De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

When Lucius said this, almost while [he was speaking] Pharnaces and Apollonides sprang forth together. Then, Apollonides having yielded, Pharnaces said that this very point above all proves the moon to be a star or fire, since she is not entirely invisible in her eclipses but displays a colour smouldering and grim which is peculiar to her.[*](= S. V. F. ii, frag. 672. cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 9. 42. (deficiens et in defectu tamen conspicua); Olympiodorus, In Meteor. p. 67. 36-37; Philoponus, In Meteor. pp. 30. 37-31. 1 and p. 106. 9-13. The moon is seldom invisible to the naked eye even in total eclipses (cf. Dyson and Woolley, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, p. 30; C. A. Young, Manual of Astronomy [1902], § 287; Boll, s.v. Finsternisse, R. E. vi. 2344); and the apparent colour of the moon in total eclipse was as late as the 16th century adduced as evidence that the moon had light of its own, a notion entertained as possible even by W. Herschel (cf. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph, pp. 132-133).) Apollonides raised an objection concerning the shadow on the ground that scientists always give this name to the region that is without light and the heaven does not admit shadow.[*](For a Stoic this follows from the definition of οὐρανός as ἔσχατον αἰθέρος and πύρινον (cf. S. V.F. i, p. 33, frags. 115 and 116; S. V. F. ii, frag. 580 [p. 180. 10-12]).) This, I said, is the objection of one who speaks captiously to the name rather than like a natural scientist and mathematician to the fact. If one refuses to call the region screened by the earth shadow and insists upon calling it lightless space, nevertheless when the moon gets into it she must [be obscured since she is deprived of the solar light]. Speaking generally too, it is silly, I said, to deny that the shadow of the earth reaches

that point [from which on its part] the shadow of the moon by impinging upon the sight and [extending] to the earth produces an eclipse of the sun. Now I shall turn to you, Pharnaces. That smouldering and glowing colour of the moon which you say is peculiar to her is characteristic of a body that is compact and a solid, for no remnant or trace of flame will remain in tenuous things nor is incandescence possible unless there is a hard body that has been ignited through and through and sustains the ignition.[*](cf. 922 A-B supra. With ἀνθρακογένεσις, incandescence, Raingeard compares ἀνθρακοποιΐα in Gregory of Nyssa, iii. 937 A.) So Homer too has somewhere said:

1. But when fire’s bloom had flown and flame had ceased
2. He smoothed the embers. . .[*](Iliad, ix. 212-213 in our texts read: αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ πῦρ ἐκάη καὶ φλὸξ ἐμαράνθη, )
3. [*](ἀνθρακιὴν στορέσας ὀβελοὺς ἐφύπερθε τάνυσσε, but the first line as Plutarch gives it was known to Aristarchus, who rejected it (cf. Ludwich, Aristarchs Homerische Textkritik, i, p. 302; Eustathius, Ad Iliadem, 748. 41; Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. Dindorf, i, p. 312).)

