the origins of horary

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i don't know if anyone will ever find out the starting point of this branch of astrology, but it is interesting and informative reading the ben dykes translations which include his commentary. after reading 'search for the heart' and while presently reading 'choices and inceptions' along with "Hephaistion of Thebes' Apotelesmatics:Book III: On Inceptions" i get this impression much of horary or questions has come out of an absence of an actual birth time for the person asking the question. this makes a lot of sense from the point of view that birth data might have been much more difficult to get for the ordinary person a few hundred or thousand years ago verses today. this does nothing to discount the value in doing horary, but if this is indeed an important part of the basis for horary practice it raises the question in my mind why horary is used to the exclusion of an actual birth chart when it is available.

i find myself seeing much of the gravitation towards horary today coming out of the short history on the re-introduction of william lillys work. this point seems to have coincided with a renewed interest in traditional astrology and a major interest in horary that i don't personally recall being as strong of an interest prior to this time frame. it seems that horary and traditional astrology go hand in hand for many of today's astrologers, perhaps due this confluence of events..

the timing of a question along with the rules governing what constitutes a valid horary chart seems to represent a type of magical moment that connects directly with the astrology of the moment ( see goeffrey cornelius's book for a powerful statement on this) and parallels what is written in the stars so to speak, if the astrologer is able to read it correctly. this describes astrology as more of a type of divination then 'science'. while many may want to describe or see astrology as more sceintific, i don't know if that is the best way to think of it!

i don't know how just how different horary is from natal astrology given how many elements there are to correctly intuit or read off a chart successfully. i think natal astrology could be considered as a type of divination as well. what i am most curious about is why astrologers don't ask similar questions while trying to find the answer in the natal chart if one is available to consider? it seems some of the questions i read could offer some clear insight via the natal chart, but this option isn't explored as readily.. i think some of this has to do with the way people think about astrology.. whether they are limiting their practice of it by only considering questions within the framework of 'horary' may or may not be of interest to some here, but it is to me! thoughts anyone?

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I've moved this over to the horary forum from the philosophy forum (with James' agreement), because I think that a forum dedicated to the topic of horary ought to include these kinds of discussions.

Obviously, horary was often used for people who had no knowledge of their birth time, and Lilly actually begins his 2nd book on horary with a comment about how many people have no knowledge of their nativities and yet have questions that they want to resolve through astrology (CA., p.60).

A few days ago I gave a presentation at Istanbul, where I pointed out comments published by Albertus Magnus, who defended the practice of horary on theological grounds, saying that to be able to seek advice on dilemmas is not a fatalistic act, but the very definition of free will (since it presents an opportunity for choice). Albertus makes comments that then get taken up by Guido Bonatti and incorporated into his 'considerations for astrologers'. The issue of "radicality" appears to come from Albertus, who draws reference to Haly, and makes the point that what the horary shows will reflect some detail of what is happening in the nativity, which acts as its root. Therefore the theological argument presented is that since nativities are based on natural knowledge, so by extension, a radical horary is also utilizing natural principles and is not a 'diabolical' thing.

This reflects my own experience that sincere questions (ie., those with a real sense of dilemma rather than those that are trivial or based on impatience or curiosity), will show a notable connection to the natal chart and something that is being triggered by transit or some kind of direction. The benefit of a horary is that it then provides a way to zoom into that particular matter, with a level of detail that cannot be drawn from the birth chart alone. Remember that in a horary chart, every element of symbolic detail applies specifically to the matter asked about - so we can even get very detailed physical descriptions of a person, at that particular time (and no other time) and in a way that specifically fits into the querent's understanding.

So in addition to the fact that a horary can be used without knowledge of the birth chart, even when the nativity is precisely known it still offers unique benefits for exploring one particular matter in great detail. It is not something that can be made redundant by the fact that good knowledge of the birth time exists.

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A brief interjection. We are often told that elections are too weak without checking the radix. There may be an exception for kings though. In a sort compare and contrast perhaps this could be re-considered. It is not a form I use so I hope this is not thought trivial or impatient :-?

