‘Tue DEVELOPMENT OF HELLENISTIC ASTROLOGY 43 a modified or additional set of significations for just the first eight places, which became known as the oktatopos (“eight-topic” system) or oktatropos (‘eight-turning”). In some instances, the Asclepius text changed the placement of certain significations from the Hermes text, for example by moving death from the seventh place to the eighth place. In other instances, the Asclepius text leaves some of Hermes’ significations without modifying them, such as associating the sixth place with injury. Schmidt points out that the Asclepius text is unique in assigning family members to the places, which were largely absent in the Hermes text, thus possibly indicating part of the motivation for this second work that covers just the first eight places.” Elsewhere he notes that later lists of the significations of the places represent a conflation or synthesis of the Hermes and Asclepius systems, even though they originally appear to have been introduced separately.” Finally, sometime after the Hermes and Asclepius texts, another set of early texts were written that were attributed to Nechepso and Petosiris. These two authorsare usually mentioned together asa pair, although sometimes individual works are attributed to them separately. Whatever their relationship, the works attributed to them undoubtedly became the most influential and widely-cited astrological texts in antiquity. They seem to have covered a wide range of topics, but the most important for our purposes is the doctrine of the Thema Mundi— the birth chart of the world—attributed to them by Firmicus Maternus.® ‘The Thema Mundi forms the conceptual rationale for the assignment of the planetary domiciles to the signs of the zodiac, and provides part of the rationale for the qualities of the aspects. ‘These four texts, then, seem to have introduced many of the most fundamental technical doctrines of Hellenistic astrology, or at least we can only trace these doctrines back as faras these texts. What makes Hellenistic astrology unique from a technical standpoint is that it is the first time that the fourfold system that later became common in western astrology was put into place, which incorporates planets, signs of the zodiac, the twelve houses, and aspects. ‘There are also a number of unique technical doctrines connected with these four parts of the system that appear very early on in the Hellenistic tradition: % Schmidt, Definitions and Foundations, p. 309. % Schmidt, Kepler College Sourcebook, p. 77. For example, in Thrasyllus, Summary, p. 101 3-30, the oktatropos is presented first, and then the dédekatropos afterward. But then in later sources such as Valens, Anthology, 4, 12: 1-2, the significations from each system are mixed together into a single account. % Firmicus, Mathesis, 3, preface: 4.