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.)

Here Apollonides broke in. Then by the moon herself, he said, do you people think it possible that any clefts and chasms cast shadows which from the moon reach our sight here; or do you not reckon the consequence, and shall I tell you what it is? Please listen then, though it is not anything unknown to you. The diameter of the moon measures twelve digits in apparent size at her mean distance[*](cf. Cleomedes, ii. 3. 95 (p. 172. 25-27 [Ziegler]); on this measurement of 12 digits cf. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos, p. 23, n. 1.); and each of the black and shadowy spots appears greater than half a digit and consequently would be greater than one twenty-fourth of her diameter. Well then, if we should suppose that the circumference of the moon is only thirty thousand stades and her diameter ten thousand each of the shadowy spots on her would in accordance with the

assumption measure not less than five hundred stades.[*](Apodonides exaggerates for the sake of his point, for 500 stades is 1/20 not 1/24 of 10,000: but he has guarded himself by saying that each of the spots is more than half a digit and so more than 1/24 of the diameter. On the other hand, he intends his estimate of the moon’s size to err, if at all, on the side of conservatism: cf. only thirty thousand stades. Such small figures, even as minima, are remarkable, however. Cleomedes (ii. 1. 80-81 [pp. 146. 25-148. 3, Ziegler]) gives 40,000 stades as the lunar diameter, basing this upon the assumption that the earth is twice as large as the moon and has a circumference of 250,000 stades according to the measurement of Eratosthenes and a diameter therefore of more than 80,000 stades. Plutarch adopted the same figure for the terrestrial diameter (see 925 D supra) but supposed this and the terrestrial circumference to be three times those of the moon (see 923 B supra and note d there), figures which should have given him more than 26,000 stades as the lunar diameter. According to Hultsch, however, Posidonius must have calculated the lunar diameter to be 12,000 stades (cf. Abhand. K. Gesell. Wissensch. zu Göttingen, Phil.-Hist. Kl., N.F. i, No. 5, p. 38), which by the usual approximation would have given 36,000 stades for the lunar circumference; and Apollonides minimal estimate may have been based upon these figures. For the common rough approximation 3-1 as the relation of circumference to diameter cf. Archimedes, Arenarius, ii. 3 (Opera Omnia, ii, p. 234. 28-29 [Heiberg]).) Consider now in the first place whether it is possible for the moon to have depths and corrugations so great as to cast such a large shadow; in the second place why, if they are of such great magnitude, we do not see them. Then I said to him with a smile: Congratulations for having discovered such a demonstration. Apollonides. It would enable you to prove that both you and I are taller than the famous sons of Aloeus,[*](Otus and Ephialtes: cf. Exilio, 602 d; Iliad, v. 385-387; Odyssey, xi. 305-320; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, i. 7. 4. 2-4.) not at every time of day to be sure but early in the morning particularly and in late afternoon, if, when the sun makes our shadows enormous. you intend to supply sensation with this lovely reasoning that, if the shadow cast is large, what casts the shadow is immense. I am well aware that neither of us has been in Lemnos; we have both, however, often heard this line that is on everyone’s lips:

Athos will veil the Lemnian heifer’s flank.[*](The verse, which comes from an unidentified tragedy of Sophocles, is elsewhere quoted with καλύπτει or σκιάζει and with πλευρά or νῶτα (cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag.² , p. 299, frag. 708). For the shadow of Athos cast upon Lemnos cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv. 12 (23). 73; Apollonius Rhodius, i. 601-604; Proclus, In Timaeum, 56 B (i, p. 181. 12 ff. [Diehl]).)

