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Hi everyone,

I noticed some traffic coming in to my blog today from this thread, and I wanted to make some comments after reading the discussion. This post is primarily in response to Mark's post from the first page where he critiqued a statement I made about the use of whole sign houses in the Hellenistic tradition. I don't know how best to do this without making the discussion overly complicated, but I guess that I will just respond to some of those points individually by quoting them first.
Mark wrote:The problem with that statement is that it is a serious oversimplication of the available evidence and makes a lot of assumptions.

...

I am no authority on statistics but to maintain the position that 100% of hellenistic astrologers were using whole sign houses (excluding length of life calculation) is drawing a conclusion that many of the available sources simply dont support.
It is true that my statement was a bit of an oversimplification, but not as much as you are making it out to be here. My general point was simply that Schmidt was only partially correct in saying that the quadrant systems were used in order to determine how active a planet is. My general observation has been that the quadrant systems usually tended to be introduced within the specific context of the length of life treatment, whereas elsewhere whole sign houses are often used in order to determine angularity. That is what I meant by the 100% remark. For example, outside of the length of life treatment, Valens seems to use whole sign houses 100% of the time in order to determine how angular a planet is. Just look at the example charts in book 2 where he discusses the trigon lords of the sect light, which are primarily judged within the context of how angular they are.
Mark wrote:No one is really sure what house system Ptolemy was using. The topic has been discussed ad nauseum here on Skyscript for years and the only rational conclusion is that we dont have enough information in his Tetrabiblos to know quite what system he was using.
I disagree that the only rational conclusion is that we don't have enough information to know what system Ptolemy was using. I personally found Schmidt's analysis of Ptolemy's consistent reference to the signs as 'places' throughout the Tetrabiblos as conclusive evidence that he was using whole sign houses. The only instance in which this is not the case is within the context of the length of life technique, but that is because this is the technique that quadrant houses were originally specifically designed for. As with Valens, just because Ptolemy uses quadrant houses within the context of the length of life technique does not necessarily mean that that was the primarily form of house division that was meant to be used with the rest of the system that he presents.

Deb is the only person I know of who has seriously questioned this position, although I don't agree with her argument for the reasons stated above.

At this point for me if someone wants to argue that Ptolemy was not using whole sign houses then they need to tally up every single instance in the Tetrabiblos in which Ptolemy uses the word zoidion to refer to a house and explain how exactly this does not demonstrate that he was using whole sign houses.
Mark wrote:One of the earliest surviving astrological texts is the Astronomica of Manilius dating from the early 1st century CE. He seems to be using a house system dividing up the celestial sphere. It has been suggested that this may be the Campanus house system.
I disagree. Although he is often a bit sketchy on the details, Manilius seems to use the signs as houses. He certainly does this within the context of the the Lot of Fortune, for example in book 3, 75-86:
Manilius wrote:"The lots of these activities she allocated to each sign, not in such a way that they should remain in a permanent quarter of the sky and, always looked for in the same place, be drawn to influence all human activities alike, but so that they should receive their proper position according to the moment of birth and change from sign to sign, each lot at a different time moving to a different constellation, so that the nativity then meets with a new pattern in the zodiac, without however disturbing everything with irregular motions. But when the section of the activities which is assigned to the first lot receives its proper place at the moment of the nativity, the rest follow attached to zodiacal signs in their usual sequence. The procession follows the leader until the circle of the lots fills up the circle of signs." (trans. Goold, pg. 169)
This isn't just true of derivative houses from the Lot of Fortune though, but he also seems to talk about the houses within the context of the signs later in book 3, 599-5:
Manilius wrote:"And the trigon of the Horoscope which rose first and is on the right bestows sixty and the double of four. The trigon on the left and following in the wake of the preceding signs doubles thirty years and adds three over and above. And the temple which is separated by one intervening sign from the first sign rising at the cardinal point and which is now next to heaven's peak, this multiplies a score by three and takes three years away." (trans. Goold, pg. 213)
Why is Manilius talking about the houses/temples as if they were signs here, or able to be counted out evenly in terms of being separated by a certain number of signs?

