Well now, he said, which of the proofs came after this? And I replied, That the moon is subject to the same eclipse. Thank you, he said, for reminding me; but now shall I assume that you have been persuaded and do hold the moon to be eclipsed by being caught in the shadow and so turn straightway to my argument, The argument that the moon is earthy, which at the beginning of chap. 19 (931 D) Lucius stated in the form of a proportion. or do you prefer that I give you a lecture and demonstration in which each of the arguments is enumerated? By heaven, said Theon, do give these gentlemen a lecture. As for me, I want some persuasion as well, since I have only heard it put this way: when the three bodies, earth and sun and moon, get into a straight line, eclipses take place because the earth deprives the moon or the moon, on the other hand, deprives the earth of the sun, the sun being eclipsed when the moon and the moon when the earth takes the middle position of the three, the former of which cases occurs at conjunction and the latter at the middle of the month. cf. Cleomedes, ii. 6. 115 (p. 208. 9-12 [Ziegler]) for the eclipse of the moon and ii. 4. 106 (p. 192, 14-20) for the eclipse of the sun; cf. also Theon of Smyrna, p. 193. 23 ff, and p. 197. 22 ff. (Hiller); Geminus, viii. 14 (p. 104. 23 ff. [Manitius]). Whereupon Lucius said, Those are roughly the main points, though, of what is said on the subject. Add thereto first, if you will, the argument from the shape of the shadow. It is a cone, as is natural when a large fire or light that is spherical circumfuses a smaller but spherical mass. See notes a and b on 923 B supra . This is the reason why in eclipses of the moon the darkened parts are outlined against the bright in segments that are curved, cf. Cleomedes, ii. 6. 118 (p. 214. 2-12 [Ziegler]); Aristotle, Caelo , 297 B 23-30. for whenever two round bodies come into contact the lines by which either intersects the other turn out to be circular since they have everywhere a uniform tendency. i.e. the intersecting lines are always arcs of a circle because the degree of curvature of each of the two surfaces is at every point similar. For this interpretation cf Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 144. Secondly, I think that you are aware that of the moon the eastward parts are first eclipsed and of the sun the westward parts and that, while the shadow of the earth moves from east to west, the sun and the moon move contrariwise towards the east. cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 144; Cleomedes, ii. 6. 116 (p. 210. 6-19 [Ziegler]), 117 (p. 212. 1-12) on the lunar eclipse; ii. 5. 113-114 (p. 204. 27 ff.) on the solar eclipse; Geminus, xii. 5-13 (pp. 138-140 [Manitius]) on the eastward motion of sun and moon. This is made visible to sense-perception by the phenomena and needs no very lengthy explanations to be understood, and these phenomena confirm the cause of the eclipse. Since the sun is eclipsed by being overtaken and the moon by encountering that which produces the eclipse, it is reasonable or rather it is necessary that the sun be caught first from behind and the moon from the front, for the obstruction begins from that point which the intercepting body first assails. The sun is assailed from the west by the moon that is striving after him, and she is assailed from the east [by the earth’s shadow] that is sweeping down as it were in the opposite direction. Thirdly, moreover, consider the matter of the duration and the magnitude of lunar eclipses. If the moon is eclipsed when she is high and far from the earth, she is concealed for a little time; but, if this very thing happens to her when she is low and near the earth, she is strongly curbed and is slow to get out of the shadow, although when she is low her exertions of motion are greatest and when she is high they are least. The reason for the difference lies in the shadow, which being broadest at the base, as cones are, and gradually contracting terminates at the vertex in a sharp and fine tip. Consequently the moon, if she has met the shadow when she is low, is involved by it in its largest circles cf. Communibus Notitiis , 1080 B : αὐταὶ γάρ δήπουθεν αἱ τῶν κωνικῶν τμημάτων ἐπιφάνειαι. κύκλοι εἰσίν . and traverses its deep and darkest part; but above as it were in shallow water by reason of the fineness of the shadow she is just grazed and quickly gets clean away. cf. Cleomedes, ii. 6. 119 (pp. 214. 13-216. 8 [Ziegler]); for the observation that the planets appear to move most swiftly when they are nearest to the earth and most slowly when they are farthest away cf. Cleomedes, ii. 5. 112-114 (pp. 202. 26-206. 27), and Theon of Smyrna, p. 135. 6-11 and p. 157. 2-12 (Hiller). Plutarch’s language, however, implies that the moon makes a conscious exertion to accelerate her motion when she is near the earth, and in the myth at 944 A s.v. it is stated that she increases her speed in order to escape the shadow of the earth. Kepler in note 51 to his translation declares that, contrary to what Lucius here says, perigee eclipses even when central are briefer than apogee eclipses; and Prickard ( Plutarch on the Face of the Moon [1911], p. 11) says that ceteris paribus an eclipse of a distant moon should be longer by about one fifteenth. Prof. Neugebauer informs me that, using the Ptolemaic figures for the apparent diameter of the moon and of the earth’s shadowand the classical figures given by Geminus for the velocity, the maximum totality in apogee should be 4; 3, 23ʰʳ and in perigee 3; 20, 0ʰʳ. I pass over all that was said besides with particular reference to the phases and variations, Probably a reference to such matters as are discussed by Geminus, ix (pp, 124-130 [Manitius]), With τὰς φάσεις καὶ διαφορήσεις cf. species diversitatesque Lunae , Martianus Capella, viii. 871 (p. 459. 