Ep. 13 Transcript - Ben Dykes' New Translation of Hephaistio of Thebes - The Astrology Podcast

2021.05.6. Ep.
13 Transcript: Ben Dykes’ New Translation of Hephaistio of Thebes - The Astrology Podcast
Ep. 13 Transcript: Ben Dykes’

New Translation of Hephaistio of
Thebes
The Astrology Podcast
Transcript of Episode 13, titled:
https://theastrologypodcast.com/transcripts/ep-13-ben-dykes-new-translation-of-hephaistio-of-thebes/ 1/51
2021.05.6. Ep. 13 Transcript: Ben Dykes’ New Translation of Hephaistio of Thebes - The Astrology Podcast
Ben Dykes’ New Translation of

Hephastio of Thebes
With Chris Brennan and Ben Dykes
Episode originally released on December

18th, 2013.
—
Note: This is a transcript of an audio

podcast. We strongly encourage you to
listen to the audio version, which includes
in ections that may not translate well when
written out. Transcripts are created by using
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software and human transcribers, and the
text probably contains some errors and
di erences from the audio version. Please
submit any corrections to Chris Brennan by
email at astrologue@gmail.com.
Transcribed by Gülşen Altay
Transcription released November 10th,

2018
Copyright © 2016 TheAstrologyPodcast.com
CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi. I am Chris Brennan

and you are listening to the astrology
podcast. Today is Wednesday, December 18,

2013 and this is the 13th episode of the
show. You can nd the show at the
astrologypodcast.com and you can also
listen to us on iTunes.
My guest today is astrologer, translator and

publisher Benjamin Dykes and our topic is
his recent publication of a translation of the
third book of Hephaistio of Thebes which is
one of the earliest surviving texts on
electional astrology. Ben’s website is
bendykes.com and this is his second time
on the show.
Ben, welcome back to the show.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Hi. Thanks for having me

back.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi. It is good to have you. I

think you are my rst interview and we
actually last summer I interviewed you on
your book on essentially Medieval electional
astrology but now I think we are going to be
talking about in earlier form of electional
astrology from the Hellenistic traditions.
Let’s talk about the book. What is the title of

the book again?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Well, it is called

‘Apotelesmatics’, that is the English version
of the Greek word and it is ‘Book III: On
Inceptions’…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay.
BENJAMIN DYKES:… and Apotelesmatics

roughly translate to outcomes or nal
outcomes. It has to do with interpreting the
stars and from then interpreting what they
mean and what will happen because of
what they mean?
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and especially based

on the beginning or the inception of where
the stars are placed at the moment that
somebody initiate something. Correct ?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. There is overlap in

the book which I know we are going to talk
about between that is seem like horary
questions, elections, event charts,
something called thought interpretation. All
of these are broadly considered inceptions
by Hephaistio.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and speaking of

Hephaistio so we are talking about
Hephaistio tips although I think you named
him Mario title used to closer to the Greek
which is Hephaistion. Correct?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and that was a

decision that I made with the translator
Eduardo Gramaglia and we just decided to
go with that. We could have gone either way
but we settled on that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and this is a

translation of Hephaistio, the third book of
Hephaistio of Thebes. Hephaistio wrote
three books, I believe in the fth century
some around, let’s say 415 C.E. Let’s talk a
little bit about who are the translator?, and
how did you go about basically producing
this translation?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Well, the translator was

Eduardo Gramaglia. He is a professor of
musical analysis in Argentina and he has
also for some years been translating Greek
astrology works into Spanish and we
worked together to produce this translation.
It is our rst joint work and you know we
worked out what you know how we were
going to translate certain words, what the
procedure was going to be but in the long
run it was Eduardo translating and then me
editing, making commentary, writing the
introduction, producing the book so I acted
more as the editor and publisher even
though obviously when we are looking at
this kind of translation I am also thinking
about how other languages are expressing
some of these technical terms that
Hephaistio is looking at or that Hephaistio is
losing so I was slightly more than an editor
and a publisher but mainly that.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, it really reminds me

of some of the early Project Hindsight
translations where you would see
commentary in the footnotes by both
Schmidt who was the translator as well as

Hand who was doing the editing and
oftentimes Hand would have a lot of
insightful sort of commentary to make along
the way and that sort of seems like part of
the role that you took in this translation and
edition to the editing but also have
providing some running commentary as
well as the introduction. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and some of the

footnotes I point the reader to may be an
alternative reading somewhere else or I will
say well he is referring to something that
Bonatti talks about or that you know
someone so talks about so it is meant to
stand alone as a work on elections but I also
see it as part of my larger astrology project
where there is lots of cross referencing to
other authors and other books.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and de nitely

showing some of the interactions between
this book and what became of electional
astrology in the Medieval tradition was
certainly an interesting point that you
contributed to it and I really appreciate also
Eduardo’s translation style and I think it is
great that he is also an astrologer, instead of
just having for example an academic or two
academics’ working on the translation, you
have two people that have an academic
background and have academic training but
you are also astrologers and you bring an
interesting perspective to doing a
translation like this, I think as a result of

that.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, there were some

points at which you know Hephaistion
Greek was obscure or we weren’t too sure
at rst what he was talking about and if we
weren’t astrologers it would have been easy
to say well you know will just a word it like
this and move on but we had to sort of think
as a astrologers and try to gure out what is
Hephaistio mean and what is he doing?, and
for me that is always fun in translating
because it is not just about producing a
book and writing down the words, it is trying
to gure out what is this person’s
approach?, and what are they think about
astrology? How are they using it?
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Exactly. Okay. Great

and Eduardo have done a few translations
before I know it. He posted a translation of
Serapio on the Hellenistic astrology website
at one point a few years ago and I know he
is de nitely a good person has a great
background and I think he attended a
Project Hindsight conclave sometime over a
decade ago and that was one of the things, I
remember him telling me that God him sort
of motivated and interested in Hellenistic
astrology then he went back and got some
training in Ancient languages after that or
probably around that time.
Let’s talk a little bit about the book itself. As

