The prologue begins conventionally, with a summary of what Ptolemy means by the phases of the stars, and a discussion of which regions he will discuss and what sorts of observational problems may be involved. But a section at the end of the prologue to the Phases is different.
Where he doesn’t name his sources, he makes reference instead by vague designations – including to a group he calls “the Egyptians.” 3 While his sources are often in concordance, sometimes, as above, their predictions differ slightly in ways that are not always reconcilable. In this, as in each entry in the Phases, Ptolemy lists a number of weather predictions from named authors, leaving the reader to choose between predictions. According to Caesar and Hipparchus south wind or cold north wind. According to Callipus a bad mixture of airs. According to Conon and Eudoxus a bad mixture of winds. 14 hours: the star on the knee of Sagittarius disappears. 1 A typical example, from the month of Athyr, which corresponds roughly to November, runs as follows:Ħ. For the most part, the Phases is a highly conventional text, part of a tradition of weather calendars known as parapegmata which listed clear day-to-day signs and expectations for seasonal weather changes based on the passage of the stars through the night sky. His Phases, an almanac of weather signs for each day of each month, reads quite differently from his more widely read theoretical works like the Almagest or the Tetrabiblos. Ptolemy wrote about weather in several places in his work. Finally, I will show that Ptolemy’s views on weather prediction provide a case study for his view of astral causation. Secondly, I argue that understanding weather prediction as astrology means that the distinction between horoscopic and general astrology is more fluid than is sometimes thought. I argue for these conclusions: first, that Ptolemy considers weather prediction to be part of astrology – i.e., a scientific practice which includes giving an account of the causes of phenomena with reference to the stars to give such an account for the weather requires a practitioner to go beyond the observation and cataloguing of weather signs. I show that the way Ptolemy categorises weather prediction differs significantly from other Greco-Roman writers, including Cicero ( On Divination) and Sextus Empiricus ( Against the Astrologers). I examine the sections of the Tetrabiblos that deal with weather prediction and argue that Ptolemy considers it part of astrology. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos is not usually considered as a meteorological text.
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