The reason probably is that what is igneous[*](Purser has pointed out (Hermathena, xvi [1911], p. 316) that ἄνθραξ may mean all degrees of burning coal from complete incandescence to ashes and that fire’s need of solid matter to work upon was often used as an argument against the Stoic conflagration of the world: cf. Philo, Aeternitate Mundi, §§ 86-88 (vi, pp. 99. 14-100. 10 [Cohn-Reiter]).) is not fire but body that has been ignited and subjected to the action of fire, which adheres to a solid and stable mass and continues to occupy itself with it, whereas flames are the kindling and flux of tenuous nourishment or matter which because of its feebleness is swiftly dissolved. Consequently there would be no other proof of the moons earthy and compact nature so manifest as the smouldering colour, if it really were her own. But it is not so, my dear Pharnaces, for as she is eclipsed she exhibits many changes of colour which scientists have distinguished as follows, delimiting them according to time or hour.[*](cf.Aemilius Paulus, 17 (264 B), Nicias, 23 (538 E) and for a description and explanation of the phenomenon cf. Sir John Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy, §§ 421-424, and J. F. J. Schmidt, r Mond (Leipzig, 1836), p. 35. Astrology assigned special significance to the various colours of the moon in total eclipse: cf. Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, vii (Brussels, 1908), p. 131. 6 ff.; Ptolemy, Apotelesmatica, ii. 14. 4-5 (pp. 101-102 [Boll-Boer]) and ii. 10. 1-2 (pp. 91-92); and Boll in R. E. vi. 2350 assumes that by μαθηματικοί in the present passage Plutarch means astrologers (but see 937 F s.v.). Neither there nor in his article, Antike Beobachtungen farbiger Sterne, does Boll mention any classification of the colours according to the time of the eclipse, however, nor does Gundel, s.v. Mond in R. E. xvi. 1. 101-102. Geminuss calendar for the different phases of the moon (ix. 14-15 [pp. 128-130, Manitius]) has no connection with this matter and so is not, as Adler supposes (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, p. 157), an indication that Plutarchs source in the present passage was Posidonius.) If the eclipse occurs between eventide and half after the third hour, she appears terribly black; if at midnight, then she gives off this reddish and fiery colour; from half after the seventh hour a blush arises[*](This, pace Prickard, must be the meaning of ἀνίσταται here; cf. ἀνιστάμενος in Pompey, 34 (637 D) and ἀναστάντος in Appian, B.C. i. 56 (ii, p. 61. 7 [Mendelssohn-Viereck]).) on her face; and finally, if she is eclipsed when dawn is already near, she takes on a bluish or azure[*](In Marius, 11 (411 D) χαροπότης is used of the eye-colour of the Teutons and Cimbrians, and in Iside, 352 D the colour of the flax-flower is said to resemble τῇ περιεχούσῃ τὸν κόσμον αἰθερίῳ χαροπότητι.) hue, from which especially it is that the poets and Empedocles give her the epithet bright-eyed. [*](See 929 D supra and note b there; but Diels (Hermes, xv [1880], p. 176) because of ἀνακαλοῦνται thought that Plutarch must here have had in mind a verse of Empedocles that ended with the invocation, γλαυκῶπι, Σελήνη. cf. also Euripides, frag. 1009 (Nauck²).) Now, when one sees the moon take on so many hues in the shadow, it is a mistake to settle upon the smouldering colour alone, the very one that might especially be called alien to her and rather an admixture or remnant of the light shining round about through the shadow, while the black or earthy colour should be called her own.[*](Kepler remarks on this sentence (note 56): Ecce Plutarchum meae sententiae proxime accedentem, nisi quod non dicit, a quo lucente sit illud lumen, num ab aethere, an a Sole ipso, per refractionem ejus radiorum. ) Since here on earth places near lakes and rivers open to the sun take on the colour and brilliance of the purple and red awnings that shade them, by reason of the reflections giving off many various effulgences, what wonder if a great flood of shade debouching as it were into a heavenly sea of light, not calm or at rest but undergoing all sorts of combinations and alterations as it is churned about by countless stars, takes from the moon at different times the stain of different hues and presents them to our sight?[*](cf. the similar but more elaborate description in Genio Socratis, 590 C ff., where the stars are islands moving in a celestial sea, and also Sera Numinis Vindicta, 563 E-F.) A star or fire could not in shadow shine out black or glaucous or bluish; but over mountains, plains, and sea flit many kinds of colours from the sun, and blended with the shadows and mists his brilliance[*](For λαμπρόν, brilliance, as a colour cf. Plato, Timaeus, 68 A; Theophrastus calls it τὸ πυρῶδες λευκόν ( Sensibus, § 86 [Dox. Graeci, p. 525. 23]).) induces such tints as brilliance does when blended with a painter’s pigments. Those of the sea Homer has endeavoured somehow or other to designate, using the terms violet [*](e.g. Iliad, xi. 298.) and wine-dark deep [*](e.g. Iliad, i. 350. ) and again purple swell [*](e.g. Iliad, i. 481-482. ) and elsewhere glaucous sea [*](Only in Iliad, xvi. 34 (cf. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. Dindorf, ii, p. 92).) and white calm [*](Odyssey, x. 94.); but he passed over as being an endless multitude the variations of the colours that appear differently at different times about the land. It is likely, however, that the moon has not a single plane surface like the sea but closely resembles in constitution the earth that the ancient Socrates made the subject of a myth,[*](Plato, Phaedo, 110 B ff.) whether he really was speaking in riddles about this earth or was giving a description of some other.[*](This one, tau/thn, means the earth, not the moon, as most translators since Wyttenbach have thought; some other, ἄλλην τινά, means some other earth, which is exactly what Lamprias believes the moon to be. So Lamprias means that what Socrates said must be considered as a riddle if he was really talking about our earth but can be taken as straightforward description if he was referring to some other earth, i.e. the moon.) It is in fact not incredible or wonderful that the moon, if she has nothing corrupted or slimy [in] her but garners pure light from heaven and is filled with warmth, which is fire not glowing or raging but moist[*](Or, if νοτεροῦ is a scribal error for νοεροῦ, intellectual; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145.) and harmless and in its natural state, has got open regions of marvellous beauty and mountains flaming bright and has zones of royal purple with gold and silver not scattered in her depths but bursting forth in abundance on the plains or openly visible on the smooth heights.[*](The details of this description were suggested by Phaedo, 110 C 111 C, to which Plutarch has referred above.) If through the shadow there comes to us a glimpse of these, different at different times because of some variation and difference of the atmosphere, the honourable repute of the moon is surely not impaired nor is her divinity because she is held by men to be a [celestial and] holy earth rather than, as the Stoics say, a fire turbid and dreggish.[*](See 928 D and 933 D supra. The present passage is not listed in S. V. F. ) Fire, to be sure, is given barbaric honours among the Medes and Assyrians, who from fear by way of propitiation worship the maleficent forces rather than the reverend; but to every Greek, of course, the name of earth is dear and honourable, and it is our ancestral tradition to revere her like any other god. As men we are far from thinking that the moon, because she is a celestial[*](See note c on 929 A supra.) earth, is a body without soul and mind and without share in the firstfruits that it beseems us to offer to the gods, according to custom requiting them for the goods we have received and naturally revering what is better and more honourable in virtue and power. Consequently let us not think it an offence to suppose that she is earth and that for this which appears to be her face, just as our earth has certain great gulfs, so that earth yawns with great depths and clefts which contain water or murky air; the interior of these the light of the sun does not plumb or even touch, but it fails and the reflection which it sends back here is discontinuous. [*](For this discontinuousness of the reflection cf. 921 C supra and especially Quaest. Conviv 686 a-c.)