The Anthology of Vettius Valens

In episode 372 astrologers Chris Brennan and Jenn Zahrt talk about the life and work of the second century astrologer Vettius Valens, and a new translation of his Anthology that they just published.

Valens is one of our most important sources for understanding the practice of ancient astrology, because he wrote one of the longest texts on Hellenistic astrology that survives, and he included more than 100 example charts to demonstrate how the techniques work in practice.

In 2010 a classics scholar named Mark Riley released an unfinished PDF of a translation that he made of Valens’ Anthology online for free, and this has become the main source that many astrologers and academics use to read Valens today.

However, because the translation wasn’t finished, Mark didn’t include diagrams in the text to illustrate Valens’ chart examples, and there were also some important chapters that were not completed.

The absence of illustrations in the text made it much harder for students to read V…