31
Thanks Steven for a very illucidating reply on not just the monomoiria but hellenistic astrology in general. :'
... I don't think Valens personally put much faith in this particular method of time-lords
Fair enough, as you indicate Valens offers numerous methods of establishing Time-Lords so the monomoiria have nothing unique to offer in that respect.
But it seems to me that following the 3rd and 4th century, the monomoiria all but disappear except in their re-emergence in the Liber Hermetis.
Its a shame we do not have a more accurate idea when Liber Hermetis was written.
I happen to agree very much with a statement earlier (sorry not sure who make it) that the monomoiria were not dignities. What record we do have of their use is very vague but speaks rather clearly as to planets falling in monomoiria with the same ruler have a stronger familiarity with each other. We are directed to the chapters concerning the familiarities certain signs have to one another (chapt. 8-10) as to how these "faniliar degrees" work. At the same time we are referred to apsects and then given the reference point in Paulus' chapter on profections. He does have an example there in which the profected lord is in aversion (in Aries) to the sign of the profection (Virgo) and that there are some planets aspecting Mercury. So I can only assume that the earlier reference to the kinds of familiarities would affect just what happens in this example profection. But Paulus himself makes no reference in this chapter to monomoiria but I kind of think the Scholia is saying that there use is also valuable in such outcomes.
The monomoiria by triplicity appear to have been mainly used when the ascendant degree was not found accurately ("roughly" writes Olympiadorus) and it was used to determine a more accurate (sic) ascendant degree - I wouldn't exactly call it "rectification" but it was a means to "more closely" find a harmony between the ascendant and the chart ruler through a common monomoiria ruler which made them more "familiar" - so that in its own way does describe to some extent how these ancients regarded them and their "function".
Thanks for clarifying that point.
....it no longer represents the astrology I practice
If you do not mind a personal question here what is the type of astrology you now practice? Why did you give up the hellenistic approach?
At any rate, when I saw this thread I remembered that I had discussed the Monomoria in the 5th part I wrote in 2002. The Section was called, "The Whole Sign and nothing but the Sign" where I discussed something of the Hellenistic philosophy concerning "fate". The Greek word moiria had two meanings. It meant degree and fate and its significance was that a certain "fate" was apportioned to a degree or certain groups of degrees which were "whole" in their own right- The word dodecatemoria for example is telling us that 12th parts (2.5 degrees) were an entity apportioned a certain fate (determined by its ruler). The simplest of these apportionments was the monomoria - one fate per degree.
Without going into a lot of philosophy, the function of the monomoiria was seen that there was a "familiarity" because planets in degrees having a same "fate" were familiar. In the section I actually used the upcoming chart of the 2003 Ingress for the US. In reading back over it I was a bit astonished at what I wrote because of what happened on the eve of the 2003 Ingress.
As you indicate there is real paucity of material to reach any definitive conclusions. Apart from judging planets in the same planetary monomoiria having a familiarity I am intrigued how the hellenistic astrologers like Paulus might have viewed planets in monomoiria degrees ruled by each other. Was there a kind of 'mutual reception' by monomoiria in aspect in this way? We haven't much to go on just relying on the sources left to us.

Your use of monomoiria on the 2003 Ingress chart sounds most interesting. Can I ask what system of monomoiria you were using?

Any chance you might share more details of your use of monomoiria in that chart? I am sure those following this thread would be fascinated to hear your comments.

32
Hello Steven,

Thanks again. Your input has really helped to put the monomoiria in its proper context in hellenistic astrology.

Those examples you have given have further inspired me to start exploring this topic more in my practical astrology. I certainly have a real attraction to the first system of Paulus & Valens. There does seem lots of scope to investigate the monomoiria in all kinds of charts such as horary, natal, electional and mundane.

If anyone has any further examples of the MM in charts to share it would be good to see. :'

33
Steven,
It was a long process of re-discovering my roots as an astrologer. culminating in 2004 as a graduate of Robert Zollers diploma course.


Robert Zoller's course is Medieval, have you switched from Medieval to Hellenistic? Which do you find more accurate for predicting? I do not seem to have the time to devote to study as most of you.

I started the Medieval, and now it seems the Hellenistic is all the buzz. As you know it is a very time consuming study, espcially with my propensity to question everything I read and re-analyze it, ponder it, turn it around, look for real life examples where it holds true, and brings valid, tangible results. And dealing with my fear of accepting a method and proceeding with it as if it is true, then later finding out it wasn't.

