Lots (Babylonian Origins)
Definition
A Lot (also called a Part) is a sensitive point in a chart found by measuring the distance between two factors and projecting it from a third. This entry traces the proto-form of that idea in Babylonia: markers tied to particular places in the omen texts and the astronomical diaries, holding symbolic numerical relationships between planetary distances. These Babylonian foundations come before the fully worked-out Hellenistic Lots (Greek kleros, later Arabicised as al-sahm); roughly a quarter of the surviving Greek papyrus horoscopes use Lots within the developed Hellenistic system that grew out of this Babylonian inheritance.
In Tradition
In Babylonian omen-astronomy, important points were marked by symbolic numerical relationships among the visible bodies and the cardinal points of the zodiac — and that supplied the framework of thought from which the Hellenistic Lots later emerged. Rochberg and Hunger & Pingree document this Babylonian practice of symbolic distances; Pingree traces the lines of transmission from Babylonian omen-calculation into the Egyptian-Greek synthesis, where the kleros system was fully worked out in the *Carmen Astrologicum* and the *Anthologiae*.
In Practice
An astrologer working in the modern Hellenistic revival can trace the lineage of the idea. The Babylonian symbolic-distance markers — planetary-distance tablets, references in the MUL.APIN catalogue, the tabulated appearances in the Astronomical Diaries — form the prehistory of the Lots. The full calculation rules (the Lot of Fortune as Ascendant + Moon - Sun by day, the formula reversed at night, and so on) come later, in the Greek-Egyptian synthesis. Practitioners today keep the Babylonian proto-Lot mentions distinct from the formal Hellenistic Lots while still honouring the way the tradition built up over time. Rochberg notes that about 25 percent of the surviving Greek papyrus horoscopes use the formal Lots of the developed system.
Historical Origin
Babylonian symbolic-distance and proto-Lot calculations appear in the Astronomical Diaries (Sachs & Hunger 1988-1996), in MUL.APIN Tablet I (Hunger & Pingree 1989), and in the Babylonian Horoscopes corpus (Rochberg's 1998 edition; cuneiform tablets in the Yale Babylonian Collection). The full Hellenistic Lot system is documented in Dorotheus' *Carmen Astrologicum* (1st century CE) and Vettius Valens' *Anthologiae* (c. 145-175 CE), with Pingree (*From Astral Omens to Astrology*) tracing the lines of transmission.
Further Reading
- Francesca Rochberg, The Heavenly Writing
- Hermann Hunger & David Pingree, Astral Sciences in Mesopotamia
- David Pingree, From Astral Omens to Astrology