Trigons ("Triplicities") and their Lords

[Mark_Cullen]

Hello Mr Schmidt,

If I may I would like to clarify where you currently stand in regards the historical dating of the Antiochus text. At the beginning of this thread you stated:

First some historical considerations. If my suspicions are correct about the dating of Antiochus’ lost introductory writing are correct, he may be one of the first to report them. The first thing of interest is that they are not associated with the elements in that text, but rather with “winds”, which in turn are correlated with the four cardinal directions; such an association persists up to the time of Ptolemy. To the best of my knowledge, Valens is the first surviving source that associates them with the elements, although he does not do this as if he were innovating.

The second thing of note in that text is that the author does not give the trigons planetary rulerships at all. We do find the rulership scheme that became common in medieval astrology in Dorotheus and Valens.

Would i be correct in concluding from this that you now think Antiochus may have pre-dated Dorotheus? Traditionally Dorotheus is located as living in the 1st centurty CE. Antiochus is generally believed to have lived sometime during the late 2nd century CE. David Pingree concluded he lived late in the 2nd century CE. You reported a similar view on your original translation of Antiochus. I take it that a close study of the text has convinced you that this earlier assumption was wrong? There have certainly been historians who have concluded Antiochus lived in the 1st century CE. For example Franz Cumont. Can I take it you are now sympathetic to that perspective?

Thank you

Mark Cullen

[Therese_Hamilton]

Hello Mr. Cullen,

Mr. Schmidt has been fairly silent on the Hellenistic forum of late. He may be busily preparing his next book for publication or preparing for an intensive. Since I have Mr. Schmidt's Definitions and Foundations close at hand, I'll briefly reply to your question in case it may be sometime before Mr. Schmidt is able to answer. On pages 19 and 20 of D&F Mr. Schmidt gives his reasons for dating Antiochus to the 1st century B.C.E. The material is too detailed and extensive to quote in full, but in part he says:

"Be that as it may, it is a reasonable assumption that our Antiochus was either fairly close to the founders, or at least drew directly on early sources. Only the early astrologers Nechepso, Petosiris, Hermes Trismegistos, and Timaeus are explicitly cited in the definitions of Antiochus..." (p. 20)

[Mark_Cullen]

Hello Ms Hamilton,

Thanks for pointing that out. I do have a copy of D&F which I am temporarily separated from. I will check that reference out when I have access to it again. I do hope your speculation about Mr Schmidt is correct!

Regards,

Mark Cullen

[Robert_Schmidt]

Hello Mr. Cullen. If I have failed to welcome you to this forum previously, let me do so now.

I have indeed been much preoccupied of late, but I am now trying to catch up on the a number of threads on this forum. I can see from a few of your other posts that you have been ruminating over quite a number of Hellenistic sources. I owe you a response about the issue of planets under the beams, which I will try to compose soon.

In the meantime, as for your present question, let me first emphasize that my main interest in the Hellenistic texts as a restorer of Hellenistic astrology is in the antiquity of the doctrines they contain, and not so much the antiquity of the author. (You may have surmised this from my position statement.) It can happen that a later author cites much earlier material more or less intact. That may have been the case with Antiochus, although in point of fact I believe he wrote much earlier than Pingree would have it. In any case, I am firmly convinced that the content of his Introductory Matters contained material from the earliest stratum of Hellenistic astrology.

I am familiar with Cumont's reasons for giving an early date to Antiochus. I find none of the reasons he advanced compelling. What I do find compelling is the cryptic compositional style and the underlying systematic integrity of the material presented in his Introductory Matters, which makes it hard for me to believe that the doctrines in his work were cobbled together from earlier authors.

As for Cumont's speculation that our Antiochus may have been Antiochus of Ascalon, sometimes regarded as the founder of the Middle Platonic Academy, I do not see how that speculation could ever be confirmed, although at this point I would be willing to bet that the material in the lost Antiochus original came directly from the Platonic academy.

I thank Ms. Hamilton for citing a passage in my preface to D&F that makes my current position clear. I have summarized in that preface my reasons for questioning Pingree's dating of Antiochus, and also my doubts about another firmly entrenched scholarly contention: that Antiochus wrote two separate introductory works, one called The Treasures and the other Introductory Matters. I will not go further into my arguments here unless someone has a specific question about them.

