diameter of the earth bears to that of the moon a ratio which is less than sixty to nineteen, and greater than a hundred and eight to forty-three. Hence the earth because of its size removes the sun entirely from our sight, the obstruction is great and lasts all night; whereas if the moon sometimes hides the sun entirely, yet the eclipse does not last long and has no breadth; but a certain brightness is apparent around the rim, which does not allow the shadow to be deep and absolute. Aristotle,[342] I mean the ancient philosopher, after giving other reasons why the moon is more [Sidenote: C] often visibly eclipsed than the sun, adds this further one, that the sun is eclipsed by the interposition of the moon,[343] [the moon by that of the earth and of other bodies also.] But Posidonius gives this definition of what occurs: an eclipse of the sun is a concurrence of the shadow of the moon with our vision[344]...for there is no eclipse, except to those whose view of the sun can be intercepted by the shadow of the moon. In allowing that the shadow of the moon reaches to us, I do not know what he has left himself to say. There can be no shadow of a star; shadow means absence of light, and it is the nature of light to remove shadow, not to cause it.
XX. ‘But tell me’, he went on, ‘what proof was mentioned [Sidenote: D] next?’ ‘That the moon was eclipsed in the same way’, I said. ‘Thank you for reminding me’, he said. ‘But now am I to turn at once to the argument, assuming that you are satisfied, and allow that the moon is eclipsed when she is caught in the shadow, or do you wish me to set out a studied proof, with all the steps in order?’ ‘By all means,’ said Theon, ‘let us have the proof in full. For my own part, I still somehow need to be convinced; [Sidenote: E] I have only heard it put thus, that when the three bodies, earth, sun, and moon, come into one straight line eclipses occur, the earth removing the sun from the moon, or the moon the sun from the earth; that is, the sun is eclipsed when the moon, the moon when the earth, is in the middle of the three, the first case happening at her conjunction, the second at the half-month.’
Lucius replied: ‘These are perhaps the most important points mentioned; but first, if you will, take the additional argument drawn from the shape of the shadow. This is a cone, such as is caused by a large spherical body of fire or light overlapping a smaller body also spherical. Hence in eclipses the lines which mark off the dark portions of the moon from the bright give circular sections. For when one round body approaches [Sidenote: F] another, the lines of mutual intersection are invariably circular like the bodies themselves. In the second place, I think you are aware that the first parts of the moon to be eclipsed are those towards the East, of the sun those towards the West, [Sidenote: 933] and the shadow of the earth moves from East to West, that of[345] the moon on the contrary to the East. This is made clear to the senses by the phenomena, which may be explained quite shortly. They go to confirm our view of the cause of the eclipse. For since the sun is eclipsed by being overtaken, the moon by meeting the body which causes the eclipse,[346] it is likely, or rather it is necessary, that the sun should be overtaken from behind, the moon from the front, the obstruction beginning from the first point of contact with the obstructing body. The moon comes up with the sun from the West as she races against him, the earth from the East because it is moving from the opposite direction. As a third point, I will ask you to [Sidenote: B] notice the duration and the magnitude of her eclipses. If she is eclipsed when high up and far from the earth, she is hidden for a short time; if near the earth and low down when the same thing happens to her, she is firmly held and emerges slowly out of the shadow; and yet when she is low her speed is greatest, when high it is least. The cause of the difference lies in the shadow; for being broadest about the base, like all cones, and tapering gradually, it ends in a sharp, fine head.