Matthew
Matthew Goulding

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deb,

i like how you've framed horary in relation to the root chart and of the importance of a valid horary chart in giving additional information that is not so easily, or possible to be gotten only off the root chart. it makes me think of the difference between a wide angle and a microscope. it is interesting to me trying to think of a horary chart as a stand alone chart when the natal chart is known. it would seem that ignoring the natal chart and only looking at the horary misses a lot of information as well for this very reason. i could be mistaken but if i had the choice of being able to do both as opposed to one or the other, i would want to be able to see both. that said, i am a novice at the practice of horary and consequently don't know exactly what i am looking at!

it's a search for a deeper understanding of horary in relation to what i have gathered up to this point.. others might benefit from discussing with each other here any of these types of thoughts which are touched on in some of ben dykes books. short of having read them, i have tried to touch upon some of the themes that i find especially interesting in them. whether others are comfortable or confident enough to want to share - it would be nice if they did!

matthew

that is especially true for elections as i understand it too. another issue which seems to re-appear regularly in my readings is the thought that the assembly or new or full moon prior to the election chart is important to examine. i wonder if anyone does this in relation to horary charts, or if lilly or any horary astrologer thinks this is an important consideration for horary. it certainly seems the case with election charts, but it (assembly), and consideration of the root chart is not discussed in the few election chart examples i have seen here at skyscript. i have never seen these ideas(root chart or position of new or full moon prior to) discussed in horary examples either fwiw..

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I took advantage of Ben Dykes' visit to Edinburgh to buy a copy of Hephaistion on Saturday and I read Dykes' close textual analysis (starting on page 9) to see if what we would call true horary astrology was evident in the text. His conclusion was that it was not. We are left then with the question of how, "....in the 8th century, Arabic writers suddenly appeared with full-blown manuals on the subject."?

Dykes appears to lean towards an explanation that horary questions arose naturally out of "inception" charts - what we would today call consultation charts - drawn up by the astrologer to gain insight into the matter about which the client wants to consult with the astrologer, or because there was no known birth data to draw up a natal chart with which to answer a client's question.

Too, Dykes argues that the practice of drawing up astrological charts to determine the best time to sacrifice an animal so that the entrails would be readable for priestly interpretation, morphed into one where the sacrifice merely became the occasion for which the chart was drawn up to answer the oracular question. This early partnership between astrology and divination is explored in much more detail by Geoffrey Cornelius in "The Moment of Astrology".

Curiously, Dykes hardly mentions the possibility of Indian astrology introducing the idea of horary astrology into Hellenistic astrology, despite the fact that there was good communications between Indian and "Western" astrologers - particularly at Gundeshapur in the 6th century. This possibility is explored in much more detail in a fascinating podcast between Chris Brennan and Kenneth Johnson, which can be heard at;

http://theastrologypodcast.com/2013/07/ ... astrology/

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geoffrey

thanks for sharing the quotes. that was what i was reading and glad you were able to share that. thanks also for the link to the interview with kennth johnson that i had listened to previously, but worth sharing with others here. see from about 54 minute mark for anyone interested in the focus on horary astrology in the podcast.. consultation charts are discussed more then the typical way people think of horary, although this suggests some development towards more traditional horary. kenneth johnson mentions 6th century material from india that suggests horary.. it would be good to hear kenneths comments on this as an update from this podcast from 3/4's of a year ago. he states in the podcast he is working on a translation at present.

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Geoffrey wrote:I took advantage of Ben Dykes' visit to Edinburgh to buy a copy of Hephaistion on Saturday and I read Dykes' close textual analysis (starting on page 9) to see if what we would call true horary astrology was evident in the text. His conclusion was that it was not. We are left then with the question of how, "....in the 8th century, Arabic writers suddenly appeared with full-blown manuals on the subject."?

Dykes appears to lean towards an explanation that horary questions arose naturally out of "inception" charts - what we would today call consultation charts - drawn up by the astrologer to gain insight into the matter about which the client wants to consult with the astrologer, or because there was no known birth data to draw up a natal chart with which to answer a client's question.
Hi Geoffrey,

I would recommend listening to the discussion that Ben and I had about his new translation of Hephaistio a few months ago in another episode of the podcast, as we discussed the issue of horary quite a bit:

http://theastrologypodcast.com/2013/12/ ... io-thebes/

I was actually the one who proposed that Ben should partner with Eduardo Gramaglia in order to get book 3 of Hephaistio translated, because I wanted to see the question of the existence of horary in the Hellenistic tradition answered once and for all.

