Chapter 24: The Stars

On the substance and shapes of the stars, their motion and weather signs.⁷⁰⁶

1a ⟨Aëtius⟩: Thales

Thales held that the stars are earthy, but on fire.⁷⁰⁷

1b ⟨Aëtius⟩: Empedocles

Empedocles held that the stars are fiery, formed from the fiery substance which air contained within itself and squeezed out at the first separation.⁷⁰⁸

The fixed stars are fastened to the icy vault, while the planets are unattached.⁷⁰⁹

1c ⟨Aëtius⟩: Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras held that the surrounding aether is fiery in substance, and that by the force of its whirling it snatched rocks up from the earth ⟨and⟩ set them ablaze, turning them into stars.

All the stars travel from east to west.⁷¹⁰

1d ⟨Aëtius⟩: Diogenes’ porous stars

Diogenes held that the stars are like pumice; he considers them vents through which the world breathes, and says that they are incandescent.⁷¹¹

1d ⟨Aëtius⟩: Unseen stones

Unseen stones revolve together with the visible stars and, for that very reason, have no names. They often fall to earth and are extinguished, like the stony star that fell in a blaze at Aegospotami.⁷¹²

1e ⟨Aëtius⟩: Democritus

Democritus held that the stars are rocks.

The fixed stars come first, and after them the planets.⁷¹³

1f ⟨Aëtius⟩: Archelaus

Archelaus said that the stars are masses of stone or metal, glowing hot.⁷¹⁴

1g ⟨Aëtius⟩: Anaximander’s wheels

Anaximander held that the stars are wheel-shaped condensations of air, full of fire, breathing flames through openings at certain points.

The sun is placed highest of all, the moon after it; beneath them are the fixed stars and the planets.⁷¹⁵

1h ⟨Aëtius⟩: Metrodorus

Metrodorus too made a similar pronouncement about the shape of the stars.⁷¹⁶

1i ⟨Aëtius⟩: Condensed fire

Parmenides and Heraclitus held that the stars are condensations of fire.

The stars are nourished by the exhalation rising from earth.⁷¹⁷

1k ⟨Aëtius⟩: Anaximenes’ starry heaven

Anaximenes held that the stars are fiery in nature, but that their region also contains certain earthy bodies, invisible and revolving together with them.⁷¹⁸

The stars are fixed like nails into the ice-like vault.⁷¹⁹

1k ⟨Aëtius⟩: Weather and motion

The weather signs occur through the sun alone.

The stars turn around the earth, rather than beneath it.⁷²⁰

1l ⟨Aëtius⟩: Plato on composition

Plato held that the stars consist chiefly of fire, but also partake of the other elements.

The whole world, together with the stars, is nourished from itself.⁷²¹

1l ⟨Aëtius⟩: Order and seasonal signs

First, after the position of the fixed stars, comes the star of Cronus, called Phaenon; second, that of Zeus, Phaethon; third, that of Ares, Pyroeis; fourth, that of Aphrodite, Eosphorus; fifth, that of Hermes, Stilbon; sixth, the sun; and seventh, the moon.⁷²²

Weather signs, both wintry and summery, occur in accordance with the risings and settings of the stars.

1m ⟨Aëtius and Didymus⟩: Aristotle

Aristotle held that the stars are constituted from the fifth body.

The heavenly bodies need no nourishment, since they are eternal, not perishable.⁷²³

1m ⟨Aëtius and Didymus⟩: Celestial motion

All of them move: those we call planets beneath the zodiacal circle, which is oblique and touches the tropics; the fixed stars extend from the always visible region as far as the unseen. Not a few of them are larger than earth.⁷²⁴

1n ⟨Aëtius⟩: Xenophanes’ rekindled clouds

Xenophanes held that the stars are formed from clouds set on fire. Extinguished each day, they are rekindled at night like coals; for their risings and settings are kindlings and extinctions.⁷²⁵

1n ⟨Aëtius⟩: Lights on ships

The starlike lights that appear on ships, which some also call the Dioscuri, are little clouds that flash according to the particular character of their motion.⁷²⁶

1o ⟨Aëtius⟩: Each star a world

Heraclides and the Pythagoreans held that each star is a world, containing earth ⟨and⟩ air in the boundless aether. These doctrines are also reported in the Orphic writings, for they make each star into a world.⁷²⁷

1o ⟨Aëtius⟩: Epicurus leaves possibilities open

Epicurus rules out none of these accounts, keeping to what is possible.⁷²⁸