Hence, if the moon be low when she meets the shadow, she is caught in the largest circles of the cone, and crosses its most profound and darkest part; if high, she dips as into a shallow pond, because the shadow is thin, and quickly makes her way out. [Sidenote: C] I omit the points of detail mentioned as to bases and permeations, which can also be rationally explained as far as the subject-matter allows. I go back to the theory put before us founded on our senses. We see that fire shines through more visibly and more brightly out of a place in shadow, whether because of the density of the darkened air, which does not allow it to stream off and be dispersed, but holds its substance compressed where it is, or whether this is an affection of our senses; as hot things are hotter when contrasted with cold, and pleasures are more intense by contrast with pains, so bright things stand out more clearly by the side of dark, setting the imagination on the alert by the contrast. The former cause appears the more [Sidenote: D] probable, for in the light of the sun everything in the nature of fire not only loses its brightness, but is outmatched and becomes inactive and blunted, since the sun’s heat scatters and dissipates its power. If then the moon possess a faint, feeble fire, being a star of somewhat turbid substance, as the Stoics themselves say, none of the effects which she now exhibits ought to follow, but the opposite in all respects; she ought to appear when she is now hidden, and be hidden when she now appears; be hidden, that is, all the time while she is dimmed by the surrounding [Sidenote: E] atmosphere, but shine brightly out at intervals of six months, or occasionally at intervals of five, when she passes under the shadow of the earth. (For of the 465 full moons at eclipse intervals, 404 give periods of six months, the remainder periods of five.) At such intervals then the moon ought to appear shining brightly in the shadow. But, as a fact, she is eclipsed and loses her light in the shadow, and recovers it when she has cleared the shadow; also she is often seen by day, which shows that she is anything but a fiery or starlike body.’
[Sidenote: F] XXI. When Lucius had said this, Pharnaces and Apollonides sprang forward together to oppose. Apollonides made way to Pharnaces, who observed that this is a very strong proof that the moon is a star or fire; for she does not disappear entirely in eclipses, but shows through with a grim ashy hue peculiar to herself. Apollonides objected to the word ‘shadow’, a term always applied by mathematicians to a region which is not [Sidenote: 934] lighted, whereas the heavens admit of no shadow.
‘This objection’, I said, ‘is contentious, and addressed to the name, not to the thing in any physical or mathematical sense. If any one should prefer to call the region blocked by the earth not “shadow”, but “an unlighted place”, it is still necessarily true that the moon when it reaches that region is darkened. It is merely childish’, I went on, ‘not to allow that the shadow of the earth reaches it, since we know that the shadow of the moon, falling upon the sight and reaching to the earth, causes an [Sidenote: B] eclipse of the sun. I will now turn to you, Pharnaces. That ashy charred colour in the moon, which you say is peculiar to her, belongs to a body which has density and depth. For no remnant or trace of flame will remain in rarefied bodies, nor can burning matter come into existence, without a substantial body, deep enough to allow of ignition and to maintain it, as Homer[347] has somewhere said: _When fire’s red flower was flown, and spent the flames, Which smoothed the embers._ For burning matter is evidently not fire but a body submitted to fire, and altered by it, which fire is attached to a solid stable mass and is permanent there, whereas flames are the kindling [Sidenote: C] and streaming away of rarefied fuel which is quickly dissolved because it is weak.
‘Thus no such clear proof could exist that the moon is earth-like and dense, as this cinder-like colour, if it really were her own proper colour. But it is not so, dear Pharnaces; in the course of an eclipse she goes through many changes of complexion, and scientific men divide these accordingly by time and hour. If she is eclipsed at early evening, she appears strangely black till three and a half hours have elapsed; if at midnight, she emits that red and flame-like hue over her surface which we know; after seven and a half hours the redness begins to be removed, and at last towards dawn she takes a bluish or light-grey hue, [Sidenote: D] which is the real reason why poets and Empedocles invoke her as “grey-eyed”. Now, people who see the moon assume so many hues as she passes through the shadow do wrong in fastening upon one, the cinder-like, which may be called the one most foreign to her, being rather an admixture and remnant of light which shines round her through the shadows, than her own peculiar complexion, which is black and earth-like. But whereas we see on our earth that places in shadow which are near purple or scarlet cloths, or near lakes, or rivers open to the sun, partake in the brilliance of these colours and offer many varied splendours because of the reflexions, what wonder [Sidenote: E] if a great stream of shadow, falling upon a celestial sea of light, not stable or calm but agitated by myriads of stars and admitting of combinations and changes of every kind, presents to us different colours at different times impressed on it by the moon? For a star or a fire could not show when in shadow as black or grey or blue. But our hills and plains and seas are coursed over by many-coloured shapes coming from the sun and [Sidenote: F] by shadows also and mists, resembling the hues sea Homer has endeavoured to find such names as he could, as “violet” for the sea, and “wine-dark” and again “purple wave”, and elsewhere “grey sea” and “white calm”. But the varying colours which appear on land at different times he has passed over as being infinite in number.
