Looking at one of Valens’ charts — WSH or Porphyry?

Given the current brouhaha about house systems in ancient astrology, I thought it would be useful to take one of the charts described by Vettius Valens to see what we could glean from his text, making deductions by routine astrological methods. Let’s start with Valens’s words, and without bias see where they lead us. Since I don’t read ancient Greek, I will use Mark Riley’s translation. Here is the first example which Valens gives:

“21K;22P. Examples for the Preceding Chapters.
For clarification of the previous points, we will use examples, taking first a distinguished nativity: Sun in Scorpio, moon in Cancer, Saturn in Aquarius, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Mars in Scorpio, Venus in Libra, Mercury in Scorpio, Ascendant in Libra.
Since the birth was at night, I investigate the moon: this happens to be in Cancer, trine with Mars. We find Mars rising just after the Ascendant and in its own house , triangle , and sect .
Then we find Venus sharing rulership with Mars, being in the Ascendant and in its own house .
Third, we find the moon at MC in its own house . It is obvious that the nativity is distinguished, since the houserulers are configured so appropriately.
Investigating the Lot of Fortune, I find it in Aquarius; Saturn is there, the ruler and in Good Fortune, in its own house and /80P/ triangle . Likewise the 11th Place from the Lot of Fortune, i.e. the Place of Accomplishment, is , and Jupiter is there.
I also found the exaltation of the nativity: from the moon to Taurus is eleven signs, and the same distance from the Ascendant in Libra brings me to Leo, in Good Daimon. The sun is the ruler of this and since it is found to be at MC with respect to the Lot of Fortune, it made the birth even more illustrious and distinguished.”

Valens does not mention where this person was born, so I will study a chart cast for Alexandria, Egypt. What can we deduce from Valens’ comments?

We can date the chart by the sign positions which Valens mentions. Saturn lies in Aquarius, Jupiter in Sagittarius, and Mars in Scorpio. Valens, writing in the mid-2nd century CE, is not using the tropical zodiac. I have found with Valens’s chart that the sidereal zodiac with the Raman ayanamsa gives results close to his values. Looking in the ephemeris we find that the planets occupied these positions in the year 0050 CE. Because the Sun lies in Scorpio and the Moon in Cancer, the date of birth must be around 24 October 0050 CE. At Noon on that date the Sun was at 4 Scorpio, Moon at 12 Cancer, Mercury at 15 Scorpio, Venus at 25 Libra 30, Mars at 1 Scorpio, Jupiter at 6 Sagittarius, and Saturn at 14 Aquarius (these are rounded to the degree). A 25 October 0050 birth date would also work with the data given.

Because the Moon travels about 12 degrees daily, the position of the moon in this birth must lies between 6 and 18 of Cancer. However, Valens tells us that it was a night birth, and we know that sunrise occurred about 6:14 AM when the Moon was at 10 Cancer (rounded to degree). At midnight, the Moon was at 6 Cancer (rounded), so we can be confident that the Moon at birth was somewhere between 6 and 10 of Cancer.

Libra rises the MC is Cancer. This narrows the time of birth to between about 3:39 AM and 5:48 AM.

Mars rises “just after the Ascendant” and “we find Venus sharing rulership with Mars, being in the Ascendant and in its own house .” This is an odd statement. Odd, because Mars lies in Scorpio in the 2nd Place, but shares rulership of the Libra Ascendant with Venus. Valens makes it a point to emphasize that “we find Mars rising just after the Ascendant.” Why? What is Valens trying to imply by this statement? Why does it matter that Mars rises so close to the Ascendant and just after it? 

Or, in other words, Venus lies in Libra, the rising sign, and Venus SHARES RULERSHIP with Mars, which occupies the sign in the 2nd Place. I assume Valens means that Venus and Mars share rulership of the Ascendant degree.

How are Mars and Venus “sharing rulership”? Does he mean that Mars is so close to the ASC degree that it shares rulership of the Ascendant (1st Place) with Venus? We know that Venus lies near the end of Libra and Mars near the beginning of Scorpio. Does Valens statement that Mars and Venus share rulership mean that the Ascendant-degree lies near the end of Libra so that either planet falls within a 3-degree orb of the Asc?