The end result was that there is one clear reference to horary in one of the later chapters of the text. I had been aware of this reference since 2006, but I thought that the fact that it was missing in some of the other manuscripts of Hephaistio meant the single reference couldn't be taken for granted. Ben and Eduardo addressed this objection sufficiently in my opinion though, so that I do think that that reference to something like horary was in the original Hephaistio text, as well as the original Dorotheus text as well.

What is interesting about it though is that it shows us that horary was originally a second or third best option for an inception chart if you did not know the time in which the event that the client wants to know the outcome to took place. At least, that is what it looks like to me when you take some of the other chapters of Hephaistio into account, as Ben and I discussed in that episode. In this way it is true that horary appears to have developed out of the consultation chart framework, since they do appear to have a pretty well-developed approach to casting charts for the inception of consultations, and the practice of trying to determine the outcome of what the person has come to you to talk about becomes an extension of that.

Anyway, my point is that if this concept is already in the Dorotheus text as early as the 1st century then it removes the necessity of positing an Indian origin for the development of horary, since the Yavanajataka wasn't versified until a century or two after Dorotheus wrote and made that reference to horary.

One piece we are still kind of missing is the more dynamic system of looking for applications between house rulers in order to determine the outcome of the question. That doesn't really appear to be the approach in the 5th century charts from Palchus, but instead he seems to be using more of a static method, kind of like the earlier Hellenistic approach to consultation charts. While Hellenistic astrology did have a reasonably well-developed system of looking at applications and separations, it seems like something was introduced sometime in the centuries before Masha'allah which filled out some of the missing pieces in the horary tradition. Theophilius of Edessa might be a candidate for this, although it is hard to say at this point since we don't have critical editions of all of his works. Hopefully we will be able to solve that piece of this at some point though.

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As usual Ben Dykes translates books quicker than I can read them. In "Search of the Heart" the theme seems to be that a in horary reading the reader discerns the question by the chart alone rather than listening to the question. This does remind me of how customers today treat a a psychic reading. They are careful to give no clues so they may test the readers ability to discern the matter.

In mundane astrology his new translations suggest that the pre-spring equinox lunation or syzygy as significant as the ingress chart itself. I have been trying to asses this but too early to see any results

Matthew
Matthew Goulding

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Chris wrote:What is interesting about it though is that it shows us that horary was originally a second or third best option for an inception chart if you did not know the time in which the event that the client wants to know the outcome to took place. At least, that is what it looks like to me when you take some of the other chapters of Hephaistio into account, as Ben and I discussed in that episode. In this way it is true that horary appears to have developed out of the consultation chart framework, since they do appear to have a pretty well-developed approach to casting charts for the inception of consultations, and the practice of trying to determine the outcome of what the person has come to you to talk about becomes an extension of that.
Chris I think we have to bear in mind that this particular reference to the time that a question is asked is reproduced from Dorotheus, and comes from a section of that work that is dedicated to Inceptions. And certainly, in terms of "authorised" technique most early authors consider inceptions and elections to be a more natural employment of rational astrological principles than the asking of questions, which often gets characterised as "superstitious astrology". But I don't think there is any evidence that horary developed out of a "consultation chart framework" as you suggest. I know Ben favours that theory too but I see many holes in it. Currently there is no evidence that was actually case, and lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise. For example, in the talk I gave at UAC, I gave examples of historical references to very ancient practices of questions being asked during ceremonial events, where the priests would pray before going out to scrutinise the astrological indications in the sky.

