Platikos and moirikos: Ancient Horoscopic Practice in the Light of Vettius Valens’ Anthologies

Abstract

From the ancient practice, implied by many textual sources although never formally prescribed, of identifying the twelve horoscopic places (the δωδεκάτροπος dōdekatropos) with the zodiacal signs, recent scholarship has often concluded that such identification constituted a tenet of ancient astrology even at a conceptual level. On the basis of a close reading of Vettius Valens’ Anthologies, supported by other ancient sources, this paper argues that while the places, like other elements of horoscopic practice, were often provisionally approximated by sign position alone, calculation of places by degree, with boundaries differing from those of the zodiacal signs, was consistently upheld in principle as more accurate and useful. Specifically, Valens’ preference appears to have been for places calculated from the quadrants formed by the intersections of horizon and meridian, a method also occasionally used in the Anthologies for defining planetary configurations and for annual transmission (παράδοσις paradosis). In several cases, such methods are explicitly employed even for horoscopes presented in a simple, signs-only format.