Furthermore, why does Manilius say at one point that once you calculate the ascendant that all of the other angles are already determined? Why doesn't he mention the degree of the MC? Does the lack of reference to the MC or to intermediate house cusps imply that he was using whole sign houses like some of his contemporaries? From book 3, 503-509:
Manilius wrote:"So must you seek among the fast-rotating stars the rising point of the heavens and the Horoscope with its fixed ascension, so that, when precise accuracy attaches to the location of the first cardinal point, the zenith of heaven on high will not be able to elude you, nor the swift setting, and the foundations with be correctly fixed at the nadir, and the signs will duly light upon their proper portions and influences." (trans. Goold, pgs. 204-5)
Ultimately Manilius's text is so murky and he mentions the houses so infrequently that it is difficult to be certain of anything, but based on the quotes above as well as other statements in his work I think there is reason to think that it isn't as simple as saying that he was using Campanus houses and that is the end of the story.
Mark wrote:The third century astrologer Porphyry was obviously using the quadrant system named after him.
It is really not as simple as that. The only astrological text we have from Porphyry is his Introduction, which is only partially preserved, interpolated, and largely consists of definitions that he is either quoting or paraphrasing from the earlier author Antiochus. So, in much of the text there is the question of who the author is, and if we should attribute the doctrines to Antiochus, Porphyry or some other later Medieval source who has been inserted into the text such as Sahl.

That being said, there are places in Porphyry's Introduction where the author is clearly referring to the signs as houses. In chapter 36 he cites an earlier author named Timaeus for the opinion that there are seven chremetistikos houses, and he specifically equates these places with signs relative to the ascendant:
Porphyry wrote:"According to Timaeus, 7 signs are effective in each nativity - the 4 angles, the 2 trines of the ASC, and for the remaining one, the cadent of the MC." (trans. Holden, pg. 27).
Holden has a footnote here in his translation pointing out that whole sign houses are being assumed here. Are we to take this as being reflective of Porphyry's personal preference, or do we just ascribe this view to the sources he was drawing on? Interestingly, in this chapter the author goes on to say that if the degree of the ascendant is very late in the sign then the following sign will also be rendered jointly chrematistikos, which echoes a similar sentiment that Dorotheus expresses at one point, perhaps in a way that supports Schmidt's argument. Nothing is said about the MC or intermediate house cusps though, as this is still apparently a sign-based framework that the author is employing.

In chapters 41 through 43 Porphyry talks about the rising times of the signs in order to be able to calculate primary directions for the length of life technique. It is here in chapter 43 that he introduces what has become known as Porphyry houses, and he does so at this point because he notes that Ptolemy had his discussion of quadrant houses in his chapter on the length of life as well.

The only other discussion of quadrant houses in Porphyry outside of chapter 43 occurs at the very end of the work in chapter 52 when he talks about another type of length of life technique that has to do with the ages of life as determined relative to the houses in clockwise order starting from the ascendant. He reiterates a form of Porphyry style house division for the specific purpose of this technique. Are we to take this as indicative of the type of house division that he applied in general practice though, or is he introducing it just for the purpose of this technique because it relies so heavily on the concept of angularity? If it is the former, then why does he talk about the signs as being "active" or "inactive" earlier in the book, which is usually something that is reserved for the houses? Unfortunately at this point in the Introduction the rest of the text is just interpolations from Sahl and then it ends abruptly, so we never really get to find out how Porphyry applied all of these definitions in practice.
Mark wrote:While Valens does use the porphyry house system for the length of life calculation it is Robert Schmidt's theory that this was the only way it was utilised. I have quoted a post below by Deb that questions this assumption.
I don't find Deb's argument about Valens applying the names of the houses to his quadrant divisions to be very compelling. I think that Ptolemy and some of the others do this as well, although they make it clear that they are making a sort of analogy, saying that the 3rd quadrant house is like the house of Goddess in terms of its angularity. The point still remains that we don't see Valens actually applying topics to these quadrant divisions.

All of that being said, there were certainly some changes that took place during the course of the Hellenistic tradition. This is basically what I think happened at this point:

The original system was whole sign houses. This makes sense partially due to the fact that the conceptual structure of most of the system is predicated on a sign-based framework. For example, as Martin mentioned earlier, the significations of the houses are largely derived from their configuration to the ascendant and their angularity. The good places are good because those signs aspect the ascendant, while the bad places are bad because those signs do not. This is always true in a sign-based framework, but it is not always true in a quadrant framework because you could have the bad houses aspecting the 1st house in those systems. It creates a sort of logical inconsistency in the system that isn't there with whole sign houses.

