Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/53

 Chap. 4.] ACCOUKT OF THE WOELD. 19 the middle of space. These are mutually hound together, the lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that they cannot fly off; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending up- wards, the heavier are so suspended, that they cannot fall doAvn. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite direction, each of them remains in its appropriate place, bound together by the never-ceasing revolution of the world, which ahyays turning on itself, the earth falls to the lowest part and is in the middle of the whole, Avhile it remains suspended in the centre and, as it were, balancing this centre, in which it is suspended. So that it alone remains immoveable, whilst all things revolve round it, being connected with every other part, whilst they all rest upon it. (6.) Between this body and the heavens there are sus- pended, in this aerial spirit, seven stars^, separated by determi- nate spaces, which, on account of their motion, we call wander- 1 " universi cardme." " Eevolutionis, ut aiunt, centre. Idem Pliniiis, hoc ipso libro, cap. 6i, terrain coeli cardinem esse dicit ; " Alexandi^e, in Lem. i. 228. On this subject I may refer to Ptolemy, Magn. Const, hb. i. cap. 3, 4, 6. See also Apuleius, near the commencement of his treatise De Mundo. 2 " Sidera." The word sidus is used, in most cases, for one of the heavenly bodies generally, sometimes for what we term a constellation, a particidar assemblage of them, and sometimes specially for an individual star. Manihus employs the word in all these senses, as will appear by the tliree following passages respectively ; the first taken from the open- ing of his poem, " Carmine divinas artes, et conscia fati Sidera . . . . " The second, " Hsec igitm' texunt gequali sidera tractu Ignibus in varias coelum laqueantia formas." i. 275, 276. The third " . . . . pectus, ftdgenti sidere clarius ; " i. 356. In the Fasti of Ovid, we have examples of the two latter of these significations : — "Ex Ariadnseo sidere nosse potes ;" v. 346. " Et canis (Icarium dicunt) quo sidere note Tosta sitit tcllus ; " iv. 939, 940. Lucretius appears always to employ the term in the general sense. J. Obsequens appHes the word sidus to a meteor ; " sidus ingcns ccelo demissum," cap. 16. In a subsequent part of this book, chap. 18 et seq.^ our author more particularly restricts the term iddus to the planets. c 2