15-16 [Dick]). for these too, in so far as is possible, It is impossible to give an exhaustive and accurately scientific explanation of physical phenomena, for they are involved in the indeterminateness of matter. cf. Aristotle, Anal. Post. 87 a 31-37 and Metaphysics , 995 A 14-17, 1078 A 9-13 ( cf. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen , ii. 2, p. 166, n. 3); and for Plato’s more extreme attitude cf. especially Timaeus , 29 B - C, Philebus , 56 and 59. Plutarch appears to have Philebus , 56 C in mind at Quaest. Conviv 744 e-f, where he makes astronomy attendant upon geometry, as he has Philebus , 66 a-b in mind at 720 C ( cf. R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. vii [1912], pp. 76 f.). For the notion of the necessary lack of accuracy of the physical sciences cf. further Plat. Quaest. 1001 E ff. and Quaest. Conviv 699 B. admit the cause alleged; and instead I revert to the argument before us cf. note a on 932 D supra . which has its basis in the evidence of the senses. We see that from a shadowy place fire glows and shines forth more intensely, cf. Cleomedes, ii. 3. 99 (p. 180. 11-13 [Ziegler]) and ii. 6. 120-121 (p. 218. 2-3). whether because the dark air being dense does not admit its effluences and diffusions but confines and concentrates the substance in a single place or because this is an affection of our senses that as hot things appear to be hotter in comparison with cold and pleasures more intense in comparison with pains so bright things appear conspicuous when compared with dark, their appearance being intensified by contrast to the different impressions. cf. Quomodo Adul. ab Amico Internosc. 57 C, Herodoti Malignitate , 863 E. The former explanation seems to be the more plausible, for in sunlight fire of every kind not only loses its brilliance but by giving way becomes ineffective and less keen, the reason being that the heat of the sun disperses and dissipates its potency. cf. Aristotle, Caelo , 305 A 9-13; [Alexander], Anima Libri Mantissa , p. 128. 2-7 (Bruns), and the explanation of the moon’s phases ascribed to Antiphon in Placitis , 891 D = Aëtius, ii. 28. 4 ( Dox. Graeci , p. 358). If, then, as the Stoics themselves assert, See 928 D supra with note d there and 935 B s.v. . Reference to the present passage is omitted in S. V. F. the moon, being a rather turbid star, has a faint and feeble fire of her own, she ought to have none of the things happen to her that now obviously do but the very opposite; she ought to be revealed when she is hidden and hidden whenever she is now revealed, that is hidden all the rest of the time when she is bedimmed by the circumambient ether αἰθήρ is here used in the Stoic sense as in 922 B and 928 c-d supra . but shining forth and becoming brilliantly clear at intervals of six months or again at intervals of five when she sinks under the shadow of the earth, since of 465 ecliptic full moons 404 occur in cycles of six months and the rest in cycles of five months. For this period of 465 ecliptic full moons cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145. It ought to have been at such intervals of time then that the moon is revealed resplendent in the shadow, whereas in the shadow she is eclipsed and loses her light but regains it again as soon as she escapes the shadow For this argument cf. Cleomedes, ii. 4. 103 (p. 182. 10-16 [Ziegler]). and is revealed often even by day, which implies that she is anything but a fiery and star-like body. When Lucius said this, almost while [he was speaking] Pharnaces and Apollonides sprang forth together. Then, Apollonides having yielded, Pharnaces said that this very point above all proves the moon to be a star or fire, since she is not entirely invisible in her eclipses but displays a colour smouldering and grim which is peculiar to her. = S. V. F. ii, frag. 672. cf. Pliny , Nat. Hist. ii. 9. 42. ( deficiens et in defectu tamen conspicua ); Olympiodorus, In Meteor. p. 67. 36-37; Philoponus, In Meteor. pp. 30. 37-31. 1 and p. 106. 9-13. The moon is seldom invisible to the naked eye even in total eclipses ( cf. Dyson and Woolley, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon , p. 30; C. A. Young, M anual of Astronomy [1902], § 287; Boll, s.v. Finsternisse, R. E. vi. 2344); and the apparent colour of the moon in total eclipse was as late as the 16th century adduced as evidence that the moon had light of its own, a notion entertained as possible even by W. Herschel ( cf. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph , pp. 132-133). Apollonides raised an objection concerning the shadow on the ground that scientists always give this name to the region that is without light and the heaven does not admit shadow. For a Stoic this follows from the definition of οὐρανός as ἔσχατον αἰθέρος and πύρινον ( cf. S. V.F. i, p. 33, frags. 115 and 116; S. V. F. ii, frag. 580 [p. 180. 