[56] The degrees here mentioned are degrees of the equator.
[57] [See, in the Appendix, an extract from these tables]; the whole of which are to be found in the Almagest.
[58] The cause of this disposition is that Cancer, the house of the Moon, partakes of moisture, and counteracts Mars’s dryness; while Leo, the Sun’s house, is hot, and counteracts Saturn’s cold.—[Vide Chap. iv], and conclusion of [Chap. vii] of this book.
It may further be observed, that Jupiter’s right, by triplicity, to the first degrees in Leo, is of course surrendered to Saturn, on the principle that the malefics have greater potency in the houses of the luminaries.
[59] Vide [Chapters xii] and [xiv of this Book].
[60] [Vide Chapter xx]. It of course follows that Saturn is in his proper face when he is five signs, or in quintile, after the Sun or before the Moon; that Jupiter is so when in trine; Mars when in quartile; Venus when in sextile; and Mercury when only one sign (or in modern phrase, in semi-sextile), after the Sun or before the Moon.
[61] This has been understood to mean, when the planets or luminaries are within each other’s orbs; Saturn’s orb being 10 degrees, Jupiter’s 12, Mars’s 7 degrees 30 minutes, the Sun’s 17 degrees, Venus’s 8, Mercury’s 7 degrees 30 minutes, and the Moon’s 12 degrees 30 minutes.
[62] Astrologers generally agree, that the inferior planets always apply to the superior, but the superior never to the inferior, except when the inferior be retrograde. In the present instance it seems most probable that the author means the planet which is more occidental, by “the planet which precedes.” He often uses “precedent” as equivalent to “occidental” in regard to the daily revolution of the heavens: and thus a planet in the first degree of Aries would precede, and be more occidental than one in the sixth degree of Aries, to which latter it would, by the regular planetary motion, be applying.
[63] On this, Whalley says that “the less the difference of latitude of the planets in conjunction, the more powerful will be the influence: for if two planets in conjunction have each considerable latitude of different denomination, the influence of such conjunction will be much lessened.”
[64] Τουτ εσι επι το κεντρον της γης. The precise meaning of the word κεντρον is “centre,” rather than “angle”; but Ptolemy uses it throughout this work, in speaking of the four angles of heaven, and I conceive he uses it here to signify an angle at, or on, the earth. The following definition of an aspect, by Kepler, strengthens my opinion: “An aspect is an angle formed on the earth, by the luminous rays of two planets; efficacious in stimulating sublunary nature.”