AP - Ancient classification of elements as diurnal/nocturnal

1
21 Sept 2003

Sue:

In Astronomica, Manilius says that the fire and water signs are diurnal while the earth and air signs are nocturnal. In the introduction to the Loeb edition there is a table giving diurnal and nocturnal rulership of the planets over the signs. These are different from what I just mentioned and both are different from Ptolemy's table. Manilius does mention that some give the masculine signs to diurnal and feminine to nocturnal (which is what Ptolemy does) Am I getting confused here (writing this post has made me even more confused) and reading it incorrectly or were these differing opinions with Ptolemy's becoming the more accepted?

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Deb:
were these differing opinions with Ptolemy's becoming the more accepted?
I think so. Manilius listed 3 alternative schemes for defining signs as diurnal or nocturnal (2.203). Of these the latter 2 survived but the first has been dropped from use. It does actually make sense if you realise that he wasn?t thinking in terms of ?water? signs or ?fire? signs ? neither he nor Ptolemy classified the signs in this way, but referred to them as trigons. Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are the trigon of Aries whilst Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are the trigon of Cancer. As Goold explains, these two trigons are considered diurnal because they relate to the cardinal signs where the day becomes longer than the night (Aries) or reaches the zenith of its power (Cancer).

I think that as the relevance of trigons slipped away, so did this definition of diurnal and nocturnal.

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Sue:

I think my confusion started when I read an article that described the diurnal/nocturnal rulerships in terms of water signs etc. I had read what they were saying in Tetrabiblos and Astronomica but after reading the article I just thought I had misunderstood trigons. Had another look at the books after reading this and it makes more sense.
Thanks.