the passages. The wheel of the sun is 27 times the size of (the earth, while that of) the moon is 18 times as large.[1] The sun is the highest of all, and lowest are the wheels of the stars.—Hipp. Ref. i. 6 (R. P. 20).
The heavenly bodies were hoop-like compressions of air, full of fire, breathing out flames at a certain point through orifices.—Aet. ii. 13, 7 (R. P. 19 a).
The sun was a wheel 28 times the size of the earth, like a chariot-wheel with the felloe hollow, full of fire, showing the fire at a certain point through an orifice, as through the nozzle of a pair of bellows.—Aet. ii. 20, i (R. P. 19 a).
The sun was equal to the earth, but the wheel from which it breathes out and by which it is carried round was 27 times the size of the earth.—Aet. ii. 21, 1.
The sun was eclipsed when the orifice of the fire's breathing-hole was stopped.—Aet. ii. 24, 2.
The moon was a wheel 19 times the size of the earth, like a chariot-wheel with its felloe hollow and full of fire like that of the sun, lying oblique also like it, with one breathing-hole like the nozzle of a pair of bellows. [It is eclipsed because of the turnings of the wheel.][2]—Aet. ii. 25, 1.
The moon was eclipsed when the orifice of the wheel was stopped.—Aet. ii. 29, 1.
(Thunder and lightning, etc.) were all caused by the blast of the wind. When it is shut up in a thick cloud and bursts forth with violence, then the tearing of the cloud makes the noise, and the rift gives the appearance of a flash in contrast with the blackness of the cloud.—Aet. iii. 3, 1.
Wind was a current of air (i.e. vapour), which arose when its finest and moistest particles were stirred or melted by the sun.—Aet. iii. 7, 1.
- ↑ I assume with Diels (Dox. p. 560) that something has fallen out of the text, but I have made the moon's circle 18 and not 19 times as large, as agreeing better with the other figure, 27. See p. 68, n. 1.
- ↑ There is clearly some confusion here, as Anaximander's real account of lunar eclipses is given in the next extract. There is also some doubt about the reading. Both Plutarch and Eusebios (P.E. xv. 26, 1) have ἐπιστροφάς, so the τροπάς of Stob. may be neglected, especially as the codex Sambuci had στροφάς. It looks as if this were a stray reference to the theory of Herakleitos that eclipses were due to a στροφή or ἐπιστροφή of the σκάφη (§ 71). In any case, the passage cannot be relied on in support of the meaning given to τροπαί by Zeller and Heath (p. 63, n. 2).
