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Succedent houses
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What they are
The succedent houses are the second, fifth, eighth and eleventh. Each one comes straight after one of the four angular houses in the numbering — the 2nd after the 1st, the 5th after the 4th, the 8th after the 7th, the 11th after the 10th — and is followed in turn by a cadent house.
Where the name comes from
"Succedent" means following or coming after. The Greek word, epanaphora, is more precise: it means "rising up after". As the sky turns through the day, the degrees in a succedent house are the next to be carried up to the angle before them. The 2nd house is about to rise over the Ascendant; the 11th is about to climb to the Midheaven. They are the places moving toward the angles, the matters coming up next.
How they are read
The succedent houses sit between the strength of the angles and the weakness of the cadent places, and every tradition gives them a middle rank — but the four are not alike.
- In the Hellenistic tradition, the 11th (the Good Spirit) and the 5th (Good Fortune) were among the best places in the chart, because they look on the rising sign by friendly aspect. The 2nd was more modest. The 8th was counted among the difficult places: it is in aversion to the Ascendant, unable to see it by any classical aspect, and it was associated with death and idleness.
- In Lilly's scoring, a planet in the 11th earned four points of accidental strength, nearly as much as an angle; the 2nd and 5th earned three; the 8th cost two. In his measures of time a succedent significator pointed toward a middling unit — weeks rather than days, if the sign was cardinal — with a mutable or fixed sign lengthening it.
- In modern astrology, the succedent houses are linked with the fixed mode: stability, consolidation, resources and values — what we hold, enjoy and build up. The 2nd is read through personal resources and self-worth, the 5th through creativity, play, romance and children, the 8th through shared resources, intimacy and transformation, the 11th through friends, groups and hopes. Several planets here are often read as inclining toward persistence and the steady building of something lasting.
A useful way to see the pattern: the angular house starts something, the succedent house gathers and sustains what was started, and the cadent house adapts and passes it on.
Which houses count as succedent
As with every house family, the answer depends on the house system. A planet a few degrees past a quadrant cusp can be succedent in Placidus and angular in whole sign houses, or the reverse. Where a planet sits close to a cusp, it is worth looking at the chart in more than one system before leaning on its house family.
In a reading here
When Viastaro weighs a planet's accidental strength it uses Lilly's points by house, so the 11th scores close to the angles, the 2nd and 5th a little lower and the 8th below zero. Horary readings use the house family in their timing, with succedent placements pointing toward weeks.