words "that it was not only with us that things were separated off, but elsewhere too" can only mean that Nous has caused a rotatory movement in more parts of the boundless mixture than one. Aetios certainly includes Anaxagoras among those who held there was only one world[1]; but this testimony cannot be considered of the same weight as that of the fragments. Zeller's reference of the words to the moon is very improbable. Is it likely that any one would say that the inhabitants of the moon "have a sun and moon as with us"?[2]
135.Cosmology. The cosmology of Anaxagoras is clearly based upon that of Anaximenes, as will be seen from a comparison of the following passage of Hippolytos[3] with the quotations given in Chap. I. (§ 29):
(3) The earth is flat in shape, and remains suspended because of its size and because there is no vacuum.[4] For this reason the air is very strong, and supports the earth which is borne up by it.
(4) Of the moisture on the surface of the earth, the sea arose from the waters in the earth (for when these were evaporated the remainder turned salt),[5] and from the rivers which flow into it.
(5) Rivers take their being both from the rains and from the waters in the earth; for the earth is hollow and has waters in its cavities. And the Nile rises in summer owing to the water that comes down from the snows in Ethiopia.[6]
- ↑ Aet. ii. 1, 3 (Dox. p. 327).
- ↑ Further, it can be proved that this passage (fr. 4) occurred quite near the beginning of the work. Cf. Simpl. Phys. p. 34, 28 μετ' ὀλίγα τῆς ἀρχῆς τοῦ πρώτου Περὶ φυσέως, p. 156, 1, καὶ μετ' ὀλίγα (after fr. 2), which itself occurred, μετ' ὀλίγον (after fr. 1), which was the beginning of the book. A reference to other "worlds" would be quite in place here, but not a reference to the moon.
- ↑ Ref. i. 8, 3 (Dox. p. 562).
- ↑ This is an addition to the older view occasioned by the Eleatic denial of the void.
- ↑ The text is corrupt here, but the general sense can be got from Aet. iii. 16. 2.
- ↑ The MS. reading is ἐν τοῖς ἄρκτοις, for which Diels adopts Fredrichs' ἐν τοῖς ἀνταρκτικοῖς. I have thought it safer to translate the ἐν τῇ Αἰθιοπίᾳ of Aetios (iv. 1, 3). This view is mentioned by Herodotos (ii. 22). Seneca (N.Q. iv. 2, 17) points out that it was adopted by Aischylos (Suppl. 559, fr. 300, Nauck), Sophokles (fr. 797), and Euripides (Hel. 3, fr. 228), who would naturally take their opinions from Anaxagoras.