Perhaps I am unclear as to how you make a differentiation between a) a horary consultation and b) the presentation of a question at the time of consulting with the astrologer. To me, as a practicing horary astrologer I find it impossible to see how one is any different from the other, and I have had many occasions when people have asked to consult me on a matter for which they want a horary consultation and I have avoided getting the details and instead allocated a time for us to meet and have that consultation on a day when I can give my attention to it. In that type of scenario, a time was given for a question to be presented to me - the consultation wasn't made at the moment that the querent approached me with something on their mind - does that then make it a consultation chart rather than a horary? Do you see the difficulties I have with your suggestion? It seems to me that long before the existence of any of the texts we still have available to us, there was a fundamental expectance that the heavens could answer our questions, and that by scrutiny of the astrological conditions under which a question is sincerely put, we will find an astrological answer. That is where I would say the origins of horary lie.

Anyway, one thing you might find interesting is that in the 10th-century Fihrist of Al Nadim, which gives an account of the astrological works of relevance at that time, he describes the works of Dorotheus available to Umar al-Tabari. There is a lacuna in the text, but after describing the contents of the five books as we still have them, he goes on to describe additional sections. So the fifth section is about "The Beginning of Actions" (as we know), but whereas we expect this to end the work, Al Nadim goes on to describe a seventh section about "Questions and Nativities". Of course, I know we can't take this for granted, but it does make me wonder whether we are missing parts of Dorotheus where more explicit instruction would have been given on the techniques for judging questions. Unless we find evidence, it is just something to be wondered about I suppose.

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Deb wrote: Chris I think we have to bear in mind that this particular reference to the time that a question is asked is reproduced from Dorotheus, and comes from a section of that work that is dedicated to Inceptions.
Yes, which is one of the reasons why I argue that horary partially developed out of consultation charts, because the Hellenistic astrologers seem to have a pretty well-developed system of casting charts for the "inception" of a consultation in order to determine what was on the mind of the client, and then we see horary begin to develop out of some of this inceptional material.
Deb wrote: And certainly, in terms of "authorised" technique most early authors consider inceptions and elections to be a more natural employment of rational astrological principles than the asking of questions, which often gets characterised as "superstitious astrology".
This strikes me as an anachronism to project the Medieval and Renaissance era debates about the validity of horary backward into the Hellenistic period. The characterization of horary as superstitious in these later periods was largely due to the distinction between "natural" and "judicial" astrology, as a result of the success of Ptolemy's naturalistic rationale for astrology in Medieval period. Ptolemy's model justified and safeguarded mundane, natal, and electional astrology as a natural science, but it didn't really explain how horary astrology could work in a natural (non-divinatory) context. This wasn't really an issue in the Hellenistic tradition though, because no distinction between natural and judicial astrology was being made yet by the point. In the Hellenistic tradition all branches of astrology were usually classified as forms of divination. So, I don't really buy this distinction you are trying to make between an "authorized" versus a "superstitious" approach to astrology in the Hellenistic tradition. And if this was the case then why didn't any of the critics of astrology attack this more superstitious approach to astrology in the Hellenistic and Roman periods?

Deb wrote: But I don't think there is any evidence that horary developed out of a "consultation chart framework" as you suggest. I know Ben favours that theory too but I see many holes in it. Currently there is no evidence that was actually case, and lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest otherwise. For example, in the talk I gave at UAC, I gave examples of historical references to very ancient practices of questions being asked during ceremonial events, where the priests would pray before going out to scrutinise the astrological indications in the sky.
Yes, I attended that talk, of course. You had built it up a bit here on the forum beforehand, saying that you were going to unveil a new piece of evidence that proved the existence of horary in the early tradition. The main piece of evidence that you unveiled in your talk that was new that you are alluding to above was the passage from the first book of Livy where he retells the legend of how one of the early rulers of Rome consulted augers in order to legitimize his reign. This story had nothing to do with astrology though. It was just a legend that involved divination by birds (augury), which was an important form of divination in Roman society, and part of the purpose of the passage is to explain the how the college of augers came to be a permanent state function. Your interpretation of this passage as having some sort of astrological importance seems highly questionable. Even aside from how one interprets the passage, the story is a legend that was being told by an author who lived 700 years after the supposed events occurred, and most historians take Livy's coverage of this period with a large grain of salt since his sources were sketchy for those early years of the founding of Rome.

