46
I've read through this and noticed a little confusion. It seems that not everyone regarding this system is using the Whole Sign system which is what Valens strictly used in all of his delienations.

Just a quick look at her chart you notice two Trigons are angular which right off the bat mean the persons life has above average events. Plus the Sun is in the 10th and in its own sign so that's a really strong testimony. Saturn is also angular in the 7th, though probably debilitated a bit due to being conjunct Algol. Jupiter is the only trigon in pretty bad shape.


Her first 19 years would have been determined by the Sun.
From 19 to 31 would have been governed by Jupiter.
After that all the work together with Saturn as the cooperating trigon.

Also, her Lot of Fortune is in Pisces. The Lot of Fortune is the Moon's lot and is in Sagittarius which 10 signs from Fortune. That in itself is a clear indication of eminence.

Etc,etc,etc.

47
It seems that not everyone regarding this system is using the Whole Sign system which is what Valens strictly used in all of his delienations.
It's my understanding that in addition to whole signs, Valens also used what we call the Porphry system to determine planetary strength. Although the original question concerned Valens, it seemed to me to include the method as it was practiced long after Valens and that was what most people responded to - the understanding of the method including, but not limited to Valens' particular techniques. We're OK with quadrant houses.

Tom

48
astrojin wrote:
The techniques of predicting the different parts of life using the three triplicity (trigon) rulers seem to fall into 2 contradicting methods:

1. The Hellenistic method (Schmidt, Brennan and others who follow them)

According to them (and they argued persuasively) that ancient Hellenistic astrologers divide life into 2 parts. The first trip lord of the main luminary governs the first part of life and the seond trip lord governs the second part of life. The participating Lord assists both. They also claim that there is a method to calculate/estimate the changeover from the first to the second.

2. The medieval method (The Arabs, Bonatti and many of us!)

They simply divide life into three parts, the first trip lord of the main luminary governs the first part of life, the second trip lord governs the second part of life and the third trip lord governs the third of life.


Yeah, this is correct. The same discussion came up on the Horoscopic Astrology Group a few months ago: http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuse ... 3D61162000

The gist of it is essentially that Dorotheus and Valens are our two primary sources for the application of the trigon lords in the Hellenistic tradition, and they both use it in order to designate two parts of the native's life rather than three. The cooperating lord simply assists the two primary trigon lords rather than setting up an independent third period of the life on its own.

Then at some point in the Medieval tradition it switches to a threefold division of the life rather than a twofold division. This is one of those nagging historical issues that has been bugging for some time now, since it isn't really clear at what point this change in the doctrine took place. It is an important distinction to be aware of though.

49
The gist of it is essentially that Dorotheus and Valens are our two primary sources for the application of the trigon lords in the Hellenistic tradition, and they both use it in order to designate two parts of the native's life rather than three. The cooperating lord simply assists the two primary trigon lords rather than setting up an independent third period of the life on its own.
Hi Chris,

Good to see you in the forum. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the current argument as I haven't been following the details. But I do remember writing an article about the Dorothean use of triplicities back in 1994, and my point then was to demonstrate how they were related to three stages of life. The concept was quite novel at the time, because few people had the Dorotheus text then, so those who were using triplicity rulers were following Lilly's techniques.

Anyway, from my reference to that one text it seemed pretty obvious that triplicities were related to the 3-stages of life. Maybe I am missing something, but here is a quote from the text that I referred to in that article, which then demonstrated the principle against further examples in his work:
If the first of the lords of Venus's triplicity is in a good place and the second in a bad place, then this condition in the matter of women is good in the beginning of his age, and in the last it is bad, because the first of the lords of Venus's triplicity indicates the first years, the second indicates the middle years and the third indicates the end of life. II. 275-285 [my emboldening]
The article is online, BTW, at http://www.skyscript.co.uk/triplicities.html
I am just wondering if there is some reason why this reference should be discounted.

Regards
Deb

50
Deb wrote: Hi Chris,

Good to see you in the forum. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the current argument as I haven't been following the details. But I do remember writing an article about the Dorothean use of triplicities back in 1994, and my point then was to demonstrate how they were related to three stages of life. The concept was quite novel at the time, because few people had the Dorotheus text then, so those who were using triplicity rulers were following Lilly's techniques.

Anyway, from my reference to that one text it seemed pretty obvious that triplicities were related to the 3-stages of life. Maybe I am missing something, but here is a quote from the text that I referred to in that article, which then demonstrated the principle against further examples in his work:
If the first of the lords of Venus's triplicity is in a good place and the second in a bad place, then this condition in the matter of women is good in the beginning of his age, and in the last it is bad, because the first of the lords of Venus's triplicity indicates the first years, the second indicates the middle years and the third indicates the end of life. II. 275-285 [my emboldening]
The article is online, BTW, at http://www.skyscript.co.uk/triplicities.html
I am just wondering if there is some reason why this reference should be discounted.

