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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

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Book I Chapter 26

3 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Anaxagoras and Chrysippus

Anaxagoras, as Theophrastus says, held that at times eclipse also occurs when bodies below the moon obstruct it.⁸¹⁰

Chrysippus held that the moon is eclipsed when the earth obstructs it and it falls into the earth’s shadow.

4 On its visible appearance

On its visible appearance.

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: An inhabited moon

Some Pythagoreans, including Philolaus, held that the moon looks earthy because it is inhabited all around, like our own earth, by animals and plants that are larger and finer. Its animals have fifteen times the power of ours and discharge no waste; its day is also fifteen times as long.⁸¹¹

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: A reflection of the sea

Others held that the appearance seen in the moon is a reflection of the sea lying beyond the torrid belt of the earth we inhabit.⁸¹²

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras held that it results from unevenness of composition, because the moon is both mixed with cold and earthy: some of its parts are high, others low, others hollow. The dark substance is mixed with the fire-like substance, and their condition produces the shadowy appearance. Hence the heavenly body is called “deceptive in appearance.”⁸¹³

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Democritus and Parmenides

Democritus held that it is a kind of shadow cast by the high parts of the moon, since it has ravines and valleys.

Parmenides held that it occurs because the dark substance is mixed with the fiery substance in the moon; hence he calls the heavenly body “deceptive in appearance.”

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Stoic and Aristotelian mixtures

The Stoics held that its composition is not pure because its substance is mixed with air.

Aristotle held that its composition is not pure because of the earthward formations of air in the aether, which he calls the fifth body.⁸¹⁴

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Uneven density

Those who follow mathematical astronomy attribute it to uneven composition. Just as the thinner parts of clouds illuminated by the sun appear brighter and the denser parts dimmer, so too with the moon: it resembles a compacted, cloud-like mass and is illuminated by the sun.⁸¹⁵

4 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Xenophanes on usefulness

Xenophanes held that the sun is useful for the coming into being and ordering of the world and of the animals in it, whereas the moon is superfluous.⁸¹⁶

5 On distances

On distances.

5 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Ratios of distance

Empedocles: a distance twice as great, of the moon from ⟨the⟩ earth as from the sun.⁸¹⁷

Those who follow mathematical astronomy: eighteen times as great.⁸¹⁸

5 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes held that the sun is distant from the earth by four hundred myriads of stadia plus eighty thousand stadia, and that the moon is distant from the earth by seventy-eight myriads of stadia.⁸¹⁹

5 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Empedocles’ broad heaven

Empedocles held that the distance across heaven is greater than the height from earth to heaven, that is, its upward extent from us. Heaven is more widely spread in that direction because the world is arranged in a shape resembling an egg.⁸²⁰

5 ⟨Aëtius⟩: Boethus

Boethus, however, accepts this greater breadth as an appearance, not as an actual condition.

6 (2) Signs from the moon

Signs from the moon.

From Aratus’ Phaenomena.⁸²¹

6 Aratus, lines 778-782

First observe the moon on either side, at her horns: evening’s radiance paints her differently at different times, and changing shapes give horns to the moon as soon as she waxes, one on the third day, another on the fourth; from these you may learn about the month now begun.⁸²²

6 Aratus, lines 783-787

Slender and clear around the third day, she promises fair weather; slender but deeply red, she promises wind. If thicker, with blunted horns, she shows a feeble light from the third day into the fourth, her light is dulled by the south wind or by rain close at hand.⁸²³

6 Aratus, lines 788-795

If on her third day, at both her horns, she neither nods forward nor shines leaning back, but curves her horns upright on either side, winds from the west may blow after that night. If she brings the fourth day still upright in the same way, she warns that a storm is gathering. If the higher of her horns bends well forward, expect a north wind; if it leans back, a south wind.⁸²⁴

6 Aratus, lines 796-798

But when, on her third day, a complete circle surrounds her, red all around, she gives a strong sign of storm; for a greater storm, her crimson would burn more fiercely.⁸²⁵

6 Aratus, lines 799-804

Observe her at the full and at both of her half phases, both as she grows and as she returns again to a crescent; each month, draw your conclusions from her color. If wholly clear, you may confidently infer fair weather; if red all over, look for the wind’s advance, and if darkening here and there, look for rain.⁸²⁶