Now, it is not likely that the moon has one surface as the sea has, but rather that she resembles in substance the earth, of which Socrates[348] [Sidenote: 935] of old used to tell the legend, whether he hinted at the moon, or meant some other body. For it is nothing incredible or wonderful if, having nothing corrupt or muddy in her, but enjoying light from heaven, and being stored with a heat not burning or furious, but mild and harmless and natural, she possesses regions of marvellous beauty, hills clear as flame, and belts of purple, her gold and silver not dispersed within her depths, but flowering forth on the plains in plenty, or set [Sidenote: B] around smooth eminences. Now, if a varying view of these reaches us from time to time through the shadow, owing to some change and shifting of the surrounding air, surely the moon does not lose her honour or her fame, nor yet her Divinity, when she is held by men to be holy earth of a sort and not, as the Stoics say, fire which is turbid, mere dregs of fire. Fire is honoured in barbarous fashions by the Medes and Assyrians, who fear what injures them, and pay observance or rites of propitiation to that, rather than to what they revere. But the name of earth, we know, is dear and honourable to every Greek, we reverence her as our fathers did, like any other God. But, being men, we are very far from thinking of the moon, that [Sidenote: C] Olympian earth, as a body without soul or mind, having no share in things which we duly offer as first-fruits to the Gods, taught by usage to pay them a return for the goods they give us, and by Nature to reverence that which is above ourselves in virtue and power and honour. Let us not then think that we offend in holding that she is an earth, and that this her visible face, just like our earth with its great gulfs, is folded back into great depths and clefts containing water or murky air, which the light of the sun fails to penetrate or touch, but is obscured, and sends back its reflexion here in shattered fragments.’
XXII. Here Apollonides broke in: ‘Then in the name of [Sidenote: D] the moon herself,’ he said, ‘do you think it possible that shadows are thrown there by any clefts or gullies, and from thence reach our sight, or do you not calculate what follows, and am I to tell you? Pray hear me out, though you know it all. The diameter of the moon shows an apparent breadth of twelve fingers at her mean distance from us. Now, each of those black shadowy objects appears larger than half a finger, and is therefore more than a twenty-fourth part of the diameter. [Sidenote: E] Very well; if we were to assume the circumference of the moon to be only thirty thousand stades, and the diameter ten thousand, on that assumption each of these shadowy objects on her would be not less than five hundred stades. Now, consider first whether it be possible for the moon to have depths and eminences sufficient to cause a shadow of that size. Next, if they are so large, how is it that we do not see them?’
At this, I smiled on him and said, ‘Well done, Apollonides, to have found out such a demonstration! By it you will prove that you and I too are greater than the Aloades[349] of old, not [Sidenote: F] at any time of day, however, but in early morning for choice, and late afternoon; when the sun makes our shadows prodigious, and thereby presents to our sense the splendid inference, that if the shadow thrown be great, the object which throws it is enormous. Neither of us, I am sure, has ever been in Lemnos, but we have both heard the familiar line,[350] _Athos the Lemnian heifer’s flank shall shade._ For the shadow of the cliff falls, it seems, on a certain brazen [Sidenote: 936] heifer over a stretch of sea of not less than seven hundred stades. Will you think then that the height which casts the shadow is the cause, forgetting that distance of the light from objects makes their shadows many times longer? Now consider the sun at his greatest distance from the moon, when she is at the full, and shows the features of the face most expressly because of the depth of the shadow; it is the mere distance of the light which has made the shadow large, not the size of the several [Sidenote: B] irregularities on the moon.
Again, in full day the extreme brightness of the sun’s rays does not allow the tops of mountains to be seen, but deep and hollow places appear from a long distance, as also do those in shadow. There is nothing strange then if it is not possible to see precisely how the moon too is caught by the light, and illuminated, and yet if we do see by contrast where the parts in shadow lie near the bright parts.
