Astrology
Lot of Children
Direct answer
Lot of Children: The Lot of Children is a calculated point found by day from Jupiter to Saturn and by night from Saturn to Jupiter, laid off from the Ascendant, which ancient astrologers used to judge children and count them.
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At a glance
- Also called
- part of children, arabic part of children, children in the birth chart
- In astrology
- The fifth house is the place of children in every source the Almanac holds.
- Found in
- Astrology
- Related
- Lot of Siblings, Lot of the Mother, Fifth House, Hermetic Lots
The Lot of Children is a calculated point found by day from Jupiter to Saturn and by night from Saturn to Jupiter, laid off from the Ascendant, which ancient astrologers used to judge children and count them.
A structural orientation; exact placements depend on the chart or technique being discussed.
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What is the Lot of Children?
The Lot of Children is one of the family lots of Greek astrology, the mirror of the Lot of Siblings. By day, measure the arc from Jupiter to Saturn and lay it off from the Ascendant; by night, from Saturn to Jupiter.
Ancient astrologers used it, with the fifth house, to judge whether a person would have children and how many. Here the technique is reported as history and never run on anyone's chart. Whether a person has children, wants them, cannot have them, has lost a child or has adopted is not something a chart can say, and it is not the Almanac's to guess.
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The formula
Each lot is found the same way: measure the arc from the first point to the second, always forward through the signs, and lay that arc off from the Ascendant. In longitude, "from A to B" is the Ascendant plus B minus A, reduced to the circle. By night the two points swap places.
The worked example, the same invented day chart on every lot page (longitudes counted from 0 Aries in brackets): Ascendant 10 Libra (190), Sun 20 Aries (20), Moon 5 Gemini (65), Mercury 2 Aries (2), Venus 14 Taurus (44), Mars 8 Leo (128), Jupiter 25 Sagittarius (265) and Saturn 12 Capricorn (282). The Sun is above the horizon, so it is a day chart.
- Day chart, from Jupiter to Saturn: Ascendant 190 + Saturn 282 - Jupiter 265 = 207, which is 27 degrees of Libra.
- Night chart, from Saturn to Jupiter: Ascendant 190 + Jupiter 265 - Saturn 282 = 173, which is 23 degrees of Virgo.
The night sum is the same as the Lot of Siblings, which runs from Saturn to Jupiter in both day and night charts.
Signs of many children and barren signs
The oldest layer of this lore classes the signs themselves.
- Dorotheus (Carmen I.19, on siblings): Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces are fertile signs of many; Leo, Virgo, Capricorn and Aquarius are sterile.
- Al-Qabisi (Introduction I.24): Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces have many offspring; Gemini, Leo and Virgo are sterile; Aries, Taurus, Libra, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius have few children.
The water signs are fertile in both lists, but the barren lists overlap only in Leo and Virgo. They are reported here as the history of an idea, not as anything a sign says about a person.
Why the Almanac never counts children
Dorotheus's second book gives rules for counting children from this lot and the fifth house, and later authors added more. The Almanac's library does not hold that book, and the Almanac would not run the rules if it did.
Children are among the most tender questions a person can bring. Some people have children, some do not want them, some cannot have them, some have lost a child, and some have adopted or raised children who were not born to them. A count from a chart would be wrong for many of them and hurtful to some, and a count that happened to be right would prove nothing. Questions about fertility belong with a doctor.
If the lot is read at all, it is read for what a person nurtures and hands on, whether that is children, students, work or care given to others, and only when they ask.
The story behind Lot of Children
The formula is given in Dorotheus of Sidon's second book on nativities and by Vettius Valens, neither of which is in the Almanac's library, so it is stated here in the standard form used by modern editors of the Hellenistic texts. What the library does hold is the older sign lore: Dorotheus in his first book and al-Qabisi in his Introduction both list signs of many children and barren signs, and they do not agree.
Lot of Children in astrology
Dorotheus calls it the house of the child, Firmicus Maternus says it shows the number of children and the quality of births, and al-Qabisi gives it children, delight and gifts. The lot is read beside it.
Lot of Children in practice: an example
In the worked example, with Jupiter at 25 degrees of Sagittarius and Saturn at 12 degrees of Capricorn, the Lot of Children falls at 27 degrees of Libra by day.
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
- part of children, lot of children astrology, arabic part of children, how many children astrology, children in the birth chart
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What is the Lot of Children?
The Lot of Children is a calculated point found by day from Jupiter to Saturn and by night from Saturn to Jupiter, laid off from the Ascendant, which ancient astrologers used to judge children and count them.
How do you calculate the Lot of Children?
By day, the Ascendant plus Saturn minus Jupiter. By night, the Ascendant plus Jupiter minus Saturn. It is the Lot of Siblings run the other way.
Can a birth chart tell how many children I will have?
Ancient astrologers claimed to count children from this lot and the fifth house. The Great Almanac does not. No chart can tell whether a person will have children, and the Almanac never says so.
What did astrologers call barren signs?
Dorotheus lists Leo, Virgo, Capricorn and Aquarius; al-Qabisi lists Gemini, Leo and Virgo, and gives Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces as signs of many children. The lists disagree, and the Almanac reports them only as history.
