Darth MI
How did Greeks view feminine and masculine? Much of Scorpio and Capricorn description in modern astrology would be masculine not feminine.
How did Greeks view feminine and masculine? Much of Scorpio and Capricorn description in modern astrology would be masculine not feminine.
Hello Minderwiz,
Your explanation of the gender of the signs is interesting. However, I think it is more likely that the masculinity and femininity of the signs were based on Greek philosophy. I am not sure what philosophy it was based on, but let me venture a guess. It could have been based partly on Stoicism's ideas, specifically that of active and passive principles.
The Stoics viewed the soul (which is close to our modern concept of "mind") to be a corporeal substance. What distinguished the soul from the body was the principle on which the soul operates. The soul is dominated by the active principle, while the body is dominated by the passive principle. The body was simply matter; things that occupy space but on their own, do not move and have no structure. The soul was the part of us that animates the body, providing it with motion and structure, and giving the body the ability to reason and think (i.e. intellect).
The Stoics believed that the fire and air elements are dominated by the active element, making them more related to the soul; to sentience and intelligence. On the other hand, the earth and water elements are heavy and tend towards inactivity; thus they are filled with the passive principle.
Now if we observe the signs, all the fire and air signs are masculine, while all the water and earth signs are feminine. Perhaps there is a connection here between masculine and active, feminine and passive.
One thing I noticed is that your explanation has a loophole; the Sun's domicile and exaltation are both in fire signs...so why are the air signs masculine?
Larxene said:One way of explaining why Mars has a domicile in a water sign is through Ptolemy's rationalisation of the elements. In Ptolemy's universe, every element has two qualities: hot or cold, dry or wet. Fire is hot and dry, Water is cold and wet, Air is hot and wet, Earth is cold and dry.
Similar to the elements, the planets also have two qualities. The main idea with these qualities was that when both qualities are moderate, the planets produce benefic effects. Conversely, excess in one direction creates malefic effects. This is similar to the Theory of Four Humours in Greek medicine that began with Hippocrates.
So, according to Ptolemy, Mars is malefic because he is excessively dry (his other quality is hot, as one can imagine). Thus, Mars was given a domicile that was opposite of his nature, to 'balance' his qualities. The opposite of hot and dry is cold and wet, a water sign.
Similarly, Saturn is given a domicile that is opposite of his excessively cold nature (the other quality being dry), that of Aquarius, because Aquarius is hot and wet.
Hence, Saturn is said to prefer Aquarius over Capricorn and Mars prefers Scorpio over Aries. There is another reason for why they prefer these signs, and that has to do with the fact that in Capricorn and Aries respectively, they have to 'share' the domicile with the exaltation lords (Mars and Sun respectively), and they cannot do as they like with the sign, whereas in Aquarius and Scorpio, they alone have rulership of the signs.
Larxene said:We also see this 'balancing' of natures in the concept of Sect in Hellenistic Astrology. Saturn is allied to the day sect, while Mars is associated with the night sect. Ptolemy says that this is because the heat of the day moderates Saturn's cold, and the moisture of the night moderates Mars's dryness.
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I am here mainly for this thread. It seems you are familiar with Schmidt's rendition of the Hellenistic texts, so I came to assimilate some information
Larxene said:I would not be surprised if the Pythagorean theories had affected the art. If I remember correctly, aspect theory was based on that.
Ah right, the intromission theory and emission theory. My bad. But I think I remember something about the theory of numbers and harmony. That is, even though aspects were developed based on optical theory, the 'good' and 'bad' aspects categorisations were influenced by numerology of some kind.