Page:Plutarch - Moralia, translator Holland, 1911.djvu/416

394 within the precincts and limits of the promontories Sunium or Tænarus, nor yet the Ceraunian mountains:

These are the bounds of a native country within the pourprise and compass whereof whosoever is, ought not to think himself either banished, pilgrim, stranger or foreigner; namely, whereas he shall meet with the same fire, the same water, the same air, the same magistrates, the same governors and presidents; to wit, the sun, the moon and the morning star; the same laws throughout, under one and the selfsame order and conduct; the solstice and tropic of summer in the north; the solstice and tropic of winter in the south; the equinoxes both of spring and fall, the stars Pleiades and Arcturus; the seasons of seedness, the times of planting; one king, and the same prince of all, even God, who hath in his hand the beginning, the midst, and the end of the whole and universal world; who by his influence goeth according to nature, directly through and round about all things, attended upon with righteousness and justice, to take vengeance and punishment of those who transgress any point of divine law: which all we likewise that are men do exercise and use by the guidance and direction of nature against all others, as our citizens and subjects.

Now say that thou dost not dwell and live in Sardis, what matter is that? surely it is just nothing: No more do all the Athenians inhabit in the boroughs or tribe Colyttus; nor the Corinthians in the street Cranium; nor yet the Lacedaemonians in the village Pytane: are those Athenians then to be counted strangers, and not inhabitants of the city, who have removed out of Melite into Diomea: considering that even there they do solemnise yet the month of their transmigration named thereupon Metageitnion; yea, and do celebrate a festival holiday and sacrifice, which in memorial of that removing they call Metageitnia, for that this passage of theirs into another neighbourhood they received and entertained right willingly with joy and much contentment? I suppose you will never say so. Now tell me what part of this earth habitable, or rather of the whole globe and compass thereof, can be said far distant or remote one from the other, seeing that the mathematicians are able to prove and make demonstration by reason that the whole, in comparison and respect of heaven or the firmament, is no