XXIII. ‘But here’, said I, ‘is a better point to disprove the alleged reflexion from the moon; it is found that those who stand in reflected rays, not only see the illuminated but also the illuminating body. For instance, when light from water [Sidenote: C] leaps on to a wall, and the eye is placed in the spot so illuminated by reflexion, it sees the three objects, the reflected rays, the water which caused the reflexion, and the sun himself, from whom proceeds the light so falling on the water and reflected. All this being granted and apparent, people require those who contend that the earth receives the moon’s light by reflexion, to point out the sun appearing in the moon at night, as he appears in the water by day when he is reflected off it. Then, as he does not so appear, they suppose that the illumination is caused by some process other than reflexion, and that, failing reflexion, [Sidenote: D] the moon is no earth.’
‘What answer then is to be given to them?’ said Apollonides, ‘for the difficulty about reflexion seems to apply equally to us.’ ‘Equally no doubt in one sense,’ I answered, ‘but in another sense not at all so.
First look at the details of the simile, how “topsy turvy”[351] it is, rivers flowing up stream! The water is below and on earth, the moon is above the earth and poised aloft. So the angles of reflexion are differently formed; in the one case the apex is above in the moon, in the other below on the earth. They should not then require that mirrors should produce every image and like reflexions at any distance, since [Sidenote: E] they are fighting against clear fact. But from those like ourselves who seek to show that the moon is not a fine smooth substance like water, but heavy and earth-like, it is strange to ask for a visible appearance of the sun in her. Why, milk does not return such mirrored images, nor produce optical reflexion, the reason being the unevenness and roughness of its parts. How can the moon possibly send back the vision off [Sidenote: F] herself as the smoother mirrors do? We know that even in these, if any scratch or speck or roughness is found at the point from which the vision is naturally reflected it is obscured; the blemishes are seen, but they do not return the light. A man who requires that she should either turn our vision back to the sun, or else not reflect the sun from herself to us, is a humorist; he wants our eye to be the sun, the image light, man heaven! That the reflexion of the sun’s light conveyed to the moon with the impact of his intense brilliance should be borne back to us is reasonable enough, whereas our sight is weak and slight and merely fractional. What wonder if it deliver a stroke which has no resilience, or, if it does rebound, no continuity, but is broken up and fails, having no store of light to make up for dispersion about the rough and uneven [Sidenote: 937] places. For it is not impossible that the reflexion should rebound to the sun from water and other mirrors, being still strong and near its point of origin; whereas from the moon, even if there are glancings of a sort, yet they will be weak and dim, and will fail by the way because of the long distance. Another point: concave mirrors return the reflected light in greater strength than the original, and thus often produce [Sidenote: B] flames; convex and spherical mirrors one which is weak and dim, because the pressure is not returned from all parts of the surface. You have seen, no doubt, how when two rainbows appear, one cloud enfolding another, the enveloping bow shows the colours dim and indistinct, for the outer cloud lying further from the eye does not return the reflexion in strength or intensity. But enough! Whereas the light of the sun reflected from the moon loses its heat entirely, and only a scanty and ineffectual remnant of its brilliance reaches us, do you really think it possible that when sight has the double course to travel, [Sidenote: C] any remnant whatever should reach the sun from the moon? No! say I. Look for yourselves’, I went on. ‘If the effects of the water and of the moon on our sight were the same, the full moon ought to show us images of earth and plants and men and stars, as other mirrors do. If, on the other hand, our vision is never carried back on to these objects, whether because of its own feebleness or of the roughness of the moon’s surface, then let us never demand that it should be carried by reflexion on to the sun.
