Plutarch, De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet, Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator), 21

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[21] When Lucius said this, almost while [he was speaking] Pharnaces and Apollonides sprang forth together. Then, Apollonides having yielded, Pharnaces said that this very point above all proves the moon to be a star or fire, since she is not entirely invisible in her eclipses but displays a colour smouldering and grim which is peculiar to her.¹ Apollonides raised an objection concerning the shadow on the ground that scientists always give this name to the region that is without light and the heaven does not admit shadow.² This, I said, is the objection of one who speaks captiously to the name rather than like a natural scientist and mathematician to the fact. If one refuses to call the region screened by the earth shadow and insists upon calling it lightless space, nevertheless when the moon gets into it she must [be obscured since she is deprived of the solar light]. Speaking generally too, it is silly, I said, to deny that the shadow of the earth reaches that point [from which on its part] the shadow of the moon by impinging upon the sight and [extending] to the earth produces an eclipse of the sun. Now I shall turn to you, Pharnaces. That smouldering and glowing colour of the moon which you say is peculiar to her is characteristic of a body that is compact and a solid, for no remnant or trace of flame will remain in tenuous things nor is incandescence possible unless there is a hard body that has been ignited through and through and sustains the ignition.³ So Homer too has somewhere said:

But when fire’s bloom had flown and flame had ceased

He smoothed the embers. . .⁴

⁵

The reason probably is that what is igneous⁶ is not fire but body that has been ignited and subjected to the action of fire, which adheres to a solid and stable mass and continues to occupy itself with it, whereas flames are the kindling and flux of tenuous nourishment or matter which because of its feebleness is swiftly dissolved. Consequently there would be no other proof of the moons earthy and compact nature so manifest as the smouldering colour, if it really were her own. But it is not so, my dear Pharnaces, for as she is eclipsed she exhibits many changes of colour which scientists have distinguished as follows, delimiting them according to time or hour.⁷ If the eclipse occurs between eventide and half after the third hour, she appears terribly black; if at midnight, then she gives off this reddish and fiery colour; from half after the seventh hour a blush arises⁸ on her face; and finally, if she is eclipsed when dawn is already near, she takes on a bluish or azure⁹ hue, from which especially it is that the poets and Empedocles give her the epithet bright-eyed.¹⁰ Now, when one sees the moon take on so many hues in the shadow, it is a mistake to settle upon the smouldering colour alone, the very one that might especially be called alien to her and rather an admixture or remnant of the light shining round about through the shadow, while the black or earthy colour should be called her own.¹¹ Since here on earth places near lakes and rivers open to the sun take on the colour and brilliance of the purple and red awnings that shade them, by reason of the reflections giving off many various effulgences, what wonder if a great flood of shade debouching as it were into a heavenly sea of light, not calm or at rest but undergoing all sorts of combinations and alterations as it is churned about by countless stars, takes from the moon at different times the stain of different hues and presents them to our sight?¹² A star or fire could not in shadow shine out black or glaucous or bluish; but over mountains, plains, and sea flit many kinds of colours from the sun, and blended with the shadows and mists his brilliance¹³ induces such tints as brilliance does when blended with a painter’s pigments. Those of the sea Homer has endeavoured somehow or other to designate, using the terms violet¹⁴ and wine-dark deep¹⁵ and again purple swell¹⁶ and elsewhere glaucous sea¹⁷ and white calm¹⁸; but he passed over as being an endless multitude the variations of the colours that appear differently at different times about the land. It is likely, however, that the moon has not a single plane surface like the sea but closely resembles in constitution the earth that the ancient Socrates made the subject of a myth,¹⁹ whether he really was speaking in riddles about this earth or was giving a description of some other.²⁰ It is in fact not incredible or wonderful that the moon, if she has nothing corrupted or slimy [in] her but garners pure light from heaven and is filled with warmth, which is fire not glowing or raging but moist²¹ and harmless and in its natural state, has got open regions of marvellous beauty and mountains flaming bright and has zones of royal purple with gold and silver not scattered in her depths but bursting forth in abundance on the plains or openly visible on the smooth heights.²² If through the shadow there comes to us a glimpse of these, different at different times because of some variation and difference of the atmosphere, the honourable repute of the moon is surely not impaired nor is her divinity because she is held by men to be a [celestial and] holy earth rather than, as the Stoics say, a fire turbid and dreggish.²³ Fire, to be sure, is given barbaric honours among the Medes and Assyrians, who from fear by way of propitiation worship the maleficent forces rather than the reverend; but to every Greek, of course, the name of earth is dear and honourable, and it is our ancestral tradition to revere her like any other god. As men we are far from thinking that the moon, because she is a celestial²⁴ earth, is a body without soul and mind and without share in the firstfruits that it beseems us to offer to the gods, according to custom requiting them for the goods we have received and naturally revering what is better and more honourable in virtue and power. Consequently let us not think it an offence to suppose that she is earth and that for this which appears to be her face, just as our earth has certain great gulfs, so that earth yawns with great depths and clefts which contain water or murky air; the interior of these the light of the sun does not plumb or even touch, but it fails and the reflection which it sends back here is discontinuous.²⁵