Robert Schmidt

[Mark_Cullen]

Hello Mr Schmidt,

Thank you very much for taking the time to set out your position beyond that already articulated in your introduction to Definitions & Foundations. I was interested to read your views of Franz Cumont's research.

I am very interested in your views about the influence of the Platonic academy on early astrology. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of any posts , articles or recordings where you have set out your views in this area more thoroughly? I personally, feel studying the philosophical strands in hellenistic astrology are a crucial precursor to understanding the underlying principles of its techniques.

Thank You

Mark Cullen

[Robert_Schmidt]

Hello Mr. Cullen,

My views on the philosophical background of Hellenistic astrology are more extreme than I have perhaps let on hitherto. At the risk of sounding like a madman, or at least in the interest of provoking discussion (smiley face in order here), I do not contend that Hellenistic astrology was simply influenced by the Platonic Academy, but rather that it was a product of the Middle Academy itself. I now regard Hellenistic astrology in its original form as "applied Platonic metaphysics". Furthermore, I believe that the original Hellenistic astrology had far more influence on later philosophical developments in Platonism than it was in turn influenced by them in subsequent centuries. I include Neo-Platonism in this assessment.

It is only within the past year or so that I have finally and fullly convinced myself of this, so you will not find such an extreme claim (or its justifications) in my earlier publications, although I have been laying the groundwork for quite some time. You will only find it in a very muted form in the Antiochus translation itself, because I do not believe that such claims are appropriate in the translations themselves--at least not as yet with only the first volume available. I have begun to discuss my position a litlle bit on the Fate/Free Will topic on this forum, although the points I made there were a bit sloppy in places and the formulations imperfect. It is only in my recent intensive "Image & Original in Hellenistic Astrology" that I have come fully "out of the closet". This intensive will be released upon the return of my associate Bill Johnston, whose has been out of town assisting a friend.

Robert Schmidt

[Therese_Hamilton]

Somewhere in D&F I thought I remembered Mr. Schmidt saying that the association of the four winds with the trigons was somewhat enigmatic. However, I couldn’t find the statement again. I did want to call everyone’s attention to a new article by Maria J. Mateus in the Summer 2009 issue of The Geocosmic Journal. Titled “The Geographical Astrology of Babylonia,” the author rather extensively discusses the four winds and directionality. Mateus writes in part:

“A Babylonian tablet (BM 36746) dating to sometime after 400 BC, groups the zodiacal signs with winds and lands in this manner:

Aries, Leo, Sagittarius North Wind Akkad
Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn South Wind Elam
Gemini, Libra, Aquarius West Wind Amurru
Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces East Wind Subartu

"The earliest Greek source, associating the winds with the triplicities, is in the Isagoge of Geminus (written ca. 50 CE), wherein he states that the doctrine comes from the Chaldeans. His wind arguments correspond with that of BM36746, indictating that the Hellenistic triplicity scheme is, in fact, Babylonian in origin and based upon a schematization logic that probably predates the use of the zodiac, since these associations appear in monthly groupings of older omens in the same way they appear as zodiac signs...” (p. 74)

The above quote is interesting in light of the on-going discussions regarding the origin of the Hellenistic astrological system. Perhaps Mr. Schmidt or someone else would like to comment?

Therese Hamilton

[Kenneth_Johnson]

Just a quick note here....

Mr. Schmidt has remarked that the trigons were originally classified according to directional "winds" rather than according to the four elements. He further remarks that the earliest correlation of elements with trigons is to be found in Vettius Valens, with the directional "winds" attributions surviving through Ptolemy, who may or may not have been roughly contemporary with Valens.

I suspect that it may have taken quite some time for the "four elements" attributions to gain favor. They were almost certainly not present in the earliest Greek astrological texts to reach India c. 150 CE. Though the four elements were already commonly known in India due to the the influence of the Indo-Greeks upon early Ayurvedic medical theory, they are entirely absent from the Yavana Jataka (270), Brihat Jataka (c. 550), and Saravali (c. 800). The earliest mention that I have found is in the Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra (also c. 800), though it is possible that this particular text was badly tampered with in the late 18th or early 19 century.

Instead, the trigons are classified (without planetary rulers) according to the Hindu caste system. The water signs are Brahmins, the fire signs are Kshatriyas or warriors, the air signs are vaisyas or merchants, and the earth signs are sudras or workers.

It would be interesting to know how long it took for the elemental attributions to become common in Hellenistic astrology.