10-12]). This, I said, is the objection of one who speaks captiously to the name rather than like a natural scientist and mathematician to the fact. If one refuses to call the region screened by the earth shadow and insists upon calling it lightless space, nevertheless when the moon gets into it she must [be obscured since she is deprived of the solar light]. Speaking generally too, it is silly, I said, to deny that the shadow of the earth reaches that point [from which on its part] the shadow of the moon by impinging upon the sight and [extending] to the earth produces an eclipse of the sun. Now I shall turn to you, Pharnaces. That smouldering and glowing colour of the moon which you say is peculiar to her is characteristic of a body that is compact and a solid, for no remnant or trace of flame will remain in tenuous things nor is incandescence possible unless there is a hard body that has been ignited through and through and sustains the ignition. cf. 922 A-B supra . With ἀνθρακογένεσις , incandescence, Raingeard compares ἀνθρακοποιΐα in Gregory of Nyssa, iii. 937 A. So Homer too has somewhere said: But when fire’s bloom had flown and flame had ceased He smoothed the embers. . . Iliad , ix. 212-213 in our texts read: αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ πῦρ ἐκάη καὶ φλὸξ ἐμαράνθη, ἀνθρακιὴν στορέσας ὀβελοὺς ἐφύπερθε τάνυσσε , but the first line as Plutarch gives it was known to Aristarchus, who rejected it ( cf. Ludwich, Aristarchs Homerische Textkritik , i, p. 302; Eustathius, Ad Iliadem , 748. 41; Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem , ed. Dindorf, i, p. 312). The reason probably is that what is igneous Purser has pointed out ( Hermathena , xvi [1911], p. 316) that ἄνθραξ may mean all degrees of burning coal from complete incandescence to ashes and that fire’s need of solid matter to work upon was often used as an argument against the Stoic conflagration of the world: cf. Philo, Aeternitate Mundi , §§ 86-88 (vi, pp. 99. 14-100. 10 [Cohn-Reiter]). is not fire but body that has been ignited and subjected to the action of fire, which adheres to a solid and stable mass and continues to occupy itself with it, whereas flames are the kindling and flux of tenuous nourishment or matter which because of its feebleness is swiftly dissolved. Consequently there would be no other proof of the moons earthy and compact nature so manifest as the smouldering colour, if it really were her own. But it is not so, my dear Pharnaces, for as she is eclipsed she exhibits many changes of colour which scientists have distinguished as follows, delimiting them according to time or hour. cf. Aemilius Paulus , 17 (264 B), Nicias , 23 (538 E) and for a description and explanation of the phenomenon cf. Sir John Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy , §§ 421-424, and J. F. J. Schmidt, r Mond (Leipzig, 1836), p. 35. Astrology assigned special significance to the various colours of the moon in total eclipse: cf. Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum , vii (Brussels, 1908), p. 131. 6 ff.; Ptolemy, Apotelesmatica , ii. 14. 4-5 (pp. 101-102 [Boll-Boer]) and ii. 10. 1-2 (pp. 91-92); and Boll in R. E. vi. 2350 assumes that by μαθηματικοί in the present passage Plutarch means astrologers (but see 937 F s.v. ). Neither there nor in his article, Antike Beobachtungen farbiger Sterne, does Boll mention any classification of the colours according to the time of the eclipse, however, nor does Gundel, s.v. Mond in R. E. xvi. 1. 101-102. Geminuss calendar for the different phases of the moon (ix. 14-15 [pp. 128-130, Manitius]) has no connection with this matter and so is not, as Adler supposes ( Diss. Phil. Vind. x, p. 157), an indication that Plutarchs source in the present passage was Posidonius. If the eclipse occurs between eventide and half after the third hour, she appears terribly black; if at midnight, then she gives off this reddish and fiery colour; from half after the seventh hour a blush arises This, pace Prickard, must be the meaning of ἀνίσταται here; cf. ἀνιστάμενος in Pompey , 34 (637 D) and ἀναστάντος in Appian, B.C. i. 56 (ii, p. 61. 7 [Mendelssohn-Viereck]). on her face; and finally, if she is eclipsed when dawn is already near, she takes on a bluish or azure In Marius , 11 (411 D) χαροπότης is used of the eye-colour of the Teutons and Cimbrians, and in Iside , 352 D the colour of the flax-flower is said to resemble τῇ περιεχούσῃ τὸν κόσμον αἰθερίῳ χαροπότητι . hue, from which especially it is that the poets and Empedocles give her the epithet bright-eyed. See 929 D supra and note b there; but Diels ( Hermes , xv [1880], p. 176) because of ἀνακαλοῦνται thought that Plutarch must here have had in mind a verse of Empedocles that ended with the invocation, γλαυκῶπι, Σελήνη . cf. also Euripides, frag. 1009 (Nauck²). Now, when one sees the moon take on so many hues in the shadow, it is a mistake to settle upon the smouldering colour alone, the very one that might especially be called alien to her and rather an admixture or remnant of the light shining round about through the shadow, while the black or earthy colour should be called her own. Kepler remarks on this sentence (note 56): Ecce Plutarchum meae sententiae proxime accedentem, nisi quod non dicit, a quo lucente sit illud lumen, num ab aethere, an a Sole ipso, per refractionem ejus