we said before this is the third book of
Hephaistios so it is the third and last book
and this is a book that a lot of people have
been waiting for. I mean me especially I
have been waiting for a long time to see a
translation of this book because on the one
hand we had Books I and II. We had
translation of those for quite a while now. I
think Robert Schmidt produce those in mid
to late 1990s and those are largely on
mundane astrology and natal astrology
from Hephaistio but this book is on
speci cally and almost entirely on the topic
of electional astrologer, at least what we call
electional astrology but for Hephaistio he
referred to as katarchic astrology. Why don’t
we talk a little bit about that and a little bit
about the structure of the book I guess let’s
start with.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Okay. Well, the book

begins with some general commentary by
him on how to look at an inception chart,
how to plan out an election essentially and
in these really chapters he is then also
introducing fab interpretation which is
related to what we now called consultation
charts so about the rst sixth chapters are
basic rules and ideas about how to
approach inceptional charts and event
charts and thought interpretation.
Everything else is listed by topic; you know
‘If you want to ask someone for a favor, here
is how you plan the election’, ‘If you want to

buy something at the right price, here is
how you do it or here is how you plan at the
time for doing it’ so there is generally
introductory section of several chapters
and then just chapter after chapter of
topics.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and it is maybe like

fty chapters of topics or something like
that?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and it is, I think 47.

What we have also got in here which we can
talk about in a moment is, we have got what
are called Dorotheus excerpts and
Dorotheus fragments as well of some other
things, too and I mention Dorotheus not
only because he forms part of the
appendices but throughout Hephaistio one
of the notable things is that he is constantly
quoting Dorotheus from the original Greek
poem…
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure.
BENJAMIN DYKES: … which is extremely rare

in fact Hephaistio was our greatest source
for the original Greek poem and what is
kind of fascinating for me is that the bits or
he quotes Dorotheus poem are the only
Dorothean portions of the book because we
also have Umar al-Tabari’s Arabic translation
we can see that a lot of the regular
paragraphs in the book are right out of
Dorotheus, they are Hephaistios

paraphrasing of poem.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and that is de nitely,

I think the biggest reason that myself and a
lot of other people have been waiting for
this translation and they are very glad that
you were able to pull it together and do it
because it preserves…, because Hephaistio
himself didn’t really write a lot of unique
content on astrology but instead he was
more of a compiler from the later part of
the Hellenistic tradition and Book III largely
consists of Hephaistio either quoting
directly or paraphrasing large parts of the
fth book of Dorotheus which we don’t have
the original Greek version of, all we have is
this Arabic version from the Medieval
tradition that has been altered and changed
and in which some material has been
inserted so that we don’t always know what
is original Dorotheus material and what is
inserted by the later Medieval tradition so
this is one of the things I think that your
translation of Hephaistio will nally clear up
is what did Dorotheus originally say?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and it is not just

getting the astrology right, you know maybe
there is a strange rule in the Arabic text and
you are not sure of that is sort of Dorotheus
means maybe the Greek clears it up. There
are other things, too. For example as I am
sure all the listeners know, in traditional
astrology there are a lot of verbs in Greek in
particular, verbs for looking and seeing how

to do with aspects and various ways the
planets are con gured and it can be easy to
assume that each of these has its own
various special technical meaning and that
is how some other writers and translators
have to taken this but now that we actually
have the poem from Dorotheus who is very
early, very authoritative. We can see that he
often uses all sorts of words for looking and
seeing with no particular di erence
between them. In fact it seems he is
probably picking and choosing his words so
that the meter and number of syllabus on
each line of the poem works so that was
kind of an eye opening thing.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Hmm.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Not only can Hephaistio

be a corrective to our existing Arabic
Dorotheus but it also gives insight into
whether and how every astrologer took all
of these looking and seeing words to be set
in stone.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure, so help it to clarify

some of the early Greek technical
terminology that you and I and people like
Demetra George and others have been
really focused on over the past few years
and trying to understand things like the
original aspect doctrine.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah. I mean that it is for

example you know he may say in his poem,
well you might read in other texts like
Valens that at some point he will say if a
planet looks upon another planet but then a
few lines later he would talk about a planet
scrutinizing another planet and it could be
easy to assume that looking upon and
scrutinize thing have got to be very di erent
kinds of words but if you read Dorotheus
you will see that ‘No’, he often uses them
just interchangeably.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Well. Yes, I mean

that will complete some interesting pieces
just in terms of the early study of that
Dorotheus text since we couldn’t do that
previously since all we have is the up until
now the English translation of the Arabic
translation of the Persian translation of the
original Greek poem of Dorotheus from the
rst century.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, that is a big thing

that this publication will help to complete as
now what we have is Hephaistio who largely
either quoted excerpts of Dorotheus directly
or did paraphrase large parts of Dorotheus
and even included also as you mentioned an
appendix where you had…, what is it
basically all of the existing Greek fragments
of Dorotheus that Pingree in his critical
edition had found and you translated them

into English?
BENJAMIN DYKES: It is not all of them. What

Pingree did was he drew two groups of
material. When he published his Arabic
Dorotheus, well you know these English
translation of Umar’s Arabic in 1976, he
included long sections of what he called
Dorotheus fragments and then some years
later when he was doing research he found
another Greek manuscript which had
sometimes lengthy sometimes not but
furrows quotes of Dorotheus material and
he often knew that they were Dorotheus
material because he had already translated
Arabic and Hephaistio and these he called
the Dorotheus excerpts.
BENJAMIN DYKES: What I did for this book is

we translated most of the fragments or
many of the fragments, if they pertained to
this electional material and but we also
translated all of the excerpts but I only
included the ones here, the only Dorothean
excerpts that pertained to these topics in
Hephaistio so it isn’t all of the fragments
and excerpts but it is many of them.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. It is all of the ones

that pertained to Book V of Dorotheus or
that may have been related to Book III of
Hephaistio.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and what I plan to

do in the future is to produce a kind of
reconstructed Dorotheus using lots of
Arabic and Greek material including this so I
will be using the excerpts and fragments all
of them in the future or kind of
reconstructed Dorotheus.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Excellent. Well, I look

forward to that and that is important I mean
just in case and who is listening doesn’t
understand the signi cance of that, it is
important because Dorotheus is not only
one of the earliest text on Western astrology
that is survived largely intact into the
present day but it is also easily one of the
most in uential texts on the later tradition
both on the Hellenistic tradition and then
the number of later Hellenistic authors who
is asided from Dorotheus and drew on his
work but also especially the number of
Medieval authors who drew on Dorotheus
for di erent topics like for natal astrology
or for Medieval astrology and so on and so
forth or for electional astrology and so on
and so forth.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, as a matter of fact it

is hard to understate the in uence of
Dorotheus because for example Masha’allah
is known too to translate it, the Persian
Dorotheus as well, not just Umar but
Masha’allah also and yet we are always told
that this version of Masha’allah’s is lost,
nobody knows what happened to it but I
believe when we open up books of

