Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/314

300 A truer view of the earth's dimensions would naturally suggest that the alternation of night and day was due to the earth's rotation on its own axis, and in that case the earth could once more be regarded as in the centre. It does not appear that Aristotle knew of any one who had held this view, but Theophrastos seems to have attributed it to Hiketas and Ekphantos of Syracuse, of whom we know very little otherwise. Apparently they regarded the heaven of the fixed stars as stationary, a thing Aristotle would almost have been bound to mention if he had ever heard of it, since his own system turns entirely on the diurnal revolution.

Both theories, that of the earth's revolution round a central fire and that of its rotation on its own axis, had the effect of making the revolution of the fixed stars, to which the Pythagoreans certainly adhered, very difficult to account for. They must either be stationary or their motion must be something quite different from the diurnal