4 ⟨Arius Didymus, Epitome⟩: Aristotle

Aristotle’s view. Aristotle held that the sun consists of a fifth substance. As the sun rises and approaches us, the air becomes fiery and intensely hot, because of the speed of the sun’s movement and its friction against the air lying beneath and alongside its course, rather than because the sun’s substance is fire.⁷⁶⁴

4 Aristotle: Why the stars are not fire

Neither the sun nor any of the other stars is fire. Their shapes are spherical, and they have no share in fire. For fire’s natural movement is away from the center, not around it; its power is to destroy animals and plants, not to make them grow. Nor can it persist by itself, since fire cannot be separated from its fuel. Heaven and everything within it therefore consist of a certain fifth substance, different from fire.⁷⁶⁵

4 Aristotle: Day and the year

The sun produces day as it travels above the earth, and night when it passes beneath it. On reaching one of the tropics it makes the day shortest and the night longest; at the other, the reverse. It passes the equator on its outward and return journeys, and completes its own circuit ⟨in⟩ a year.⁷⁶⁶

4 Aristotle: The moon’s shadow

An eclipse of the sun is seen when the moon runs beneath the same circle and blocks our view, for it is nearer the earth than the other stars. Whenever it comes directly beneath the sun, it intercepts the rays falling from the sun toward the earth, leaving unlit as much of the earth as its shadow covers. Consequently, a solar eclipse does not extend to every region of the earth, occur at the same hour everywhere, or cover an exceedingly large area.⁷⁶⁷

5 ⟨Arius Didymus, Epitome⟩: Zeno

Zeno’s view. Zeno says that the sun, the moon, and each of the other stars possess intelligence and understanding, and consist of a craftsmanlike fire. For there are two kinds of fire: one without craft, which converts its fuel into itself; the other craftsmanlike, promoting growth and preservation, such as exists in plants and animals and constitutes nature and soul. It is fire of this kind that makes up the substance of the stars.⁷⁶⁸

5 Zeno: Two motions and eclipses

The sun and moon undergo two motions: one in which the world carries them from rising to rising, and another contrary to the world’s motion, as they pass from one zodiacal sign into another.⁷⁶⁹ Their eclipses occur differently: the sun’s at conjunctions, the moon’s at full moons. In both cases the eclipses may be greater or smaller.⁷⁷⁰

5 Chrysippus

Chrysippus’ view. Chrysippus held that the sun is an intelligent blaze gathered together from the sea’s exhalation, and that it is spherical in shape.⁷⁷¹

6 Euripides: The sun’s flame

Euripides held that the sun is fire. At any rate, he says in The Phoenician Women:⁷⁷²

Sun, wheeling your flame with swift horses,

and in Phaethon:⁷⁷³

And the lord’s hot flame rising above the earth.

7 ⟨Plutarch⟩: Homer on light

Homer held that the sun is the purest light, rather than fire. He makes this clear through his verses, for he says:⁷⁷⁴

Brandishing the fearsome Pelian ash by his right shoulder, while the bronze gleamed all around, like the radiance of either blazing fire or the rising sun.⁷⁷⁵

7 The inference from Homer

What else, then, does he appear to be doing, except attesting by this disjunction that he considers the sun different from fire? It appears fiery at its risings because of moisture and exhalation, which redden everything bright that mingles with them.⁷⁷⁶

8 (4) Philolaus: A surviving heading

From Philolaus’ Bacchae.⁷⁷⁷

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 822-831

When you have need of a day of fair weather, may his disk show no varied colors as he first strikes the fields, nor bear any mark, but appear clear all around.⁷⁷⁸ If the hour of unyoking finds him just as pure, and at evening he sets cloudless, with a gentle glow, he may still bring fair weather when dawn returns.⁷⁷⁹ But not when he rises with a hollow-seeming disk, nor when his rays divide, some striking south, some north, while the parts around the middle shine: then he is passing through rain or wind.

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 832-839

Look toward the sun himself, if his rays allow you (for he offers the best observations), to see whether ⟨either⟩ a blush runs across him, as often he reddens here and there when clouds trail past, or whether he darkens somewhere. Let those dark patches be signs of coming rain, and all the red ones signs of wind. If he is colored with both at once, he may bring rain and stretch out beneath the wind.⁷⁸⁰

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 840-846

If, as he rises or just as he sets, his rays meet and cluster around a single spot, or if, hemmed in by clouds, he comes to dawn from night, or passes from dawn into night, those days may run beside descending rain. And when a small cloud rises before him, and after it he lifts himself, with few rays,⁷⁸¹

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 847-853

do not forget the rain. But when a great circle about him spreads wider, as though melting, at his first rising, and then shrinks again, he may bring fair weather; so too if, in winter, he pales as he descends. But when rain has fallen by day, look afterward at the surrounding clouds, turning toward the sun as he goes down.⁷⁸²

9 ⟨Aratus, Phaenomena⟩: 854-861

If a cloud, seeming to darken, shades the sun, and the rays between them bend and divide to either side around it, you may still need shelter when dawn comes. But if he dips cloudless into the western stream, and as he sinks, or after he is gone, nearby clouds stand red, you need not greatly fear rain tomorrow or during the night.⁷⁸³