Another request to check the Pingree edition of Valens 1 by Deb I have just been reading Mark Riley's 'Survey of Vettius Valens' which is very interesting and available as a PDF file at http://www.csus.edu/indiv/r/rileymt/PDF ... Valens.PDF I am intrigued by the supposition that the example chart given in Valens book II.30 (chapter 31 in the PH edition), dated to 8th Feb 120, is Valens' own birth chart. The information is contained in footnote 4 on p,45, but there is no explanation other than a recommendation to "see Pingree's introduction to his edition, p.5". If anyone has the Pingree edition will they please share what evidence supports this? Wikopedia seems to be treating it as a fact, but the idea that we have his birth chart has come as a surprise to me and there is no mention of this chart being special in the PH edition. It would be very good to think that we have his actual birth chart. Quote Fri May 08, 2009 7:38 pm
Re: Another request to check the Pingree edition of Valens 2 by Martin Gansten Deb wrote:The information is contained in footnote 4 on p,45, but there is no explanation other than a recommendation to "see Pingree's introduction to his edition, p.5". Pingree's introduction -- or rather, praefatio -- is in Latin. As far as I can see, though, his identification of Valens's possible nativity is more in the nature of an educated guess. He 'believes' or 'supposes' (opinor) two charts (conception and nativity) to belong to to Valens, because the nativity is the most well-worked example (exemplum probatissimum) of the text, and because the dates would fit nicely with the period in which most of the charts discussed in the Anthology must have been collected. Quote Fri May 08, 2009 9:32 pm
3 by Deb Thanks Martin. I'm perplexed that this can get accepted without supporting evidence. What would Lois Rodden have said? I suppose then, it gets a DD rating (dirty data)? Quote Fri May 08, 2009 9:44 pm
4 by epurdue Are there any English translations of Valens other than Project Hindsight? Quote Sun May 10, 2009 4:07 pm
5 by trevor Thanks for posting this paper Deb. On page 27 he quotes Valens: Saturn makes those born under him...........................a nautical bent, plying waterside trades'. Does anyone know or have an insight into the thinking here? Is it perhaps that at this time being a fisherman was seen as unfortunate and hard work? Quote Mon May 11, 2009 12:47 am
6 by Martin Gansten steven wrote:I'm not so sure Pingrees suggestion is just a shot in the dark since Valens refrences the birth chart 21 times explaining the predecesion of his mother, his working abroad, his adventures at sea, and his move to Egypt. As a professional scholar, whose job largely consists in making educated guesses, I would certainly agree that there is a difference between these (educated being the operative word) and shots in the dark! I also agree that most astrology teachers, myself included, tend for very natural reasons to use their own charts as examples much of the time. Still, it's not exactly Rodden rating AA for our Valens chart. Quote Mon May 11, 2009 6:39 am
7 by Martin Gansten Mithra6 wrote:Are there any English translations of Valens other than Project Hindsight? Not to my knowledge (I would be very interested to learn of any such). There is a fairly recent (2004) German translation by Knobloch and Sch?nberger, though. Quote Mon May 11, 2009 6:41 am
8 by ea Hejsan Martin! Martin Gansten wrote:Mithra6 wrote:Are there any English translations of Valens other than Project Hindsight? Not to my knowledge (I would be very interested to learn of any such). There is a fairly recent (2004) German translation by Knobloch and Sch?nberger, though. Have you read it? If so, does it differ very much from the English translation? Erna Quote Mon May 11, 2009 7:47 am
9 by sasha_i Hi, There is also a translation of the first volume of Anthology in French Quote Mon May 11, 2009 7:51 am
10 by Martin Gansten ea wrote:Hejsan Martin! Nice to see you here. There is a fairly recent (2004) German translation by Knobloch and Sch?nberger, though. Have you read it? If so, does it differ very much from the English translation? I have read parts of it, but too little of Schmidt's translation to make any real comparison possible. Both seem to suffer from over-literalism, though. Considering Schmidt's surname, I wonder if this is a pan-German trait! A German Sanskrit professor once told me: 'In this country we have a tradition of sticking so close to the original that you need to know Sanskrit to understand the translation.' Quote Mon May 11, 2009 11:30 am
11 by ea Martin Gansten wrote: I have read parts of it, but too little of Schmidt's translation to make any real comparison possible. Both seem to suffer from over-literalism, though. Considering Schmidt's surname, I wonder if this is a pan-German trait! A German Sanskrit professor once told me: 'In this country we have a tradition of sticking so close to the original that you need to know Sanskrit to understand the translation.' Thank you, Martin, what a relief. It looks like I won't have to read the German version after all These days I prefer to read these texts in English as my German is getting a bit rusty. And as you imply, the English version can be challenging enough. Quote Mon May 11, 2009 1:09 pm
12 by Deb Thank you to Steven and others for the new contributions to this thread. I am still looking at this and my mind is quite open. I can understand that the suggestion has been accepted as credible and probable by many; but I am still a little uncomfortable that Wikopedia has turned the suggestion into an historical fact regarding his life-span. The suggestion may be probable but there is also a chance that it is completely wrong, and it could cause confusion which affects the dating of other documents. So I think it is safer to keep this tabbed as a speculated horoscope for Valens. Quote Tue May 12, 2009 7:52 pm