Sun in Aquarius

Detriment sounds worse than it is. The word just names the sign opposite a planet's own house, and Aquarius stands opposite Leo, so Lilly 1659 lists it as the Sun's detriment. Ptolemy (Ashmand's 1822 translation) puts the reason in terms of temperature: Saturn, cold and remote, takes the signs opposite the luminaries.

Who rules the sign is a live argument among the books read here. Ptolemy and Lilly give it to Saturn, Heindel 1919 makes Saturn and Uranus co-rulers, and Adams 1928 declares Uranus its unchallenged lord. Alan Leo's How to Judge a Nativity, which a footnote in the 1928 printing read here dates to 1903, says only rarely can either outer planet count as the true ruler of the ascendant or another house.

Alan Leo 1899 describes the Sun in this sign through the idea of fixed air, thought held steady until it becomes real, and he pictures people who are quiet, faithful and given to reform. That image sits oddly beside the word detriment, a reminder that the technical term concerns where the Sun sits.