XXIV. ‘We have now’, I said, ‘reported all that was said then, and has not escaped our memory. It is time to call on Sylla, or rather to claim his story, as he was allowed to be a listener on terms. So, if it meet your approval, let us cease our walk, and take our places on the benches and give him a seated [Sidenote: D] audience.’ This was at once agreed, and we had taken our seats, when Theon said: ‘I want as much as any of you, Lamprias, to hear what is now to be said, but first I should like to hear about the alleged dwellers in the moon, not whether there are any such, I mean, but whether there can be; for if the thing is impossible, then it is also absurd that the moon should be an earth; it will appear that she has been created for no end or use, if she bears no fruit, offers no abode to human beings, no existence, no livelihood, the very things for which we say that she has been created, in Plato’s[352] words, “our nurse, and of [Sidenote: E] day and night the unswerving guardian and maker”. You see that many things are said about this, some in jest, some seriously. For instance, that the moon hangs poised over the heads of those who dwell beneath her, as if they were so many Tantali; while as for those who dwell on her, they are lashed on like Ixions by the tremendous speed. Yet hers is not a single motion, but, as [Sidenote: F] it is somewhere put, she is a Goddess of the Three Ways.
She moves in longitude over the Zodiac, in latitude, and in depth; one movement is revolution, another a spiral, the third is strangely named “Anomaly” by scientific men, although there is nothing irregular or confused to be seen in her returns to her stations. Therefore it is no wonder if a lion[353] did once fall on to Peloponnesus, owing to the velocity; the wonder is that we do not see every day _Fallings of men, lives trampled to the dust_,[354] men tumbling off through the air and turning somersaults. Yet [Sidenote: 938] it is ridiculous to raise a discussion about their remaining there, if they can neither come into being nor subsist at all. When we see Egyptians and Troglodytes, over whose heads the sun stands for the space of one brief day at the solstice and then passes on, all but shrivelled up by the dryness of the air around them, is it likely, I ask you, that people in the moon can endure twelve summers in each year, the sun standing plumb straight above them at every full moon? Then as to winds and clouds and [Sidenote: B] showers, without which plants can neither receive nor maintain existence, it is out of the question to conceive of their being formed, because the surrounding atmosphere is too hot and too rare. For even here the highest mountain tops do not get our fierce and conflicting storms, the air being already in turmoil from its lightness escapes any such condensation. Or are we really to say that, as Athena dropped a little nectar and ambrosia into Achilles’ mouth when he was refusing nourishment, even so the moon, who is called and who is Athena,[355] feeds man by sending up ambrosia day by day, in which form old Pherecydes [Sidenote: C] thinks that the Gods take food! For as to that Indian root, of which Megasthenes tells us that men, who neither eat nor drink but are without mouths,[356] burn a little, and make a smoke, and are nourished by the smells, how is it to be found growing there if there is no rain on the moon?’
XXV. When Theon had finished: ‘Well and kindly done,’ I said, ‘to unbend our brows by your witty argument; it makes us bold in reply, since we have no very harsh or severe criticism to expect. It is a true saying that there is little to choose between those who are vehemently convinced in such matters and those who are vehemently offended at them and incredulous, and will not look quietly into the possibilities. To begin, supposing that men do not inhabit the moon, it does not follow [Sidenote: D] that she has come into being just for nothing. Why, our earth, as we see, is not in active use or inhabited in her whole extent; but a small part of her only, mere promontories or peninsulas which emerge from the abyss, is fertile in animals and plants; of the other parts, some are desert and unfruitful owing to storms and droughts, while most are sunk under the ocean. But you, lover and admirer of Aristarchus that you are, do not attend to Crates and his reading: _Ocean, the birth and being of us all, Both men and Gods, covers the most of earth._[357] ‘However, this is a long way from saying that all has been brought into being for nothing. The sea sends up soft exhalations, [Sidenote: E] and delightful breezes in midsummer heat; from the uninhabited and icebound land snows quietly melt which open and fertilize all; earth stands in the midst, in Plato’s[358] words, “unswerving guardian and maker of day and night”. Nothing then prevents the moon too, though barren of animal life, from allowing the light around her to be reflected and to stream [Sidenote: F] about, and the rays of the stars to flow together and to be united within her; thus she combines and digests the vapours proceeding from earth, and at the same time gets