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The zodiac is an area of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The paths of the Moon and visible planets are also within the belt of the zodiac.
Astrological beliefs in correspondences between celestial observations and terrestrial events have influenced various aspects of human history, including world-views, language and many elements of social culture.
The midheaven is a point of definition in the ecliptic coordinate system. It aims to find the part of the ecliptic that corresponds to the highest point in a celestial object's apparent daily traverse of the visible sky, midway between its ascension on the eastern horizon and descension on the western horizon. The midheaven does not represent the point immediately overhead or even the point of the ecliptic closest to it, but the point at which the local meridian intersects with the ecliptic.
Astrology has used the concept of classical elements from antiquity up until the present. In Western astrology and Sidereal astrology four elements are used: Fire, Earth, Air, and Water.
Essential dignity, in astrology, refers to the relative strength or weakness of a planet or point's zodiac position by sign and degree, or its essence—what the 17th-century astrologer William Lilly called "the strength, fortitude or debility of the Planets [or] significators." In other words, essential dignity seeks to view the strengths of a planet or point as though it were isolated from other factors in the sky of the natal chart.
In astrology, the Arabian/Arabic parts or lots are constructed points based on mathematical calculations of three horoscopic entities such as planets or angles. The distance between two of the points is added to the position of the third to derive the location of the lot.
In astrology, a cadent house is the last house of each quadrant of the zodiac. A quadrant begins with an Angular house, proceeds to a Succedent house and ends with a Cadent house. There are four quadrants in an astrological chart, providing four Angular, four Succedent, and four Cadent houses.
In astrology, a triplicity is a group of three signs belonging to the same element.
Tetrabiblos (Τετράβιβλος) 'four books', also known in Greek as Apotelesmatiká (Ἀποτελεσματικά) "Effects", and in Latin as Quadripartitum "Four Parts", is a text on the philosophy and practice of astrology, written in the 2nd century AD by the Alexandrian scholar Claudius Ptolemy.
Dorotheus of Sidon was a 1st-century Hellenistic astrologer who wrote a didactic poem on horoscopic astrology known in Greek as the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch, which was a textbook on Hellenistic astrology, has come down to us mainly from an Arabic translation dating from around 800 AD carried out by Omar Tiberiades. The text, fragmentary at times, is therefore not entirely reliable, and is further corrupted by interpolations by the later Persian translators. Nevertheless, it remains one of our best sources for the practice of Hellenistic astrology, and it was a work of great influence on later Christian, Persian, Arab and medieval astrologers. The late 1st century, a time when Dorotheus is believed to have flourished, was a period of intense astrological development, following two millennia of accumulated tradition.
Vettius Valens was a 2nd-century Hellenistic astrologer, a somewhat younger contemporary of Claudius Ptolemy.
Rhetorius of Egypt was the last major classical astrologer from whom we have any excerpts. He lived in the sixth or early seventh century, in the early Byzantine era. He wrote an extensive compendium in Greek of the techniques of the Hellenistic astrologers who preceded him, and is one of our best sources for the work of Antiochus of Athens. Although no intact original manuscript survives of his work, we do have several late Byzantine versions of it.
Hephaestion, Hephaistion, or Hephaistio of Thebes was a Hellenized Egyptian astrologer of late Antiquity who wrote a Greek treatise known as the Apotelesmatics or Apotelesmatika around AD 415. Much of the work appears to be an attempt to synthesize the earlier works of the 1st century astrologer Dorotheus of Sidon and the 2nd century astrologer Claudius Ptolemy. Hephaestion is seen mainly as one of the later compilers of the Hellenistic tradition of astrology since he mainly draws from earlier astrologers, including Antiochus of Athens, and he summarizes large portions of Ptolemy and Dorotheus, which is helpful to modern scholars since we have no other record of many of the authorities that he quotes.
Olympiodorus the Younger was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 AD which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools. Olympiodorus was the last pagan to maintain the Platonist tradition in Alexandria ; after his death the School passed into the hands of Christian Aristotelians, and was eventually moved to Constantinople. He is not to be confused with Olympiodorus the Deacon, a contemporary Alexandrian writer of Bible commentaries.
Antiochus of Athens was an influential Hellenistic astrologer who flourished sometime between the late 1st and mid 2nd century AD. There is some disagreement as to when he lived and wrote. Franz Cumont and others have argued that he lived as early as the 1st century BC, while David Pingree placed him as late as the end of the 2nd century AD. The one agreed datum is that Antiochus is referenced by Porphyry, and so Antiochus must have lived before the death of Porphyry.
Succedent house is an astrological term for the houses that follow the angular houses in an Astrological chart. “Succedent” derives from the Latin succedens meaning "subsequent" or "succeeding". Since the angular houses are the first, fourth, seventh and tenth houses, the succedent houses are the second, fifth, eight and eleventh houses.
Hellenistic astrology is a tradition of horoscopic astrology that was developed and practiced in the late Hellenistic period in and around the Mediterranean 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.
The Pauliṣa Siddhānta refers to multiple Indian astronomical treatises, at least one of which is based on a Western source. "Siddhānta" literally means "doctrine" or "tradition".
The Monomoiria are the 360 individual degrees of the sky in Hellenistic astrology. They were each associated with particular planets, especially in traditions that influenced and were influenced by Paulus Alexandrinus's Eisagogika and Vettius Valens's Anthology.
References
- ↑ Late Classical Astrology: Paulus Alexandrinus and Olympiodorus (with the Scholia of later Latin Commentators). [Translated by Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum.] Archive for the Retrieval of Historical Astrological Texts (ARHAT) Archived 2009-04-23 at the Wayback Machine , 2001.
- ↑ Late Classical Astrology, 2001, pp. 92–97ff.
- ↑ Late Classical Astrology, 2001, pp. 101–111ff.
- ↑ See Vettius Valens, The Anthology. Book III. [translated by Robert Schmidt and edited by Robert Hand.] Project Hindsight, Greek Track, Vol. VIII (The Golden Hind Press, Berkeley Springs, WV, 1994.
- ↑ Thomas McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies, Allworth Press, 2001, pg. 385.
- ↑ See David Pingree, The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja, Vol. 2, Harvard Oriental Series, 1978, pgs. 437-438. Also see Pingree, The Later Paulisasiddhanta, Centaurus 14, 1969, 172–241.