Only the times that I except something without question, does it always seem to nip me in the bud!! Never fails! I don't want to do that to any one's reading as I am sure no-one does! But I guess I remember those mistakes the most!

So which methods do you find to be most accurate?

thanks so much for all your input, it's great!!

34
Hello Steven,
To really have a good understanding of what the early medieval astrologers were doing, one has to have a good understanding of the methods of the Hellenistic period....Hellenistic astrology introduced many such axioms which became the foundations of later applications. Solar Returns, profections, directing a significator through the "bounds" and chronocrators are all found in Hellenistic astrology


Extremely well put! That makes it very clear, it is the foundation upon which to build on! Thanks, your comments are always appreciated and very helpful!

37
Pankajdubey wrote:
A few names changed and the posts of ?Steven missing.
9 years and so many missing fragments ;why blame the ancients if whole texts got lost in a millennia
Just to make clear Steven Birchfield unlilaterally chose to delete all his posts on Skyscript himself before leaving the forum. Neither action had anything to do with the moderators here. I have no idea why someone would do something like that. It took no account on the effect it would have on forum discussions for others. It has meant some threads Steven contributed to no longer make as much sense. Fortunately, with the quotes I gave from him it should be easy to follow this one.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

38
Hello,

I am a new user on this forum. I am interested on that subject of moira and I have some questions about it. Firstly, I don't have the translations of Paulus & Olympiodorus yet. Also I feel dumb about it but I don't really understand how the texts are referenced in CCAG. About the "Liber Hermetis" when I search for it on the web I always get to the Po?mandres and the summary of it on Project Hindsight.
Is there at least an untranslated version pdf to download somewhere?
Is the T.A.R.E.S. volume II from Project Hindsight a collection of translations of thoses classical texts?

From what I have read on this topic there is at least three kind of moira used in hellenistic period: one based on chaldean order, one based on triplicities by day or night, another is based on triplicities by day and night. but the description is ambiguous and I am not sure if I have not misunderstood it. So I have made a quick schema diagram to be clear because I am not a native english speaker.
edit:I updated the table
Image
Am I correct or not?
Last edited by Fran?ois F. on Thu Jan 05, 2017 12:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Best regards
Fran?ois F.

39
Fran?ois F. wrote:Hello,

I am a new user on this forum. I am interested on that subject of moira and I have some questions about it.
Hi Fran?ois,

I've been waiting for one of the moderators to welcome you, but everyone may be a bit slow in getting back to the forum after the holidays. Your English is flawless, quite excellent!! Superior to so-called English here in the States.
Firstly, I don't have the translations of Paulus & Olympiodorus yet. Also I feel dumb about it but I don't really understand how the texts are referenced in CCAG.
I don't think any of us are experts on CCAG references.
About the "Liber Hermetis" when I search for it on the web I always get to the Po?mandres and the summary of it on Project Hindsight. Is there at least an untranslated version pdf to download somewhere?
I only know about Robert Zoller's translation through Project Hindsight which is out of print. I do have a copy as one of the original Project Hindsight subscribers. We were very fortunate to be there "at the moment."
Is the T.A.R.E.S. volume II from Project Hindsight a collection of translations of those classical texts?
Volume II is a translation and commentary on Antiochus with additions from Porphyry, Rhetorius, Serapio, Thrasyllus, Antigonus et al. (from the cover) The book could easily form the basis for a semester-long university course. The text has to be studied rather than simply read.
From what I have read on this topic there is at least three kind of moira used in hellenistic period: one based on chaldean order, one based on triplicities by day or night, another is based on triplicities by day and night. but the description is ambiguous and I am not sure if I have not misunderstood it. So I have made a quick schema diagram to be clear because I am not a native English speaker.
I think that perhaps you have learned more about the kinds of moira than anyone else on this forum! The diagram you submitted is very helpful. This is really the study of degrees of the zodiac. I have been studying the half degrees in Jyotish, the shastyamsas.

I am going to take up the influence of degrees on the subject of Mars for boxers (and tennis players). The forum topic here is "Accidental Dignity." http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 939#100939

Welcome to the forum, Fran?ois!

