Re: The Minchiate Zodiac Order

21
RLG wrote at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1930 ...
"It is very important to note the numbers on these cards. The sum of the numbers on the zodiac cards is 354. This is the number of days in 12 synodic lunar months, and thus constitutes a lunar 'year', symbolizing the Moon in each of the 12 signs."
This is indeed an interesting observation. RLG spoke about the row "24+25+26+27+28+29+30+31+32+33+34+35" and this has as sum "354". This trick could be constructed likely only at this place "24 till 35" and so should have initiated the partition "1-15 and (36-40)". The zodiak is actually made for the solar calendar, but the arranged number 354 points to the lunar calendar and the 13th month in the lunisolar calendar. By this Cancer with the moon association at position 30 makes sense, but it doesn't explain Libra at the begin of the row.
Well, if one assumes, that the zodiac should be an unbroken row of numbers 1-12, 2-13, 3-14 etc., then there exist only 29 possibilities in 40 numbers (as in Minchiate) and one of them has the addition result 354. That it not such a big occurence, 1:29 ... :-) If we compare the condition, that Libra gets 4x number the number 1 out of 12, then this would be 1/12*1/12*1/12*1/12 = 1:20736 and as the system numbers are a little higher, then even more ....
1/22*1/32*1/12*1/20 = 1:168960
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: The Minchiate Zodiac Order

22
I once got the information, that the house system of the planets (Moon is related to Cancer, Sun is related to Leo, Mercury to Gemini and Virgo etc.) was installed by Ptolemy in his "Tetrabiblos".
17. Of the Houses of the Several planets.
The planets also have familiarity with the parts of the zodiac, through what are called their houses, triangles, exaltations, terms,85 the like. The system of houses is of the following nature. Since of the twelve signs the most northern, which are closer than the others to our zenith and therefore most productive of heat and of warmth are Cancer and Leo, they assigned these to the greatest and most powerful heavenly bodies, that is, to the luminaries, as houses, Leo, which is masculine, to the sun and Cancer, feminine, to the moon. In keeping with this they assumed the semicircle from Leo to Capricorn to be solar and that from Aquarius to Cancer to be lunar, so that in each of the semicircles one sign might be assigned to each of the five planets as its own, one bearing aspect to the p81 sun and the other to the moon, consistently with the spheres of their motion86 and the peculiarities of their natures.87 For to Saturn, in whose nature cold prevails, as opposed to heat, and which occupies the orbit highest and farthest from the luminaries, were assigned the signs opposite Cancer and Leo, namely Capricorn and Aquarius,88 with the additional reason that these signs are cold and wintry, and further that their diametral aspect is not consistent with beneficence. To Jupiter, which is moderate and below Saturn's sphere, were assigned the two signs next to the foregoing, windy and fecund, Sagittarius and Pisces, in triangular aspect89 to the luminaries, which is a harmonious and beneficent configuration. Next, to Mars, which is dry in nature and occupies a sphere under that of Jupiter, there were assigned again the two signs, contiguous to the former, Scorpio and Aries, having a similar nature, and, agreeably to Mars' destructive and inharmonious quality, in quartile aspect90 to the luminaries. To Venus, which is temperate and beneath Mars, were given the next two signs, which are extremely fertile, Libra and Taurus. These p83 preserve the harmony of the sextile aspect;91 another reason is that this planet at most is never more than two signs removed from the sun in either direction.d Finally, there were given to Mercury, which never is farther removed from the sun than one sign in either direction and is beneath the others and closer in a way to both of the luminaries, the remaining signs, Gemini and Virgo, which are next to the houses of the luminaries.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/r ... s/1b*.html

Further I once (long time ago) got the info, that an earlier astrologer Dorotheos of Sidon had a different houses system, which in six definitions was equal to that of Ptolemy and in the remaining six definitions was different. This were ...

Saturn in Aries (instead of Mars)
Moon in Virgo (instead of Mercury)
Saturn in Libra (instead of Venus)
Mars in Capricorn (instead of Saturn)
Jupiter in Aquarius (instead of Saturn)
Venus in Pisces (instead of Jupiter)

I've no source for that, my information was collected 30 years ago. Dorotheos of Sidon lived considerable time (probably in Alexandria) before Ptolemy (also in Alexandria). Before Dorotheos was Manilius with 12 Olympian gods in the zodiac signs. 6 of the Olympian gods served also as planet names, from these Mars (Scorpio) and Venus (Taurus) had the position which they also got from Ptolemy. The others ..

Apollo (= Sun) in Gemini (instead of Leo)
Artemis (= Moon) in Sagittarius (instead of Cancer)
Mercury in Cancer (instead of Gemini or Virgo)
Jupiter in Leo (instead of Sagittarius or Pisces)
Saturn didn't belong to the Olympian gods

Manilius probably lived in Rome.

