Prosneusis

Definition

Prosneusis (Greek πρόσνευσις, "leaning toward, inclination") is a technical reference-direction in Hephaistio's eclipse doctrine. When an eclipse shows its color in one part of the disc rather than across the whole, the prosneusis is the line along which that partial effect inclines. It thereby marks which region on earth the omen applies to.

In Tradition

Hephaistio uses prosneusis to localize a partial omen: the event concerns only the part of the world along which the inclination of the color falls. Robert Schmidt's translator note reads the term as the great circle drawn through the celestial poles and the colored part — the circle that "inclines" obliquely to the ecliptic. Alternatively, it may mark the point where that circle meets the horizon. Either way it is a direction, not a planet or a place.

In Practice

This is mundane rather than natal doctrine, so you meet it in eclipse interpretation, not in reading a birth chart. The idea to carry away: an eclipse coloring only part of its disc is no blanket omen. Its prosneusis points to the geographic direction where the effect is expected to land. Where the color leans is where the event concerns.

Historical Origin

The term is attested in Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatics Book I (chapter 24, p. 75), in Robert Schmidt's translation, whose footnote supplies the great-circle-through-the-poles reading of the construction. Schmidt himself frames the geometry as tentative.

Etymology

Origin: Greek. Meaning: inclination; a leaning toward.

Further Reading

• Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatics Book I
• Chris Brennan, Hellenistic Astrology