The Hellenistic lifespan technique made operational. Identify the apheta (Hyleg, giver of life) and the oikodespotēs (Alcocoden, giver of years) according to the rules of Ptolemy, Dorotheus and the medieval Persian and Arab synthesizers.
The Hyleg (Arabic haylāj, from Persian hīlāk) is the planet or point in a natal chart that holds the native's vital force — the source of life's flow. In the classical synthesis of Ptolemy (Tetrabiblos III.10), the five candidates are the Sun, the Moon, the Ascendant, the Lot of Fortune and the prenatal syzygy. Sect rules and house position determine which one carries the role for the particular chart.
The Alcocoden (Arabic al-kadhkhudāh) is the planet that rules the place of the Hyleg with the strongest essential dignity — the giver of years. It contributes its minor years when angular, its middle years in succedent houses, and its major years when cadent. The Hyleg-Alcocoden pair, together with the chart's killers (anaeretai) and life-givers, forms the operational core of Hellenistic and medieval longevity analysis.
This calculator follows the classical procedure: sect detection, candidate ranking, dignity scoring (domicile, exaltation, triplicity, Egyptian bounds, Chaldean decans), and angular weighting. Sources used: Ptolemy, Dorotheus (Carmen Astrologicum III), Sahl ibn Bishr (De Nativitatibus), Albumasar (De Magnis Coniunctionibus), Bonatti (Liber Astronomiae).
Modern astrology has largely abandoned longevity calculation — for good ethical reasons. We do not use it to predict death. We use it to read the chart's vital signature: which planet anchors the life force, which planet receives the lordship of the years, and what house dynamics those two create. The Hyleg/Alcocoden pair often reveals the chart's deep keynote — the planetary signature beneath surface personality.
This is one of the oldest operational techniques in Hellenistic astrology, dating to at least the second century BCE. It carried through to the Persian astrologers of the eighth–ninth centuries CE (Māshā'allāh, Sahl, Abū Maʿshar), the Arab schools, then through Bonatti and the late medieval Latin tradition. Its terminology, layered through Greek, Persian and Arabic, preserves the dialogue of three astrological cultures.
This is a study tool for advanced classical technique. The interpretive output requires familiarity with Hellenistic doctrine — see also our Primary Directions, Firdaria and Profection calculators for related Hellenistic time-lord methods.
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About the Hyleg, the Alcocoden and length-of-life techniques
The Hyleg (from Persian hīlāj, ultimately from Greek aphetes, "releaser") is the planet or sensitive point in the natal chart selected as the principal indicator of vitality and the source of the years of life. Ptolemy's procedure, set out in Tetrabiblos III.10-11, examines five candidates - the Sun, the Moon, the Ascendant, the Lot of Fortune and the prenatal syzygy - and chooses the one most strongly placed according to a hierarchy of dignities and house positions. The Hyleg is called the life-giver because it carries the native's life-force forward through directions and its arc to the Alcocoden determines the maximum natural length of life.
The Alcocoden (from Persian kadkhudhāh, "house master") is the planet that has the strongest dignity over the degree of the Hyleg - the planet that "rules" the Hyleg by domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term or face. While the Hyleg holds the life-force, the Alcocoden assigns its quantity: each planet in the classical scheme has a greater, mean and lesser years figure (for example Saturn 57/43.5/30, Sun 120/69.5/19, Moon 108/66/25), and the Alcocoden's specific years - increased or decreased by the testimonies of benefics and malefics - give the indicated life-span of the nativity.
Once the Hyleg and Alcocoden are identified, the astrologer takes the Alcocoden's planetary years (greater, mean or lesser depending on its strength and dignity) as the base figure for the indicated life-span. This figure is then increased by years contributed by benefic planets aspecting the Alcocoden in good condition - typically Jupiter and Venus - and decreased by years subtracted by malefic planets in difficult aspect or condition. Ptolemy adds a complementary technique using primary directions of the Hyleg through the chart: when a malefic killing planet (anaereta) reaches the Hyleg by direction, the directed time gives the year of death within the indicated total span.
Each of the seven traditional planets is assigned three sets of years in the classical sources: greater years (which the planet gives when in strongest dignity), mean years (the average condition) and lesser years (when in weak condition). The standard figures from Ptolemy and the later tradition are Saturn 57/43.5/30, Jupiter 79/45.5/12, Mars 66/40.5/15, Sun 120/69.5/19, Venus 82/45/8, Mercury 76/48/20 and Moon 108/66/25. These same lesser years also appear in zodiacal releasing as the L1 period lengths, suggesting a deep underlying unity between the Hellenistic time-lord and length-of-life systems.
Within the contemporary traditional astrology revival, the Hyleg-Alcocoden technique is treated as a serious methodological framework and is taught and practiced by authors such as Robert Schmidt, Robert Hand, Demetra George and the Project Hindsight school. Most modern practitioners are nevertheless cautious about explicit length-of-life predictions for ethical and psychological reasons, and prefer to read the technique as a structural indicator of vitality, longevity-supporting habits and health vulnerabilities rather than as a numerical death date. The method remains historically central: it was the most respected and most cited application of natal astrology in the Greco-Roman, Persian-Arabic and medieval European traditions for over a millennium.