Libra
To the ancient Greeks, there were only 11 constellations in the zodiac, including the double constellation of Scorpius the Scorpion and Chelae the Scorpion’s Claws. The Romans eventually adopted many of the Greek constellations, including the 11 in the zodiac. After the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the Romans wanted to honor Caesar with a constellation in the heavens. They decided to amputate Chelae the Scorpion’s Claws to form this new constellation. At that time, the autumnal equinox occurred when the Sun was seen in this part of the sky, and the hours of daylight and darkness were balanced. The Romans created a new star pattern here and named it Libra the Scales, to honor Julius Caesar.
https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/cel ... tellation/
The constellation’s association with scales is thought to have originated in ancient Babylonia around 2000 BC, where Libra was called ZIB.BA.AN.NA (“the balance of heaven”). In ancient Greece, Libra was considered to be part of the constellation Scorpius, and represented the creature’s claws, and was noted as such by Ptolemy in his astronomical catalogue Almagest around AD 150. During the reign of Roman dictator Julius Caesar, however, the constellation Libra was created, and was envisioned as scales held by Astraea, the goddess of justice, although its two brightest stars still retained their original names; Zubeneschamali (The Northern Claw), and Zubenelgenubi (The Southern Claw).
http://www.astronomytrek.com/libra-the-scales/

Month name (July)
July is the seventh month of the year (between June and August) in the Julian and Gregorian Calendars and the fourth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. It was named by the Roman Senate in honour of Roman general Julius Caesar, it being the month of his birth. Prior to that, it was called Quintilis, being the fifth month of the 10-month calendar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July
[Julius Caesar was born at 13th of July. As 13th of July was the start of the Ludi Apollinaris, the birthday was moved to 12th of July].
Die offizielle Geburtstagsfeier Caesars wurde aufgrund der Kollision mit dem Hauptfeiertag der ludi Apollinares nach seiner Konsekration im römischen Festkalender vom 13. auf den 12. Juli verschoben, da am Festtag des Apollo laut einem sibyllinischen Orakel keinem anderen Gott gehuldigt werden durfte (Cassius Dio, Römische Geschichte 47,18,6).]
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Iulius_Caesar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludi_Apollinares

Month name (August)
August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days.[1] It was originally named Sextilis in Latin because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar under Romulus in 753 BC, with March being the first month of the year. About 700 BC, it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 46 BC (708 AUC), giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC, it was renamed in honor of Augustus. According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August

Julian Calendar
The Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in AUC 708 (46 BC), was a reform of the Roman calendar.[1] It took effect on 1 January AUC 709 (45 BC), by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and Greek astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandria.
...
The ordinary year in the previous Roman calendar consisted of 12 months, for a total of 355 days. In addition, a 27- or 28-day intercalary month, the Mensis Intercalaris, was sometimes inserted between February and March. This intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 or 23 days after the first 23 days of February; the last five days of February, which counted down toward the start of March, became the last five days of Intercalaris. The net effect was to add 22 or 23 days to the year, forming an intercalary year of 377 or 378 days.[5] Some say the mensis intercalaris always had 27 days and began on either the first or the second day after the Terminalia (23 February)
...
If too many intercalations were omitted, as happened after the Second Punic War and during the Civil Wars, the calendar would drift out of alignment with the tropical year. Moreover, because intercalations were often determined quite late, the average Roman citizen often did not know the date, particularly if he were some distance from the city. For these reasons, the last years of the pre-Julian calendar were later known as "years of confusion". The problems became particularly acute during the years of Julius Caesar's pontificate before the reform, 63–46 BC, when there were only five intercalary months (instead of eight), none of which were during the five Roman years before 46 BC.
Caesar's reform was intended to solve this problem permanently, by creating a calendar that remained aligned to the sun without any human intervention. This proved useful very soon after the new calendar came into effect. Varro used it in 37 BC to fix calendar dates for the start of the four seasons, which would have been impossible only 8 years earlier.[8] A century later, when Pliny dated the winter solstice to 25 December because the sun entered the 8th degree of Capricorn on that date,[9] this stability had become an ordinary fact of life.
...
Likewise in the Egyptian calendar, a fixed year of 365 days was in use, drifting by one day against the sun in four years. An unsuccessful attempt to add an extra day every fourth year was made in 238 BC (Decree of Canopus). Caesar probably experienced this "wandering" or "vague" calendar in that country. He landed in the Nile delta in October 48 BC and soon became embroiled in the Ptolemaic dynastic war, especially after Cleopatra managed to be "introduced" to him in Alexandria.
Caesar imposed a peace, and a banquet was held to celebrate the event.[13] Lucan depicted Caesar talking to a wise man called Acoreus during the feast, stating his intention to create a calendar more perfect than that of Eudoxus[13] (Eudoxus was popularly credited with having determined the length of the year to be ​365 1⁄4 days).[14] But the war soon resumed and Caesar was attacked by the Egyptian army for several months until he achieved victory. He then enjoyed a long cruise on the Nile with Cleopatra before leaving the country in June 47 BC.[15]
Caesar returned to Rome in 46 BC and, according to Plutarch, called in the best philosophers and mathematicians of his time to solve the problem of the calendar.[16] Pliny says that Caesar was aided in his reform by the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria[17] who is generally considered the principal designer of the reform. Sosigenes may also have been the author of the astronomical almanac published by Caesar to facilitate the reform.[18] Eventually, it was decided to establish a calendar that would be a combination between the old Roman months, the fixed length of the Egyptian calendar, and the ​365 1⁄4 days of Greek astronomy. According to Macrobius, Caesar was assisted in this by a certain Marcus Flavius.
.....
(and more) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
Dissertation to "Siebenplanetenwoche ... " (2007)
https://bonndoc.ulb.uni-bonn.de/xmlui/b ... sAllowed=y

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I would guess, that Moon/Cancer and Sun/Leo have something to do with the condition, that July/Caesar and August/Augustus existed before.
Huck
http://trionfi.com