horoscopus

Latin noun
loaned from Greek

Last edited: 2024-06-10
Primary meaning ascendant
Variants
horoscopus
horoscopos Greek form
Edited by

ascendant astrological place, cardinal point

Platice vitae locus est in eo signo in quo est horoscopus constitutus

‘In general the House of Life is in the sign in which the ascendant is located’

— Firmicus Maternus, Mathesis 2.14.3

Genre: astrological compendium
Provenance: Sicily
Date: ca. 334 CE

Firmicus Maternus. 1897. Ivlii Firmici Materni Matheseos Libri VIII, ed. W. Kroll, F. Skutsch. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner. 1.58

tertius, aequali terris in parte nitentem qui tenet exortum, qua primum sidera surgunt, unde dies redit et tempus describit in horas, hinc inter Graias horoscopos editur urbes, nec capit externum, proprio quia nomine gaudet.

‘The third cardinal, which on the same level as the Earth holds in position the shining dawn, where the stars first rise, where day returns and divides time into hours, is for this reason in the Greek world called the Horoscope, and it declines a foreign name, taking pleasure in its own.’

— Manilius, Astronomica 2.826 ff

Genre: astrological treatise

Manilius. Astronomica. Edited and translated by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 469. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977. 148-149


See also

rꜥ-ḫꜥascendant

ὡροσκόπος hōroskoposascendant

ὡρονομέω hōronomeōto be in the ascendant

locus vitae place of life

ortus rising

anatole ascendant

hora hour

horoscopo to be on the ascendant

ὡροσκοπέω hōroskopeōto be in the ascendant

ὥρα hōrahour

ἀνατολικὸν κέντρον anatolikon kentronAscendant

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). horoscopus (Lemma #974). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/

Chicago (Author-Date)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). horoscopus (Lemma #974). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/

MLA (9th)
Meinhardt, K. (2024). horoscopus (Lemma #974). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/

Harvard
Meinhardt, K. (2024) horoscopus (Lemma #974), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).

BibTeX
@misc{zodiac974,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Meinhardt, Kierán},
	year = {2024},
	title = {horoscopus ({Lemma} #974)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/974/},
}