Medieval astrology by people like
Masha’allah, Sahl, al-Khayyat, other people,
al-Rijal on elections we are actually reading
Masha’allah’s translation and I make an
argument separately in a couple of other
books that Masha’allah just repurposed
Dorotheus material directly into his material
on questions and elections and nativities
and so on so we have a lot of Dorotheus
material that does go under his name like
Umar’s translation but we also have
Dorotheus permeating all of the other
branches or knows to the other branches in
Medieval astrology and he isn’t explicitly
named so it is hard to underestimate the
in uence of his work. If there is no
Dorotheus we would probably barely have
you know half, what we do half of Medieval
astrology
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, especially of

elections and of horary.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, de nitely. Yes,

certainly horary would be only the faintest
re ection of what it is now and likewise
elections.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And will clarify why that is

later just want to insert a quick statement
because to give people some idea of the
relative importance of Dorotheus and
therefore the relative importance of this
publication that preserves a lot of
Dorotheus material. I am trying to take next

to outside of Ptolemy, Dorotheus probably
really is the second most important and
most in uential astrologer in terms of the
extent of his in uence on the later tradition,
I can’t think of, am I still think Ptolemy would
probably outway Dorotheus, if you took into
account also some of his astronomical
in uences and everything else but
Dorotheus would probably be the second
most in uential astrologer in terms of the
transmission of his work to the subsequent
traditions. Would you agree with that?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, in some ways I

think it is a toss-up. You could easily argue
that Dorotheus was more important but it is
a…., they are very close.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Okay so very

important and one of the reasons for and I
guess the main reason for this maybe we
should get into this discussion since we
have already mentioned it, is that there has
been this question about and one of the
most important things that this translation
of Hephaistio is nally able to answer is the
question of ‘When did horary astrology
originate?, and did it originate in the
Hellenistic tradition? Did it exist as a
separate branch or even as a practise in the
Hellenistic tradition? or ‘Is horary something
that does not show up in the existing texts
that have survived into the present day?,
and therefore does it seem like it develop
later in the Medieval tradition? Dorotheus or

Hephaistio is one of the last text that we
knew really could answer this question one
way or another because Hephaistio
preserved so much of this earlier material
from Dorotheus and in some of the Arabic
text of the same material, there are
references to horary but the question for a
long time has been ‘Will the same material
in Hephaistio will it contain the same
references to horary or will those references
be absent, will they be missing?, will it turn
out to the related insertions from the
Medieval tradition once horary had already
been introduced?’ Yeah so what was the
conclusion? I mean you have spent a quite a
bit of time in your introduction dealing with
this question.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. I would say If by

horary or questions we are looking for a
developed branch of astrology kind of in the
way that nowadays you might specialize in
horary or in Lilly’s time or Bonatti’s time or
even someone like Masha’allah in the 700s,
if by horary you mean that the answer is no.
There is no evidence of procedural text
books on horary with standardized lists of
questions prior to people like Masha’allah in
the 700s not that I have seen and certainly
not in Hephaistio. However there are a
couple of places, there are two places in
particular where the way he frames the
inception reads almost exactly like a horary
chart or horary question and there are

other places in the book where when he is
talking about what we call consultation
charts or thought interpretation and
predicting some outcomes of things, this
starts to overlap with what would later
become horary so full blown horary of the
kind you can learn and study and specialize
in does not exist in this book but there is a
lot more that overlaps with it and would
become part of horary astrology later.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and my biggest

surprise because I have worked with
Hephaistio before I had never full
translation of it but I had gone through the
text with Schmidt and just side read it to see
if any of the passages in the Arabic version
of Dorotheus that had references to horary
because it is really weird because there is
only 40 chapters or something in the Arabic
version of Dorotheus on elections in Book V
and only ve or six of those chapters
contain references to horary, the rest of it is
clearly just on electional astrology but the
title of Book V of Dorotheus in Arabic
manuscript has been changed to say that is
on questions…
BENJAMIN DYKES: Hmm.
CHRIS BRENNAN: … even though the

majority of the book and even the rst
sentence or two says explicitly that is on
inceptions or elections.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah and this is actually

an important point to make is that this is
why I phrased my earlier answer the way I
did. You have talked about a question chart,
if by question you just meant any kind of
consultation with an astrologer period or
any kind of question you might ask, well
then sure the book is full of questions
because it is about people coming to the
astrologer for help so when we read things
like in Arabic that Book V of Dorotheus’s on
questions which is the Arabic word that they
use, we have to be very careful about what
we mean, it does mean that someone is
inquiring of the astrologer, sure but it is not
a complete full blown manual on what we
would call the branch of horary.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. Yeah and it is just

not. I mean, I think that was an error in the
Arabic version to say that, that book was on
questions because it even clari es in the
rst like I said two or three sentences that is
on inceptions or elections but the big
surprise for me, since you know this is a one
of the earliest research papers that I wrote
that I really published and put out there was
in 2007 my paper on the origins of horary
and in that paper I argued and I pointed out
that I think for one of the rst times partially
drawing on Pingree’s work but also drawing
on just any available Hellenistic text that we
had in translation and just as well as some
that we didn’t at the time that references to
horary seem to be conspicuously absent in

