Dorotheus of Sidon was a first-century Hellenistic astrologer, whose "Carmen Astrologicum," a textbook of judicial (or "horary") astrology, has come down to us mainly from an Arabic translation dating from around 800 AD (itself a translation of a third-century Persian translation from the original Greek, which has been lost.) The text, already fragmentary at times, is therefore not entirely reliable, and is further corrupted by interpolations by later translators. Nevertheless, it remains one of our best sources for the practice of pre-Roman Hellenistic astrology, and it was a work of great influence on later Christian, Persian, Arab and medieval astrologers. The first half of the first century, a time when Dorotheus is believed to have flourished, was a period of intense astrological development, following two millennia of accumulated tradition. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Horary astrology is a very old branch of astrology by which an astrologer will try to answer a question by drawing up an astrological chart or horoscope for the exact time and place at which that question came to mind or when it was put to them. ... The History of astrology encompasses a great span of human history and many cultures. ... Persia is the historical and alternative name for the state of Iran in the European languages. ... Julius Caesar, from the bust in the British Museum, in Cassells History of England (1902). ... This article outlines the history of Christianity and provides links to relevant topics. ... Persia is the historical and alternative name for the state of Iran in the European languages. ... The Arabs (Arabic: عرب ʻarab) are a large and heterogenous ethnic group found throughout the Middle East and North Africa, originating in the Arabian Peninsula of southwest Asia. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ...

Very little is known about Dorotheus himself; even his period of activity is in dispute. References to Vettius Valens (c. 120 AD), and to Diocletian, in "Carmen Astrologicum" have led some scholars to place him in the second century, but this reference may be a later interpolation. Dorotheus most likely lived and worked in Alexandria, in Egypt, which, in addition to being the most important scholastic center in the Hellenistic world, was also the one place where the oldest Mesopotamian, Greek and Egyptian astrological techniques continued to be maintained, and hence where astrology was most sophisticated. Vettius Valens (ca. ... Antiquity and modernity stand cheek-by-jowl in Egypts chief Mediterranean seaport Located on the Mediterranean Sea coast, Alexandria Αλεξάνδρεια (in Arabic, الإسكندرية, transliterated al-ʼIskandariyyah) is the chief seaport in Egypt, and that countrys second largest city, and the capital of the Al Iskandariyah governate. ... The Hellenistic period of Greek history was the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which... Babylonia, named for the city of Babylon, was an ancient state in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq), combining the territories of Sumer and Akkad. ...

External Links

• Nicholas Campion on Dorotheus -- from the Introduction by Campion to the 1993 Ascella edition (London) of Carmen Astrologicum
• Project Hindsight -- on Dorotheus and contemporaries
• Deborah Houlding on Dorotheus' use of aspects

Publications

Dorotheus of Sidon, Carmen Astrologicum, tr. by David Pingree. Originally published by B.G.Teubner Verlag, (Leipzig, 1976.) Re-published by Ascella Publications (London, 1993.) Re-published by Astrology Classics (Bel Air, MD), 2005.

Robert Hand, Introduction to The Record of the Early Sages in Greek. Project Hindsight. (Golden Hind Press, Berkeley Springs, WV, 1996.) (Read it online at: [1])