If we assume that Mars sharing with Venus the rulership of the Ascendant means that Mars lies within 3 degrees of the Asc, then the degree of the Asc must be about 28 Libra. This would place the MC degree at 29 Cancer 47′. The resulting chart for this eminent person would then be as follows, if he were born near Alexandria.

My assumption is that “Mars rises just after the Ascendant” and Venus shares rulership of the Ascendant with Mars means that Mars is conjunct the Ascendant which lies very near the end of Libra. [After receiving feedback from readers and carefully rereading Valens’ comments about the chart, I have changed my mind and now feel that he was born about 4:16 AM with an MC of about 8.5 degrees of Cancer. See the Addendum at the end of this post.]

This chart is cast is the Whole Sign House format. I tried casting it in Porphyry (and other quadrant systems) but then it did not match Valens’ description. For example, Valens tells us that the Part of Fortune lies with Saturn in the 5th Place of Good Fortune. In the quadrant house, Fortuna and Saturn appear in the 4th house (or one in the 4th and the other in the 5th), not both in the 5th.

It does appear then, that in this case example Valens is using the signs as houses (Places) and that the quadrant house systems do not correspond with his textual description. Even experimenting with an earlier time of birth, Pars Fortuna only appears in the 5th Place with Saturn in the Whole Sign method.

This analysis requires many assumptions, which may or may not be warranted. I welcome any feedback or corrections in the comments.

Addendum 15 Feb 2023: (Please read the following because I have changed my view of the chart after re-reading Valens and receiving feedback from several readers.)

Some readers have commented that Valens meant that the Asc degree was in the bounds of Mars in Libra, so that Mars shared rulership of the Libra Ascendant with Venus through his bounds, which Valens gives as the last 4 degrees of Libra. If that interpretation is correct, then the Asc degree lies in the region from the 26 to 30 degrees of Libra, which narrows the birth time to between 5:38 and 5:48 AM and we are able to narrow the birth data to within a 10-minute interval on a specific date, simply by using the written data which Valens provided. We also have a very close approximation to the Asc- and MC-degrees.

Another reader felt that Valens meant that Mars has rulership in the chart because it is a night chart and Mars rules the water triplicity, with the Moon, ruler of the night sect, being in Cancer. If this is the case, then the Ascendant could be anywhere in Libra and not just the last 4 degrees.

These various opinions, expressed by experienced astrologers, demonstrate how difficult it is to understand these old texts and come to a consensus about what they mean.

In reading over Valens’ comments I realize that I did not account for his statements that the Moon was “at MC” and the Sun was “at MC with respect to the Part of Fortune” in Aquarius. I have now put these comments in bold in Valens’ text. Thus, two charts are possible that meet these criteria:

On 24 October 0050, the Moon was at MC at 4:16 AM. Both the Moon and the MC are at about 9 Cancer at that time, and the Part of Fortune and the sun are each at about 4 degrees of their respective signs, Aquarius and Scorpio. The October 24th meets these criteria exactly.

On 25 October 0050, the Moon was at MC at 5:08 AM. At that time the Moon and the MC are at about 21 Cancer 30′, the Sun is at almost 5 Scorpio and the Part of Fortune at almost 4 Aquarius.

Thus, if the Mars sharing rulership with Venus refers to Mars ruling the night triplicity of the sign of the Moon, this chart would look as follows:

Upon reflection, I believe that this chart is more likely to be the one Valens was describing because it accounts quite exactly for the Moon being “at MC” and the Sun being “at MC with respect to the Part of Fortune.” If my reasoning is correct, we have a fairly precisely timed chart for this native, complete with the degree of the Ascendant and the MC. Valens appears to be referring to the degree of the Sun corresponding numerically and almost exactly to the degree of the Lot of Fortune when he states, “The sun is the ruler of this [Place XI of the Good Daimon] and since it is found to be at MC with respect to the Lot of Fortune, it made the birth even more illustrious and distinguished.”