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← ExitStobaeus, Volume I

Reading language

Book I Chapter 52

Chapter 52 · Sight and mirrors

On sight and images in mirrors.¹⁹⁷⁴

1 · Incoming images and a rejected addition

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus think that visual experience occurs through the entry of images.

[And through the emission of certain rays which, after meeting the object, return again to the eye.]¹⁹⁷⁵

2 · Effluences

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Timagoras, one of those who distorted the Epicurean school’s doctrine in their writings, employs effluences in place of images.¹⁹⁷⁶

3 · The air takes on colors

Strato says that colors travel from bodies, coloring the intervening air to match them.¹⁹⁷⁷

4 · The air takes on shapes

Aristarchus holds that shapes somehow impress a corresponding form on the air.¹⁹⁷⁸

5 · Rays like reaching hands

Hipparchus says that ⟨rays⟩ extending from each eye grasp external bodies with their extremities, as though by the touch of hands, and transmit the apprehension of those bodies to the visual faculty.¹⁹⁷⁹

6 · Pythagoras and Parmenides

Some also enroll Pythagoras among the adherents of this view, as an establisher of the mathematical sciences; and, in addition, Parmenides, who indicates it in his poems.¹⁹⁸⁰

7 · A conjunction of light

Plato explains sight by a conjunction of light: light flows some distance from the eyes into air of like nature; light from bodies travels to meet it; and light in the intervening air, which readily spreads and changes, is drawn into tension with the fiery element of vision. This is what Plato calls the conjunction of light.¹⁹⁸¹

8 · The transparent

Alcmaeon explains sight through apprehension of the transparent.¹⁹⁸²

9.1 · The transparent medium

⟨Didymus.⟩

Aristotle. We see through a movement of what is actually transparent. The transparent is not only air but also water and certain things formed by combination from some source, such as glass, crystal, and some bright stones.¹⁹⁸³

9.2 · The medium of sound

We hear through the activity of the intervening medium that transmits sound. Air, fire, water, and certain compounds can transmit sound.¹⁹⁸⁴

10 · Rays returning to the eye

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Some of the Academics explain sight through an outpouring of certain ⟨rays⟩ which, after meeting the object, return again to the eye.¹⁹⁸⁵

11 · Rays growing together

Posidonius calls it a growing together of ⟨rays⟩.¹⁹⁸⁶

12 · Two interpretations of Empedocles

Empedocles provides grounds for interpreting sight both through rays and through images, but more for ⟨the⟩ second interpretation, since he accepts effluences.¹⁹⁸⁷

13 · The ray-image

Hestiaeus of Perinthus mixed rays with images, calling the result a ray-image.¹⁹⁸⁸

14 · Effluences at a mirror

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Empedocles explains mirror images through effluences that collect on the mirror’s surface and are compacted by the fiery element emitted from the mirror, which also carries along the air in front of it, into which the streams travel.¹⁹⁸⁹

15 · Images turned about

Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus hold that appearances in mirrors arise through appearances of images, which travel from us and collect on the mirror with a turning about in the opposite direction.¹⁹⁹⁰

16.1 · Reflection of the visual stream

⟨The followers⟩ of Pythagoras and of the mathematicians explain it through reflection of the visual stream. For the visual stream travels taut toward the bronze; on encountering a dense, smooth surface it is struck and turns back upon itself, undergoing something like the extension of the hand and its return toward the shoulder.¹⁹⁹¹

16.2 · A rejected cross-reference

[One may also use all these summaries in considering how we see.]¹⁹⁹²

17.1 · Seeing darkness

⟨Aëtius.⟩

Sphaerus the Stoic holds that darkness is visible, since a certain radiance pours into it from sight.¹⁹⁹³

17.2 · A rejected parallel report

[The Stoics hold that darkness is visible, since a certain radiance pours onto it from sight. Nor is sight mistaken, for one truly sees that there is darkness.]¹⁹⁹⁴

18 · The visual cone

Chrysippus holds that we see [existing things] through a joint tension of the intervening air. The air is struck by the visual breath, which extends from the ruling part to the pupil and, when directed upon the surrounding air, draws it taut in the shape of a cone, provided the air is uniform in nature. Fiery rays pour from the eye, not dark and misty ones; hence darkness is visible.¹⁹⁹⁵

19.1 · The making of the eyes

Plato, from the Timaeus.

“Among the organs, they first fashioned eyes that carry light, binding them to the following cause. They contrived that the portion of fire which possessed no power to burn, but provided a gentle light akin to each day’s light, should become a body.”¹⁹⁹⁶

1974.The heading is absent from FPL and was restored by Heeren from Photius p. 112b31-32. Emphaseis are appearances or reflected images. The chapter juxtaposes incoming images, outgoing rays, and accounts involving the intervening medium; their differences are preserved.

1975.The supplied locator is Aëtius IV.13.1 and 2a, Diels p. 403. Eidōla are images entering the perceiver. The outgoing-ray explanation is bracketed as an addition imported into the Laurentian collection from the work cited as Plutarch, Placita IV.13. It is not silently combined with the three named thinkers’ account. Compare excerpt 10.

