Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 10

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[10] Dismiss the fixed stars and the other planets and consider the demonstrations of Aristarchus in his treatise, On Sizes and Distances, that the distance of the sun is more than 18 times and less than 20 times the distance of the moon, that is its distance from us.¹ According to the highest estimate, however, the moon’s distance from us is said to be 56 times the radius of the earth.² Even according to the mean calculations this radius is 40,000 stades; and, if we reckon from this, the sun is more than 40,300,000 stades distant from the moon. She has migrated so far from the sun on account of her weight and has moved so close to the earth that, if properties³ are to be determined by locations, the lot, I mean the position, of earth lays an action against the moon and she is legally assignable by right of propinquity and kinship to the chattels real and personal of earth. We do not err at all, I think, if granting such altitude and extension to the things called upper we leave what is down below also some room to move about in and so much latitude as there is from earth to moon. For as he is immoderate who calls only the outermost surface of the heaven up and all else down, so is he intolerable who restricts down to the earth or rather to the centre; but both there and here some extension must be granted since the magnitude of the universe permits it. The claim that everything away from the earth is ipso facto up and on high answered by a counter-claim that what is away from the circuit of the fixed stars is ipso facto down.

De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.

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Current edition Perseus

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. XII. Cherniss, Harold and William Clark Helmbold translators. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ τοῦ ἐμφαινομένου προσώπου τῷ κύκλῳ τῆς σελήνης Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol. V. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1893.) — 10 focus

[10] 5 σκόπει δὲ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀφεὶς ἀπλανεῖς καὶ πλάνητας, ἃ δείκνυσιν Ἀρίσταρχος; ἐν τῷ Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ὅτι τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀπόστημα τοῦ ἀποστήματος τῆς σελήνης ὃ ἀφέστηκεν ἡμῶν 925d πλέον μὲν ἢ ὀκτωκαιδεκαπλάσιον ἔλαττον δʼ ἢ εἰκοσαπλάσιόν 10 ἐστι καίτοι ὁ τὴν σελήνην ἐπὶ μήκιστον αἴρων ἀπέχειν φησὶν ἡμῶν ἓξ καὶ πεντηκονταπλάσιον τῆς,· ἐκ τοῦ κέντρου τῆς γῆς· αὕτη δʼ ἐστὶ τεσσάρων μυριάδων καὶ κατὰ τοὺς μέσως ἀναμετροῦντας· καὶ ἀπὸ ταύτης συλλογιζομένοις ἀπέχει ὁ ἥλιος τῆς σελήνης 15 πλέον ἢτετρακισχιλίας τριάκοντα μυριάδας οὕτως ἀπῴκισται τοῦ ἡλίου διὰ βάρος καὶ τοσοῦτο τῇ γῇ προσκεχώρηκεν, ὥστε, εἰ τοῖς τόποις τὰς οὐσίας διαιρετέον, ἡ γῆς μοῖρα καὶ ὥρα προσκαλεῖται σελήνην καὶ τοῖς περὶ γῆν πράγμασι καὶ σώμασιν ἐπίδικὸς 20 925e ἐστι κατʼ ἀγχιστείαν καὶ γειτνίασιν. καὶ οὐδὲν, οἶμαι, πλημμελοῦμεν, ὅτι τοῖς ἄνω προσαγορευομένοις βάθος τοσοῦτο καὶ διάστημα διδόντες ἀπολείπομὲν τινα καὶ τῷ κάτω περιδρομὴν καὶ πλάτος, ὅσον ἐστὶν ἀπὸ γῆς ἐπὶ σελήνην οὔτε γὰρ ὁ τὴν 25 ἄκραν ἐπιφάνειαν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ μόνην ἄνω τἄλλα δὲ κάτω προσαγορεύων ἅπαντα μέτριός ἐστιν, οὔθʼ ὁ τῇ γῇ μᾶλλον δʼ ὁ τῷ κέντρῳ τὸ κάτω περιγράφων ἀνεκτός· ἀλλὰ καὶ κινητικο ταύτῃ διάστημα τὸ δέον ἐπιχωροῦντος τοῦ κόσμου· διὰ μέγεθος. πρὸς δὲ τὸν ἀξιοῦντα πᾶν εὐθὺς ἄνω καὶ μετέωρον εἶναι τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἕτερος ἀντηχεῖ πάλιν εὐθὺς εἶναι 5 925f κάτω τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀπλανοῦς περιφορᾶς.

Translations (1)

Of the Face Appearing Within the Orb Of the Moon Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. V. Goodwin, William W., editor; G., A., translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 10 focus

[10] But leaving the stars, as well erring as fixed, see what Aristarchus proves and demonstrates in his treatise of magnitudes and distances; that the distance of the sun is above eighteen times and under twenty times greater than that of the moon from us. And yet they who place the moon lowest say that her distance from us contains six and fifty of the earth’s semidiameters, that is, that she is six and fifty times as far from us as we are from the centre of the earth; which is forty thousand stadia, according to those that make their computation moderately. Therefore the sun is above forty millions and three hundred thousand stadia distant from the moon; so far is she from the sun by reason of her gravity, and so near does she approach to the earth. So that if substances are to be distinguished by places, the portion and, region of the earth challenges to itself the moon, which, by reason of neighborhood and proximity, has a right to be reputed and reckoned amongst the terrestrial natures and bodies. Nor shall we, in my opinion, do amiss if, having given so vast an interval and distance to these bodies which are said to be above, we leave also to those which are below some space and room to turn them in, such as is that between the earth and the moon. For neither is he who calls only the utmost superficies of the heaven above and all the rest beneath moderate or tolerable; nor is he to be endured who confines beneath only to the earth, or rather to its centre; seeing the vast greatness of the world may afford means for the assigning farther to this lower part some such space as is necessary for motion. Now against him who holds that whatever is above the earth is immediately high and sublime, there is presently another opposition to encounter and contradict it, that whatever is beneath the sphere of the fixed stars ought to be called low and inferior.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. This is Proposition 7 of Aristarchus’s treatise, the full title of which is On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon. The treatise is edited and translated by Sir Thomas Heath in his Aristarchus of Samos, pp. 352 ff.

2. This was not the highest estimate hitherto given, nor have I been able to identify its author. cf. on this matter and the subsequent calculations in this passage Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), pp. 140-141. No attempt is made to give equivalents for stades in calculations, for it is uncertain what stade is meant in any one place. Schiaparelli assumes everywhere the Olympic stade of 185 metres ( Scritti sulla storia della astronomia antica, i, p. 333, n. 3 and p. 342, n. 1); Heath argues that Eratosthenes used a stade of 157.5 metres and Ptolemy the royal stade of 210 metres ( Aristarchus of Samos, pp. 339 and 346); and Raingeard (p. 83 on 925 D 6) assumes without argument that Plutarch used the Attic stade of 177.6 metres.

3. There is a play on the meaning of τὰs οὐσίας, substances, as property or estates and as the real nature of things.

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 10

Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator)

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