Antares

Definition

Antares (Alpha Scorpii) is a bright red supergiant — 1st-magnitude, at apparent magnitude 0.96 — lying close to the ecliptic, the Sun's yearly path, so the Moon regularly passes in front of it. Its Greek name Ἀντάρης ("rival of Ares," or "anti-Mars") catches how its red color rivals Mars; the Arabic Qalb al-ʿAqrab ("Heart of the Scorpion") gives the medieval Latin Cor Scorpionis. It is one of the four Royal Stars of Persia, traditionally the Watcher of the West, and the thirteenth Behenian fixed star in BM Bodleian MS. 52.

In Tradition

In the Persian Royal-Star tradition, the Hermetic-Behenian doctrine, and modern Western fixed-star astrology alike, Antares is read as a star of martial honor, sharp intelligence, and a fierce, unyielding character when it sits close to a planet or an angle of the chart — though tradition warns of violence, downfall, or self-destruction if its martial side is misused. The Hermes text *On the Fifteen Fixed Stars* places Antares thirteenth in the Behenian sequence and gives it a Mars-Jupiter nature.

In Practice

Modern fixed-star astrologers find Antares's current position by taking the BM Bodleian MS. 52 reference point (10 Sagittarius 0, around 1265 CE) and carrying it forward by precession — roughly one degree every 72 years — which puts it near 10 degrees of Sagittarius today. A conjunction within one to two degrees of your Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or Midheaven is weighed for martial honor, intensity, or a memorable character. Practitioners in the Picatrix-Agrippa magical tradition follow the Hermes 15-Fixed-Stars talisman recipe — a sardonyx-and-amethyst stone pairing, birthwort juice with a little yew, and an engraved Character — to draw on the star's meanings of memory, intelligence, and banishing demons, following the ring-making method in Agrippa's *Three Books of Occult Philosophy* I.47, with the star elected at the Ascendant.

Historical Origin

Antares appears as a navigation and calendar reference star in the Babylonian *Mul.Apin* and in Ptolemy's star catalogue in the *Almagest* (2nd c. CE). The Arabic Qalb al-ʿAqrab is recorded in Al-Biruni's *Kitāb al-Tafhīm* (c. 1029), where it is the key star of the 18th lunar mansion, al-Qalb. Antares is the thirteenth Behenian fixed star in BM Bodleian MS. 52 (Greer trans. 2017); Vivian Robson's *Fixed Stars* (1923, public domain) drew the modern Western reading together.

Further Reading

• Hermes Trismegistus, On the Fifteen Fixed Stars (Greer trans. 2017)
• Vivian E. Robson, The Fixed Stars and Constellations in Astrology
• Bernadette Brady, Brady's Book of Fixed Stars