So, at some point this 12 topic sign-based house system is introduced. Some authors ascribe the 12 topic system to Hermes, so perhaps there was a text written under that name in which it was originally outlined. But then there was this other really important text that was published at some point after that, which was ascribed the Nechepso and Petosiris. I can demonstrate pretty conclusively that one of the techniques that was originally outlined in the N&P text was the specific length of life technique that was used by virtually every subsequent Hellenistic and Medieval author. This is the familiar technique that involves the determination of a Predominator/hyleg, a "Domicile Master"/alcocoden, and the dual process of directing the predominator through the bounds until it hits the rays of malefics while at the same time calculating a specific number of years based on the condition of the "Domicile Master."

In was in this original treatment of the length of life technique that the authors (N&P) seem to have outlined some form of quadrant house division in order to determine a suitable candidate for the Predominator. For some reason they decided not to use the idealized whole sign house system for the purposes of determining "angularity" in this context, but instead they used some sort of system where the actual degrees of the MC and IC are taken into account, and it is the area just after the those degrees which becomes "angular" in this context. This explains why several of the major Hellenistic astrologers including Valens and Ptolemy introduced their quadrant based systems within the context of their discussions about the length of life treatment, while at the same time alluding to mysterious "ancient" authors who originally outlined the length of life doctrine itself. Whatever the Nechepso and Petosiris text said about quadrant houses during this originally exposition must have been somewhat difficult to interpret though, as you can see different authors presenting different solutions to how to trisect the quadrants, or which part of the quadrants should be deemed "active." Perhaps this part of the text was written in a way that it was open to interpretation, sort of like how Valens says that Nechepso's cryptic statements about the calculation of the Lot of Fortune have been interpreted in different ways by other authors.

So what you have then during the earlier part of the tradition in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE is essentially a whole sign framework when it comes to dealing with houses, except when it comes to this major technique which requires the introduction of an alternate "house" system in order to calculate it properly. This eventually led to some issues because it caused some astrologers to pay attention to the actual degree of the MC rather than just the idealized midheaven/10th whole sign house. You can see sort of an intermediate stage in the development of this issue in book 5 of Valens where he explains that the degree of the MC and the IC actually import what are essentially 10th house and 4th house topics into whatever whole sign house that they fall in, essentially doubling up the topics of that sign/house. He makes an even more interesting and revealing statement in the same chapter though - within the context of annual profections he says that if you are in an angular profection year then you can profect from one angle and it will land on another, regardless of if those angles actually occupy whole sign houses that are angular from each other. So for example, if you are in a 10th house profection year and you want to profect from the degree of the IC, but the IC falls in the 3rd whole sign house, the profection will go to the ascendant rather than to the 12th whole sign house. He leaves it at that though and he doesn't talk about calculating or profecting from intermediate house cusps in this chapter.

So, as long as this section isn't an interpolation, it seems to represent this sort of intermediate stage where some of the Hellenistic astrologers were struggling with and finding creative solutions to the clash between the whole sign and quadrant house frameworks. For the most part Valens' work is still largely sign-based though, although there is a chapter in book 9 where he seems to advocate equal houses for the purpose of doing derivative houses, although he never seems to use this in an example charts so it is not clear how he integrates it into his broader system. Firmicus Maternus also outlines what appears to be equal houses at the beginning of his book, but then as James Holden pointed out to me a few years ago in a private email, he never seems to actually use equal houses in the rest of the text, but instead he consistently refers to the signs and houses. This was Holden's position circa late 2007:
James Holden wrote:"Firmicus explained the Equal House system of house division in one chapter of the 'Mathesis', but I don't think that he ever used it. As nearly as I can tell, all the rest of the 'Mathesis' is based on the Sign-House system. It was the original system, and it seems to have been the primary one used for the first 500 years of Horoscopic Astrology. A few astrologers tried Equal House, but I doubt that it ever became popular. And I think the same could be said for Porphyry houses."
Now, by the late Hellenistic tradition in the 6th and 7th centuries it seems clear that things have changed substantially, and quadrant houses were starting to be employed topically. This seems clear to me at this point in both Rhetorius and Olympiodorus, who were both writing at the very end of the tradition. It wasn't really a clean break at this point though, but instead what we appear to have is this weird middle ground where both whole sign houses and quadrant houses are being applied in order to study topics at the same time. In chapter 113 of Holden's translation of Rhetorius he uses an example in which he calculates Alchabitius house cusps, but he deliberately switches back and forth when he goes through the planetary positions, saying that one planet is angular "by [whole] sign" but cadent "by [quadrant] degree." In the earlier portions of his Compendium it is clear that Rhetorius was drawing on an earlier tradition that was largely sign based, as often the house delineations refer to houses as signs, but it appears that in practice he favors this newer approach that blends the two systems.

