[129] That is to say, from the angles in quartile (and therefore hostile also) to the mid-heaven.
[130] The text does not show whether it be necessary that Saturn and Mars should both be in the ascendant, in order to produce the effect described; nor whether the same effect would not follow, if one of them should be in the ascendant, and the other in the occidental angle, or even in some other position.
[131] [Vide Chapter VI, Book I].
[132] The planet here alluded to, seems to be that which may be connected with most of the ruling places.
[133] I have looked in many other books for this word “Anactores” (plural of ανακτωρ), as designating three particular individuals born at the same birth; for which signification it is here used by Ptolemy; but my search has been in vain. Cicero has, however, written a passage, in which a word, very nearly resembling it, occurs, and which would seem to relate to the very persons alluded to by Ptolemy: viz. “The godship of the Dioscuri was established in various modes among the Greeks, and applied to various persons. One set consisted of three persons, who were styled at Athens the Anactes, and were the sons of Jupiter, the most ancient king, and Proserpine; their several names were Tritopatreus, Eubuleus and Dionysius.” De Nat. Deor., lib. 3, cap. 21.
[134] This is the second set of the Dioscuri, as stated by Cicero: they were the children of the third, or Cretan Jupiter (the son of Saturn) and Leda; their names were Castor, Pollux, and Helena. Helena, however, is not mentioned by Cicero.
[135] Core is a name of Proserpine; Liber, of Bacchus. And, although the mention here made of Ceres, Proserpine and Bacchus, as being the offspring of one and the same birth, does not accord with the usual notion of the genealogy of these divinities, it seems that Ptolemy did not so represent them without some reason. For, in cap. 24, lib. 2, De Nat. Deor., Cicero speaks of Liber as having been deified conjointly with Ceres and Libera (another name of Proserpine); and adds, that “it may be understood, from the rites and mysteries of the worship, how the deification took place.” It appears also, by Davies’s notes on Cicero, that Livy and Tacitus both speak of the copartnership in divinity exercised by Liber, Libera and Ceres. There is not, however, any occasion at present to dive deeper into the question of the generation of these deities; for our author has advertised to them only to point out that so many males or females will be produced at one birth, under certain configurations of the stars.
[136] Whalley says here, “chiefly the ascendant and mid-heaven.”
[137] Whichever might have been nearer in time.
[138] It is perhaps superfluous to mention that the two kinds of animals here named (as well as many others) were venerated by the Ægyptians.