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I may be confused by your question but Virgo is not (as far as I'm aware) associated with spring, but the change of season from summer to autumn. This is what Manilius says in reference to Erigone (his name for Virgo):

?Erigone, too, is numbered among the double signs, but the duality in her appearance is not the reason; for at the middle of the Virgin summer on one side ceases and autumn on the other begins? (2.175; Loeb p.97).

The significance of precession is also relevant to comment he makes a little later where he says ?summer comes with the Twins, autumn with the Virgin, winter begins with the Archer, spring with the Fishes? (2.265)

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waybread wrote:Right! Sometimes the old-timers referred to climatic change, not the star calendar in isolation.
I made a reference to this idea in my post of the 8th April but would like to point out that I am not an old-timer. I am a middle-aged timer. Ageism aside anyone can use their free will to believe the evidence of their own eyes and and see that blooming flowers, lambing and the absense of frost indicate spring, and infer that spring has begun by reasoning not "facts" in books. Much as one should value one's ephemeris
Last edited by Mjacob on Sun Apr 13, 2014 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Matthew Goulding

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Deb wrote:
Yes, the Manilius reference is very interesting in suggesting that the vernal point was originally expected to be in the middle of the signs rather than the beginning; especially combined with his reference to the shifting position of the vernal point at the end of his third book, and details provided by Goold (p.lxxxi) which shows how older accounts placed it at the 15th degree of the signs. That makes a lot of sense to me, given our knowledge of the history of the zodiac and how long it was employed before the period when the 1st degree of the constellation Aries coincided with the VP.
As you suggest the fact Manilius appears to support the idea of the seasonal shifts occurring in the middle of the signs indicates he was tapping into a much older tradition. I have located a reference to the 4th century BCE astronomer and mathematician Euxodus of Cnidus (408 BCE?355 BCE). He appears to be the original source of this idea in hellenistic astrology:
Hipparchus shows that Eudoxus placed the points of the year in
the middle of the signs Capricorn, Aries, Cancer, and Libra, not at
the beginnings of the signs where he himself placed them. ..... Finally we must bear in mind that if Hipparchus means that Eudoxus placed the points
of the year in the very center of the signs, then Eudoxus at one time
adopted a vernal point at Aries 15?. STUDIES IN THE GREEK ASTRONOMERS, by George Huxley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudoxus_of_Cnidus

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

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Could it be that the discussion with regard to Manilius is running little bit on the wrong way, not meeting with his teachings really? His text as to bicorporeal signs seems to be treated here as it would concern tropical signs, whereas Manilius distinguishes both in fact (of course), saying that the "astra bina" go before the "astra tropica".

And Manilius states, as Deb has mentioned and I have quoted above, that there are three degrees named by authorities, i.e. the 8th, 10th, and the 1st, but explicitly within the tropics ("tropica"), not within the bicorporeals ("bina"), these degrees signifying the longest, shortest and equal days (III, 671-682).

So with Manilius these relevant degrees are not within the bicorporeal signs, but they clearly are within the tropics.

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The essence of the bi-corporeal signs Manilius gives in II, 178-180:

"The reason why the bi-corporeals precede the tropics as Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn, is because they, connecting two seasons, contain double forces."

These signs announce the end of the preceding season and the next season to begin, but they are not the end and the beginning itself - II, 192,193:

"Also the two Pisces, sent ahead by Aries, name (portend, allude to) two seasons: The one of them closes winter, the other begins spring."

This is my onw translation, so it would be fine, if Deb or someone else could add the Goold translation.

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James wrote:
i am curious how the siderealists view bi-corporal signs? anyone have an idea? i can't imagine it being based the seasons, but i don't know.
Hi James,

I think you will find an answer if you check out this ongoing thread on the sidereal forum:

http://skyscript.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8223

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