Astronomicon, Book I

I have lightened the notes on this book, though they still are heavy, by transferring to a preface my exposition of its astrological contents, together with most of the parallels to be adduced from other astrologers. The exposition thus becomes continuous, and the reader may see the wood in spite of the trees.

150–154 The signs of the zodiac, counted from Aries, are masculine and feminine alternately: six masculine, Aries Gemini Leo Libra Sagittarius Aquarius; six feminine, Taurus Cancer Virgo Scorpius Capricornus Pisces. This division is founded not on sex but on the Pythagorean fantasy that odd numbers are male and even numbers female. The six masculine signs, so it happens, are all male creatures except Libra, and Libra could be identified with the Libripens: the feminine are less tractable, for Capricorn has a great beard under her muffler, and the line is led by a female Bull, providentially amputated at the shoulders, the softness of whose nominal sex was imputed either to the Hyades and Pleiades or to the peculiarity noticed in verse 153.

Paulus Alexandrinus ed. 1586 fol. B, Ptolemy tetr. p. 9 ed. Camerar. 1535, Firmicus math. II 1 3, Vettius Valens I 2 (pp. 5–13 Kroll), Porphyrius isag. p. 194 (comm. Ptol. tetr. ed. Basil. 1559), Ludwich’s Maximus p. 105 2–5, schol. Germanici Breys. p. 107 7 sq., catalogus codicum astrologorum Graecorum I p. 144 23–5, VII pp. 194–211. comm. Ptol. tetr. p. 29 "Those things which are natured by an odd number are masculine; and those by an even number, feminine. For the Pythagoreans are accustomed to state a certain argument such as this: that the even number possesses the divisible and passive, but the odd possesses the indivisible, impassive, and active. Therefore the one is called female, the other male." Sextus Empiricus puts the cart before the horse: Against the Astronomers 7 "Masculine and feminine, which have a nature contributory to male-generation or female-generation; for Aries is a masculine sign, and Taurus, they say, is feminine, Gemini is masculine, and the rest follow in similar proportion, alternating between masculine and feminine. From which, I think, the Pythagoreans were also moved to call the monad male, the dyad female, the triad again male, and so on for the rest of the even and odd numbers."

Ptolemy tetr. p. 9 mentions two other systems, in which the sex of the signs was not fixed, but varied with the position of the horoscope.