Since about 100 BC the above method has been the essential procedure of astrology, though various refinements and additional devices occasionally have been introduced,including those associated with the Hermetic tradition of Hermes Trismegistos and with Dorotheus of Sidon,an influential astrological poet of the third quarter of the 1st century AD. One is the system of lots,which are influential points as distant from some specified points in the horoscopic diagram as two planets are from each other. A second is the prorogator, a point on the ecliptic that,traveling at the rate of one degree of oblique ascension a year toward either the descendant or ascendant,determines a person’s length of life. Another is the method of continuous horoscopy,under which anniversary diagrams are compared with the base nativity to provide annual readings. And,finally,certain periods of life are apportioned to their governing planets in a fixed sequence;these period governors in turn ...