Mars in Capricorn

Exaltation is the old word for the one sign in which a planet's action was thought fullest, and for Mars that sign is Capricorn. Ptolemy, in Ashmand's 1822 translation, ties this to the planet reaching its most southerly position, a reason drawn from how Mars moves. Lilly 1659 narrows the point to 28 degrees and uses Mars in Capricorn as his own example of the rule.

Lilly's table then adds degrees 11 to 20 as face and 20 to 25 as terms, and the same chapter carries a warning. In an exaltation a significator, the planet standing for someone in a question, can show a person of haughty condition claiming more than their due. So even the honor came with an old caution.

Adams 1928 names Saturn as ruler here and Mars as exalted, and she finds the sign hard: earth that is active, which she likens to an avalanche or an earthquake. Modern popular astrology usually reads disciplined ambition and patient striving into this pair, a reading that belongs to modern practice. On this site the sign is counted from the equinox in Tropical reckoning, so the placement refers to a span of longitude and leaves the constellation of the same name out of it.