Capricorn is the tenth sign, beginning at the winter solstice, the shortest day, when the Sun reaches its greatest southern declination and turns back. It is cardinal, earthy and ruled by Saturn, with Mars taking its exaltation there. The solstitial position gives the sign its traditional character: the extreme point, the bottom of the year, structure and limit, and the beginning of the return of the light. The Saturnian rulership brings time, boundary, endurance and authority, and the tenth house of the natural chart, which corresponds to the sign, carries profession, standing and command. The Tropic of Capricorn is named for the position, marking the latitude at which the Sun stands overhead at the December solstice, though precession has long since carried the solstitial point into Sagittarius.
Capricorn's three decans run Jupiter, Mars, Sun, continuing the sequence from Sagittarius's final Saturn decan. As an earth sign, Capricorn's triplicity is Venus by day and the Moon by night, agreeing across the Ptolemaic and Dorothean tables together with Taurus and Virgo; the earth triplicity, like fire and air, shows no disagreement between the classical sources, in contrast to water. Firmicus Maternus connects Capricorn's rulership by Saturn to careers requiring patience and long labour, land surveying, architecture and the management of estates, a reading consistent with the sign's cardinal-earth combination of ambition harnessed to structure.