the Hellenistic tradition and therefore
drawing the conclusion that it probably
didn’t exist certainly as an independent
branch in the Hellenistic tradition and one
of the text that I looked at with Schmidt was
the Hephaistio text in order to see if any of
the material that Hephaistio preserved,
indicated that there was horary in
Dorotheus in the rst century as it seems in
the Arabic text and that conclusion that we
came to was that, the answer was no. One
of the biggest surprises for me in your
translation and one of the things that this
translation has cleared up and nally
provided an answer to is, this one instance,
there is only one strong instance new
provide a really good analysis of all of the
di erent possible instances in which there
could be references to horary throughout
the Hephaistio text and you sort of analyse
them and talk about which ones are
ambiguous, which ones are not? But the one
reference which comes in I believe it is Book
III obviously if Hephaistio chapter 11 on the
topic of its own separations…
CHRIS BRENNAN: …there is one clear

reference to horary and that is the biggest
thing that your publication has changed for
me is that I have to coincide now that, that is
de nitely a reference to horary and what is
terrible about it in a way partially for me at
least as someone humbling about it, is that I

was aware of this reference, have been
aware of it is since 2006-2007 but one think
that Schmidt always pointed out to me and
which I was took for granted is that in the
footnotes or on the critical apparatus that
Pingree included in his critical edition,
Pingree pointed out that in one of the
manuscript traditions that in the P…, I think
it is the P manuscript or X manuscript
tradition. Which one?
BENJAMIN DYKES: It is X.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Right. In the X

manuscript tradition that so in the actual
manuscript Pingree compiled what he
thought his reconstruction what the original
text says, It says there is separations and
returns so it is about when basically a wife
leaves her husband and they two have a
separation and the husband wants to know
if the wife will come back to him…
CHRIS BRENNAN: … and Dorotheus gives

these instructions and he says or Hephaistio
does he says their separations and returns
are to be examined in the following manner
in the inception and which the separation
occurs or else at the time that someone
inquires from you look at Venus and the Sun
and then he goes on and on and gives you
instructions but in that he rst says look at
the event chart for when the separation

occurs, when the wife leaves her husband
but then he says or if you don’t have that
basically, look at the chart for the time that
the husband comes to you, the astrologer
and inquires about that question so that is a
clear reference to horary in those
manuscripts and I have had always been
under the impression that there was a
major alternate manuscript tradition which
omitted the second phrase about casting a
chart for when the client approaches you
essentially with a question about this topic
but one of the things you guys clari ed is
that, that is not actually a strong enough
manuscript tradition to rely on because so
many of the other manuscripts include the
horary reference and also because the other
manuscript tradition the alternate one is
kind of a miner tradition. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, what Pingree

pointed out in his description of his
manuscript is that this X, this manuscript X
that he is labeled X is the only one that
omits that phrase or else at the time at
someone inquires from you, every other
manuscript includes it but this manuscript X
not only is it the only one that omits it so
you should be suspicious about omitting it
that way but X itself only has little tiny bits of
Hephaistio that are stuck in the midst of
material on Valens so it is not as though
manuscript X even you know represent a
sustained version of Hephaistio so it seems

to me that yes this phrase should be here or
else at the time someone inquires from you
but you know on the other hand remember
that Hephaistio calls this an inception and
the inception is the action taken by the wife,
she is undertaken an action, it is an event
chart or an action and so we could treat it
just as a straightforward election or event
chart where the husband says here is when
she left what would be the outcome and
what he is seem to suggest is maybe the
kind of way that horary astrologers started.
He says, well he alludes to this in some
other places that if you don’t know the time
of the event, if the client doesn’t know the
time then use the time that the client has
come to you and that is not really full blown
horary, that is more like ‘Well, if you can’t do
anything else and you have to cast a chart
you might as well casted for the time that
they come to you.’.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right. Yeah, you provide

actually some really good insight into that
with the other chapter that you say should
be taken into account along with chapter 11
which is chapter 47 on runaway slaves
because it shows that there is di erent
levels of like a hierarchy of inceptions that
you should use if you have them available
but then if you don’t, then you default to like
what is essentially a lesser starting point or
a lesser inception, then there is actually it
ends up being like a certi cation of three or

four di erent possible inceptions and then
eventually if none of those are available
then you use just the chart for when the
client approaches you.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. If you are the

astrologer, you need to use some charts so
what it is going to be, that is basically so you
have this hierarchy and something like this
also happens in later horary, too. That was
even there amongst the Persians and Arabs
and that is that if someone comes to you
and they have questions that you would
normally use the natal chart for like ‘When
will I get married?’ or ‘ Will I have money?,
that kind of thing. Well, if that client doesn’t
have their nativity, what are you going to to?
Well, they would cast what we now call a
question chart or horary chart?, and they
called it a universal question or a general
question and so that the question chart is a
second best alternative to having the actual
nativity and here in Hephaistio casting a
chart for the time of the consultation is
second best to knowing when the wife ran
away or when the slave ran away.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and actually in

certain context it might be third best
because in chapter four which is on
runaway slaves, the rst instruction he gives
is, to cast a chart for when the slave runs
away and that is the primary chart is the
event chart for the slave departs in order to
determine if the slave will return to the

master, what have you. Then in sentence 51
in chapter 47, there is a brief sentence or
two words, gives instructions saying that if
the time in which the runaway depart is not
known then you should use the time for
when the master rst found out that the
slave was missing.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Exactly.
CHRIS BRENNAN: And that is the second

best sort of inception chart within that
context so that is almost like the second and
then you must wonder then if the chapter
11 consideration would come in third if you
don’t know even that time, then the third
best option is if you don’t have the chart for
one the actually event happened, if you
don’t have the time for when the person
realized that the event had happened then
the third best thing is you could maybe cast
a chart for when the person comes to the
astrologer asking them for help guring out
when things will be xed.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right so I have no

problem saying that horary existed in a kind
of generalized way just in the sense that you
have to cast a chart, you need some kind of
chart if you can have the preferred chart
casted for the time of the consultation or
that they might have used, they might have
taken the thought interpretation techniques
which are very clear in Hephaistio and later
on adopted that to the topic of…, to horary

so the later on you get the full blown branch
that you can read about and learn on your
own or from a teacher but at this stage it is
still the horary chart, is either you know the
second or third best chart, there is no
developed doctrine or there is still stuck of
the stage of doing thought interpretation
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah, de nitely I

