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Zagata wrote:
Hello everyone,

Above all Ares is the general significator of travel in ancient Astrology.
As far as I remember in ancient times Ares was called the "wandering one" or something like that, due to its irregular heliacal phase.
Could you please cite what ancient author said that please? Its undeniable I think that Ptolemy gives the Moon as the principal indicator of travel in the horoscope and I think the reference by Valens is doing the same. However, both Ptolemy and Valens do reference Mars (Ares) as a travel planet too. Its possibly an example of separate sources giving different emphasis.

Zagata wrote:
Hermes could very well represent travel, but not physical, rather astral or remote viewing, i.e. 9th house. That is perhaps why Bonatti assigns Hermes as the general significator of the 9th house and not Zeus.
While on this track, one could also check the Tarot and the Magus card, which is represented by Hermes.
Interesting point about Mercury being mental travel not physical. A clear distinction with the Moon linked to the physical body. I hadn't noticed Bonatti reference to Mercury and the 9th. Where is that cited?

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Mon Jun 23, 2014 12:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

77
Hi Mark,

For Ares being the general significator of travel, see Persian Nativities book I page 287 (Abu Ali) and Persian Nativities book II page 67 (Umar).

Masha'allah in Persian Nativities book I (pages 158-161) seems to use the Moon much more than Ares, but also the Moon's configurations with Ares and in some cases with both Ares and Kronos.

As for Valens, the Lot of foreign lands includes both malefics.

I can't find that reference to Ares being called a wanderer or something like that due to its strange heliacal phases, but I am certain I read it in Hellenistic or Babylonian sources or heard it from Robert Schmidt. I am sure Chris Brennan will know about this.

For Hermes and the 9th place this is from Zoller's Diploma Course. For the reference, Bonatti's on Nativities see page 1321, chapter 2.
Ancient and Chinese Astrology:

https://www.100percentastrology.com/

78
I can't find that reference to Ares being called a wanderer or something like that due to its strange heliacal phases, but I am certain I read it in Hellenistic or Babylonian sources or heard it from Robert Schmidt. I am sure Chris Brennan will know about this.
All of the five planets, excluding the luminaries, were anciently referred to as "wanderers", because unlike the luminaries which are always direct, or the fixed stars which have imperceptible movement, their motion is subject to apparent change. The word planet is derived from the Greek verb ?????? plana? "to wander/stray". The distinction between planets and fixed stars was noted by the terms ??????? ???????? asteres aplaneis "fixed stars", and ??????? ???????? asteres planetai, "wandering stars".

Pliny refers to how the word planet is a bit of a misnomer because the courses of the five planets are regular and can be known in advance, saying:
  • Upheld by the same vapour between Earth and heaven, at definite spaces apart, hang the seven stars which owing to their motion we call "planets", although no stars wander less than they do.
    (Natural History II IV 12).

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Zagata wrote:
Hi Mark,

For Ares being the general significator of travel, see Persian Nativities book I page 287 (Abu Ali) and Persian Nativities book II page 67 (Umar).

Masha'allah in Persian Nativities book I (pages 158-161) seems to use the Moon much more than Ares, but also the Moon's configurations with Ares and in some cases with both Ares and Kronos.
Yes but you stated 'ancient astrology'. Hence I formed the impression you
were discussing some hellenistic source not Perso-Arabic ones.

Zagata wrote:
As for Valens, the Lot of foreign lands includes both malefics.
Yes I recall that. Need to check this out but I think its in the section where cites techniques from an older astrologer called Abraham?

Zagata wrote:
I can't find that reference to Ares being called a wanderer or something like that due to its strange heliacal phases, but I am certain I read it in Hellenistic or Babylonian sources or heard it from Robert Schmidt. I am sure Chris Brennan will know about this.
Well if Chris does know about he must have forgotten when he last posted here. Earlier in the thread he seemed to go further than I had by his suggestion the Moon had a unique role as a travel planet. As I pointed out earlier here both Ptolemy and Valens also seemed to consider other planets and especially Mars.

Zagata wrote.
For Hermes and the 9th place this is from Zoller's Diploma Course. For the reference, Bonatti's on Nativities see page 1321, chapter 2.
Thanks for the reference.

