Temperament Calculator

Temperament, in the old astrology, was a blend of two pairs of qualities: hot or cold, and moist or dry. The texts named four blends after the four humors of Greek medicine. Hot and moist was sanguine, hot and dry choleric, cold and dry melancholic, and cold and moist phlegmatic. Ptolemy set out the qualities of the planets and of the seasons in the first book of the Tetrabiblos, and later writers built a scoring method on them.

The calculator takes a birth date, time and place, casts the chart, and lets five factors of that chart vote. Each factor votes for one of the four blends. The blend with the most votes is the primary temperament and the next is the secondary. The result is a label the method gives a chart. It describes a tally of placements, not a person, and the tradition never tested its claims about people in any way a modern reader would accept.

The page below explains how each factor is read, works through one chart with every vote visible, and reports how often each blend came up over a long sweep of dates. The four temperaments explainer covers the history of the idea from Galen to Lilly. This page covers the method and nothing else.

The calculator sends the birth date, local time, time zone and coordinates to the site’s API. The API returns the chart: the Ascendant, the planets with their signs, and the name of the Moon’s phase. The scoring then runs in the browser from that response, with the rule set quoted below. Positions use the tropical zodiac, and the methodology page describes the computation.

Five factors vote, one vote each. The first is the rising sign, read by element: fire signs are hot and dry, air signs hot and moist, earth signs cold and dry, water signs cold and moist. The second is the nature of the rising sign’s classical ruler. The Sun and Mars are hot and dry, Jupiter and Venus warm and moist, the Moon cold and moist, and Saturn cold and dry. Mercury has no fixed nature in this scheme and casts no vote, so a chart with Gemini or Virgo rising is scored on four factors.

The third factor is the Moon’s sign, read with the same element table as the rising sign. The fourth is the Moon’s phase, taken from the eight phase names the API returns. A waxing Moon votes hot and a waning Moon votes cold. For moisture the calculator counts the new, crescent and balsamic phases as moist and the other five as dry. That moisture split is a documented choice of this site, applied the same way to every chart, and the factor table below shows which phases fall on each side.

The fifth factor is the Sun’s season, read from the quarter of the zodiac the Sun occupies rather than from the calendar. Aries, Taurus and Gemini count as spring, hot and moist. Cancer, Leo and Virgo count as summer, hot and dry. Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius count as autumn, cold and dry. Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces count as winter, cold and moist. Because the quarter follows the sign, a birth in the southern hemisphere receives the same season vote as a northern birth on the same date.

Each vote lands on one blend: hot and moist on sanguine, hot and dry on choleric, cold and dry on melancholic, cold and moist on phlegmatic. The calculator adds the votes, names the highest as primary and the next as secondary, and lists every factor with its vote and the reason for it. When two blends share the top score, the vote of the earliest factor in the order above decides, as the section on ties explains.

The example chart is Steve Jobs’s, chosen because the site already holds its birth data from a birth certificate. The chart is used only to show the arithmetic, and nothing on this page is a reading of the man.

The Ascendant is in Virgo, so the rising sign votes melancholic. The classical ruler of that sign is Mercury, the one planet that casts no vote, so the vote list shows no vote on that line and this chart is scored on four factors.

Next come the Moon’s two votes. Its sign, Aries, puts a vote on choleric, and its phase, new moon, puts one on sanguine. Last, the Sun in Pisces falls in the winter quarter of the zodiac, and that quarter votes phlegmatic.

The tally reads sanguine 1, choleric 1, melancholic 1 and phlegmatic 1. Four factors voted and each chose a different blend, so every blend shares the top score. The tie rule then looks down the factor order for the first vote cast, which is the rising sign’s, and the primary is melancholic. The secondary is choleric, from the next factor that voted, the Moon’s sign.

The chart also shows why the result panel lists every vote rather than the label alone. A reader who saw melancholic by itself would take it for a clear outcome, while the vote list shows a four-way tie settled by the order of the factors. The near-boundary flags stay quiet for this chart, since the Ascendant, the Moon and the Sun all sit well inside their signs, phases and quarters.

The same rule was run in a script over a sweep of dates from 1900 to 2050 at a fixed set of latitudes, the equator, 40° N and 60° N. The table shows the share of charts whose primary blend was each of the four. Across the whole sweep sanguine came out primary in 26.9% of charts, choleric in 27.7%, melancholic in 25.6% and phlegmatic in 19.8%.

Two of the five votes depend on where the birth took place. The rising sign and its ruler follow the Ascendant, and the Ascendant does not move through the signs at an even pace. At the equator every sign takes about the same time to rise. Away from the equator the signs split into two groups. In the northern hemisphere Cancer through Sagittarius rise slowly and stay on the eastern horizon longer, while Capricorn through Gemini rise quickly. The farther north the birthplace, the larger the gap, so a northern sample holds more charts with the slow-rising signs on the Ascendant. South of the equator the two groups swap.

The other three votes do not change with latitude. The Moon’s sign, the Moon’s phase and the Sun’s quarter are the same for every birthplace at a given moment. So the latitude effect in the table is the Ascendant’s alone: the share of each blend shifts by a few points between the lowest and highest latitudes sampled, and a southern sweep would shift them the other way.

The Sun’s quarter sets a seasonal rhythm of its own. The season vote stays fixed for a quarter of the year, while the Moon’s sign and phase cycle through all four blends every month, so the season vote is the one that tilts a whole quarter of births toward one blend. The share for each blend therefore depends on the dates sampled as well as the latitudes, and a sweep over whole years keeps the four seasons in balance.

