Vettius Valens

The teaching

Taught from his Anthology, the nine books of astrology he wrote for his students.

The stars and what they signify

Valens begins where every student must, with the nature of each star. The Sun, fiery, the light of the mind and the organ by which the soul perceives, signifies kingship and rule, intelligence, fame and the father, and in the body the head and the right eye. The Moon signifies the life of the body, the mother, conception and the household, and in the body the left eye. Saturn makes for smallness, solitude, sorrow and delay, for bonds and for hidden things. Jupiter gives children, friendships with the great, wealth, gifts and honours. Mars brings force, war, wounds and fire, and also command and daring.

Venus signifies desire and love, marriage, the mother and the nurse, adornment, music and pleasure. Mercury is the star of education and letters, of speech, reckoning and trade, of brothers and of every skill that needs a quick mind. He is good with the good and bad with the bad, taking on the nature of the stars he joins.

Day and night

Every chart is a chart of the day or of the night, and the stars belong to one side or the other. By day the Sun leads, with Jupiter and Saturn; by night the Moon leads, with Venus and Mars; Mercury goes with the day when he rises before the Sun and with the night when he follows it. Jupiter and Venus are the benefics and Saturn and Mars the malefics, but a malefic of the chart's own side is milder, Saturn in a chart of the day and Mars in a chart of the night, while one out of its side is at its harshest.

The twelve places

The places are counted from the Hour-marker, the sign rising at birth, one whole sign to each. The four angles are the strongest: the Hour-marker itself, for life, the body and the breath; the Midheaven, for action, rank and reputation; the Setting, for marriage; and the Lower Midheaven, for parents, property and the foundations of a life. The signs that follow the angles have a middle strength, and those that fall away from them are weak, places where a star has little power to act.

The others have their names and their works. The second is livelihood. The third, the Goddess, is brothers and the joy of the Moon; the fifth, Good Fortune, is children and the joy of Venus; the sixth, Bad Fortune, is illness and injury and the joy of Mars. The eighth is death. The ninth, the God, is travel and the gods, and the joy of the Sun; the eleventh, the Good Daimon, is friends and hopes and the joy of Jupiter; the twelfth, the Bad Daimon, is enemies and troubles and the joy of Saturn. Mercury rejoices in the Hour-marker.

Fortune and Daimon

The two chief lots are points that join the Sun and the Moon in a single place. The Lot of Fortune is found, by day, by taking the distance from the Sun to the Moon in the order of the signs and counting it out from the Hour-marker; by night, the distance from the Moon to the Sun. The Lot of Daimon reverses the count. Fortune stands for the body and its health, for possessions and for what comes to a person from outside; Daimon for the soul and the mind, for character, and for what a person does by their own choice.

Valens treats the Lot of Fortune as a second Hour-marker and counts the places from it as well. The eleventh sign from it is the place of acquisition, which shows where gains come from and how great they are, by the stars that stand in it or rule it.

The years in turn

To find what a year of life brings, Valens advances the Hour-marker one sign for each year. The rising sign governs the first year, the next sign the second, and so round the circle, so that the count returns to the rising sign in the thirteenth year, the twenty-fifth and every twelfth after. The sign reached is the sign of the year, and its ruling star is the lord of the year: what that star signifies in the chart, and where it and the others move through the sky in that year, show what the year holds.

The same advance can be made from any point: from the Sun for honour, from the Moon for the body, from the Lot of Fortune for possessions. A year whose sign holds a benefic, or whose lord stands well in the chart, goes well; one that reaches a malefic, or a lord badly placed, brings that star's troubles.

Releasing from the lot

For the long periods of a life Valens releases the time from one of the lots: from Fortune for the body, health and fortune, from Daimon for action, rank and the works of the mind. Each sign is given years by its ruling star. Aries and Scorpio have fifteen, the years of Mars; Taurus and Libra eight, of Venus; Gemini and Virgo twenty, of Mercury; Cancer twenty-five, of the Moon; Leo nineteen, of the Sun; Sagittarius and Pisces twelve, of Jupiter; and of Saturn's signs, Aquarius has thirty and Capricorn twenty-seven. The first period belongs to the sign of the lot; when it is spent, the time passes to the next sign in order, and so on.

Each period is divided in the same way, every sign giving as many months as it has years, beginning from the sign of the period itself, in a year counted as 360 days. If a long period runs through all twelve signs before it ends, the next part does not go back to its start but leaps to the sign opposite: this is the loosing of the bond, and it brings a change. The times are judged from the sign the releasing reaches: its ruler, the stars in it or looking at it, and whether it stands at an angle from the lot, where the stars act most strongly.

Soldiers of fate

Behind the techniques stands a teaching about fate. What has been fixed from the beginning, Valens holds, cannot be undone by prayer or sacrifice, and each person must take the lot given and bear what comes. Those who know nothing of foreknowledge are slaves to hope and fear, lifted up by good fortune and broken by bad. Those who study the stars learn to take good things without excess and bad things without despair, and so keep their souls free: they serve fate as soldiers serve, keeping their place and their courage.

He teaches by example. Each rule comes with the charts of people whose lives he knew, so that the student watches it work on a real life before trusting it, and learns to weigh one method against another.