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

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

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.) — 21 focus

[21] 933f εἰπόντος δὲ τοῦτο τοῦ Λευκίου, συνεξέδραμον ἅμα πως τῷ λόγῳ ὅ τε Φαρνάκης καὶ ὁ Ἀπολλωνίδης εἶτα, τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίδου παρέντος, ὁ Φαρνάκης εἶπεν, ὅτι τοῦτο καὶ μάλιστα τὴν σελήνην δείκνυσιν ἄστρον ἢ πῦρ οὖσαν· οὐ γάρ ἐστι παντελῶς 5 ἄδηλος ἐν ταῖς ἐκλείψεσιν, ἀλλὰ διαφαίνει τινὰ χρόαν ἀνθρακώδη καὶ βλοσυράν, ἣτις ἴδιός ἐστιν αὐτῆς. ὁ δʼ Ἀπολλωνίδης ἐνέστη περὶ τῆς σκιᾶς ἀεὶ γὰρ οὕτως ὀνομάζειν τοὺς μαθηματικοὺς; τὸν ἀλαμπῆ τόπον σκιάν τε μὴ δέχεσθαι τὸν οὐρανόν. 10 934a ἐγὼ δὲ τοῦτο μὲν ἔφην πρὸς τοὔνομα μᾶλλον ἐριστικῶς ἢ πρὸς τὸ πρᾶγμα φυσικῶς καὶ μαθηματικῶς ἐνισταμένου· τὸν γὰρ ἀντιφραττόμενον ὑπὸ τῆς γῆς τόπον εἰ μὴ σκιάν τις ἐθέλοι καλεῖν ἀλλʼ ἀφεγγὲς χωρίον, ὅμως ἀναγκαῖον ἐν αὐτῷ τὴν σελήνην 15 γενομένην . καὶ ὅλως ἔφην εὔηθές ἐστιν ἐκεῖ μὴ φάναι τῆς γῆς ἐξικνεῖσθαι τὴν σκιάν, ὅπου ἡ σκιὰ τῆς σελήνης ἐπιπίπτουσα τῇ ὄψει καὶ διήκουσα πρὸς τὴν γῆν ἔκλειψιν ἡλίου ποιεῖ. πρὸς; σὲ 934b δέ, ὦ Φαρνάκη, τρέψομαι· τὸ γὰρ ἀνθρακῶδες ἐκεῖνο 20 καὶ διακαὲς χρῶμα τῆς σελήνης, ὃ φῂς ἴδιον αὐτῆς εἶναι, σώματός ἐστι πυκνότητα καὶ βάθος ἔχοντος· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἐθέλει τοῖς ἀραιοῖς ὑπόλειμμα φλογὸς οὐδʼ ἴχνος ἐμμένειν οὐδʼ ἔστιν ἄνθρακος γένεσις, οὗ μὴ στερέμνιον σῶμα, δεξάμενον διὰ βάθους τὴν πύρωσιν καὶ σῷζον· ὥς που καὶ Ὅμηρος εἴρηκεν

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πυρὸς ἄνθος ἀπέπτατο, παύσατο δὲ φλὸξ