wanna talk about thought interpretation
because that is the other thing that goes
into a quite bit that is really exciting seeing
that in the early tradition and also seeing
that as kind of a precursor to horary but
before we get away from chapter 11, I do
just wanna say even though on the one
hand this is literally the only clear reference,
the clear unarguably unambiguous
reference to horary in the entirety of this
book and therefore even in the entirety of
Dorotheus. To me, this is the still clear
reference to horary, this is a clear reference
to the idea underlying that eventually
became this separate branch of horary, this
fourth branch of astrology was clearly there
in Hephaistio and in fact when I checked it, it
matched the Arabic text, the sentence
matched the Arabic text so well that I think
it probably was what Dorotheus originally
said as well which means that this reference
even if it was only single reference to being
able to cast a chart for when somebody
comes to you with a question about
whether their wife will return to them, that

is enough to tell me that something like
horary was already developing as early as
the rst century C.E. and in that I have to
really you know it is very humbling for me I
think you know but perhaps many other
people don’t know, I have to sort of escrow
a bit because there have been some people
over the past few years who have been
saying that this reference is there. For
example Deborah Houlding an elector at
UAC last year in 2012 and Dorian
Greenbaum have said this reference is
there. Now we may still disagree about
some other references in other Hellenistic
authors where there is sort of this debate
about whether consultation charts or
thought interpretation constitutes horary
and there is still some room for debate over
the extent which other authors refer to
horary and the Hellenistic tradition but
when it comes to this I have to now I think
revise my position that I have adopted back
in 2007 when I published a paper on horary
that horary did not exist at all as a concept
in the Hellenistic tradition or that the closest
you get to it is the consultation chart or the
thought interpretation and now just do the
single reference that you guys have
published and information about the
manuscript tradition and everything else
you are given around it, I de nitely have to
revise that position and say that horary or at
least the inklinks, the starting point of
horary does seem to have already existed

by the rst century.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah and I think you put

it to the right way of a few sentences ago,
you said the idea of horary because yeah,
this one reference is not very much to hang
one’s head on and if you are looking for you
know a Greek William Lilly, this is no
evidence of that so I think your general
conclusions were still correct from that
paper because you know this is only one
sentence and it does only express a general
idea of horary so that is just that would be
my reaction to that.
BENJAMIN DYKES: I think your general

conclusion was still correct.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, I mean one of the

things that I think you have and your
publications on Medieval texts on thought
interpretation over the past few years like
the search of the heart and some of the
other texts and then even this one, one of
the things you did con rm about my
argument that was unique and some people
I think give too much credit or thought that I
was drawing in entirely on Pingree for my
argument about the origins of horary but
that wasn’t necessarily the case because
one of the unique things I try to argue is
that horary probably developed originally
out of consultation charts and the thought

interpretation framework and that is one of
the things that I think you have kind of
shown some of your works, Medieval
translations is that there was a much larger
branch of thought interpretation and
consultation charts that existed as sort of a
subset of electional or inceptional astrology
in the early Medieval tradition and that it
was kind of connected with the horary
tradition in a way so that argument that I
made that horary may have partially grown
out of the idea of consultation charts was
sort of con rmed by that.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah and actually it was

only after understanding your argument
and hearing about that, that I began to see
thought interpretation all over the place and
recognize it for what it was so yeah, I think
we could also say and we could look at
Hephaistio as an example of this, developed
thought interpretation techniques that also
include predicting the outcomes of thoughts
and the outcomes of plans that can we use
as a kind of early template for horary.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and that is one of the

sort of debates that is happening right now
and you have made some interesting
distinctions or you generally distinguish
between thought
interpretation/consultation charts versus
predicting outcomes from that versus event
charts and then nally versus horary, full
blown horary questions and one of the

debates for example that we have been
recently like for example Deborah Houlding
takes the position that there is no
distinction between horary astrology proper
and a consultation chart whereas I sort of
see those two as being conceptually
di erent and I think you sort of adopted
that position as well in distinguishing most
of the time between thought interpretation
being one thing and horary astrology proper
being something di erent. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, I do see them as

di erent, they are procedurally di erent,
have di erent rules for people who use
both methods thought interpretation comes
rst and yeah, so thought interpretation is
de nitely distinct from horary even if you
are working as an astrologer and someone
comes to you and you do a consultation
chart as they walk in the room and they are
already telling you the question, well then
you know the thought interpretation and
the question and the consultation all kind of
mixes together so might be that in real life
many times you won’t see the di erence but
in a lot of these texts they are very clear
thought interpretation techniques are
di erent and they often need to come rst
and interpreting and identifying someone’s
thought is di erent from predicting the
outcome of it.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right.

BENJAMIN DYKES: In fact, in Hephaistio in

chapter three so Book III chapter three, he
talks about what he calls irrational
inceptions and this just seems really strange
because he is saying you cast this chart and
then from it you determine whether or not
this is in a rational person or it is in a
rational action which seems kind of weird
because you wouldn’t already know through
talking with them whether this was you
know you wouldn’t already know that if they
were talking to you so I think with this
chapter has to do is, it is like a consultation
chart in which you are interpreting whether
or not this person’s plans and ideas are
even sound enough to be carried out.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and that chapter

was exciting because to me that indicated or
that look like a precursor to what became
later in horary, the considerations before
judgement.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Literally just things that

you taken into account that give you some
idea about what the client is thinking or
what their intentions are and in some
instances if their thoughts or their
intentions are not good then it sort of alerts
the astrologer to this ahead of time.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. I mean in this short

little chapter it is only three sentences long
but it is very clear, he is not saying you know

look at the lord of the Ascendant and see if
it connects to the lord of the 10th and tell
you whether the action is irrational, this is a
chapter about identifying an irrational client
even apart from whatever it is they want to
do so it is almost like it doesn’t matter
whether they think they want to get married
or ask a favor or get a job if this consultation
chart shows that they are rational people to
begin with then yeah it is like a
consideration before judgement it is a
morning sign.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and that is de nitely

still the rooted very much in the
consultation chart itself that chart cast for
the inception of the consultation.
BENJAMIN DYKES: There is nothing really

horary like about this kind of consultation
chart because you are diagnosing what is in
the head…., you are diagnosing the sanity of
the client.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Quite apart from