Finally, Olympiodorus wrote a commentary on Paulus in the summer of 564, and in it there is chapter in which he appears to have dealt with the house division issue explicitly. I'm not fully familiar with the textual issues here, but the editors inserted this section into the end of chapter 23 of Olympiodorus' commentary. Here Olympiodorus basically says that he is drawing on a tradition that is largely sign-based, but he points out that this creates issues when you take into account the degree of the MC:
Olympiodorus wrote: "There has come to be a certain amount of difference and ambiguity for the astrologers concerning the division and separating of such twelve places. For they define the whole place as the zoidion itself, whole degree is found marking the hour or culminating. But in this reckoning other faults also result, especially because from the hour-marking degree up to the culminating one there is not always a distance of 90 degrees..." (trans. Greenbaum, pgs. 118-9.)
Olympiodorus goes on to describe Porphyry houses, even giving part of a chart example, which is unfortunately undatable because it only gives the degrees of the angles and the cusps.

But as long as this chapter in Olympiodorus and the one in Rhetorius are legitimate, they make it clear that a major shift in the way that houses were being conceptualized was in the process of taking place by the very end of the Hellenistic tradition, and this is basically the legacy that got handed off to the early Medieval astrologers like Masha'allah and Sahl. It seems to me that their familiarity with earlier Hellenistic authors like Valens and Dorotheus led the early Medieval astrologers to favor whole sign houses initially, as noted by Hand, but then eventually at some point later in that tradition the quadrant systems completely displaced whole sign houses for some unknown reason.
My website:
http://www.chrisbrennanastrologer.com

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Mark wrote:Can I just ask when do you think Porphyry houses were first being used in Indian astrology?
I regret that I can't say. Indian texts on predictive astrology (phalita-jyoti?a) tend not to include mathematical-astronomical considerations (ga?ita-jyoti?a), and I have mainly studied the former. Some of them (the earlier ones in particular) do tend to use words for 'zodiacal sign' (such as r??i or bha) in the sense of 'house', but not exclusively so. And then there are questions of dating and of text interpolations... It's a jungle.
4 One Placidean house=Two planetary hours-Coincidence?
No, of course not. If one feels that a house system ought to reflect the planetary hours, then Placidus is the obvious choice. But it is not obvious (to me at least) why one should feel that.
Yes John Partridge the late 17th century astrologer seems to have been a big influence on later English astrology in terms of adopting Placidus houses. He was strongly influenced by Placidus and his Primum Mobile. Somewhat ironic considering his personal anti-Roman Catholic prejudices. However, Martin is the resident expert. He has lectured on this subject and I think(?) written an article on this very topic.
My lecture at the 2010 Sophia conference is available here. It mentions Partridge at the beginning but goes on to deal more with Worsdale and Oxley. Robert Hand, who was the previous speaker, dealt primarily with Partridge. His paper should be in the printed volume (which I have yet to see); I don't know if it's also available online.

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waybread wrote:Martin, thanks for your clarity. Just a question, though:

Robert Schmidt (CURA, 1996; TMA, 1999/2000) essentially argues that there were 3 different house systems for different purposes.

1. Topical: This would be themes like reputation, illness, and marriage (depending upon the author and date, as their house contents varied.) Whole signs.

2. Dynamical: assessing the strength of a planet according to its position in its quadrant; i.e., angular, succedant, cadent. Porphyry.

3. Unnamed, but it corresponds to your 1a. Planets are well or poorly placed in a given house because of its aspect to the first house. The bad ones are semi-sextile or quincunx. House system not mentioned.

You've explained the houses somewhat differently. Are their flaws in Schmidt's 3 categories from your perspective?
I haven't read the article, but I can't see the difference between categories 1 and 3 as you present them. Using whole-sign houses, the aspect relationships between the houses are naturally fixed.