radiorum. Since here on earth places near lakes and rivers open to the sun take on the colour and brilliance of the purple and red awnings that shade them, by reason of the reflections giving off many various effulgences, what wonder if a great flood of shade debouching as it were into a heavenly sea of light, not calm or at rest but undergoing all sorts of combinations and alterations as it is churned about by countless stars, takes from the moon at different times the stain of different hues and presents them to our sight? cf. the similar but more elaborate description in Genio Socratis , 590 C ff., where the stars are islands moving in a celestial sea, and also Sera Numinis Vindicta , 563 E-F. A star or fire could not in shadow shine out black or glaucous or bluish; but over mountains, plains, and sea flit many kinds of colours from the sun, and blended with the shadows and mists his brilliance For λαμπρόν , brilliance, as a colour cf. Plato , Timaeus , 68 A ; Theophrastus calls it τὸ πυρῶδες λευκόν ( Sensibus , § 86 [ Dox. Graeci , p. 525. 23]). induces such tints as brilliance does when blended with a painter’s pigments. Those of the sea Homer has endeavoured somehow or other to designate, using the terms violet e.g. Iliad , xi. 298 . and wine-dark deep e.g. Iliad , i. 350. and again purple swell e.g. Iliad , i. 481-482. and elsewhere glaucous sea Only in Iliad , xvi. 34 ( cf. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem , ed. Dindorf, ii, p. 92). and white calm Odyssey , x. 94. ; but he passed over as being an endless multitude the variations of the colours that appear differently at different times about the land. It is likely, however, that the moon has not a single plane surface like the sea but closely resembles in constitution the earth that the ancient Socrates made the subject of a myth, Plato , Phaedo , 110 B ff. whether he really was speaking in riddles about this earth or was giving a description of some other. This one, tau/thn, means the earth, not the moon, as most translators since Wyttenbach have thought; some other, ἄλλην τινά , means some other earth, which is exactly what Lamprias believes the moon to be. So Lamprias means that what Socrates said must be considered as a riddle if he was really talking about our earth but can be taken as straightforward description if he was referring to some other earth, i.e. the moon. It is in fact not incredible or wonderful that the moon, if she has nothing corrupted or slimy [in] her but garners pure light from heaven and is filled with warmth, which is fire not glowing or raging but moist Or, if νοτεροῦ is a scribal error for νοεροῦ , intellectual ; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145. and harmless and in its natural state, has got open regions of marvellous beauty and mountains flaming bright and has zones of royal purple with gold and silver not scattered in her depths but bursting forth in abundance on the plains or openly visible on the smooth heights. The details of this description were suggested by Phaedo , 110 C 111 C, to which Plutarch has referred above. If through the shadow there comes to us a glimpse of these, different at different times because of some variation and difference of the atmosphere, the honourable repute of the moon is surely not impaired nor is her divinity because she is held by men to be a [celestial and] holy earth rather than, as the Stoics say, a fire turbid and dreggish. See 928 D and 933 D supra . The present passage is not listed in S. V. F. Fire, to be sure, is given barbaric honours among the Medes and Assyrians, who from fear by way of propitiation worship the maleficent forces rather than the reverend; but to every Greek, of course, the name of earth is dear and honourable, and it is our ancestral tradition to revere her like any other god. As men we are far from thinking that the moon, because she is a celestial See note c on 929 A supra . earth, is a body without soul and mind and without share in the firstfruits that it beseems us to offer to the gods, according to custom requiting them for the goods we have received and naturally revering what is better and more honourable in virtue and power. Consequently let us not think it an offence to suppose that she is earth and that for this which appears to be her face, just as our earth has certain great gulfs, so that earth yawns with great depths and clefts which contain water or murky air; the interior of these the light of the sun does not plumb or even touch, but it fails and the reflection which it sends back here is discontinuous. For this discontinuousness of the reflection cf. 921 C supra and especially Quaest. Conviv 686 a-c. Here Apollonides broke in. Then by the moon herself, he said, do you people think it possible that any clefts and chasms cast shadows which from the moon reach our sight here; or do you not reckon the consequence, and shall I tell you what it is? Please listen then, though it is not anything unknown to you. The diameter of the moon measures twelve digits in apparent size at her mean distance cf. Cleomedes, ii. 3. 95 (p. 172. 25-27 [Ziegler]); on this measurement of 12 digits cf. