23. Of Faces, Chariots, and the Like.

Such, then, are the natural affinities of the stars and the signs of the zodiac. The planets are said to be in their “proper face” when an individual planet keeps to the sun or moon the same aspect which its house has to their houses; as, for example, when Venus is in sextile to the luminaries, provided that she is occidental to the sun and oriental to the moon, in accordance with the original arrangement of their houses. They are said to be in their own “chariots” and “thrones” and the like when they happen to have familiarity in two or more of the aforesaid ways with the places in which they are found; for then their power is most increased in effectiveness by the similarity and co-operation of the kindred property of the signs which contain them. They say they “rejoice” when, even though the containing signs have no familiarity with the stars themselves, nevertheless they have it with the stars of the same sect; in this case the sympathy arises less directly. They share, however, in the similarity in the same way; just as, on the contrary, when they are found in alien regions belonging to the opposite sect, a great part of their proper power is paralysed, because the temperament which arises from the dissimilarity of the signs produces a different and adulterated nature.