Astrology
Age of Pisces
Direct answer
Age of Pisces: The Age of Pisces is the astrological age in which the spring equinox point is counted as lying in Pisces, between the Age of Aries and the Age of Aquarius, symbolized by the fish, with dates that vary by author.
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At a glance
- Also called
- piscean age, age of the fish, pisces age
- In astrology
- Pisces is the twelfth sign, mutable and water.
- Found in
- Astrology
- Related
- Age of Aquarius, Great Year, Precession of the Equinoxes, Pisces
The Age of Pisces is the astrological age in which the spring equinox point is counted as lying in Pisces, between the Age of Aries and the Age of Aquarius, symbolized by the fish, with dates that vary by author.
A structural orientation; exact placements depend on the chart or technique being discussed.
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What is the Age of Pisces?
The Age of Pisces is the astrological age that follows the Age of Aries and comes before the Age of Aquarius. It runs about 2,150 years on the usual count. Authors place its start anywhere from the third century BCE (Hill) to the first century CE, depending on how Pisces is measured.
Age of Pisces’s symbol is the fish, and writers in the Bible-astrology tradition tie the fish to early Christian imagery: the fish sign, "fishers of men", and the loaves and fishes.
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The dates of the Age of Pisces
The dates depend on method. Equal thirty-degree signs give an age of about 2,150 to 2,160 years. Hill, using 2,150, said the equinox entered Pisces about 2,150 years before his time, which is about 250 BCE, and that by the same arithmetic it entered Aries about 4,300 years before his time, around 2400 BCE. Calculations that use the true constellation boundaries put the entry nearer the first century BCE and the exit around the year 2600.
The end of the age is just as soft. See the Age of Aquarius for the competing dates, and note that Tara Mata argued the equinox that governs the world's condition is the autumn one, so the Pisces age would not be the main one in her scheme.
From the bull to the ram to the fish
Hill's school reads the sequence of ages through the symbols of each era. He ties the Age of Taurus to the bull: Apis, Baal, the golden calf and the winged bull. He ties the Age of Aries to the ram and then the lamb, and reads "Lamb of God" in John 1:29 as an Aries image. For Pisces, the fish.
- Taurus: the bull of God that "taketh away sin", in Hill's phrasing, with the T-shaped cross as its sign.
- Aries: the ram, then the lamb. He says the lamb remained the Christian symbol until a council ordered otherwise.
- Pisces: the fish, used as a secret sign among early Christians.
These are arguments, not documented fact, and historians date the symbols differently. One part is well documented: Canon 82 of the Quinisext (Trullan) Council in 692 told painters to show Christ as a man and not as a lamb. Hill gives 680, which is the year of the preceding council.
The fish in the gospels and the zodiac
The gospels contain fish at their founding moments: Jesus calls fishermen with "I will make you fishers of men" (Mark 1:17), and he feeds the crowd with five loaves and two fish. Bible-astrology writers read these as markers of a Piscean age. Scholars read the fish symbol more simply, since the Greek word ichthys works as an acrostic for Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior, a reading that has no connection to the zodiac.
In traditional astrology Pisces is a mutable water sign ruled by Jupiter. Dorotheus and Firmicus Maternus agree that Venus is exalted at 27 degrees of Pisces, and that Mercury's fall is the opposite point at 15 degrees.
The story behind Age of Pisces
Precession was described by Hipparchus in the second century BCE. J. H. Hill argued in the 1890s that the equinox entered Pisces about 2,150 years before his own time, and that the lamb of the Age of Aries stayed in Christian art until a church council told painters to show Christ as a man.
Age of Pisces in astrology
Pisces is the twelfth sign, mutable and water. Jupiter rules it, Venus is exalted at 27 degrees of it and Mercury has its fall at 15 degrees, according to Dorotheus and Firmicus Maternus.
Age of Pisces in practice: an example
Hill counts 2,150 years per sign, so an equinox that entered Pisces about 2,150 years before the 1890s sits around 250 BCE, two or three centuries earlier than the usual first-century date.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Astrology
- Aliases
- piscean age, age of the fish, pisces age
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Related terms
More in Astrology
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Common questions
What is the Age of Pisces?
It is the astrological age in which the March equinox point lies in Pisces, after the Age of Aries and before the Age of Aquarius, lasting about 2,150 years.
When did the Age of Pisces start?
There is no agreed date. Hill dated it about 2,150 years before the 1890s, which is about the middle of the third century BCE, and many popular sources say the first century CE.
What age came before Pisces?
The Age of Aries, symbolized by the ram and later the lamb, and before that the Age of Taurus, symbolized by the bull.