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos , p. 23, n. 1. ; and each of the black and shadowy spots appears greater than half a digit and consequently would be greater than one twenty-fourth of her diameter. Well then, if we should suppose that the circumference of the moon is only thirty thousand stades and her diameter ten thousand each of the shadowy spots on her would in accordance with the assumption measure not less than five hundred stades. Apodonides exaggerates for the sake of his point, for 500 stades is 1/20 not 1/24 of 10,000: but he has guarded himself by saying that each of the spots is more than half a digit and so more than 1/24 of the diameter. On the other hand, he intends his estimate of the moon’s size to err, if at all, on the side of conservatism: cf. only thirty thousand stades. Such small figures, even as minima, are remarkable, however. Cleomedes (ii. 1. 80-81 [pp. 146. 25-148. 3, Ziegler]) gives 40,000 stades as the lunar diameter, basing this upon the assumption that the earth is twice as large as the moon and has a circumference of 250,000 stades according to the measurement of Eratosthenes and a diameter therefore of more than 80,000 stades. Plutarch adopted the same figure for the terrestrial diameter (see 925 D supra ) but supposed this and the terrestrial circumference to be three times those of the moon (see 923 B supra and note d there), figures which should have given him more than 26,000 stades as the lunar diameter. According to Hultsch, however, Posidonius must have calculated the lunar diameter to be 12,000 stades ( cf. Abhand. K. Gesell. Wissensch. zu Göttingen , Phil.-Hist. Kl., N.F. i, No. 5, p. 38), which by the usual approximation would have given 36,000 stades for the lunar circumference; and Apollonides minimal estimate may have been based upon these figures. For the common rough approximation 3-1 as the relation of circumference to diameter cf. Archimedes, Arenarius , ii. 3 ( Opera Omnia , ii, p. 234. 28-29 [Heiberg]). Consider now in the first place whether it is possible for the moon to have depths and corrugations so great as to cast such a large shadow; in the second place why, if they are of such great magnitude, we do not see them. Then I said to him with a smile: Congratulations for having discovered such a demonstration. Apollonides. It would enable you to prove that both you and I are taller than the famous sons of Aloeus, Otus and Ephialtes: cf. Exilio , 602 d ; Iliad , v. 385-387 ; Odyssey , xi. 305-320 ; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca , i. 7. 4. 2-4 . not at every time of day to be sure but early in the morning particularly and in late afternoon, if , when the sun makes our shadows enormous. you intend to supply sensation with this lovely reasoning that, if the shadow cast is large, what casts the shadow is immense. I am well aware that neither of us has been in Lemnos; we have both, however, often heard this line that is on everyone’s lips: Athos will veil the Lemnian heifer’s flank. The verse, which comes from an unidentified tragedy of Sophocles, is elsewhere quoted with καλύπτει or σκιάζει and with πλευρά or νῶτα ( cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.² , p. 299, frag. 708). For the shadow of Athos cast upon Lemnos cf. Pliny , Nat. Hist. iv. 12 (23). 73 ; Apollonius Rhodius, i. 601-604; Proclus, In Timaeum , 56 B (i, p. 181. 12 ff. [Diehl]). The point of this apparently is that the shadow of the mountain, extending not less than seven hundred stades over the sea, Proclus ( loc. cit. ) says that this is the distance of Lemnos from Athos, Plutarch rather that it is the length of the shadow cast by the mountain. According to Eustathius ( Ad Iliadem , 980. 45 ff.), Athos is 300 stades distant from Lemnos, according to Pliny ( loc. cit. ) 87 Roman miles (unless this is a scribal error for XXXXVII). The actual distance is said to be about 50 miles; and Athos, which is 6350 feet high, could cast a shadow for almost 100 miles over open sea. falls upon a little bronze heifer; [but it is not necessary, I presume,] that what casts the shadow be [seven hundred stades] high, for the reason that shadows are made many times the size of the objects that cast them by the remoteness of the light from the objects. In this Plutarch is guilty either of an error or of an intentional sophism; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145. Come then, observe that, when the moon is at the full and because of the shadows depth exhibits most articulately the appearance of the face, the sun is at his maximum distance from her. The reason is that the remoteness of the light alone and not the magnitude of the irregularities on the surface of the moon has made the shadow large. Besides, even in the case of mountains the dazzling beams of the sun prevent their crags from being discerned in broad daylight, although their depths and hollows and shadowy parts are visible from afar. So it is not at all strange that in the case of the moon too it is not possible to discern accurately the reflection and illumination, whereas the juxtapositions of the shadowy and brilliant parts by reason of the contrast do not escape our sight. There is this, however, I said, which seems to be a stronger objection to the alleged reflection from the moon. It happens that those who have placed themselves in the path of reflected rays see not only the object illuminated but also what illuminates it. For example, if when a ray of light rebounds from water to a wall the eye is situated in the place that is itself illuminated by the reflection, the eye discerns all three things, the reflected ray and the water that causes the reflection and the sun itself, i.e. the image of the sun in the water or the reflecting surface. the source of the light which has been reflected by impinging upon the water. On the basis of these admitted and apparent facts those who maintain that the moon illuminates the earth with reflected light are bidden (by their adversaries) i.e. by the Stoics; cf. e.g. the argument of Cleomedes (ii. 4. 