rid of what is scorching and violent in the sun’s heat. And here we will make bold to yield a point to ancient legend, and to say that she has been held to be Artemis, a maiden and no mother, but in other ways helpful and serviceable. For, surely, nothing which has been said, dear Theon, proves it to be impossible that she is inhabited in the way alleged. For her revolution is one very gentle and calm; which smoothes the air, and duly [Sidenote: 939] blends and distributes it, so that there is no fear of those who have lived there falling or slipping off her. If not this, neither are the changes and variety of her orbit due to anomaly or confusion, but astronomers make us see a marvellous order and progress in it all, as they confine her within circles which roll around other circles, according to some not herself stirring, according to others moving gently and evenly and with uniform speeds. For these circles and revolutions, and their relations to one another, and to us, work out with very great accuracy the phenomena of her varying height and depth and her [Sidenote: B] passages in latitude as well as in longitude. As to the great heat and continuous charring caused by the sun, you will no longer fear these if you will set against the [eleven][359] summer conjunctions the full-moons, and the continuity of the change, which does not allow extremes to last long, tempering both extremes, and producing a convenient temperature, while between the two the inhabitants enjoy a climate nearly resembling our spring. In the next place, the sun sends down to us, and drives home through her thick and resisting atmosphere, heat fed [Sidenote: C] by exhalations; but there a fine and transparent air scatters and distributes the stream of light, which has no body or fuel beneath it. As to woods and crops, here where we live they are nourished by rains, but in other places, as far up as round your Thebes and Syene, the earth drinks water which comes out of herself, not from rain; it enjoys winds and dews, and would not, I think, thank us for comparing it in fruitfulness with our own, even where the rainfall is heaviest. With us, plants of the same order, if severely pinched by winter frosts, [Sidenote: D] bring forth much excellent fruit, while in Libya, and with you in Egypt, they bear cold very badly and shrink from the winters. Again, while Gedrosia, and Troglodytis which reaches down to ocean, are unproductive and treeless in all parts because of the drought, yet, in the adjacent and surrounding sea, plants grow to a marvellous size and luxuriate in its depths; some of these called “olive-trees”, some “laurels”, some “hair of Isis”. But the “love-come-back” as it is called, if taken out of the earth, not only lives when hung up for as long as you please, but also sprouts. Some are sown close on [Sidenote: E] to winter, some in the height of summer, sesame or millet for instance; thyme or centaury, if sown in a good rich soil and watered, changes its qualities and strength; both rejoice in drought and reach their proper growth in it.
But if, as is said, like most Arabian plants, they do not endure even dews, but fade and perish when moistened, what wonder, I ask, if roots and seeds and trees grow on the moon which need no rains or snows, but are fitted by Nature for a light and summer-like atmosphere? Why, again, may it not be probable that breezes ascend warmed by the moon and by the whirl of her revolution, and that she is accompanied by quiet breezes, which shed dews and moisture around, and when [Sidenote: F] distributed suffice for the grown plants, her own climate being neither fiery nor dried up, but mild and engendering moisture. For no touch of dryness reaches us from her, but many effects of moisture and fertility, as increase of plants, putrefaction of flesh, turning of wine to flatness, softening of wood, easy delivery to women. I am afraid of stirring Pharnaces to the fray [Sidenote: 940] again, now that he is quiet, if I enumerate as cases of restoring moisture the tides of the ocean (as his own school describes them), and the fillings of gulfs when their flood is augmented by the moon. So I will rather turn to you, dear Theon, for you told us in explaining these words of Alcman,[360] _Dew feeds them, born of Zeus and Lady Moon_, that here he calls the atmosphere Zeus, and says that it is liquefied and turned into dew by the moon. Probably, my friend, her nature is opposite to the sun’s, since not only does he naturally consolidate and dry things which she softens and [Sidenote: B] disperses, but she also liquefies and cools his heat, as it falls upon her from him, and mingles with herself. Certainly they are in error who hold that the moon is a fiery and charred body; and those who require for animals there all the things which they have here, seem to lack eyes for the inequalities of Nature, since it is possible to find greater and more numerous divergencies and dissimilarities between animals and animals than between them and the inanimate world. And grant that men without mouths and nourished on smells are not to be found—I do not [Sidenote: C] think