6 Aratus, lines 805-810

Not all signs have their force on every day: those occurring on the third and fourth days give indications until the half moon; those of the half moon reach to full moon itself; then from the full moon to the waning half. Next comes the fourth day of the departing month, then the third of the departing month.⁸²⁷

6 Aratus, lines 811-817

If halos circle all around her, three encircling rings, or two, or only one, use the single ring to watch for wind or calm: wind if it breaks, calm if it fades away. Two rings may run around the moon as a sign of storm; a halo wound three times would bring a greater storm, greater still if it darkens, and greater if it breaks.⁸²⁸

810.Wachsmuth identifies the Theophrastus testimony as Physical Opinions, fragment 19 in Diels, Doxographi Graeci, p. 493. The additional bodies are reported without being identified here.

811.The report gives fifteenfold power, not explicitly fifteenfold bodily dimensions. It makes a separate claim about the length of the lunar day. The description of animals and plants is retained as an ancient speculation about lunar inhabitants.

812.The “torrid belt” is the region conceived as scorched by the sun. This account locates the cause of the moon’s markings on earth, through reflection.

813.“Deceptive in appearance” renders the printed pseudophanē. The report combines uneven terrain with a mixture of dark and fiery constituents to explain what is seen. The translation does not replace this word with the variant “false-shining” proposed for the similar Parmenides report below.

814.“Formations of air” is a provisional rendering of the difficult aerōmata retained in Wachsmuth’s text. His apparatus records conjectures including “residues” and “sweepings.” The precise physical claim remains uncertain; the translation does not silently substitute one of those conjectures.

815.Pilēma is something compressed or felted together. The comparison explains the contrast between brighter and darker portions through variations in density, using sunlit clouds as the model.

816.The final report in this section turns from visible markings to the usefulness of sun and moon. Parelkein here means to be unnecessary or superfluous.

817.The Greek construction is damaged: “of the moon” is genitive where the infinitive needs a subject, and Wachsmuth calls the wording seriously disordered. This deliberately fragmentary English preserves the surviving terms and their order; it does not establish a reliable ratio. The parallel Placita II.31.1 gives a different arrangement of the distances. The supplied article before “earth” is Meineke’s addition.

818.The following eighteenfold statement supplies no explicit subject or distances of its own. Its intended comparison cannot securely be recovered merely by treating the damaged preceding sentence as sound.

819.A myriad is ten thousand. With the bracketed myriadōn excluded, as in Wachsmuth’s text, these figures are 4,080,000 and 780,000 stadia. The apparatus says Diels rejected the extra word as a variant of the preceding myriadas. Keeping it would drastically change the number; no more familiar estimate is substituted here. Stadia are retained rather than converted into a modern unit.

820.The report now concerns the world’s overall shape and the apparent breadth of heaven. It compares a horizontal span with the upward distance from the observer; the translation preserves that comparison without imposing a modern geometrical reconstruction.

821.The excerpt comprises Phaenomena 778-817, all forty lines of which follow. The numbers 6 (2) reproduce Wachsmuth’s principal numbering and the older alternative. The subject is weather prediction from the moon’s shape, color, and surrounding halos.

822.The “horns” are the pointed ends of the crescent. The third and fourth days belong to the lunar month, whose opening appearances provide the signs considered in the next lines. The English keeps the poem’s feminine personification of the moon.

823.The signs turn on three features together: the crescent’s thickness, the sharpness of its horns, and its color or brightness. Notos is the south wind; “water” in the last line means rain.

824.The nodding and leaning describe the crescent’s orientation. Hesperioi means “western” here, so the winds in line 791 come from the west. The last pair contrasts the north wind, Boreas, with the south wind, Notos.

825.The encircling ring is a halo. The degree of redness is treated as an indication of the storm’s severity. Further distinctions among halos conclude the excerpt.

826.The two half phases are those before and after full moon. The poem extends the use of color signs beyond the early crescent, then assigns the signs to successive portions of the month.

827.Days near the end of the month are counted backward. The final “departing” translates the printed apiontos. Wachsmuth’s apparatus approves Vossius’ correction epiontos, “coming,” which would take the sequence to the third day of the new month; that correction is not adopted in his main text. The repetition in the English therefore reflects a difficulty in the supplied Greek, not a second independently established forecast period.

828.The prediction depends on the number of rings and on whether they darken, break, or fade. The excerpt ends at line 817; the following summing-up line of Aratus is not present in this Stobaeus selection. Chapter 27 then turns to the Milky Way.