The point of this apparently is that the shadow of the mountain, extending not less than seven hundred stades over the sea,[*](Proclus (loc. cit.) says that this is the distance of Lemnos from Athos, Plutarch rather that it is the length of the shadow cast by the mountain. According to Eustathius (Ad Iliadem, 980. 45 ff.), Athos is 300 stades distant from Lemnos, according to Pliny (loc. cit.) 87 Roman miles (unless this is a scribal error for XXXXVII). The actual distance is said to be about 50 miles; and Athos, which is 6350 feet high, could cast a shadow for almost 100 miles over open sea.) falls upon a little bronze heifer; [but it is not necessary, I presume,] that what casts the shadow be [seven hundred stades] high, for the reason that shadows are made many times the size of the objects that cast them by the remoteness of the light from the objects.[*](In this Plutarch is guilty either of an error or of an intentional sophism; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145.) Come then, observe that, when the moon is at the full and because of the shadows depth exhibits most articulately the appearance of the face, the sun is at his maximum distance from her. The reason is that the remoteness of the light alone and not the magnitude of the irregularities on the surface of the moon has made the shadow large. Besides, even in the case of mountains the dazzling beams of the sun prevent their crags from being discerned in broad daylight, although their depths and hollows and shadowy parts are visible from afar. So it is not at all strange that in the case of the moon too it is not possible to discern accurately the reflection and illumination, whereas the juxtapositions of the shadowy and brilliant parts by reason of the contrast do not escape our sight.

There is this, however, I said, which seems to be a stronger objection to the alleged reflection from the moon. It happens that those who have placed themselves in the path of reflected rays see not only the object illuminated but also what illuminates it. For example, if when a ray of light rebounds from water to a wall the eye is situated in the place that is itself illuminated by the reflection, the eye discerns all three things, the reflected ray and the water that causes the reflection and the sun itself,[*](i.e. the image of the sun in the water or the reflecting surface.) the source of the light which has been reflected by impinging upon the water. On the basis of these admitted and apparent facts those who maintain that the moon illuminates the earth with reflected light are bidden (by their adversaries)[*](i.e. by the Stoics; cf. e.g. the argument of Cleomedes (ii. 4. 101-102 [p. 184. 4 ff., Ziegler]) against the explanation of the moon’s light as reflection. The following argument in this passage is printed by von Arnim, S. V. F. ii, p. 199 as frag. 675 of Chrysippus.) to point out in the moon at night an appearance of the sun such as there is in water by day whenever there is a reflection of the sun from it. Since there is no such appearance, (these adversaries) think that the illumination comes about in another way and not by reflection and that, if there is not reflection, neither is the moon an earth. What response must be made to them then? said Apollonides, for the characteristics of reflection seem to present us with a problem in common. [*](For the idiom, κοινὸν καὶ πρός τινα εἶναι, cf. Lucullus, 44 (521 A) and 45 (522 B). Apollonides is a geometer (cf. 920 F and 925 A-B supra) who had expressed admiration for Clearchuss theory of reflection from the moon (cf. 921 B supra); by καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς here he means that the objection just raised to reflection from the moon constitutes a difficulty for the theory which he has espoused as well as for that of Lamprias and Lucius which he has just attacked. Lamprias in his reply, however, contends that the physical characteristics of the moon on his theory, the very characteristics to which Apollonides has just objected (935 D-E), will explain why the objection does not really make the difficulty for his theory that it would for that of Clearchus.)