whatever their question happens to be so
this is a good example of how thought
interpretation we absolutely distinct from
whatever the client wants to do or know
about.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and there is actually

very exciting because it is the most
extensive there is a very long chapter in
which Hephaistio gives rules for
determining also what is on the client’s
mind or what they are thinking about based
on the twelfth part that is rising at the time
of the consultation. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah and you can see

again how this could be procedurally and
conceptually di erent from horary. Suppose
you cast a chart, a consultation chart for
when the client arrives and you use these
twelfth parts to identify a kind of broad
topic. Well, this can be a guide for you while
the client is talking. I mean what if the client
comes to you and he is confused and goes
into a 20 minute discussion, well now 20
minutes have gone by and that can mean
the di erence between having one
Ascendant versus another one you can
nally cast the question chart so if my take a
while to narrow down what exactly the
question even is what the consultation
chart, what the thought part does is, identify
at least a broad range of things to begin
with.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and one of the other

issues that came up or one of the other
things that I kind of have to backtrack on
that I have taken as a position in the horary
paper, I think as also interesting is that
because all of this is being contextualized
within the context of the word of katarche

or the word that you are translating
consistently and I usually also would prefer
to translate as inception or beginning that
this entire book is on inceptions so casting a
chart for the inception of event or the
moment that an event is initiated or takes
place under the assumption that either you
can proactively pick an auspicious date to
initiate something or an auspicious moment
or that you can retrospectively look at an
event that has already began if you know
when it began in order to determine what
its outcome will be.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah.
CHRIS BRENNAN: The fact that they do

contextualize that one instance in what
chapter 11 of Hephaistio where he says look
at the inception chart for when someone
inquires about this topic to you the
astrologer that means that they are using
basically or moving towards a horary
framework or that the idea of horary is
starting to come up, it is sort of like a proto-
horary within the context of the word
katarche or katarchē and that is important
to me because that is something that
Geo rey Cornelius spends a lot of time on
in the Moment of Astrology talking about
the importance of this Greek term within
the context of horary and I kind of he was
emphasizing how it was used later in the
Greek tradition and some of the horoscopes
that are contained in Neugebauer and Van

Hoesen’s work Greek Horoscopes in the, I
think there is four or ve charts from the
fth or sixth century attributed to Palchus
and like two or three of them are clearly
horary questions and Cornelius made very
big deal about this because they used the
term katarche within the context of horary
questions and I have sort of questioned
whether or not we could use that as an
example of in order to understand Greek
technical terminology in the full range of
meaning of the term katarche. At the time I
questioned that at least although now this is
another instances where I would say
Cornelius was right in that horary was sort
of a subset in a way of katarchic astrology in
early Hellenistic tradition or eventually it
developed out of that. However the part
where he might not like as much is that
clearly I think Hephaistio text demonstrate
that this term katarche is being used to
refer to the sort of chronological inception
or beginning of an event in time as being an
important moment in that, that is
something that is necessary that you have
to have some sort of inception moment in
order to cast a chart and in order to be able
to do any sort of astrological divination or
what have you so that is gonna raise a lot of
interesting discussions now that are gonna
be reviewed about Cornelius’s use of that
term and the extent to which this notion of
inceptions is tied into to horary I guess.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Well, in one way you

could look at it this way. If you go to that
chapter 11 about run away wife Hephaistio
calls it an inception, well what part of it is an
inception? Is it the client? Is it the husband
coming to you? No, that is not the inception.
The inception or undertaking was the wife’s
leaving and so what the guy is doing when
he comes to you, he is asking about an
event that has already happened that he is
in the mid stu and he wants inside into
what is going to happen?, and what we
could say is this is a kind of if we generalize
that situation we get essentially in a horary
consultation because what is someone
come to the astrologer for?, they say well
these are the things that they have been
happening and I am midst of them now and
I want to know what is going to happen?, so
that we could generalize this thought and
said that any horary consultation is also an
inception.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Not because the word is

ambiguous but because people are only
there because of something else that has
been undertaken in the past that is a ecting
them now.
BENJAMIN DYKES: And you know this is

something that you look at in a horary chart
you look at the separations and the

applications of the Moon and Dorotheus
talks about this so when the Moon
separates from a planet that shows you
what has been happening, Hephaistio does
the same thing I think with the 11th house
or the ninth house in one of the early
chapters. I mean I am averse to just glossing
all of this stu has been katarchic astrology
because there are enough di erences
between thought interpretation, predicting
outcomes, horary and you know straight up
elections and event charts, all of those
things are distinct and so even though they
might have this common threat of concept
of undertakings running through them, I
don’t think that, that means we should just
gloss all o it as being katarchic.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah and I de nitely

was in trying to say that I guess I was just
saying that one of the points that on the one
hand in Cornelius’s book the Moment of
Astrology he tries to adopt the term
katarche as being this very important term
for understanding and gaining insight into
horary astrology and he goes in a certain
direction with it about the ceremonial and
sort of spiritual or other sort of meanings
that might be associated with it. Well, at the
same time trying to reject the notion that
the idea of temporal moments of origin is
the conceptual or philosophical bases for
astrology…
CHRIS BRENNAN: … and so, on the one hand

I am actually I am backtracking and saying
you know you are right the katarche is more
important for horary than I earlier
acknowledge but then I am also on the
other hand pushing back and saying
however it turns out that if you were gonna
go that direction and that seems to be true
to some extent than that actually ties
astrology even closer to this notion of
temporal moments of origin then previously
thought.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, yeah, absolutely

and I think we can look to the astrologers
themselves and their explicit statements to
show that. One of them again would be this
some of the thought interpretation material
where they are talking about how to
interpret what is recently happened or with
the runaway wife? The katarche is what the
wife did at a particular time and you need to
know of the time…
BENJAMIN DYKES:…or you know in Ptolemy

when he talks about the birth, the nativity as
a katarche because it is something that is
subsequent to the conception, they are not
using this in a ritual sense, they are tieing to
actual moments.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Right, symbolically