[Therese_Hamilton]

Hello Mr. Johnson,

Thank you for your reply, and excuse my delay in answering. I’ve been swtiching computers and internet service. My post was mainly aimed at the origin of the winds as connected to triplicities. I believe there may be a resistance to seeing at least part of the Hellenistic astrological system as having origins in Mesopotamia or perhaps even ealier in pre-recorded history. The Winds seem to be one of these areas that seemingly has Mesopotamian roots. This is also true of the exalted planets which in Mesopotamia were connected to specific constellations (“secret houses). Venus apparently had two places of exaltations, Leo and Pisces. This is why I quoted from an article written by someone who has apparently carefully researched the topic.

Your notes regarding the four elements and India are very interesting. Yes, it seems that BPHS has been tampered with, and it’s very difficult to know the initial dates of much of the text. I’ve always believed that the association of trigons with the Hindu caste system is very strange, and has no real application to the birth charts of individuals. It seems like someone made the convenient assignment of four trigons to four castes and then later authors bought into the idea.

Yes, it would be interesting to see how and when the elemental attributions became common in early western astrology. It may have simply been a mistake or misunderstanding of an older test. As they are used in astrology today, they don’t even align with Aristotle’s opposites. However, the four qualities of hot, cold, wet and dry to properly align with Aristotle’s placements:

Hot--Aries trigon (Sun exalted in Aries) Aries domicile of Mars; Leo domicile of Sun opposite
Cold--Gemini trigon (Saturn exalted in Libra) Aquarius domicile of Saturn
Dry--Taurus trigon (Mercury exalted in Virgo; Mars exalted in Capricorn) opposite
Wet--Cancer trigon (Venus exalted in Pisces; Jupiter exalted in Cancer)

With apologies to Mr. Schmidt, when assigning qualities or relationships to trigons, our minds aren’t accustomed to “The Bull,” “The Balance,” etc. and patterns are mentally clearer using image labels that have been used for centuries by astrologers. Also for those of us who have worked with astronomy, “The Bull” for example is mentally associated with the stars of The Bull in the heavens. So I do have a problem with these new image/sign labels as (for me) they confuse astronomy with astrology. For centuries we’ve seen these constellational pictures in the sky, and they are more or less “fixed” in our perception. The tropical zodiac especially has no relationship to these sky patterns.

In Aristotle’s system Fire is opposite Water and Air is opposite Earth. whereas astrologically the Fire element is opposite Air and Earth is opposite Water. In my opinion centuries of astrologers have misplaced the elements with the trigons.

Therese Hamilton

[Kenneth_Johnson]

When it comes to Hindu "translations" of Hellenistic material, one often finds that when the translators were faced with concepts they could not understand, they simply replaced them with more indigenous material. As Pingree points out, Greek medical astrology never made it to India. Even the earliest redactors substituted native Ayurvedic concepts from the very beginning. It is possible that they simply didn't understand the concept of the Winds.

The question of Babylonian influence on Sanskrit astrology is a very difficult one. The text which contained the greatest amount of Babylonian material was allegedly the Garga Samhita (c. beginning of the Common Era). Interestingly enough, even some Sanskrit pundits have told me that this text "no longer exists." This is not quite true. Pingree located three fragmentary mss., but they were in such a bad state of disrepair as to be beyond even his considerable powers of reconstruction. He did translate one chapter which clearly shows that the sky was divided into three roads, and that these are obviously based upon the paths of Ea, Anu, and Enlil as in Mesopotamia. I don't remember anything about the Winds. Most of the Babylonian astronomical material seems to have later been superseded by Hellenistic models.

Thanks to some mathematical and astronomical references, the "core material" of the BPHS actually can be rather confidently dated to the 7th and 8th centuries CE. But I do regard the four elements attributions of the trigons as a much later insertion. The Saravali, a widely circulated and very authoritative text from c. 800 CE, contains no mention of the elements as related to the trigons. It was shortly afterwards that the Islamic invasions began. I strongly suspect that the elemental attributions were brought into Jyotish by medieval Arabic/Persian astrologers. I have never encountered any pre-Islamic source that mentions them.

Oddly enough, the caste attributions do have a practical application in contemporary Jyotish, but it is so psychological in nature that it really must be entirely modern.

When you refer to one who has deeply researched the Babylonian material, I assume that you are talking about Maria. If you should happen to meet with my dear friend and her husband, please give them my fondest regards.