human beings made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles.
Tetrabiblos, also known as Apotelesmatiká and in Latin as Quadripartitum, is a text on the philosophy and practice of astrology, written by the Alexandrian scholar Claudius Ptolemy in Koine Greek during the 2nd century AD.
The decans are 36 groups of stars used in the ancient Egyptian astronomy to conveniently divide the 360 degree ecliptic into 36 parts of 10 degrees each, both for theurgical and heliacal horological purposes. The decans each appeared, geocentrically, to rise consecutively on the horizon throughout each daily Earth rotation. The rising of each decan marked the beginning of a new decanal "hour" of the night for the ancient Egyptians, and they were used as a sidereal star clock beginning by at least the 9th or 10th Dynasty.
Libra (♎︎) is the seventh astrological sign in the zodiac. It spans 180°–210° celestial longitude. The Sun transits this sign on average between September 22 and October 23. The symbol of the scales is based on the Scales of Justice held by Themis, the Greek personification of divine law and custom. She became the inspiration for modern depictions of Lady Justice. The ruling planet of Libra is Venus along with Taurus. Libra is the only zodiac sign that is represented by an object; the other eleven signs are represented by either an animal or a mythological character though some depictions feature a man holding the scales with his hands.
Babylonian astronomy was the study or recording of celestial objects during the early history of Mesopotamia. The numeral system used, sexagesimal, was based on sixty, as opposed to ten in the modern decimal system. This system simplified the calculating and recording of unusually great and small numbers.
Babylonian astrology was the first known organized system of astrology, arising in the second millennium BC.
Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was developed and practiced in the late Hellenistic period in and around the Mediterranean Basin region, especially in Egypt. The texts and technical terminology of this tradition of astrology were largely written in Greek. The tradition originated sometime around the late 2nd or early 1st century BCE, and then was practiced until the 6th or 7th century CE. This type of astrology is commonly referred to as "Hellenistic astrology" because it was developed in the late Hellenistic period, although it continued to be practiced for several centuries after the end of what historians usually classify as the Hellenistic era.
Some medieval Muslims took a keen interest in the study of astrology, partly because they considered the celestial bodies to be essential, partly because the dwellers of desert-regions often travelled at night, and relied upon knowledge of the constellations for guidance in their journeys.
Iatromathematicians were a school of physicians in 17th-century Italy who tried to apply the laws of mathematics and mechanics in order to understand the functioning of the human body. They were also keen students of anatomy. These iatromathematicians made an effort to prove that applying a purely mechanical conception to the study of the human body is futile. The mechanical conceptions that they had referred to was Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the human body, and the writings of Aristotle about the motion of animals related to geometric analysis. Iatromathematicians considered the bodies functioning to be measured by quantifiable numbers, weights, and measures.
Ophiuchus has sometimes been suggested in sidereal astrology as a 13th astrological sign in addition to the 12 signs of the tropical zodiac. The constellation Ophiuchus, as defined by the 1930 International Astronomical Union's constellation boundaries, is situated behind the Sun from November 29 to December 18.
In astrology, planets have a meaning different from the astronomical understanding of what a planet is. Before the age of telescopes, the night sky was thought to consist of two similar components: fixed stars, which remained motionless in relation to each other, and moving objects/"wandering stars", which moved relative to the fixed stars over the course of the year(s).
Teucer of Babylon was an ancient Egyptian astrologer of uncertain date, though likely in or before the first century AD. David Pingree concluded that he is used as a source by Vettius Valens and Rhetorius, which dates him to at least the first century AD, while Wolfgang Hübner argues Marcus Manilius and Julius Firmicus Maternus drew on some of his materials, dating him to at least the first century BC. Teucer is mentioned by the philosopher Porphyry, which places him definitively before the third century AD.
The Astronomica, also known as Astronomicon, is a Latin didactic poem about celestial phenomena, written in hexameters and divided into five books. The Astronomica was written c. AD 30–40 by a Roman poet whose name was likely Marcus Manilius; little is known of Manilius, and although there is evidence that the Astronomica was probably read by many other Roman writers, no surviving works explicitly quote him.
Dodecatemoria are subdivisions of the twelve signs of the Zodiac into a further twelve parts each. These can be said to form a "micro-zodiac" of 144 dodecatemoria, each corresponding to 2.5° of the ecliptic. In an alternate usage, the dodecamorion refers to a point on the ecliptic reached by the addition of twelve times a given number of degrees within a sign, either to the original degree, or to the beginning of the sign.