In common in a way certainly, said I, but in another way not in common either. In the first place consider the matter of the image,[*](i.e. the reflected image, not the simile, as Amyot and Prickard interpret it.) how topsy-turvy and like rivers flowing uphill[*](For the proverbial expression cf. Hesychius, s. v. ἄνω ποταμῶν; Euripides, Medea, 410; Lucian, Dialogi Mortuorum, 6. 2. ) they conceive it. The fact is that the water is on earth and below, and the moon above the earth and on high; and hence the angles produced by the reflected rays are the converse of each other, the one having its apex above at the moon, the other below at the earth.[*](As Kepler says in his note 64 ad loc., ratio nihil ad rem. ) So they must not demand that every kind of mirror or a mirror at every distance produce a similar reflection, since (in doing so) they are at variance with the manifest facts. Those, on the other hand, who declare that the moon is not a tenuous or a smooth body as water is but a heavy and earthy one,[*](i.e. those who hold the view of the moon’s nature that Lamprias himself espouses.) I do not understand why it is required of them that the sun be manifest to vision in her. For milk does not return such mirrorings either or produce reflections of the visual ray, and the reason is the irregularity and roughness of its particles[*](cf.Quaest. Conviv 696 A; and observe that the phrase, ἀνωμαλία καὶ τραχύτης, used here of milk is in 930 D supra and 937 A s.v. applied to the moon.); how in the world the is it possible for the moon to cast the visual ray back from herself in the way that the smoother mirrors do? Yet even these, of course, are occluded if a scratch or speck of dirt or roughness covers the point from which the visual ray is naturally reflected, and while the mirrors themselves are seen they do not return the customary reflection.[*](For the phenomenon referred to cf. [Ptolemy], Speculis, vi = Hero Alexandrinus, Opera, ii. 1, p. 330. 4-22 (Nix-Schmidt). For τυφλόω meaning to deaden, muffle, occlude cf. Defectu Oraculorum, 434 c, Quaest. Conviv 721 B, Esu Carnium, 995 f.) One who demands that the moon either reflect our vision from herself to the sun as well or else not reflect the sun from herself to us either is naive, for he is demanding that the eye be a sun, the vision light, and the human being a heaven. Since the light of the sun because of its intensity and brilliance arrives at the moon with a shock, it is reasonable that its reflection should reach to us; but the visual ray, since it is weak and tenuous and many times slighter, what wonder if it does not have an impact that produces recoil or if in rebounding it does not maintain its continuity but is dispersed and exhausted, not having light enough to keep it from being scattered about the irregularities and corrugations (of the moon)? From water, to be sure, and from mirrors of other kinds it is not impossible for the reflection (of the visual ray) to rebound to the sun, since it is still strong because it is near to its point of origin[*](Plutarch has to explain how the image of the sun can be seen in water and mirrors though it is not seen in the moon, and he does so by stressing the proximity of the former to the point of origin. This point of origin can only be our eyes, so that he must be thinking of the visual ray as reflected from water and mirrors to the sun and as failing to be reflected from the moon to the sun. The reading of the mss., ἐπὶ τὸν ἥλιον, is necessary to the argument and all suggestions for altering it are wrong.); but from the moon, even if the visual rays do in some cases glance off, they will be weak and dim and prematurely exhausted because of the magnitude of the distance.[*](i.e. the distance from the eye to the reflecting surface of the moon.) What is more too, whereas mirrors that are concave make the ray of light more intense after reflection than it was before so as often even to send off flames,[*](For the concave burning-glass cf. [Euclid], Catoptrica Prop. 30 (Euclid, Opera Omnia, vii, pp. 340-342 [Heiberg]) 154.) convex and spherical mirrors[*](Not two kinds of mirrors, as Raingeard says ad. loc., but one, convex, i.e. convex spherical, for (1) spherical mirrors that are concave are the burning-glasses in the preceding category, and (2) convex mirrors that are not spherical would not provide the obvious analogy with the moon that is wanted.) by not exerting counterpressure upon it from all points [give it off] weak and faint. You observe, I presume, whenever two rainbows appear, as one cloud encloses another, that the encompassing rainbow produces colours that are faint and indistinct. The reason for this is that the outer cloud, being situated further off from the eye, returns a reflection that is not intense or strong.[*](On the double rainbow and the reason why the outer bow is less distinct cf. Aristotle, Meteorology, 375 A 30-b 15. Aristotle’s explanation, which Plutarch here adopts, is attacked by Kepler in a long note on the present passage (note 70).) Nay, what need of further arguments? When the light of the sun by being reflected from the moon loses all its heat[*](See note a on 929 E supra.) and of its brilliance there barely reaches us a slight and feeble remnant, is it really possible that of the visual ray travelling the same double-course[*](The moon is thought of as the καμπτήρ or turning-post in the stadium. The sun’s rays travel from sun to moon to eye, and the visual ray would have to travel the same course in reverse.) any fraction of a remnant should from the moon arrive at the sun? For my part, I think not; and do you too, I said, consider this. If the visual ray were affected in the same way by water and by the moon, the full moon ought to show such reflections of the earth and plants and human beings and stars as all other mirrors do; but, if there occur no reflections of the visual ray to these objects either because of the weakness of the ray or the ruggedness of the moon, let us not require that there be such reflection to the sun either.