De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

Such is probably the case with the cosmos too, if it really is a living being[*](In Adv. Coloten, 1115 B Strato’s denial of this is cited as an example of his opposition to Plato; and in An. Proc. in Timaeo, 1014 C - D Plutarch, speaking of the creation of the world by the Platonic demiurge, says τὸ κάλλιστον ἀπεργασάμενος καὶ τελειότατον ζῳον, thereby referring to such passages as Timaeus, 30 B - D, 32 C - D, 68 E, 69 B - C. Still, Platonic though it is, this assumption is one which his Stoic adversaries would grant (cf. Diogenes Laertius, vii. 139 and 142-143 [= S. V. F. ii, frags. 634 and 633]); and Plutarch believes that in granting it they are committed to the implication that the moon despite its location can consist of earth.): in many places it has

earth and in many fire and water and breath as the result not of forcible expulsion[*](cf.Aristotle, Caelo, 277 B 1-2: ουδὲ βίᾳ (scil. φέρεται αὐτῦν τὸ μὲν ἄνω τὸ δὲ κάτω) ὥσοερ τινές φασι τῇ ἐκθλίξει, and Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy, p. 191, n. 196.) but of rational arrangement. After all, the eye has its present position in the body not because it was extruded thither as a result of its lightness, and the heart is in the chest not because its heaviness has caused it to slip and fall thither but because it was better that each of them should be so located. Let us not then believe with regard to the parts of the cosmos either that earth is situated here because its weight has caused it to subside or that the sun, as Metrodorus of Chios[*](For this Atomist, who is not to be confused with the Epicurean, Metrodorus of Lampsacus, or with the Anaxagorean, cf. Diels-Kranz, Frag, der Vorsok⁵ ii, pp. 231-234; the present passage should be added to that collection, from which it is missing. According to Placitis, 889 B ( = Aëtius, ii. 15. 6 [Dox. Graeci, p. 345 A 7-12]) Metrodorus considered the sun to be farthest from the earth, the moon below it, and lower than the moon the planets and fixed stars. For the explanation of the suns position here ascribed to Metrodorus see note a supra and cf. Simplicius, De Caelo, p. 712. 27-29.) once thought, was extruded into the upper region like an inflated skin by reason of its lightness or that the other stars got into their present positions because they tipped the balance, as it were, at different weights. On the contrary, the rational principle is in control; and that is why the stars revolve fixed like radiant eyes [*](In Fortuna, 98 B the phrase is quoted as Plato’s; it comes from Timaeus, 45 B (τῶν δὲ ὀργάνων πρῶτον μὲν φωσφόρα συνευεκτήναντο ὄμματα, τοιᾷδε ἐνδήσαντες αἰτίᾳ), and Plutarch’s τῷ προσὠποῳ τοῦ παντὸς ἐνδεδεμένοι was suggested by this in conjunction with the preceding lines (45 a: . . . ὑποθέντες αὐτ aυτόσε τὸ πρόσωπον, ὄργανα ἐνέδησαν τούτῳ), though Plato is there speaking of the human face and eyes.) in the countenance of the universe, the sun in the hearts capacity transmits and disperses out of himself heat and light as it were blood and breath, and earth and sea naturally serve the cosmos to the ends that bowels and bladder do an animal. The moon, situate between sun and earth as the liver or another of the soft viscera[*](i.e. the spleen. For the purpose of liver and spleen cf. Aristotle, Part. Animal. 670 A 20-29, 670 B 4-17, 673 B 25-28; and for the close connection of liver and spleen 669 B 15 670 A 2.) is between heart and bowels, transmits hither the warmth from above and sends upwards the exhalations from our region, refining them in herself by a kind of concoction and purification.[*](Eustathius, Ad Iliadem, 695. 12 ff. says that according to the Stoics the golden rope of Iliad, viii. 19 is ὁ ἥλιος εἰς ὃν κάτωθεν ὥσττερ εἰς καρδίαν ἀποχεῖται ἀναδιομένη ἡ τῶν ὑγρῶν ἀναθυμίασις. Starting from this K. Reinhardt (Kosmos und Sympathie, pp. 332 ff.) argued that Posidonius was Plutarch’s source for the analogy between the parts of the cosmos and the organs of the body; but Reinhardt’s contention is refuted by R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. xxvii (1932), pp. 121-128. Passages which equate sun and heart are fairly frequent, e.g. Theon of Smyrna, pp. 187. 13-188. 7 (Hiller); Proclus, In Timaeum, 171 C - D (ii, p. 104. 20-21 and 28-29, Diehl); Macrobius, Somn. Scip. i. 20. 6-7 (pp. 564-565, Eyssenhardt); Chalcidius, In Platonis Timaeum, § 100 (p. 170, Wrobel); Anon. Christ., Hermippus, pp. 17.15-18.11 (Kroll-Viereck) with astrological ascriptions of different bodily organs to the seven planets. An entirely different analogy between the various human faculties and the seven planets is mentioned by Proclus, In Timaeum, 348 A - B (iii, p. 355. 7-18, Diehl), and Numenius in Macrobius, Somn. Scip. i. 12. 14-15 (p. 533, Eyssenhardt); and I know no parallel to Plutarch’s further analogy of earth and moon with bowels and liver or spleen. In the pseudo-Hippocratic Περὶ ἐβδομάδων the moon because of its central position in the cosmos appears to have been equated with the diaphragm (cf. Roscher, Die hippokratische Schrift von der Siebenzahl, p. 5. 45 ff., pp. 10-11, p. 123). In the section of Porphyry’s Introduction to Ptolemys Apotelesmatica published by F. Cumont in Mèlanges Bidez, i, pp. 155-156, the source of which Cumont contends must have been Antiochus of Athens, the moon is said to have the spleen as its special province, while the heart is assigned to the sun; but there the liver is the province of Jupiter.) It is not clear to us whether her earthiness and solidity have any use suitable to other ends also. Nevertheless, in everything the better has control of the necessary.[*](cf. Plato, Timaeus, 48 A: noῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπι τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγρειν κτλ. For the term τὸ κατηναγκασμένον cf. S. V. F. ii, frag. 916.) Well, what probability can we thus conceive in the statements of the Stoics? They say that the luminous and tenuous part of the ether by reason of its subtility became sky and the part which was condensed or compressed became stars, and that of these the most sluggish and turbid is the moon.[*](= S. V. F. ii, frag. 668; cf. Cleomedes, ii. 3. 99 (pp. 178. 26-180. 8, Ziegler) and contrast ii. 4. 100 (p. 182. 8-10). On the Stoic ether cf. Diogenes Laertius, vii. 137 (= S. V. F. ii, frag. 580) and note g on 922 B supra.) Yet all the same anyone can see that the moon has not been separated from the ether but that there is still a large amount of it about her in which she moves and much of it beneath her in which [they themselves assert that the bearded stars] and comets whirl. So it is not the inclinations consequent upon weight and lightness that have circumscribed the precincts[*](The lexica give weigh balance as the meaning of σεσήλωται, but the logic of the passage here shows that the word must be connected with σηκός, not with σήκωμα (cf. Hesychius: ἀποσηκώσας and σάκωσε). Amyot’s situez et colloquez and Keplers quasi obvallata sunt render the sense correctly.) of each of the bodies, but their arrangement is the result of a different principle.