they are—, but the potency which Ammonius himself used to expound to us has been hinted at by Hesiod[361] in the line _Nor yet in mallow and in asphodel How great the virtue._ But Epimenides made it plain in actual experience, teaching that Nature always keeps the fire of life in the animal with but little fuel, for if it get as much as the size of an olive, it needs no more sustenance. Now men in the moon, if men there be, are compactly framed, we may believe, and capable of being nourished on what they get; for the moon herself they say, [Sidenote: D] like the sun who is a fiery body many times larger than the earth, is nourished on the humours coming from the earth, as are the other stars too in their infinite numbers. Light, like them, and simple in their needs, may we conceive those animals to be which the upper region produces. We do not see such animals, nor yet do we see that they require a different region, nature, climate. Supposing that we were unable to approach the sea or touch it, but merely caught views of it in the distance, [Sidenote: E] and were told that its water is bitter and undrinkable and briny, and then some one said that it supports in its depths many great animals with all sorts of shapes, and is full of monsters, to all of whom water is as air to us, he would seem to be making up a parcel of fairy tales; just so is it with us, it seems, and such is our attitude towards the moon, when we refuse to believe that she has men dwelling on her. Her inhabitants, I think, must wonder still more greatly at this earth, a sort of sediment and slime of the universe appearing through damps, and mists, and clouds, a place unlighted, low, motionless; and must ask whether it breeds and supports animals with motion, respiration [Sidenote: F] and warmth. And if they should anyhow have a chance of hearing those lines of Homer:[362] _Grim mouldy regions which e’en Gods abhor_, and— _‘Neath hell so far as earth below high heaven_,[363] they will say they are written about a place exactly such as this, and that Hades is a colony planted here, and Tartarus, and that there is only one earth—the moon—being midway between the upper regions and these lower ones.’
XXVI. I had scarcely finished speaking when Sylla broke in: ‘Stop, Lamprias, and shut the door on your oratory, lest you run my myth aground before you know it, and make confusion of my drama, which requires another stage and a different setting. Now, I am only its actor, but I will first, if you see no objection, name the poet, beginning in Homer’s[364] words: [Sidenote: 941] _Far o’er the brine an isle Ogygian lies_, distant from Britain five days’ sail to the West. There are three other islands equidistant from Britain and from one another, in the general direction of the sun’s summer setting. The natives have a story that in one of these Cronus has been [Sidenote: B] confined by Zeus, but that he, having a son for gaoler,[365] has been settled beyond those islands and the sea, which they call the Gulf of Cronus. To the great continent by which the ocean is fringed is a voyage of about five thousand stades, made in row-boats, from Ogygia, of less from the other islands, the sea being slow of passage and full of mud because of the number of streams which the great mainland discharges, forming alluvial tracts and making the sea heavy like land, whence an opinion prevailed that it was actually frozen. The coasts of the mainland are inhabited by Greeks living around a bay as large as the Maeotic, with its mouth nearly opposite that of the Caspian [Sidenote: C] Sea. These Greeks speak of themselves as continental, and of those who inhabit our land as islanders, because it is washed all round by the sea. They think that those who came with Hercules and were left behind by him, mingled later on with the subjects of Cronus, and rekindled, so to speak, the Hellenic life which was becoming extinguished and overborne by barbarian languages, laws, and ways of life, and so it again became strong and vigorous. Thus the first honours are paid to Hercules, the second to Cronus. When the star of Cronus, called by us the Shining One, by them, as he told us, the Night Watcher, has reached Taurus again after an interval of thirty years, having for a long time before made preparation for [Sidenote: D] the sacrifice and the voyage, they send forth men chosen by lot in as many ships as are required, putting on board all the supplies and stuff for the great rowing voyage before them, and for a long sojourn in a strange land. They put out, and naturally do not all fare alike; but those who come safely out of the perils of the sea land first on the outlying islands, which are inhabited by Greeks, and day after day, for thirty days, see the sun hidden for less than one hour.
This is the night, with a darkness which is slight and of a twilight hue, and has a light over it from the West. There they spend ninety days, [Sidenote: E] meeting with honourable and kindly treatment, and being addressed as holy persons, after which they pass on, now with help from the winds. There are no inhabitants except themselves, and those