I will quote the passage from Livy though so that anyone following this discussion can judge for themselves whether horary is being discussed:
Livy, 1, 18: 6-10, trans. Foster, Loeb edition.

And so they unanimously voted to offer the sovereignty to Numa Pompilius. Being summoned to Rome he commanded that, just as Romulus had obeyed the augural omens in building his city and assuming regal power, so too in his own case the gods should be consulted. Accordingly an augur (who thereafter, as a mark of honour, was made a priest of the state in permanent charge of that function) conducted him to the citadel and caused him to sit down on a stone, facing the south. The augur seated himself on Numa's left, having his head covered, and holding his in right hand the crooked staff without a knot which they call a lituus. Then, looking out over the City and the country beyond, he prayed to the gods, and marked off the heavens by a line from east to west, designating as 'right' the regions to the south, as 'left' those to the north, and fixing in his mind a landmark opposite to him and as far away as the eye could reach; next shifting the crook to his left hand and, laying his right hand on Numa's head, he uttered the following prayer: "Father Jupiter, if it is Heavens will that this man Numa Pompilius, whose head I am touching, be king in Rome, do thou exhibit to us unmistakable signs within those limits which I have set." He then specified the auspices which he desired should be sent, and upon their appearance Numa was declared king, and so descended from the augural station.
The same legend in Plutarch makes it even clearer that the type of divination being used focused on birds:
Plutarch, Lives, Numa, 7: 1-3, trans. Perrin, Loeb edition.

Numa therefore decided to yield, and after sacrificing to the gods, set out for Rome. The senate and people met him on his way, filled with a wondrous love of the man; women welcomed him with fitting cries of joy; sacrifices were offered in the temples, and joy was universal, as if the city were receiving, not a king, but a kingdom. When they were come down into the forum, Spurius Vettius, whose lot it was to be "interrex" at that hour, called for a vote of the citizens, and all voted for Numa. But when the insignia of royalty were brought to him, he bade the people pause, and said his authority must first be ratified by Heaven. Then taking with him the augurs and priests, he ascended the Capitol, which the Romans of that time called the Tarpeian hill. There the chief of the augurs turned the veiled head of Numa towards the south, while he himself, standing behind him, and laying the right hand on his head, prayed aloud, and turned his eyes in all directions to observe whatever birds or other omens might be sent from the gods. Then an incredible silence fell upon the vast multitude in the forum, who watched in eager suspense for the issue, until at last auspicious birds appeared and approached the scene on the right. Then Numa put on his royal robes and went down from the citadel to the multitude, where he was received with glad cries of welcome as the most pious of men and most beloved of the gods.
I personally don't see any reason to interpret this legend as having to do with astrology, let alone horary.

Deb wrote: Perhaps I am unclear as to how you make a differentiation between a) a horary consultation and b) the presentation of a question at the time of consulting with the astrologer. To me, as a practicing horary astrologer I find it impossible to see how one is any different from the other, and I have had many occasions when people have asked to consult me on a matter for which they want a horary consultation and I have avoided getting the details and instead allocated a time for us to meet and have that consultation on a day when I can give my attention to it. In that type of scenario, a time was given for a question to be presented to me - the consultation wasn't made at the moment that the querent approached me with something on their mind - does that then make it a consultation chart rather than a horary? Do you see the difficulties I have with your suggestion?

I see where it is an issue for you because you are expecting ancient horary to conform to your current conceptualization and practice of it in modern times. I don't really think that this is valid expectation on your part though, and so I do not see it as a serious issue when it comes to what I've proposed regarding consultation charts.

From any of the evidence I've seen I don't have any reason to think that the horary chart in the Hellenistic period was cast for anything other than the time that the client approached the astrologer to ask about the outcome of a specific issue. They wouldn't postpone casting the chart at that time just because it didn't fit their schedule.