101-102 [p. 184. 4 ff., Ziegler]) against the explanation of the moon’s light as reflection. The following argument in this passage is printed by von Arnim, S. V. F. ii, p. 199 as frag. 675 of Chrysippus. to point out in the moon at night an appearance of the sun such as there is in water by day whenever there is a reflection of the sun from it. Since there is no such appearance, (these adversaries) think that the illumination comes about in another way and not by reflection and that, if there is not reflection, neither is the moon an earth. What response must be made to them then? said Apollonides, for the characteristics of reflection seem to present us with a problem in common. For the idiom, κοινὸν καὶ πρός τινα εἶναι , cf. Lucullus, 44 (521 A) and 45 (522 B). Apollonides is a geometer ( cf. 920 F and 925 A-B supra ) who had expressed admiration for Clearchuss theory of reflection from the moon ( cf. 921 B supra ); by καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς here he means that the objection just raised to reflection from the moon constitutes a difficulty for the theory which he has espoused as well as for that of Lamprias and Lucius which he has just attacked. Lamprias in his reply, however, contends that the physical characteristics of the moon on his theory, the very characteristics to which Apollonides has just objected (935 D-E), will explain why the objection does not really make the difficulty for his theory that it would for that of Clearchus. In common in a way certainly, said I, but in another way not in common either. In the first place consider the matter of the image, i.e. the reflected image, not the simile, as Amyot and Prickard interpret it. how topsy-turvy and like rivers flowing uphill For the proverbial expression cf. Hesychius, s. v. ἄνω ποταμῶν ; Euripides , Medea , 410 ; Lucian , Dialogi Mortuorum , 6. 2. they conceive it. The fact is that the water is on earth and below, and the moon above the earth and on high; and hence the angles produced by the reflected rays are the converse of each other, the one having its apex above at the moon, the other below at the earth. As Kepler says in his note 64 ad loc., ratio nihil ad rem. So they must not demand that every kind of mirror or a mirror at every distance produce a similar reflection, since (in doing so) they are at variance with the manifest facts. Those, on the other hand, who declare that the moon is not a tenuous or a smooth body as water is but a heavy and earthy one, i.e. those who hold the view of the moon’s nature that Lamprias himself espouses. I do not understand why it is required of them that the sun be manifest to vision in her. For milk does not return such mirrorings either or produce reflections of the visual ray, and the reason is the irregularity and roughness of its particles cf. Quaest. Conviv 696 A; and observe that the phrase, ἀνωμαλία καὶ τραχύτης , used here of milk is in 930 D supra and 937 A s.v. applied to the moon. ; how in the world the is it possible for the moon to cast the visual ray back from herself in the way that the smoother mirrors do? Yet even these, of course, are occluded if a scratch or speck of dirt or roughness covers the point from which the visual ray is naturally reflected, and while the mirrors themselves are seen they do not return the customary reflection. For the phenomenon referred to cf. [Ptolemy], Speculis , vi = Hero Alexandrinus, Opera , ii. 1, p. 330. 4-22 (Nix-Schmidt). For τυφλόω meaning to deaden, muffle, occlude cf. Defectu Oraculorum , 434 c, Quaest. Conviv 721 B, Esu Carnium , 995 f. One who demands that the moon either reflect our vision from herself to the sun as well or else not reflect the sun from herself to us either is naive, for he is demanding that the eye be a sun, the vision light, and the human being a heaven. Since the light of the sun because of its intensity and brilliance arrives at the moon with a shock, it is reasonable that its reflection should reach to us; but the visual ray, since it is weak and tenuous and many times slighter, what wonder if it does not have an impact that produces recoil or if in rebounding it does not maintain its continuity but is dispersed and exhausted, not having light enough to keep it from being scattered about the irregularities and corrugations (of the moon)? From water, to be sure, and from mirrors of other kinds it is not impossible for the reflection (of the visual ray) to rebound to the sun, since it is still strong because it is near to its point of origin Plutarch has to explain how the image of the sun can be seen in water and mirrors though it is not seen in the moon, and he does so by stressing the proximity of the former to the point of origin. This point of origin can only be our eyes, so that he must be thinking of the visual ray as reflected from water and mirrors to the sun and