signi cant moments at the beginning or the
inception of some event or some venture in
time and that is actually explicitly stated in
that sentence we keep coming back to does
have the clear reference to horary it says, ‘if
you wanna gure out if the person’s wife will
come back to you it says look at in the
inception in which the separation occurs’ so
either you are looking at the inceptional
chart for the moment that the wife left her
husband or else at the time that someone
inquires from you so again it brings it back
to the this temporal moment of someone
approaching you to talk as the astrologer, to
talk about this question at that moment as
having some sort of symbolic signi cance
that you can draw from astrologically.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Well and the a bit about

the runaway slave does something similar
because what you prefers the inception
chart for the moment, the stu was stolen
but if not and this is an interesting variation
if not you take the time when the owner of it
found out.
BENJAMIN DYKES: And what that means is

that you are taking the time when it became
a problem for the owner…
BENJAMIN DYKES: … or became a problem

in the owner’s mind so they need a time and
the time has got to be closely related to you
know when these things became a problem
although I mean I could see Cornelius’s
point maybe for the…, if we are talking
about a chart when the owner found out
about it because the goods are already
stolen, they are gone.
BENJAMIN DYKES: But when you found out

about it, it could be a more symbolic kind of
event a symbolic moment but nevertheless
they are clear that what I like about these
passages is that they don’t just tell you when
to cast a chart, they are giving you some
options and we are able to interpret why
certain options might be better than others.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and that is really

what is very exciting to me about this
translation and one of the reasons why I
think everyone should get it is just, those
little statements that you can pick up,
provides such important and sort of
profound, have the potential to provide
such profound insides into the theoretical
and philosophical conceptualizations of
horary astrology or not horary but of
astrology in general of electional astrology
for one but then also some of the broader
implications that they may have for the…,
or understanding conceptualization of
astrology in what it does in general and we

are certain I don’t wanna do or sort of
glossing over some of Cornelius’s argument
and I don’t wanna do disservice to it by
giving it such a brief treatment and I had
little time here but that was just a little piece
that I thought this is de nitely gonna
become relevant to some of the arguments
he made in that book 20 years ago and I
think your book will help to both on the one
hand solve and a rm some of the
questions and the points that he raised but
also on the other hand there may be some
other points where we will have to go back
and discuss again.
Moving on a little bit and just there are last a

little bit of time here, I just want to talk
about one of the other things which is just it
is really interesting to me from a technical
standpoint as an astrologer the reoccuring
approach that comes up over and over
again in the di erent topics for di erent
types of elections, oftentimes the main
focus of the election is not on things like
guring out what house which of the 12th
house is matches the topic of whatever you
are trying to start but instead almost every
election is framed within the context or
maybe the majority of the elections are
framed within the context of just looking at
the four angular houses and having the rst
house indicate the one who initiates the
action, having the seventh house oftentimes
indicate the other party who is receiving the

action, having the 10th house indicates
something about the quality of the action
and then the fourth house indicating
something about the outcome and that
framework comes up over and over again
and it is really fascinating framework that
provides a lot of insight into early electional
astrology because I almost got the sense
that it was almost coming from a strata of
the early astrological tradition perhaps
around the time of Dorotheus or before the
time of Dorotheus when the concept of the
four angles was there and they are placing a
lot of emphasis on those four angular places
the rising sign, the setting sign, the
culminating sign and the anti-culminating
sign but they are not necessarily putting a
lot of emphasis on the other houses at least
not for topics or not topically.
CHRIS BRENNAN: I don’t know if you had

any…, I mean do you think that is true,
maybe the majority of the elections really
seem to focus on the four angles and not so
much the rest of the houses?
BENJAMIN DYKES: It could be related to this

idea of solar motion or diurnal motion, you
know you have the action that is arising
would obviously be the Ascendant and you
know the Midheaven being in the
culmination point would be something more
like the purpose or the action you are

striving for or the success that you are
striving for, the fourth house at one point, I
think one of the thought interpretation
chapters he says the fourth house is also
hidden things that you don’t know about,
obviously that is symbolic of the Sun being
below the earth.
BENJAMIN DYKES: There is something going

on that you don’t see so it could be that they
were using these the symbolism and
metaphors involved in diurnal motion to
structure their elections and that is certainly
something that could go away back.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Yeah, it just raises

some interesting…, I mean there is some
interesting historical questions about the
development of astrology that, that raises
for me since this comes from Dorotheus
who himself claimed to have been drawing
from earlier strata of the tradition both from
the Mesopotamian stream and the Egyptian
stream according to his introductory or
marks in the Arabic text and so it is sort of
made me wonder if there wasn’t something
that someone at some point maybe of the
work out or make an argument about in
terms of either the development of
electional astrology and perhaps this
indicating that it comes from an earliest
strata perhaps very early on or even just
drawing from strengthens just before the

Hellenistic tradition going back to the
Mesopotamian tradition or perhaps that
you could draw some implications in terms
of the development of the houses where
some people often do argue that the angles
were developed and established rst before
they really had developed an understanding
of what the other signi cations of the other
houses were and so perhaps this could
place some role that a ect that they only
really focus on the four angular houses in
this early electional work could tell us
something about the development of the
use of the houses and what came rst
chronologically or what have you.
CHRIS BRENNAN: These are sort of fully

developed conclusions or thoughts that I
worked out but it is just little things that
came up to me as I was reading your
translation.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Well and that reminds

me of something I believe in Bonatti where
he points out he says older authors keep
whenever they look at their questions and
elections they keep focusing on the angular
houses and he is basically saying they need
to broaden their view and pick some
di erent houses for some of these
questions.
BENJAMIN DYKES: There was something that

