Sign Dossier
♓The last sign in the sequence; Hellenistic sources describe two fish tied together by a cord, a figure already present in earlier Babylonian sky tradition under a different name.
Because it closes the twelve-sign cycle just before Aries reopens it, Pisces has long been read by astronomers and astrologers alike as a transitional, boundary-marking arc of the ecliptic.
Traditionally Jupiter-ruled, with modern astrology adding Neptune as a co-ruler after its 1846 discovery; tradition holds Pisces as dreamy and empathic, porous to other people's feelings in a way that can be hard to keep separate from its own.
As the last mutable water sign, it is traditionally read as absorbing what came before it — closing the cycle rather than starting a new direction.
Modern zodiac content makes Pisces the hopeless romantic who cries at commercials — sentimental shorthand for a sign tradition actually treats as more porous than sentimental.
Usually explained as Aphrodite and her son Eros, who transformed into fish and tied themselves together to escape the monster Typhon by diving into a river — the same monster that, in a different story, chased Pan into becoming Capricorn's goat-fish.
| Range | Source | Ruler |
| 330°–340° | own decan | Jupiter |
| 340°–350° | from Cancer | Moon |
| 350°–360° | from Scorpio | Mars |
Alpha Piscium, 'the cord,' marking the knot that ties the two fish together.