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You and Deb are doing a wonderful work on this. I'm excited.

Keep informing us of your thoughts and findings.

Thanks,

Sigma

Hi Astrojin,

I don?t have any answers, just a couple of thoughts. I noticed that you mentioned Capricorn first under the earth triplicity listings, and I wondered why you did this. It may not matter at all, but then again it could be significant that Dorotheus talked of them as ?the triplicity of Aries?, ?the triplicity of Taurus?, ?the triplicity of Gemini? and ?the triplicity of Cancer?.

Also, although Ptolemy doesn?t present the full scheme of Dorotheus, I wouldn?t be too quick to discount the reasoning he offers ? in particular I?m thinking of the association with directions and winds. The use of triplicities is very ancient, and we know that the Babylonians linked the twelve months of their civil calendar into groups of triplicities even before we have evidence of them associating those months with the tropical zodiac. So there could be something in the symbolic structure of this ?triangular arrangement? that predates some of the sign-symbolism we are trying to attach it to, or at the very least we have to consider that winds and directions were fundamentally important in ancient astrology at around the time that we see them placing emphasis upon triplicity groupings.

Sorry I can?t be of more help!

Deb

Hello Deb,

Thanx for pointing the Capricorn not being the first trip sign of earth, it should have been Taurus. So,

For earth trip signs, it should be Tau, Vir, Cap with rulers Venus, Mercury, Saturn and exalted rulers Moon, Mercury, Mars. The rest of the reasoning should stay the same.

AND btw

another point:-

Mercury seems to appear three times in the earth triplicity. Dorotheus gives Mercury as the participating trip ruler of Virgo - a coincidence perhaps?

Hello astrojin,

here is a useful link:

http://cura.free.fr/decem/09simei.html

In my simplistic way, when I first learned these Dorothean triplicity rulerships, I came up with the following explanation for myself. Let me begin by listing the Dorotheus triplicity rulerships in order of the state of matter:

Fire (radiant energy): Sun, Jupiter, Saturn
Air (gas): Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter
Water (liquid): Venus, Mars, Moon
Earth (solid): Venus, Moon, Mars

As I pondered this list, it occurred to me that it is arranged in order of the planets distance from the earth in a geocentric universe. Fire travels farthest from the earth, hence the outermost planets rule fire. In addition, I recall that Dorotheus called Saturn the "sun of the night", so it makes sense that Saturn would be a ruler of fire. Notice that in a geocentric universe the four "outermost" planets (Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn) rule fire and air, the most rarefied elements. The geocentrically "innermost" planets are Venus and Mars which surround the earth/Moon complex.

The following re-arrangement will make this clear:

Fire: Sun-1.............................................................Jupiter-2....Saturn-3
Air:............Mercury-2..............................................Jupiter-3....Saturn-1
Water:......................Venus-1 Earth/Moon-3 Mars-2.............................
Earth:.......................Venus-1 Earth/Moon-2 Mars-3..............................

It seems to me that the Dorothean list of triplicities is related to the notion of states of matter and distance from the earth as the above table suggests.

Tony