1976.The supplied group attribution covers excerpts 2-8: Aëtius IV.13.6-12, Diels p. 403. Paracharassein literally evokes altering a stamp or counterfeiting; distorted retains the report’s critical tone. Aporroiai are streams or emanations flowing from objects, here distinguished from images.

1977.The air between object and perceiver participates in the explanation. Synchrōizein means to color alike or give a corresponding color; the English takes autois as referring to the bodies. The report describes transmission of color, without supplying an account of the eye itself.

1978.The statement is elliptical, continuing the preceding discussion. Pōs, somehow, marks the report’s qualification. The name follows the corrected main text; no identification with a particular otherwise known Aristarchus is imposed by this excerpt.

1979.The noun rays is supplied in the edition. The simile treats vision as reaching out and touching, then conveying the resulting apprehension back to the perceiver. Both eyes and the extremities of the rays belong to the printed explanation.

1980.The attribution is explicitly qualified by some. Bebaiōtēs suggests someone who establishes or gives firm support to a discipline; it need not mean its sole inventor. The excerpt reports an interpretation of Parmenides’ poetry without quoting the relevant verses.

1981.Synaugeia is a shining together or conjunction of radiance. The threefold account involves eye, object, and intervening air. The English provisionally takes the adjectives readily spreading and changeable with the air, as the printed construction suggests. The closing sentence is retained. Compare the longer Timaeus extract in excerpt 19.

1982.The brief report prints antilēpsis, apprehension. The apparatus records the proposal antilampsis, an answering flash or reflection, but that reading is not adopted. The precise role of the transparent remains unspecified in the surviving phrase.

1983.The Latin editorial attribution identifies Didymus, Epitome of Physics, fragment 17, Diels p. 456; the Greek heading names Aristotle. Actually transparent renders kat’ energeian, distinguishing active transparency from mere capacity. The awkward pothen, from some source, is retained rather than replaced with an unprinted classification of solids.

1984.Diēches describes what carries sound through itself, in parallel with diaphanes, what lets light through. The inclusion of fire follows the printed report. Synkrimata are compounds or things formed by aggregation; the text does not identify the particular compounds here.

1985.The supplied group attribution covers excerpts 10-13: Aëtius IV.13.2b-5, Diels p. 403. The noun rays is also supplied. The claim is attributed to some Academics, not to the entire school; compare the rejected addition attached to excerpt 1.

1986.Symphysis is a growing together or coalescence. Only the opening letters au- of augōn, rays, are supplied in Greek; the corresponding whole English word is marked because a matching fragment would not convey the restoration. The pronoun refers to the visual process under discussion.

1987.The report acknowledges competing interpretations rather than simply assigning a single mechanism to Empedocles. Ekdochai are ways of taking or interpreting his account. The supplied article is marked, and the explanatory appeal to effluences is retained.

1988.The compound aktineidōlon joins aktis, ray, and eidōlon, image. The unusual English compound reproduces this deliberate fusion of the two explanatory terms. The name follows the main text’s corrected reading.

1989.The supplied group attribution covers excerpts 14-16: Aëtius IV.14.1-4, Diels p. 405 and following. Pileisthai suggests being pressed or felted together. The English takes the fiery element as both compacting the effluences and carrying the air, following the linked participles of the printed construction.

1990.The repeated emphaseis, appearances, follows the printed text, though the apparatus discusses several alternatives for the second occurrence. Antiperistrophē describes an opposite turning or reversal; the excerpt does not explain the precise geometry. The mirror image is traced to images traveling from the viewer.

1991.The supplied article identifies the adherents whose opinion is reported. Opsis here denotes sight conceived as something extending outward. Chalkos, bronze, supplies the reflecting surface. The hand-and-shoulder comparison explains the proposed reversal by a bodily movement.

1992.The sentence is bracketed in the edition as a likely old gloss. It relates the preceding explanations of mirror images to vision more generally. It remains in its printed position rather than becoming an instruction from the translator.

1993.The supplied attribution is Aëtius IV.15.1-3, Diels p. 405 and following, covering the reports through excerpt 18 and the intervening rejected paragraph. The paradox depends on an outgoing light associated with vision itself.

1994.The entire paragraph is rejected as material imported into the Laurentian collection from the parallel Placita tradition. The old reference 17 L. is apparatus numbering, not an additional Stobaean excerpt number. The argument distinguishes correctly seeing darkness from an erroneous visual report.

1995.Synentasis is a shared tension between the visual pneuma and the air. Hēgemonikon denotes the ruling part; no anatomical seat is added. The rejected words ta onta, existing things, remain bracketed but are moved to their natural English position. The account makes the air’s uniform nature a condition of the visual cone.

1996.The edition identifies Timaeus 45b-46b. The makers are subsequently called gods within this excerpt. Phōsphora means light-bearing, expressing the account’s conception of the eyes. Gentle renders hēmeron; the apparatus distinguishes it from hēmerinon, of the day. The source’s phrase each day is retained.