Deb wrote: Anyway, one thing you might find interesting is that in the 10th-century Fihrist of Al Nadim, which gives an account of the astrological works of relevance at that time, he describes the works of Dorotheus available to Umar al-Tabari. There is a lacuna in the text, but after describing the contents of the five books as we still have them, he goes on to describe additional sections. So the fifth section is about "The Beginning of Actions" (as we know), but whereas we expect this to end the work, Al Nadim goes on to describe a seventh section about "Questions and Nativities". Of course, I know we can't take this for granted, but it does make me wonder whether we are missing parts of Dorotheus where more explicit instruction would have been given on the techniques for judging questions. Unless we find evidence, it is just something to be wondered about I suppose.

Ibn al-Nadim doesn't just describe the five books of Dorotheus, he actually gives the title of Dorotheus' original work, which was the "Pentateuchos," which means "The Five Books," just like Ptolemy's four book "Tetrabiblos." This conforms exactly to the five book long Arabic version that we've received of al-Tabari's own translation, and there is no reason to take these reputed references by al-Nadim to a sixth, seventh, and sixteenth book as genuinely by Dorotheus. Al-Nadim also ascribes over a dozen titles to Ptolemy, including the Centiloquium, which I think even you have acknowledged was not actually written by Ptolemy. Similarly, Masha'allah lists a bunch of books on astrology that were attributed to Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus, saying that Plato and Aristotle each wrote two books on horary, and Democritus wrote four (!). So we know that later authors tried to pass books off as if they came from famous earlier authors, and given that, I don't even see the point in invoking this passage from al-Nadim when it comes to a discussion about what Dorotheus himself actually wrote. Without evidence it has about as much value as the references to books on horary attributed to Plato and Aristotle.

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Chris Brennan wrote:
Al-Nadim also ascribes over a dozen titles to Ptolemy, including the Centiloquium, which I think even you have acknowledged was not actually written by Ptolemy. Similarly, Masha'allah lists a bunch of books on astrology that were attributed to Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus, saying that Plato and Aristotle each wrote two books on horary, and Democritus wrote four (!). So we know that later authors tried to pass books off as if they came from famous earlier authors, and given that,
We don't know exactly about 1,000 years ago. Should we on the basis of 'Centiloquium', make an assumption that Masha'allah's list and Al-Nadim's list are not credible. Plato has his wandering years in his youth after the death of Socrates. Maybe he took interest in astrology as we do.

P.s: Al-Nadeem and the others were answerable to 'Caliph'. Not a nice person to know if they made up things most of the times.
Regards

Morpheus

https://horusastropalmist.wordpress.com/

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Chris wrote: The main piece of evidence that you unveiled in your talk that was new that you are alluding to above was the passage from the first book of Livy where he retells the legend of how one of the early rulers of Rome consulted augers in order to legitimize his reign. This story had nothing to do with astrology though.
Chris, I very much object to your implication that a point which occupied no more than 2 minutes of my 1? hr UAC presentation was the substance of it. And I particularly dislike the way you have taken that point out of the context in which it was offered in my talk ? which was not to suggest that it was evidence of the technique of horary, but to offer one of several examples which disproved Pingree?s argument ? taken up by other scholars on the basis of his reputation - that there is no evidence of questions being asked or answered by reference to sky divination at that period in time.

Pingree?s argument, in a nutshell (which prohibits acknowledgement of the principle of horary in ancient civilzations), is that if astrological information gave cause for concern in the pre-Hellenistic period, questions were then answered by recourse to liver divination or other divinatory techniques, but never by reference to the sky. This was an important point to clear up and move the talk forward, in establishing that ceremonial augury did involve sky divination and did impact upon the meaning of the word katarche, and the principle that the heavens were addressed to give answers to ceremonious enquiries is evident in ancient times. It was absolutely not the ?main piece of evidence? for my talk ? to suggest that it was is ridiculous.

You said:
Yes, I attended that talk, of course. You had built it up a bit here on the forum beforehand, saying that you were going to unveil a new piece of evidence that proved the existence of horary in the early tradition.
Bigging up my presentations in advance is out of character for me, and I don?t believe I ever mentioned that talk in this forum, before this thread. If I am mistaken please show me where I did, so I can take a look at how you got the impression that led you to summarize my position in a way that sounds so arrogant and audacious.