Bonatti, I believe it was Bonatti was noting
one and seem to be a bit irritated by.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, I mean I could easily

see how somebody I mean even myself just
any normal astrologer, any astrologer who
does Modern electional astrology even
Medieval electional astrology if you read this
book you will see a type of electional
astrology that is notably di erent in some
ways technically from what we are use to
and that is because it is coming from such
an early strata of the astrological tradition
from the rst century C.E. and even before
that it looks a little bit di erent but in that
you can really see the origins of what
became of electional astrology for the next
2000 years.
Yeah, very exciting. I think we are getting

towards the end of our hour so one of the
things I did wanna ask you about is what
you are planning on working on next, what
sort of projects you have lined up for the
future both on your own, in terms of your
own translation e orts but also in terms of
with Eduardo and if the two of you plan to
doing editional translations of other
Hellenistic texts.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yes, we have a lot of

things planned both worked on jointly or in
my case I would be producing a translation

of Firmicus Maternus.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Nice.
BENJAMIN DYKES: But we already have a

plan that we are going to do a number of
other Greek works together including the
works of Theophilus who is a big question
mark really, it is a kind of a blank spot in the
history of astrology and an important one
because he was seem to have been, he was
writing in Greek during a period when
everyone else was moving into Arabic so he
was living at the same time as people like
Masha’allah and Umar al-Tabari but he was
still writing in Greek so there is all sorts of
information that is going to be in his books
so we are going to be working on
Theophilus as well as a number of other
things together and then I am going to soon
after I nish my the next two mundane
books, my Medieval serious will be complete
that I projected several years ago.
And I am going to work on a lengthy Arabic

series as well as later on or occasionally a
later Medieval early modern Latin series.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay, from the like late

Medieval early Renaissance period.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, translate John of

Ashendon and Cardan and you know some
of the primary sources that William Lilly was
using and those folks from the later

Medieval early modern period.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and you recently I

guess a few months ago back in August you
released your rst book in the series on
mundane astrology and you are working on
the second volume right now. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yes and that is going to

have a lot more from Arabic, I plan on
translating the complete Book VIII of al-Rijal
which is the mundane section of his large
book and this second volume is going to
focus on conjunctional theory and timelord
systems and how to interpret you know
annual ingress charts so this is going to be
very nitty and it is going to be more
narrowly focused on that material where is
the rst volume was on a number of
techniques which will not always closely
related.
BENJAMIN DYKES: All of them derived

somehow or another from Ptolemy and his
mundane writings but the topics for
somewhat separate. Volume II is going to
focus on time lords and conjunctions and
ingresses.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Excellent. That is exciting

because there wasn’t a lot, I mean the
Hellenistic tradition was very much primarily
focused on natal astrology and then

secondarily maybe on elections but you
don’t get a lot of Medieval or mundane
astrology until the Medieval tradition where
you have this huge fully worked out
approaches to the subject.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah. Ptolemy he talks

about ingresses what he wants is the
lunation, the chart for the lunation that was
just prior to the seasonal ingress so he
focuses more on new moon and full moon
charts but even so and this was picked up
by the Persians and the Arabs but I am not
aware of hand of other people in the
ancient world who followed him in that so
even though he was talking about those
kinds of charts it was really the Persians and
Arabs who started developing the material
more fully.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and worked out the

full Jupiter-Saturn cycle and everything
else…
CHRIS BRENNAN: … which is good timing

that you are publishing these since we are
do for another conjunction here in just few
years like 2020. Right?
BENJAMIN DYKES: Yes, yeah, in my book I

will explain lots of tables that explains
di erent kinds of conjunctions and when do
we expect each conjunction depending on

whether you use tropical or sidereal?, and
all of that sort of thing.
CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. Excellent.
All right. Well, I guess that does it for our

show. Thanks for coming on to talk about
your book on Hephaistio of Thebes.
BENJAMIN DYKES: Thanks, it was a pleasure.
CHRIS BRENNAN: All right. Well that is it for

this episode of the astrology podcast. Thank
you for listening. If you want to subscribe to
the show then just enter your email address
on the sidebar of the astrologypodcast.com.
Please check out Ben’s website and I will put
up a link or you can order the book from
there at bendykes.com. If you enjoyed this
episode, then please go, give it a good rating
on iTunes and that is it.
Thanks for listening. We will see you next

time.
   
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Ep. 13 Transcript - Ben Dykes' New Translation of Hephaistio of Thebes - The Astrology Podcast

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Ep. 13 Transcript - Ben Dykes' New Translation of Hephaistio of Thebes - The Astrology Podcast

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2021.05.6. Ep.

Ep. 13 Transcript: Ben Dykes’

The Astrology Podcast

Transcript of Episode 13, titled:

Ben Dykes’ New Translation of

Episode originally released on December

Note: This is a transcript of an audio

Transcribed by Gülşen Altay

Transcription released November 10th,

Copyright © 2016 TheAstrologyPodcast.com

CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi. I am Chris Brennan

podcast. Today is Wednesday, December 18,

My guest today is astrologer, translator and

Ben, welcome back to the show.

BENJAMIN DYKES: Hi. Thanks for having me

CHRIS BRENNAN: Hi. It is good to have you. I

Let’s talk about the book. What is the title of

BENJAMIN DYKES: Well, it is called

CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay.

BENJAMIN DYKES:… and Apotelesmatics

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and especially based

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right. There is overlap in

CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and speaking of

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and that was a

CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay and this is a

BENJAMIN DYKES: Well, the translator was

CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, it really reminds me

Schmidt who was the translator as well as

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and some of the

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and de nitely

translation like this, I think as a result of

BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, there were some

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Exactly. Okay. Great

Let’s talk a little bit about the book itself. As

BENJAMIN DYKES: Okay. Well, the book

is how you plan the election’, ‘If you want to

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure and it is maybe like

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and it is, I think 47.

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure.

BENJAMIN DYKES: … which is extremely rare

Dorotheus, they are Hephaistios

CHRIS BRENNAN: Right and that is de nitely,

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and it is not just

particular, verbs for looking and seeing how

CHRIS BRENNAN: Hmm.

BENJAMIN DYKES: Not only can Hephaistio

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure, so help it to clarify

BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah. I mean that it is for

CHRIS BRENNAN: Sure. Well. Yes, I mean

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right.

CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, that is a big thing

edition had found and you translated them

BENJAMIN DYKES: It is not all of them. What

CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay.

BENJAMIN DYKES: What I did for this book is

CHRIS BRENNAN: Okay. It is all of the ones

BENJAMIN DYKES: Right and what I plan to

CHRIS BRENNAN: Excellent. Well, I look

BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, as a matter of fact it

believe when we open up books of

CHRIS BRENNAN: Yeah, especially of

BENJAMIN DYKES: Yeah, de nitely. Yes,

CHRIS BRENNAN: And will clarify why that is