as failing to be reflected from the moon to the sun. The reading of the mss., ἐπὶ τὸν ἥλιον , is necessary to the argument and all suggestions for altering it are wrong. ; but from the moon, even if the visual rays do in some cases glance off, they will be weak and dim and prematurely exhausted because of the magnitude of the distance. i.e. the distance from the eye to the reflecting surface of the moon. What is more too, whereas mirrors that are concave make the ray of light more intense after reflection than it was before so as often even to send off flames, For the concave burning-glass cf. [Euclid], Catoptrica Prop. 30 (Euclid, Opera Omnia , vii, pp. 340-342 [Heiberg]) 154. convex and spherical mirrors Not two kinds of mirrors, as Raingeard says ad. loc. , but one , convex, i.e. convex spherical, for (1) spherical mirrors that are concave are the burning-glasses in the preceding category, and (2) convex mirrors that are not spherical would not provide the obvious analogy with the moon that is wanted. by not exerting counterpressure upon it from all points [give it off] weak and faint. You observe, I presume, whenever two rainbows appear, as one cloud encloses another, that the encompassing rainbow produces colours that are faint and indistinct. The reason for this is that the outer cloud, being situated further off from the eye, returns a reflection that is not intense or strong. On the double rainbow and the reason why the outer bow is less distinct cf. Aristotle, Meteorology , 375 A 30-b 15. Aristotle’s explanation, which Plutarch here adopts, is attacked by Kepler in a long note on the present passage (note 70). Nay, what need of further arguments? When the light of the sun by being reflected from the moon loses all its heat See note a on 929 E supra . and of its brilliance there barely reaches us a slight and feeble remnant, is it really possible that of the visual ray travelling the same double-course The moon is thought of as the καμπτήρ or turning-post in the stadium. The sun’s rays travel from sun to moon to eye, and the visual ray would have to travel the same course in reverse. any fraction of a remnant should from the moon arrive at the sun? For my part, I think not; and do you too, I said, consider this. If the visual ray were affected in the same way by water and by the moon, the full moon ought to show such reflections of the earth and plants and human beings and stars as all other mirrors do; but, if there occur no reflections of the visual ray to these objects either because of the weakness of the ray or the ruggedness of the moon, let us not require that there be such reflection to the sun either. So we for our part, said I, have now reported as much of that conversation See 921 f, 929 B, 929 F supra . as has not slipped our mind; and it is high time to summon Sulla or rather to demand his narrative as the agreed condition upon which he was admitted as a listener. So, if it is agreeable, let us stop our promenade and sit down upon the benches, that we may provide him with a settled audience. To this then they agreed; and, when we had sat down, Theon said: Though, as you know, Lamprias, I am as eager as any of you to hear what is going to be said, I should like before that to hear about the beings that are said to dwell on the moon In Placitis , 892 A = Aëtius, ii. 30. 1 this notion is ascribed to the Pythagoreans (and in the version of Stobaeus specifically to Philolaüs). Diogenes Laertius, ii. 8 ascribes it to Anaxagoras — if on the basis of frag. B 4 (ii, p. 34. 5 ff. [Diels-Kranz]), wrongly; and Cicero’s ascription of it to Xenophanes ( Acad. Prior. II, xxxix. 123) is certainly an error (despite Lactantius, Div. Inst. iii. 23. 12) but more probably due to confusion with Xenocrates than, as is usually said, a mistake for Anaxagoras ( cf. J. S. Reid ad loc.; Diels-Kranz, Frag. der Vorsok.⁵ , i, p. 125. 40; Diels, Dox. Graeci , p. 121, n. 1). The moon-dwellers became characters of scientific fiction at least as early as Herodorus of Heraclea ( cf. Athenaeus, ii. 57 f). — not whether any really do inhabit it but whether habitation there is possible. If it is not possible, the assertion that the moon is an earth is itself absurd, for she would then appear to have come into existence vainly and to no purpose, neither bringing forth fruit nor providing for men of some kind an origin, an abode, and a means of life, the purposes for which this earth of ours came into being, as we say with Plato, our nurse, strict guardian and artificer of day and night. Timaeus , 40 B-C. Though ἀτρεκῆ does not appear there, it is introduced into the passage by Plutarch at 938 E s.v. and at Plat. Quaest. 