My talk was a time-limited presentation of many relevant points, which included analysis of the attitude taken towards branches of astrology that did not adhere to natural principles, the background and meaning of the term 'Katarche', some of the historical horaries we have available, and details of many currently unexplored Hellenistic texts that make brief references to horary topics but have not yet been made available for detailed scrutiny. I covered a great deal of material within it, making it very clear that the research was ongoing and will eventually be published formally in the fullness of time.

I accept that in a 2010 forum thread I advised you to be cautious about your argument that the word katarche can only mean beginning or inception, and the position you took in the paper you published regarding the origin of horary, where you argued that there was no reliable reference to interrogational astrology in the Hellenistic era and proposed your consultation chart theory instead. Published papers invite critique but I resisted engaging with your points directly, whilst making you aware that I had knowledge of reliable references, though I wasn't at liberty to give the details then because the translator wanted time to complete the fuller work before drawing attention to it, as she had planned to do this herself at a more convenient time and according to scholarly standards.

Unless you went to sleep in my UAC presentation, you should recall that this was when I was first authorised to publicly acknowledge the work that Dorian Greenbaum did, to eliminate doubts that the Dorothean reference to the time a question is asked might be a later interpolation, as you were suggesting, following Pingree. I presented her translation of the mirroring point in the text of Hephaistio, the reliability of which is secured by the fact that it also appears in two of the three epitomes that support the version of Hephaistio which includes it. It is unfortunate for you that you had rested too heavily on an unreliable (unpublished?) edition that did not.

I am very surprised that you highlight the Livy reference as if it was the key point of my talk, ignoring the relevance of all other points and this Hephaistio reference, even though you recently stated that this Hephaistio reference is what made you willing to accept that relevant horary references do exist in Hellenistic material, which now alters your previous argument. You are surely not implying that it is only since the publication of Gramaglia?s translation of Hephaistio's third book that you became aware of this? The evidence was clearly laid out in my UAC presentation that you attended, and left no room for doubt as shown in the accompanying PowerPoint slide I presented (reproduced below).
Image
If this then led you to urge Ben Dykes to partner with Eduardo Gramaglia to get book 3 of Hephaistio translated (as you say above) in order that you could verify this to your own satisfaction, then the astrological community has benefited by gaining quicker access to a valuable text. However, let?s not forget the impetus gained by the fact that Dorian Greenbaum allowed me to present this point in advance of her own publication of her ongoing work, knowing that by allowing its importance to this particular controversy to be recognised, it would probably prevent her from being able to cautiously proceed that work herself, and publish at a time that suited her own schedule. There was never any doubt once Greenbaum had committed to the point, and I know that she had checked the reliability of that particular edition and its epitomes with other eminent scholars. If you had wanted to explore your concerns on that point with myself or Dorian after that talk, when you became more aware of it and her translation of the relevant passage had been made public, you could have done that easily. As you didn't, I assumed you didn't consider it to be of much interest to you.

But still, this was another point that occupied only a matter of minutes in my presentation, which you want to reduce to the two minutes in which I referred to the ceremony of Numa. Now I fully understand why scholars are hesitant to share useful information and engage in informal discussions on points they are preparing for formal publication.
In the Hellenistic tradition all branches of astrology were usually classified as forms of divination.
Not the position as I understand it. Distinction was definitely sought for principles and techniques that could be identified as being based on natural principles, and since these were argued to be rational rather than divinational, they were free of the concerns that divinational uses of astrology create.
So, I don't really buy this distinction you are trying to make between an "authorized" versus a "superstitious" approach to astrology in the Hellenistic tradition. And if this was the case then why didn't any of the critics of astrology attack this more superstitious approach to astrology in the Hellenistic and Roman periods?
They did. In fact most of the attacks had the superstitious (or non-natural/rational) elements of astrology in mind. Criticisms were very rarely applied to the elements of astrology that could be defined as rational and operating according to natural principles, since this was part of the mainstream science of that era. But you can't buy something I haven't actually sold Chris. When I present a paper or commit to formal publication of full arguments with accompanying references that can be read in context, I'll be happy to receive your comments, critical or otherwise. Until then I'm reluctant to address your summary presentation of my points, which are definitely not made as I would choose to make them myself.