De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet

Nevertheless, though of tall tales of such a kind and number they have shouldered and lugged in not a wallet-full, by heaven, but some juggler’s pack and hotchpotch, still they say[*](= S. V. F. ii, p. 195, frag. 646.) that others are playing the buffoon by placing the moon, though it is earth, on high and not where the centre is. Yet if all heavy body converges to the same point and is

compressed in all its parts upon its own centre,[*](Lamprias refers directly to the words of Pharnaces at 923 E - F supra. cf. Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1055 A: εἰ γὰρ αὐτός γε νεύειν ἐπὶ τὸ αυτοῦ μέσον ἀεὶ πέφυκε καὶ τὰ μέρη πρὸς τοῦτο κατατείνειν πανταχόθεν ) it is no more as centre of the sum of things than as a whole that the earth would appropriate to herself the heavy bodies that are parts of herself; and [the downward tendency] of falling bodies[*](That τῶν ῥερόντων can stand alone in this sense, pace Adler (Diss. Phil. Vind. x, p. 96), is proved by Aristotle, Caelo, 312 B 24.) proves not that the [earth] is in the centre of the cosmos but that those bodies which when thrust away from the earth fall back to her again have some affinity and cohesion with her.[*](Aristotle ( Caelo, 296 B 9-25) asserted that heavy, i.e. earthy, objects move to the centre of the universe and so only accidentally to the centre of the earth. The Stoics distinguished the cosmos as ὅλον from τὸ πᾶν, which is the cosmos plus the infinite void encompassing it (S. V. F. ii, p. 167, frags. 522-524), putting the cosmos in the centre of the πᾶν and explaining this as the result of the motion of all things to the centre of the latter (S. V. F. ii, pp. 174-175, frags. 552-554; cf. note d on 923 F supra) but stating that within the cosmos those things that have weight, i.e. water and earth, move naturally down, i.e. to the centre (S. V. F. ii, p. 175. 16-35, frag. 555). Nevertheless, Chrysippus’s own words could be used to show that the natural motion to the centre must belong to the parts of the universe qua parts of the whole and not because of their own nature (cf. Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1054 E 1055 C); and with the very word οἰκειώσεται Lamprias turns against the Stoics their own doctrine of οἰκείωσις (cf. Stoicorum Repugnantiis, 1038 B = S. V. F. ii, p. 43, frag. 179).) For as the sun attracts to itself the parts of which it consists[*](According to Reinhardt (Kosmos und Sympathie, pp. 173-177) the source of Plutarch’s argument must be Posidonius; but none of the passages cited contains any parallel to this statement concerning the sun, for references to the attractive power of the sun over the other planets (Reinhardt, Op. cit. p. 58, n. 2; cf. R. M. Jones, Class. Phil. xxvii [1932], pp. 122 ff.) are irrelevant. There may rather have been a connection between this notion and the doctrine of Cleanthes referred to in Communibus Notitiis, 1075 D = S. V. F. i, p. 114, frag. 510.) so the earth too accepts as [her] own the stone[*](This is not a reference to aeroliths as Raingeard and Kronenberg suppose nor to the imaginary stone in intercosmic space ( Defectu Oraculorum, 425 C) as Adler believes, but to any γεῶδές τι ὑπὸ βίας ἀναρριφέν, in the words of Pharnaces (923 F supra); cf. Aristotle’s use of ὁ λίθος in the statement of his principle of natural motion (Eth. Nic. 1103 A 19-22).) that has properly a downward tendency, and consequently every such thing ultimately unites and coheres with her. If there is a body, however, that was not originally allotted to the earth or detached from it but has somewhere independently a constitution and nature of its own, as those men[*](The men referred to in 924 D, ἑτέρους ἄνω τὴν σελήνην, gῆν οὖσαν, ἐνιδρύοντας, whom the Stoics attack and among whom are Lamprias and Lucius themselves and our comrade (921 F).) would say of the moon, what is to hinder it from being permanently separate in its own place, compressed and bound together by its own parts? For it has not been proved that the earth is the centre of the sum of things,[*](i.e. even if it is the centre of our cosmos; cf. Defectu Oraculorum, 425 A - E, where concerning the possibility of a multiplicity of universes in τὸ πᾶν Plutarch points out that even on the hypothesis of natural motion and proper place up, down, and centre would apply separately within each cosmos, there could be no centre of τὸ πᾶν, and the laws of motion in any one universe could not affect objects in any other or hypothetical objects in intercosmic space.) and the way in which things in our region press together and concentrate upon the earth suggests how in all probability things in that region converge upon the moon and remain there. The man who drives together into a single region all earthy and heavy things and makes them part of a single body — I do not see for what reason he does not apply the same compulsion to light objects in their turn but allows so many separate concentrations of fire and, since he does not collect all the stars together, clearly does not think that there must also be a body common to all things that are fiery and have an upward tendency.