Therese
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

40
Indeed, welcome to the forum! I didn't reply in this thread because I haven't studied the classical sources on the degrees and so have little to add. And I am no expert in the CCAG either, but I'd be happy to try and help if you tell me more precisely what the problem is. Then again, perhaps Chris Brennan or someone else working more closely with Greek sources would be a better help.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

41
Hi Fran?ois,

your diagrams seem to represent the monomoiria (individual degree-assignments) correctly. I think the second version of "Paulus 2" is the correct one, but let me give some remarks on the whole issue.

The individual degree-assignments apparently stem back to the mythical Egyptian founders of classical astrology, perhaps to Nechepsos himself. The key evidence is the remark in Paul of Alexandria's Introduction, chapter 33, who refers to the Egyptian sages who used the degree-assignment according to trigon lords (your "Paulus 2") to ascertain the exact degree of the ascendant. Perhaps the same system is referenced in Valens 9.7-8, but the exact procedure is rather obscure most likely due to both the difficult wording of the original source and the faulty transmission of Valens' text. The exact rationale of the assignment of planets to individual degrees itself, reported in Paul 32, may also be a riddle, as it also seems a faithful rendering of the obscure source text. Anyway, the scribes of Paul's (and Rhetorius') manuscripts struggled with the text so much that none of their tabulations give correct results. (The current scholarly consensus holds that Paul's work was abbreviated and incorporated into the still unpublished Book VI of Rhetorius; I have my doubts on the authorship.) Fortunately the reasoning is not desperately difficult to reconstruct a table (which you did in the second version of "Paulus 2"), which rationale can be corroborated with lectures 34-35 of Olympiodorus on Paul. (Where the manuscripts commit mistakes again.)

I'm pretty sure that the individual degree-assignments given in chapter 35 of On the 36 decans (De triginta sex decanis, also known as Liber Hermetis) is only a variation of this "Egyptian" scheme. This book, fully extant only in a 15th century manuscript, is probably a 13th century Latin translation of one or more Greek texts, which is attributed to Hermes (to whom hundreds of texts of different languages were attributed over the centuries), although only chapter 1 is Hermetic in strict sense. Chapter 35 is fairly impossible to date, but other portions of the text were written not earlier than 480, thus it might represent a late 5th century assemblage, a century older than Paul. Here the lot of fortune is scrutinized to see how many years one can expect to live, and given the obscurity of the source text and the convoluted textual history of the passage, it's not surprising that the scheme somewhat differs from the "Egyptian" one.

An entirely different system (your "Paulus 1") is attributed to the 1st century astrologer Critodemus by Valens (4.26), who based a time-lord system on it. Perhaps the system, based on the seven zone (also known as the "Chaldean order" in the modern parlance), is not Critodemus' own but might also go back to the "Egyptians", since their purposes clearly differ. This is reported in Paulus 5 (the related Olympiodorus lecture is lost). Here only one passage (faultily) edited as "scholium 15" in one of the best manuscripts of Paul, Paris, BNF, gr. 2506 (where it is a part of chapter 441), elucidates what to do with the degree-assignments: it constitutes a sort of sympathy between degrees of different signs even if these signs are unconfigured with each other. This is the system used in the elaborate horoscope attributed to Eutocius, dated to 497, in Rhetorius 6.52, which has been only partially edited and then translated in Greek Horoscopes, and perhaps the same is referred in chapter 22 of Epitome IV of Rhetorius and its adaptation as chapter 218 of the Paris manuscript referred above. These latter texts were translated together in the Project Hindsight Companion to the Greek Track under the title of "The Byzantine Synthesis in Rhetorius". Unfortunately, neither the Eutocius horoscope nor the instructions of Rhetorius gives us any hint what to use the individual degree-assignments for.

The last source I know is an undatable horoscope from Oxyrhynchus (P. Oxy. astron. 4277), which is from the late 2nd or early 3rd century. (You can find its edition in Alexander Jones's Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus.) It allots 7 Capricorn to Venus, 28 Taurus to Mercury, 28 Scorpio to Jupiter (here identical with the "Paulus 1" version), and either of 8, 9, or 10 Virgo to Venus. Since this is a primary document (a remnant of an elaborated horoscope on papyrus) and textual corruption can be excluded, it is an evidence for further alternatives in degree-assignments.

All this said, there don't seem to be more extant sources in Greek astrological literature regarding monomoiria (I haven't found any more information in CCAG, which is basically a catalogue of Greek manuscripts related to astrology), nor would it be received in Arabic astrology.