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

80
@Deb, I know of course about the planets and the fixed stars and how they were called, but thanks for the reference. I brought this up about Ares specifically because this could be one of the reasons that planet is associated with travel.

@ Mark, by "ancient Astrology" I mean, with few exceptions, the period till 1000 AD. I avoid the term "traditional" because of its ambiguity and inclusiveness of periods which deviated way to much and simply paraphrased for the most part.

I think I found that reference about Ares, but I am not certain whether this is the only one I had in mind - so many books and so much information! :D

I will give the full quote it as I suppose not many people have this valuable book:

"Because of its high eccentricity of the orbit (0.093; 3rd highest after Pluto and Mercury) Mars has the most unpredictable movements and irregular heliacal patterns. That's why Mars was the key evidence for Kepler to build his planetary theory. Among the Mesopotamians, for the same reasons, Mars was known as the Incalculable (Mul la Shid.mesh)...
Mars is also the planet with the greatest variation of brightness."



"The Babylonian Sky Observer Volume 1, April 2006" by Rumen Kolev, the chapter is called The Cycles of Mars' Achronychal Rises", page 31.
Ancient and Chinese Astrology:

https://www.100percentastrology.com/

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Zagata wrote:
@ Mark, by "ancient Astrology" I mean, with few exceptions, the period till 1000 AD. I avoid the term "traditional" because of its ambiguity and inclusiveness of periods which deviated way to much and simply paraphrased for the most part.
It?s a free world and you can obviously use what definitions you like. However, I don?t know of any historian that would date the end of the ancient world as late as 1000AD. Indeed that is often seen as the high middle ages. So you are not using the term ?ancient? in the way academic historians do. As a result your use of the term 'ancient' is inevitably going to create confusion amongst other members here.

The most commonly chosen date for the end of the ancient world/beginning of the middle ages is undoubtably the final fall of the western Roman Empire in 476AD. Hence historians have traditionally saw the beginning of the middle ages as linked to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Of course there is a degree of subjectivity in any attempt to draw lines through history like this.

One could date the end of the ancient world to various events from an earlier period such as the death of Theodosius I in 395 (the last time the Roman Empire was politically unified between the east and west), or the sack of Rome in 410.

In contrast some historians date the middle ages slightly later than 476 CE and use as the cut off point the death of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 565 AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I

The odd scholar has held out for as late as the mid 7th century AD when the armies of the first Islamic caliphate swept across the middle east and north Africa. In that process the defeat of the Byzantines at the battle of Yarmouk in 636 AD seems to be one of the most decisive battles in world history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmouk

By 800AD we have the start of the Carolingian Empire which was next great power in the west after Rome. The Carolingians introduced the feudal system in Europe that continued down to the 15th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire

In astrological terms ?ancient astrology? is used to describe astrology followed in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire. See for example Tamsyn Barton?s ?Ancient astrology??. The last astrologer usually defined in this period is Rhetorius who lived in possibly the 6th or early 7th century in Byzantium. He appears to have been the last astrological source writing before Islam conquered parts of the Byzantine Empire in the middle east and north Africa in the mid 7th century.

As for the term ?traditional? astrology I accept there are significant differences between say Vettius Valens and William Lilly. We can certainly sub-divide this term into at least four sub periods such as Hellenistic, Perso-Arabic, Latin Medieval and Renaissance/Early Modern. Overall, though I think there is a remarkable continuity in the tradition when you consider it stemmed from the 2nd century BC to around 1700 AD. Compare this to a religion like Christianity which has split into numerous sects in its 2000 year history with often divergent views. I think the term has its uses to distinguish it from astrology that developed after the discovery of Uranus in 1781.

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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Everyone has a choice indeed.

I am well familiar with the so called history, or I should rather say the prevailing systematized and manipulated version of history.

I don't know of a single person in their right mind, who has dedicated their life to pursuing Eternal Knowledge, who takes the so called academics seriously. Their version of history and so called science and what not is just one of many.

Robert Zoller, in his 2 Courses, calls the period from 200 BCE to 1700 AD "Medieval Astrology".
I prefer to call all Astrology up to 1000 AD ancient, but as I said - with a few names from the 2nd millienium added.
Rumen Kolev uses the same term - Ancient Astrology instead of the traditional, and as far as I know he goes up to the 1600s or perhaps a little earlier.