1006 E, which indicates that he meant it as part of the quotation. Since there appears to be no other reference to the words τροφὸν ἡμετέραν in Plutarch’s extant works, one cannot be sure that τροφήν here is not his own misquotation rather than a scribal error. (The phrase, τροφαῖς ζῴων , in Superstitione , 171 A is probably not part of the adaptation of the Timaeus -passage there.) You see that there is much talk about these things both in jest and seriously. It is said that those who dwell under the moon have her suspended overhead like the stone of Tantalus cf. the sarcastic remarks of Lucius in 923 C supra . For the stone of Tantalus cf. Nostoi , frag. x ( = Athenaeus, 281 B - C ); Pindar, Olympian , i. 57-58 and Isthmian , viii. 10-11 : and Scholia in Olymp. i. 91 a, where reference is made to the interpretation that the stone which threatens Tantalus is the sun, this being his punishment for having declared that the sun is an incandescent mass ( cf. also scholiast on Euripides, Orestes , 982-986 ). and on the other hand that those who dwell upon her, fast bound like so many Ixions For the myth of Ixion on his wheel cf. Pindar , Pythian , ii. 21-48 and for Ixion used in a cosmological argument cf. Aristotle , Caelo , 284 A 34-35. by such great velocity, [are kept from falling by being whirled round in a circle]. Yet it is not with a single motion that she moves; but she is, as somewhere she is in fact called, the goddess of three ways, An epithet of Hecate ( cf. Athenaeus, vii. 325 A) applied to the moon only after she had been identified with the moongoddess, after which her epithets had to be explained by reference to lunar phenomena. cf. e.g. Cleomedes, ii. 5. 111 (p. 202. 5-10 [Ziegler]) on τριπρόσωπος , and Cornutus, Theologiae Graecae Compend. 34 (p. 72. 7-15 [Lang]) on τρίμορφος and τριοδῖτις . The etymology here put into Theons mouth had already been given by Varro in his Lingua Latina , vii. 16. For the moon as Hecate cf. notes b on 942 D and g on 944 C s.v. . for she moves on the zodiac against the signs in longitude and latitude and in depth at the same time. Of these movements the mathematicians call the first revolution, the second spiral, and the third, I know not why, anomaly, although they see that she has no motion at all that is uniform and fixed by regular recurrences, For the text, terminology, and intention of these two sentences cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), pp. 146-147. There is reason to wonder then not that the velocity caused a lion to fall on the Peloponnesus cf. Epimenides, frag. B 2 (i, p. 32. 22 ff. [Diels-Kranz]); Anaxagoras, frag. A 77 (ii, p. 24. 25-26 and 28-30 [DielsKranz]). It may be that Anaxagoras referred to this legend in connection with his theory concerning the meteoric stone of Aegospotami, the fall of which he is said to have predicted ( Lysander , 12 [439 D-F]; Diogenes Laertius, ii. 10 ; Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 58 [59], 149-150 ). Kepler (note 77) suggests that the story of the lion falling from the sky may have arisen from a confusion of λάων (gen. pl. of λᾶας ) and λέων or, as Prickard puts it, between λᾶς and λίς . Diogenes Laertius (viii. 72) quotes Timaeus to the effect that Heraclides Ponticus spoke of the fall of a man from the moon, an incident which Voss after Hirzel refers to a dialogue of his that may have influenced Plutarch (Voss, Heraclidis Pontici Vita et Scriptis , p. 61). but how it is that we are not forever seeing countless Men falling headlong and lives spurned away, Aeschylus , Supplices , 937 ; cf De Curiositate, 517 f , where also Plutarch gives βίων instead of Aeschylus’s βίου . tumbling off the moon, as it were, and turned head over heels. It is moreover ridiculous to raise the question how the inhabitants of the moon remain there, if they cannot come to be or exist. Now, when Egyptians and Troglodytes, i.e. Ethiopians: cf. Herodotus, iv. 183. 4; Strabo, ii. 5. 36 (c. 133). for whom the sun stands in the zenith one moment of one day at the solstice and then departs, are all but burnt to a cinder by the dryness of the atmosphere, is it really likely that the men on the moon endure twelve summers every year, the sun standing fixed vertically above them each month at the full moon? Yet winds and clouds and rains, without which plants can neither arise nor having arisen be preserved, because of the heat and tenuousness of the atmosphere cannot possibly be imagined as forming there, for not even here on earth do the lofty mountains admit fierce and contrary storms cf. Aristotle, Meteorology , 340 B 36 341 A 4, 347 A 2935 , and Alexander, Meteor. p. 16. 6-15 , where lines 10-11 guarantee and explain the ἐναντίους in Plutarch’s text. but the air, [being tenuous] already and having a rolling swell Cf 939 E s.v. and Plat. Quaest. 1005 E. as a result of its lightness, escapes this compaction and condensation. Otherwise, by Heaven, we shall have to say that, as Athena when Achilles was taking no food instilled into him some nectar and ambrosia, cf. Iliad , xix. 340-356. so the moon, which is Athena in name and fact, See 922 A supra and note C there. nourishes her men by sending up ambrosia for them day by day, the food of [the] gods themselves as the ancient Pherecydes believes. = Pherecydes, frag. B 13 a (i, p. 51. 5-9 [Diels-Kranz]). For even the Indian root which according to Megasthenes the Mouthless Men, who [neither eat] nor drink, kindle and cause to smoulder and inhale for their nourishment, Megasthenes, frag. 34 ( Frag. Hist. Graec. ii, pp. 425-427 [Müller]); cf. Strabo , ii. 1. 9 (c. 70) and xv. 1. 57 (c. 711); Pliny , Nat. Hist. vii. 2. 25 . Aristotle ( Parva Nat. 445 A 16-17) mentions the belief of certain Pythagoreans that some animals are nourished by odours; cf. the story told of Democritus, frags. A 28 and 29 (ii, p. 89. 23 ff. [Diels-Kranz]), and Lucian on the Selenites ( Vera Hist. i. 23), a passage which, however, looks like a parody of Herodotus, i. 202. 2. how could it be supposed to grow there if the moon is not moistened by rain ?