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Sacred Correspondences
Arabic Parts

Part of Courage

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Origin 75 to 378 CE

A lot of Mars, built on the Lot of Fortune, signifying boldness, force, and the manner in which a person meets conflict and risk. In the Hermetic set it is Mars' entry, and the delineations attached to it in the Greek sources are noticeably harsher than the modern rendering of courage as a virtue; the older material reads it closer to violence and rashness.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
75 to 378 CE 1Tradition: Hellenistic astrology in Greco-Roman Egypt
Origin PeriodSourced to the subject's own account
800 to 1300 CE 2Tradition: Arabic and Latin medieval astrology
Place of Origin
Greco-Roman Egypt 3
Origin of the Name
"Arabic Parts" is a misnomer. These are the Hellenistic lots, Greek kleroi, already in use by Dorotheus, Vettius Valens and Paulus Alexandrinus centuries before any Arabic author. What the Arabic tradition did was multiply them and transmit them to Latin Europe 3
Language
Ancient Greek 3
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The Lot of Courage

The Lot of Courage, kleros tolmes, is the lot of Mars in the Hermetic set, built on the Lot of Fortune. Tolma in Greek carries daring and boldness with an edge of recklessness, and the lot is read for force, audacity, the manner in which a person meets conflict and risk, and, in the harsher readings of the Hellenistic authors, for violence and for trouble brought on by rashness. Paulus gives it among the seven, and Valens uses it in judging the temper and the circumstances of struggle. Because it is built on Fortune it belongs to the material and circumstantial side of the scheme, so it describes the conditions in which boldness is exercised rather than a moral quality; the lots are not virtues, and reading them as such is a modern import.

The day formula is Ascendant plus Fortune minus Mars; by night the terms reverse, Ascendant plus Mars minus Fortune. Courage's construction from Fortune rather than Spirit places it, like Necessity, among the lots concerned with circumstance and the body's condition rather than with the deliberate will, so that classical delineation reads it less as a measure of chosen bravery than of the conditions, favourable or dangerous, under which a person is forced to act boldly or recklessly, a distinction easy to lose in modern popular treatments that read the lot simply as a courage score.

The Arithmetic of Courage: The Ascendant Counted Twice

The day formula stored for this lot is Ascendant plus the Lot of Fortune minus Mars. Fortune by day is Ascendant plus Moon minus Sun, and substituting gives Ascendant plus Ascendant plus Moon minus Sun minus Mars. The Ascendant does not cancel here. It appears twice, and the lot moves at twice the Ascendant's rate.

That makes the Lot of Courage the most time-sensitive point in this atlas, and one of the most time-sensitive quantities in a horoscope of any kind. The Ascendant advances about one degree every four minutes; two Ascendants advance one degree every two. A birth time wrong by four minutes moves Courage by two degrees, and a birth time wrong by an hour moves it by thirty, a full sign.

The practical instruction follows directly. This lot should not be read at all from a birth time that was remembered rather than recorded. It requires the minute, and where the minute is uncertain the honest report is a range of possible signs rather than a placement.

The doubling also has an interpretive edge. Because the Ascendant enters twice and Mars only once, the lot is driven far more by the moment of birth than by the condition of the planet whose lot it is said to be, which sits oddly with the doctrinal reading of it as the lot of Mars.

Nemesis, built on Fortune in the same way, has the same doubling and the same requirement.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Originates in Language

Source A History of Western AstrologyNicholas Campion
Sources
1. Introduction to Astrology (Eisagogika)
Paulus Alexandrinus, 378the Lot of Courage
2. Liber Astronomiae
Guido Bonatti, The Golden Hind Press, 1277on the parts, of which Bonatti lists some hundred and forty-fiveView the Source
3. A History of Western Astrology
Nicholas Campion, Continuum, 2009vol. 1, on the formation of horoscopic astrology in Greco-Roman EgyptView the Source
Anthology (Anthologiarum Libri Novem)
Vettius Valens, B.G. Teubner, 175the lots in judgments of temperament and conflictView the Source
Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune
Chris Brennan, Amor Fati Publications, 2017On the lots, the Hermetic seven, and sect
Quote, On the lots, the Hermetic seven, and sect
Modern secondary treatment of the Greek lot doctrine and of the argument over reversal.
View the Source
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