The tradition paired the choleric blend with yellow bile, with fire, with summer and with the Sun and Mars. In character terms the texts described the choleric as quick to act, quick to anger and quick to forgive, impatient of delay, bold, and better at starting than at finishing. Lilly’s portraits of the Mars and Sun natives in Christian Astrology carry the same marks, a short temper and a wish to lead. Galen’s successors wrote of a warm and dry manner and a lean frame, but the calculator reports none of that. It reports how the votes fell.

In the tally, choleric needs hot and dry votes, and those come from fire and summer: a fire sign rising, the Moon in a fire sign, the Sun in the summer quarter, or the first quarter and gibbous phases of the Moon. The ruler adds a vote when Aries or Scorpio rises, since Mars is hot and dry, and when Leo rises, since the Sun is. A chart with Leo rising and the Sun in Leo has three choleric votes before the Moon is counted at all. A chart with the Moon between first quarter and full in Sagittarius takes two choleric votes from the Moon alone, whatever the Ascendant.

The tradition paired the sanguine blend with blood, with air, with spring and with Jupiter and Venus. The texts described the sanguine as warm and sociable, hopeful, fond of company and comfort, generous, easily pleased and easily distracted. Medieval writers praised it above the other three and called it the temperament of youth and of springtime. Lilly’s Jupiter native is mild, honest and given to good fellowship, and his Venus native is pleasant and fond of music and company. The same marks appear in later lists of sanguine traits.

Sanguine needs hot and moist votes, and those come from air and spring. Gemini, Libra or Aquarius rising gives one, the Moon in any of the three gives another, and the Sun in Aries, Taurus or Gemini gives the season vote. The new and crescent phases of the Moon vote sanguine too, so a young Moon in an air sign counts twice. The ruler’s vote comes when Taurus or Libra rises, since Venus is warm and moist, and when Sagittarius or Pisces rises, since Jupiter is. That is how a water sign rising, Pisces, can still carry a sanguine vote through its ruler.

The tradition paired the melancholic blend with black bile, with earth, with autumn and with Saturn. The texts described the melancholic as careful and retentive, slow to decide and slow to change, steady in work, given to solitude and to long memory. Lilly’s Saturn native is grave, reserved, patient in labor and sparing with words. The Renaissance made much of the type, and Ficino wrote of it as the temperament of scholars. The calculator counts votes and reports nothing of the kind.

Melancholic needs cold and dry votes, and those come from earth and autumn. Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn rising gives one, the Moon in one of them gives another, and the Sun in Libra, Scorpio or Sagittarius gives the season vote. The full, disseminating and last quarter phases all vote cold and dry, so a Moon just past full in an earth sign counts twice. The ruler adds a vote only when Capricorn or Aquarius rises, since Saturn alone among the voting planets is cold and dry. Virgo rising, though an earth sign, brings no ruler vote, because Mercury casts none.

The tradition paired the phlegmatic blend with phlegm, with water, with winter and with the Moon. The texts described the phlegmatic as calm and slow to stir, patient, placid, fond of rest and routine, hard to anger and hard to hurry. Lilly’s portrait of the Moon native is of a soft, peaceable, changeable person who loves ease and novelty. Modern summaries keep the same core: receptive, steady, slow to begin and slow to stop.

Phlegmatic needs cold and moist votes, and those come from water and winter. Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces rising gives one, the Moon in a water sign gives another, and the Sun in Capricorn, Aquarius or Pisces gives the season vote. Only the balsamic phase, the last before the new Moon, votes cold and moist. The ruler adds a vote only when Cancer rises, since the Moon is the one cold and moist planet in the scheme. Scorpio rising brings a hot and dry vote from Mars instead, and Pisces rising a warm and moist one from Jupiter, so a strongly phlegmatic tally usually needs the Moon and the Sun to agree with the Ascendant.

Five votes across four blends can split two, two and one. Four votes, when Mercury rules the Ascendant, can split one each way. A tie for the top score is settled by the order of the factors: the rising sign first, then the Moon’s sign, then the Moon’s phase, then the Sun’s season, and the ruler last. The calculator walks down that list, and the first factor whose vote went to a tied blend decides it. Because the rising sign comes first and always votes, any tie that includes the rising sign’s blend goes to that blend.

The secondary blend is chosen the same way from the blends that remain. When every remaining blend has no votes, as in a chart where all the factors agree, the fixed order sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic fills the slot, and the tally in the panel shows it with no votes so that nobody mistakes it for a vote.

The result panel marks a tie plainly. It names the blends that shared the top score, names the factor that settled it, and keeps every vote in view with its reason. A tied result reads as one blend, by the rising sign, tied with another, rather than as a single word. The share image carries the same line, so a result passed around off the page still shows that it was a tie.

Three of the five factors sit on boundaries that a small error in the birth time can cross. The calculator checks each one and flags the result when a placement is within a degree of a line that would change its vote.

The Ascendant is the most sensitive, because it moves through a whole degree in a few minutes of clock time at middle latitudes, and faster still when a sign of short ascension is rising. A birth time rounded to the quarter hour can move the Ascendant across a sign boundary. That changes two votes at once, the rising sign’s and its ruler’s, and when the new sign is Gemini or Virgo it removes the ruler’s vote entirely. The flag names the sign on the other side of the line so a reader can run the tally both ways.

The Moon moves about a degree every two hours, so its flags are less common in practice but matter as much when they fire. If the Moon is within a degree of a sign boundary its sign vote can change. If its distance from the Sun is within a degree of one of the eight phase boundaries, its phase vote can change, and each phase boundary changes one of the two qualities. The Sun crosses a season boundary four times a year, moving about a degree a day, so a birth within a day of an equinox or a solstice is flagged on the season vote.

A flag does not change the tally. It tells the reader that a different birth time, within the error a recorded time commonly carries, would have produced a different vote, and it shows which blend would have gained it. The worked chart above sets off none of the three.