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Chris Brennan wrote:The original system was whole sign houses. This makes sense partially due to the fact that the conceptual structure of most of the system is predicated on a sign-based framework. For example, as Martin mentioned earlier, the significations of the houses are largely derived from their configuration to the ascendant and their angularity. The good places are good because those signs aspect the ascendant, while the bad places are bad because those signs do not. This is always true in a sign-based framework, but it is not always true in a quadrant framework because you could have the bad houses aspecting the 1st house in those systems. It creates a sort of logical inconsistency in the system that isn't there with whole sign houses.
As you mention my name: my point is that there is a logical inconsistency either way, because it seems obvious (to me, anyway) that aspectual relationships are only one part of the matter, and that some major house significations are based on things like culmination and anti-culmination (and approaching or falling away from culmination, etc). The 10th place wouldn't be invested with certain powers if it were not for the fact that it was supposed to be culminating, and so forth.

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Perhaps the moment of certain events expressed in seasonal hours and related to a certain meaning was there before the use of houses and/or planetary strengths
Van der Waerden wrote:On the other hand, the older astro-logical texts use the popular division of day and night. The omen of an eclipse depends on the night watch in which it takes place.
B. L. van der Waerden - Babylonian Astronomy. III. The Earliest Astronomical

The oldest source of the ascendant is of 4 BC (Michael Baigent ? From the omens of Babylon). Perhaps only just short after the mathematics had developed into something that could calculate the ascendant as an intersection point of the two great circles of ecliptic and horizon. Before this time it must have been done otherwise, either by direct observation at birth or by some more or less crude arithmetical method. Whole signs then seem logical as a first step in this development.

Perhaps the procedure somewhat looked like this. At latitudes a bit north of Paris the ratio of the shortest to the longest day is 1:2 or 8 hours : 16 hours or 120:240 equinoctial degree ?times?. The old arithmetic (and not according to reality) method of calculating the rising times of the signs, would then lead to rising times of
Aries 13?20?
Taurus 20?
Gemini 26?40?
Cancer 33?20?
Leo 40?
Virgo 46?40
Libra 46?40?
Scorpio 40?
Sagittarius 33?20?
Capricorn 26?40?
Aquarius 20?
Pisces 13?20?

The times are expressed in equinoctial degrees where 1?=4 clock minutes, 30?=2 hours.
(Note the symmetries, probably a source of inspiration for antiscia etc.)

If someone would have been born with Sun in 0?Scorpio, it would take (40?+33?20?+26?40?+20?+13?20?+13?20?=) 146?40? times till 0? Taurus rises. If the measured birth time would have been expressed in seasonal times (based upon the diurnal arcs) and would be 2/3 of the diurnal arc or 120 seasonal times then this would be 2/3*146?40?= 97?46?40? equinoctial times. So from 97?46?40 times after sunrise on that you will have to subtract the rising times of the following signs: 97?46?40?-40?(Scorpio)-33?20?(Sagittarius)=25?26?40?. This is slightly shorter than the rising time of Capricorn, so the ascendant would be somewhere at the end of Capricorn. (The correct calculation is quite close to this method.) In whole sign measurements the exactness isn?t necessary. Moreover, the old Greek astrologers used these sign rising methods without taking into observation the difference of rising speed within one sign. Ptolemy rejected this use.
Chris Brennan wrote: At this point for me if someone wants to argue that Ptolemy was not using whole sign houses then they need to tally up every single instance in the Tetrabiblos in which Ptolemy uses the word zoidion to refer to a house and explain how exactly this does not demonstrate that he was using whole sign houses.
I?d say that the whole sign proponents should do this as well when demonstrating that he was using whole sign houses.
waybread wrote:My sense is that this is what Manilius did, as he seems to rely on a "natural" midheaven and calculates rising sign within a few degrees from rising constellations; vs. somebody like Valens who seems to view the MC and even the AC as calculated, derived, points.
What?s the difference? I don?t understand what you mean here.

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I'm strangely in agreement with Mark :) and I would say that we don't know exactly what Greek astrologers used and how.

For example it can be easily showed that Ptolemy examples of primary directions in Tetrabiblos III,11 fall on "Placidean" cusps:

http://heavenastrolabe.net/ptolemy-and- ... irections/

Is it a coincidence? It is not likely.

