17
?Before all it is necessary for the premeditator and one who is in a state of inquiry ?. Whenever you should be asked whether the sowing of the seed is of a man or a beast, male or female ?.?
Very interesting indeed. Thanks for that.

Early horaries

18
Allow me to stir the mix a little:

Dorotheus is dated as circa 75 A.D. Ptolemy as c. 100-c. 178 and Vettius Valens as 120-c. 175. Neither Ptolemy or Valens wrote about Horary.

If the horary examples in Chapter V of Dorotheus are to be considered later interpolations then a work written in 149 A.D. in Greek may one of the earliest known writings on Horary. The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja (trans. David Pingree), the earliest known Sanskrit work on horoscopic astrology, is considered to be a 269 AD versification of a prose translation (from Greek) of this original 149 A.D. work. Yavanajataka means ?Greek Horoscopy?.

In the Yavanajataka, Chapters 52-72 deal with interrogations or horary.
For example, Chapters 61 and 62 deal with what the querent is thinking. ?If the ascendant of the nativity is in the ascendant (at the time of the query), he is thinking of the care of his body??

Chapter 63 gives rules for determining whether or not what the querent is thinking of will occur.

Chapter 64 deals with questions concerning lost or stolen items. ?(If the Moon or the ascendant) are in moving signs, he (the thief) has gone on a distant journey; but if they are in fixed signs, he has not gone very far. If one is looking (for where he has gone), one should declare the direction and course on the basis of the planet or sign which is between the Sun and the descendant.?

Chapter 65 deals with questions concerning whether a sick person will recover or not, and with the health of an absent traveler.

Chapter 66 deals with identifying the sex of unborn children.

And so on.

Cenned

19
These examples are similar to what you would find in Dorotheus. And, like the examples in Dorotheus, it is not clear whether they are examples of horary or not. Many can be argued to be charts that are in the nature of decumbiture or commencement. As I said before, it really depends on how clear cut our definition of horary is. There are several examples in Dorotheus that could really go either way. But most of them seem to be commencement charts rather than straight out horary charts.

For example, on page 162 of the Project Hindsight translation, Dorotheus says, 'If you are asked about a man whether he will depart from his land and his city or travel from it or be exiled by a command from his master or other than this, then look at the Moon at the commencement of this.'

And another that I found quite interesting:'This is a hidden chapter because, [if his master] does not possess the hour at which the runaway ran away, then look concerning the commencement of this matter at the hour in which the report of the running away of the slave or slave girl reached the slave's master.'

There seem to be several decumbiture charts which appear to be drawn for the time of the commencement of illness.

However, there are times where he is clearly speaking of horary. When speaking of runaway slaves, he says 'If at that hour at which you are asked...' or regarding a wife who has left her husband (Ch 17) 'If you want to know, if she returns to him, whether he will profit from her or will see joy and happiness or other than this in her, then look at the hour in which you are asked about this...' The trouble is, the rest of the chapter is describing the chart as being drawn for the time the wife left the house. So it begins as a horary but ends as an event chart. This is what happens in other areas of the fifth book too. However, this does not necessarily lead me to the conclusion that it is a deliberate interpolation. I wonder if poor translation over the centuries is the problem here or whether there is genuine misunderstanding by the Arabic translators, or maybe it is Dorotheus who is just not being very clear. Then again, there is the obvious possibility that it is my misunderstanding.

I hear the argument all the time that Ptolemy did not write of horary and therefore it may not have existed at that time. I don't believe that necessarily follows. He may not have been interested in horary. You don't see Liz Greene writing too much on horary but I know she has respect for it.