uses, identified this goddess with the Pythagorean Hestia or central fire, while Theophrastos could not do that, because he knew and stated that Parmenides described the earth as round and in the centre of the world.[1] In this very passage we are told that what is in the middle of all the bands is solid. The data furnished by Theophrastos, in fact, exclude the identification of the goddess with the central fire altogether. We cannot say that what is in the middle of all the bands is solid, and that under it there is again a fiery band.[2] Nor does it seem fitting to relegate a goddess to the middle of a solid spherical earth.
We are further told by Aetios that this goddess was called Ananke and the "Holder of Lots."[3] We know already that she "steers the course of all things," that is, that she regulates the motions of the celestial bands. Simplicius adds, unfortunately without quoting the actual words, that she sends souls at one time from the light to the unseen world, at another from the unseen world to the light.[4] It would be difficult to describe more exactly what the goddess does in the Myth of Er, and so here once more we seem to be on Pythagorean ground. It is to be noticed further that in fr. 10 we read how Ananke took the heavens and com-
- ↑ Diog. ix. 21, πρῶτος δ' αὐτὸς τὴν γῆν ἀπέφηνε σφαιροειδῆ καὶ ἐν μέσῳ κεῖσθαι. Cf. viii, 48 (of Pythagoras), ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν πρῶτον ὀνομάσαι κόσμον καὶ τὴν γῆν στρογγύλην. (cf. Plato, Phaed. 97 d), ὡς δὲ Θεόφραστος, Παρμενίδην. This appears to justify us in ascribing the doctrine of a spherical earth to Pythagoras (cf. p. 111).
- ↑ I do not discuss the interpretation of περὶ ὃ πάλιν πυρώδης which Diels gave in Parmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 104, and which is adopted in R. P. 162 a, as it is now virtually retracted. In the later editions of his Vorsokratiker (18 A 37) he reads καὶ τὸ μεσαίτατον πασῶν (sc. τῶν στεφανῶν) στερεόν, <ὑφ' ᾧ> πάλιν πυρώδης (sc. στεφάνη). That is a flat contradiction.
- ↑ R. P. 126, where Fülleborn's ingenious emendation κλῃδοῦχον for κληροῦχον is tacitly adopted. This is based upon the view that Aetios (or Theophrastos) was thinking of the goddess that keeps the keys in the Proem (fr. 1, 14). I now think that the κλῆροι of the Myth of Er give the true explanation.
- ↑ Simpl. Phys. p. 39, 19, καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς πέμπειν ποτὲ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ ἐμφανοῦς εἰς τὸ ἀειδές (i.e. ἀιδές), ποτὲ δὲ ἀνάπαλίν φησιν. We should probably connect this with the statement of Diog. ix. 22 (R. P. 127) that men arose from the sun (reading ἡλίου with the MSS. for the conjecture ἰλύος).