Does Ptolemy use different methods for different subjects? That was just Ptolemy method or Ptolemy took it from someone else? I'm sure nobody, neither Bezza or Schmidt really know....

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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margherita wrote:I'm strangely in agreement with Mark :) and I would say that we don't know exactly what Greek astrologers used and how.
Well over 90% of everything that was ever written on the subject is lost, so debating what they did is probably an exercise in futility. There were astrologers of different opinions on the subject, but from the available evidence surrounding the founders, whole signs seems to be the default for topics.

We see Valens giving the MC to praxis and saying that if it falls outside of the 10th sign that this sign also participates in the determination with regard to what one does. It is important to realize that Valens is probably 300+ years removed from the founders he is fond of quoting.

At this point though I have more faith in someone who knows Greek hashing out the texts than those who don't. That would be James Holden and Robert Schmidt. Mark Riley's translation is a "first draft" not checked for consistency (Riley says so) so I would not be inclined to use it against a more scrutinized translation such as Schmidt's for serious research.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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zoidsoft wrote:
At this point though I have more faith in someone who knows Greek hashing out the texts than those who don't. That would be James Holden and Robert Schmidt.
But what about Giuseppe Bezza? He knows ancient Greek, Latin, Arab and he taught in one of the most important Italian Universities for classical studies.

He is inside academical world and he is a traditional astrologer since the '80.

If he is not so known in the traditional astrology world is because he does not care to write in English. (The difference is I can read English works by Schmidt, Holden or Hand and the rest, but English mother tongue people cannot read Bezza and compare)

So if Schmidt says something and Bezza's something else, to me it means that there is no real evidence on the subject, otherwise both would be in agreement.



margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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margherita wrote:
zoidsoft wrote:
At this point though I have more faith in someone who knows Greek hashing out the texts than those who don't. That would be James Holden and Robert Schmidt.
But what about Giuseppe Bezza? He knows ancient Greek, Latin, Arab and he taught in one of the most important Italian Universities for classical studies.

He is inside academical world and he is a traditional astrologer since the '80.

If he is not so known in the traditional astrology world is because he does not care to write in English. (The difference is I can read English works by Schmidt, Holden or Hand and the rest, but English mother tongue people cannot read Bezza and compare)

So if Schmidt says something and Bezza's something else, to me it means that there is no real evidence on the subject, otherwise both would be in agreement.

margherita
I'm focusing on English translations primarily here. There are a few others as well like Rumen Kolev, Demetra George and Dorian Greenbaum to name a few. My omission is not meant to say there is no one else familiar with Greek. How many years has Dr Bezza been translating the Greek texts? Has he finished Valens 8 and 9, if so, if you could translate those to English for us we would be grateful. The Riley text needs more work. I've spotted a few errors and pointed them out here in this forum.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

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Question to Margherita and Martin:

I assume that you both don't use the whole sign houses.
What house system(s) do you use then? Alchabitius?

I don't ask for a explanation/justification for the use
of a certain system, I'm just curious.

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Eddy wrote:Question to Margherita and Martin:

I assume that you both don't use the whole sign houses.
What house system(s) do you use then? Alchabitius?
I use Placidus, but I am NOT at war with other systems. For example, for horary I've always used Regiomontanus.

But Placidus fits very well with semiarc primary directions method :) so with natal astrology.

As I showed in my blog in the short article already quoted above in fact, 5 out of the 6 Ptolemy's examples of semiarc method fall on a "Placidean" cusp. In fact quoting from my article:

"Up to this point we see that of the six examples of directions inTetrabiblos, in three of them the significator is on the axes (Asc, MC and Descendant); of the other three ones, two are on a Placidean house cusp and one is in the middle of the quadrant."

http://heavenastrolabe.net/ptolemy-and- ... irections/

where obviously middle of quadrant is 3 hours.

It means (to me) at least that Ptolemy knew very well Placidean hours. (or viceversa, Placido knew very well Ptolemy :) ).

This does not mean obviously that Ptolemy uses for sure Placidean houses, just they fit very well with Ptolemy.

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

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Eddy wrote:Question to Margherita and Martin:

I assume that you both don't use the whole sign houses.
What house system(s) do you use then? Alchabitius?

I don't ask for a explanation/justification for the use
of a certain system, I'm just curious.
I won't explain myself then, :D but simply say that I use Alcabitius cusps (while also paying attention to signs/aspectual relationships).