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Plutarch's Platonic questions (5.1)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg133.perseus-eng2:5.1
Refs {'start': {'reference': '5.1', 'human_reference': 'Chapter 5 Section 1'}}
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WHY, SINCE BODIES AND FIGURES ARE CONTAINED PARTLY BY RECTTLINEARS AND PARTLY BY CIRCLES, DOES HE MAKE ISOSCELES TRIANGLES AND TRIANGLES OF UNEQUAL SIDES THE PRINCIPLES OF RECTILINEARS; OF WHICH THE ISOSCELES TRIANGLE FORMS THE CUBE, THE ELEMENT OF THE EARTH; AND A SCALENE TRIANGLE FORMS THE PYRAMID WHICH IS THE SEED OF FIRE, THE OCTAHEDRON WHICH IS THE SEED OF AIR, AND THE ICOSAHEDRON WHICH IS THE SEED OF WATER;—WHILE HE DOES NOT MEDDLE WITH CIRCULARS, THOUGH HE DOES MENTION THE GLOBE, WHERE HE SAYS THAT EACH OF THE AFORE-RECKONED FIGURES DIVIDES A ROUND BODY THAT ENCLOSES IT INTO EQUAL PARTS.[*]

Is their opinion true who think that he ascribed a dodecahedron to the globe, when he says that God made use of it in delineating the universe? For upon account of the multitude of its bases and the obtuseness of its angles, avoiding all rectitude, it is flexible, and by circumtension, like globes made of twelve skins, it becomes circular and comprehensive. For it has twenty solid angles, each of which is contained by three obtuse planes, and each of these contains one and the fifth part of a right angle. Now it is made up of twelve equilateral and equangular quinquangles (or pentagons), each of which consists of thirty of the first scalene triangles. Therefore it seems to resemble both the Zodiac and the year, it being divided into the same number of parts as these.

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SINCE 1 w 9
BODIES 1 w 15
AND 1 w 18
FIGURES 1 w 25
ARE 1 w 28
CONTAINED 1 w 37
PARTLY 1 w 43
BY 1 w 45
RECTTLINEARS 1 w 57
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FIRE 1 w 273
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pp 1 w 513
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or 3 w 1000
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