For those Astrology practitioners who are not yet free from the indoctrinations about the impartiality, the caring for and preserving of knowledge, as espoused by academics and their standards, it will be eye-opening to say the least if they got to know some covered up facts which turn the prevailing world paradigm upside down. Rumen Kolev's books are a terrific source when it comes to Astrology and Astrotheology in this respect.
For the history and the significance of Astrology in human history, Benson Bobrick's "The Fated Sky" book is by far the best.

I have nothing further to add to this topic.
Ancient and Chinese Astrology:

https://www.100percentastrology.com/

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Zagata wrote:
I have nothing further to add to this topic.
I certainly have nothing further to add either regarding your idiosyncratic classification of history. :shock:

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

84
Mars is known to have an "anomalous" phase in relation to the Sun, and this is mentioned briefly in Paulus, but I'm not sure if this gets extended to the idea of travel in particular.

I was always under the impression that the only reason that Mars came up within the context of discussions about travel was because many of the formulas for travel implicitly seem to conceptualize it as something that was negative, and since Mars is a malefic it naturally gets associated with negative things. This is actually a point that Schmidt and Hand made in their translation of Valens, at least about travel being conceptualized as negative in certain parts of the Anthology.

As a result of this I never really thought that Mars had any inherent association with travel, but that it was more functional or situational as a side effect of being a malefic. But then again, until earlier in this thread when Mark pointed it out I didn't fully see how much the Moon was inherently being associated with travel by Valens either, so I could be wrong about Mars as well.

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Chris Brennan wrote:
Mars is known to have an "anomalous" phase in relation to the Sun, and this is mentioned briefly in Paulus, but I'm not sure if this gets extended to the idea of travel in particular.

Its probably worth putting in the full quote I used before from Ptolemy as Mars is referenced as a planet associated with travel by him:
The topic of foreign travel receives treatment by observing the position of the luminaries to the angles, both of them, but particularly the moon. For when the moon is setting or declining from the angles, she portends journeys abroad or changes of place. Mars too sometimes has a similar force, either when he is setting or when he himself also has declined from mid?heaven, when he is in opposition or quartile to the luminaries. If the Lot of Fortune also falls among the signs that cause travel, the subjects spend their whole lives abroad and will have all their personal relations and business there. If beneficent planets regard the aforesaid places or succeed them, their activities abroad will be honourable and profitable and their return quick and unimpeded; but if the maleficent planets regard them, their journeys will be laborious, injurious, and dangerous, and the return difficult, although in every case the mixture of influences is taken into consideration, determined by the dominance of the planets that bear an aspect to these same places, as we explained at first. Tetrabiblos, Book IV, 8, Translated by F.E. Robbins (1940)
I find it intriguing Ptolemy discusses that ''If the Lot of Fortune also falls among the signs that cause travel''. I assumed travel was associated with the houses or planets not the signs? Could this reference to entire signs associated with travel be a hint Ptolemy is thinking of whole sign houses? In particular signs which made up travel houses such as the declines /cadents or 7th house? Or is this just an issue with the way Robbins has chosen to translate this section?

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

86
Mark wrote: I find it intriguing Ptolemy discusses that ''If the Lot of Fortune also falls among the signs that cause travel''. I assumed travel was associated with the houses or planets not the signs? Could this reference to entire signs associated with travel be a hint Ptolemy is thinking of whole sign houses? In particular signs which made up travel houses such as the declines /cadents or 7th house? Or is this just an issue with the way Robbins has chosen to translate this section?

I cited that passage in my article on Ptolemy's method of house division as a piece of evidence in favor of the idea that he was using whole sign houses, and I quoted both Robbins and Schmidt's translations, which basically say the same thing:

http://www.hellenisticastrology.com/201 ... gn-houses/

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Chris Brennan wrote:
I cited that passage in my article on Ptolemy's method of house division as a piece of evidence in favor of the idea that he was using whole sign houses.
Ahhh. Sorry! I had totally forgotten that was one of the sections you used in your piece!

Its interesting that exactly the same conclusion occurred to me reading the piece. I will take another look at your article.

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