Regards
Deb
Hi Deb,

Yeah, someone brought up your article in the Myspace thread that I mentioned earlier. This was my response, which I've just copied and pasted from that thread:

"I think that this is a bit of an anachronism on Houlding?s part to say that the trigon lords in Dorotheus were used "as significators of the beginning, middle and end of any project." This may be true in the Medieval tradition, although I think that if one carefully reads all of the different sections on the application of the trigon lords in Dorotheus that they will see that his usage of the technique is the same as in Valens, insomuch as it is primarily about the principle trigon lord indicating the first part of the life and the secondary trigon lord indicating the second part of the life. The approach then is simply about breaking the life up into two portions, not three.

Here are a few passages from Dorotheus which demonstrate this:

The Arabic version of Dorotheus, translated by David Pingree, 1, 10: (Within the context of a discussion on studying the prenatal lunation)

"If you find the first lord of the triplicity in an evil place and the second in a good place, these will release him from slavery to manumission. (i.e. the native?s life goes from bad to good.) If you find the first lord of the triplicity in a good place and the second in an evil place, say that he is free in the beginning of his age and at the end of his life poverty and contempt and service will come to him. ... If both of them are in a good place, he is free from the beginning of his life till the end of his life."


The Arabic Dorotheus, translated by David Pingree, 1, 12: 24 (Within the context of a discussion on studying the status of the parents)

"If you find the first lord of the triplicity of the Sun in a strong place and the second in a bad place, then his father at the beginning of his birth attains goodness of condition, but this does not persist till the end, and if it is the opposite, then reverse it."


The Arabic Dorotheus, translated by David Pingree, 1, 22: (Within the context of a discussion on studying the trigon lords of the sect light)

"If the nativity is diurnal then look at the Sun and the lords of its triplicity, if it is nocturnal then look at the Moon... If you find the first and second lords of the triplicity, both of them together or each one of them separately, in a good place, then his condition will not cease from the beginning of his age to the end of his life to be in excellence and elevation and wealth. If you find the first lord of the triplicity in a good place and the second in a bad place, then his condition will be better in the beginning of his age, but will degenerate at the end of his life. If you find the first in a bad place and the second in a good place, then it indicates middling good in his life, but this will not last in him so that it will abate. ... "


So, the overwhelming evidence in Dorotheus points to a twofold division rather than a threefold one. When viewed in this context, the passage that Houlding quotes about Venus actually stands out as being rather odd since it clearly does not follow the same model:


The Arabic Dorotheus, translated by David Pingree, 2, 3: 21

"If the first of the lords of Venus?s triplicity is in a good place and the second in a bad place, then this condition in the matter of women is good in the beginning of his age, and in the last it is bad, because the first of the lords of Venus?s triplicity indicates the first years, the second indicates the middle years and the third indicates the end of life."


The very last statement in that paragraph simply seems to be a Medieval interpolation in the text, I would argue. That is to say, a scribe at some later point in time inserted an additional statement to the sentence that was not in the original. This is actually a rather frequent occurrence in that particular version of Dorotheus though, as I pointed out in a paper I wrote a while back .

What we have to remember when we are reading Pingree?s translation of Dorotheus is that it is not a translation of the original Greek text. It is an English translation of an Arabic translation of a Persian translation of the original versified Greek text, and it is filled with many mistakes, interpolations, and omissions.

The only way that we can check the authenticity of some of the passages in the Arabic version of Dorotheus is by comparing them with some fragments of Dorotheus? work that were preserved by Hephaistio of Thebes, which are usually much closer to what Dorotheus originally wrote.

In this instance we happen to be in luck though, since Hephaistio does indeed paraphrase Dorotheus on this topic:


Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatika, book 2, ch. 21, translated by Robert Schmidt:

"Again, we make a synopsis, by putting together the discussions of Nechepso and others in the verses of Dorotheus ... And whenever the first trigon-lord is well situated, but the second ill, it signifies the that first years of wedlock are good, but the last poor; and it signifies the opposite when things hold in the opposite way."


So, I would still stand by my original statement about the way the trigon lords were used to divide the native?s life in the Hellenistic tradition, and how this is distinct from the way that it was done later on. I think that the passage in the Houlding article simply represents a partial interpolation in that version of the text, and this becomes clear when you contrast it with the other applications of the technique in his work, as well as the statements from Hephaistio about Dorotheus? opinions.

The assumption that the Medieval threefold division was the same in the Hellenistic tradition is a common mistake that is made though, and that?s why I originally wanted to point it out. If you listen to Rob Hand?s lecture on triplicities from the Blast you will note that he made it as well, although I talked to him about it afterward and I think that he is straight on the matter now.

As to which approach works better, that is a different matter entirely. If everyone is aware that there are two different approaches then at least we will have a starting point for proceeding with research and comparisons on the matter though.

51
I see your point. I understand the issues concerning the transmission of the Dorotheus text, and that we have these issues with many other ancient texts too. I?m not convinced that the telling statement should be considered an interpolation on the basis of a comparison with an Hephaistio paraphrase, but I agree that there is good reason for people to be aware of the different views. The time will come when we have more ancient authors to judge by, so it is important to flag up the issues.

Thanks for the explanation,
Deb

52
Hi Gabe

I was away on the day you posted it, so I have only just seen your reference to the Serapio comment on planets opposite their own houses. Belated thanks!

Deb