We come next to a very important statement which Cicero has copied from Philodemos, the author of the Epicurean treatise on Religion found at Herculaneum, or perhaps from the immediate source of that work. "Anaximander's opinion was," he makes Velleius say, "that there were gods who came into being, rising and passing away at long intervals, and that these were the innumerable worlds";[1] and this must clearly be taken along with the statement of Aetios that, according to Anaximander, the "innumerable heavens" were gods.[2] Now it is much more natural to understand the "long intervals" as intervals of space than as intervals of time;[3] and, if that is right, we have a perfect agreement among our authorities.
It may be added that it is very unnatural to understand the statement that the Boundless "encompasses all the worlds" of worlds succeeding one another in time; for on this view there is at a given time only one world to "encompass." Moreover, the argument mentioned by Aristotle that, if what is outside the heavens is infinite, body must be infinite, and there must be innumerable worlds, can only be understood in one sense, and is certainly intended to represent the reasoning of the Milesians; for they were the only cosmologists who held there was a boundless body outside the heavens.[4] Lastly, we happen to know that Petron, one of the earliest Pythagoreans, held there were just one hundred and eighty-three worlds
- ↑ Cicero, De nat. d. i. 25 (R. P. 21).
- ↑ Aet. i. 7, 12 (R. P. 21 a). The reading of Stob., ἀπείρους οὐρανούς, is guaranteed by the ἀπείρους κόσμους of Cyril, and the ἀπείρους νοῦς (i.e. ουνους) of the pseudo-Galen. See Dox. p. 11.
- ↑ It is natural to suppose that Cicero found διαστήμασιν in his Epicurean source, and that is a technical term for the intermundia.
- ↑ Arist. Phys. Γ, 4. 203 b 25, ἀπείρου δ' ὄντος τοῦ ἔξω (sc. τοῦ οὐρανοῦ), καὶ σῶμα ἄπειρον εἶναι δοκεῖ καὶ κόσμοι (ἄπειροι). The next words—τί γὰρ μᾶλλον τοῦ κενοῦ ἐνταῦθα ἢ ἐνταῦθα—show that this refers to the Atomists as well; but the ἄπειρον σῶμα will not apply to them. The meaning is that both those who made the Boundless a body and those who made it a κενόν held the doctrine of ἄπειροι κόσμοι in the same sense.
