Long before the emergence of the solar zodiac, during the 2nd millennium BC a Babylonian magician-priest was interpreting heavenly omens daily, based only upon the impression the heavenly phenomena  left on him. Not bound by an imperative of any kind of mathematical or astronomical calculations, he could draw his conclusions based upon the feeling stirred up in him after he had observed the sky. The only thing he wrote down were the phenomena of the colours surrounding the discs of the Sun, Moon and the five planets in the moment of their heliacal stations.

" Success often depends on being in the right place at the right time. How often have you heard that said? Is it luck, or something more? Obviously, having a tool to predict the right time would give one an advantage. That thought was, and is, most likely the major motivator for the continual development of astrology through the ages.