ἀνθρακιὴν στορέσασα

5 ὁ γὰρ ἄνθραξ ἔοικεν οὐ πῦρ ἀλλὰ σῶμα πεπυρωμένον εἶναι καὶ πεπονθὸς ὑπὸ πυρός, στερεῷ καὶ ῥίζαν ἔχοντι προσμένοντος ὄγκῳ καὶ προσδιατρίβοντος· 934c αἱ δὲ φλόγες ἀραιᾶς εἰσιν ἔξαψις καὶ ῥεύματα τροφῆς; καὶ ὕλης, ταχὺ διʼ ἀσθένειαν ἀναλυομένης· 10 ὥστʼ οὐδὲν ἂν ὑπῆρχε τοῦ γεώδη καὶ πυκνὴν εἶναι τὴν σελήνην ἕτερον οὕτως ἐναργὲς τεκμήριον, εἴπερ αὐτῆς ἴδιον ἦν ὡς χρῶμα τὸ ἀνθρακῶδες. ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἔστιν, ὦ φίλε Φαρνάκη· πολλὰς γὰρ ἐκλείπουσα χρόας ἀμείβει καὶ διαιροῦσιν αὐτὰς οὕτως οἱ μαθηματικοὶ 15 κατὰ χρόνον· καὶ ὥραν ἀφορίζοντες ἂν ἀφʼ ἑσπέρας ἐκλείπῃ, φαίνεται μέλαινα δεινῶς ἄχρι τρίτης ὥρας καὶ ἡμισείας· ἂν δὲ μέσῃ, τοῦτο δὴ τὸ ἐπιφοινίσσον ἵησι καὶ πυρωπόν· ἀπὸ δʼ ἑβδόμης ὥρας καὶ ἡμισείας ἀνίσταται τὸ ἐρύθημα· καὶ τέλος 20 934d ἤδη πρὸς ἕω λαμβάνει χρόαν κυανοειδῆ καὶ χαροπήν, ἀφʼ ἧς δὴ καὶ μάλιστα γλαυκῶπιν αὐτὴν οἱ ποιηταὶ καὶ Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἀνακαλοῦνται. τοσαύτας οὖν χρόας ἐν τῇ σκιᾷ τὴν σελήνην λαμβάνουσαν ὁρῶντες οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἐπὶ μόνον καταφέρονται τὸ ἀνθρακῶδες, 25 ὃ μάλιστα φήσαι τις ἂν ἀλλότριον αὐτῆς εἶναι καὶ μᾶλλον ὑπόμιγμα καὶ λεῖμμα τοῦ φωτὸς διὰ τῆς σκιᾶς περιλάμποντος· ἴδιον δὲ τὸ μέλαν καὶ γεῶδες. ὅπου δὲ πορφυρίσιν ἐνταῦθα καὶ φοινικίσι λίμναις τε καὶ ποταμοῖς δεχομένοις ἣλιον 5 ἐπίσκια χωρία γειτνιῶντα συγχρῴζεται καὶ περιλάμπεται, διὰ τὰς ἀνακλάσεις ἀποδιδόντα πολλοὺς καὶ διαφόρους ἀπαυγασμούς, τί θαυμαστὸν εἰ ῥεῦμα 934e πολὺ σκιᾶς· ἐμβάλλον ὥσπερ εἰς πέλαγος οὐράνιον οὐ σταθεροῦ φωτὸς οὐδʼ ἠρεμοῦντος ἀλλὰ μυρίοις 10 ἄστροις ἐλαυνομένου μίξεις τε παντοδαπὰς καὶ μεταβολὰς λαμβάνοντος, ἄλλην ἄλλοτε χρόαν ἐκματτόμενον ἀπὸ τῆς σελήνης ἐνταῦθʼ ἀποδίδωσιν; ἄστρον. μὲν γὰρ ἢ πῦρ οὐκ ἂν ἐν σκιᾷ διαφανείη μέλαν ἢ γλαυκὸν ἢ κυανοειδές· ὄρεσι δὲ καὶ πεδίοις 15 καὶ θαλάσσαις πολλαὶ μὲν ἀφʼ ἡλίου μορφαὶ χρωμάτων 934f ἐπιτρέχουσι καὶ σκιαῖς καὶ ὁμίχλαις, οἵας φαρμάκοις γραφικοῖς μιγνύμενον ἐπάγει βαφὰς τὸ λαμπρόν· ὧν τὰ μὲν τῆς θαλάττης ἐπικεχείρηκεν ἁμωσγέπως ἐξονομάζειν Ὅμηρος ἰοειδέα καλῶν καὶ 20 οἴνοπα πόντον, αὖθις δέ πορφύρεον κῦμα γλαυκήν τʼ ἄλλως θάλασσαν καὶ λευκὴν γαλήνην τὰς δὲ περὶ τὴν γῆν διαφορὰς τῶν ἄλλοτʼ ἄλλως ἐπιφαινομένων χρωμάτων παρῆκεν, ὡς ἀπείρους τὸ πλῆθος οὔσας. τὴν δὲ σελήνην οὐκ εἰκὸς ὥσπερ 25 τὴν θάλασσαν μίαν ἔχειν ἐπιφάνειαν, ἀλλʼ ἐοικέναι μάλιστα τῇ γῇ τὴν φύσιν, ἣν ἐμυθολόγει Σωκράτης 935a ὁ παλαιός, εἴτε δὴ ταύτην αἰνιττόμενος εἴτε δὴ ἄλλην τινὰ διηγούμενος οὐ γὰρ ἄπιστον οὐδὲ θαυμαστόν, εἰ μηδὲν ἔχουσα διεφθορὸς ἐν ἑαυτῇ μηδʼ ἰλυῶδες, ἀλλὰ φῶς τε καρπουμένη καθαρὸν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ καὶ θερμότητος οὐ διακαοῦς οὐδὲ μανικοῦ 5 πυρὸς ἀλλὰ νοτεροῦ καὶ ἀβλαβοῦς καὶ κατὰ φύσιν ἔχοντος οὖσα πλήρης, κάλλη τε θαυμαστὰ κέκτηται τόπων ὄρη τε φλογοειδῆ καὶ ζώνας ἁλουργοὺς ἔχει χρυσόν τε καὶ ἄργυρον οὐκ ἐν βάθει διεσπαρμένον, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τοῖς πεδίοις ἐξανθοῦντα πολὺν ἢ πρὸς 10 ὕψεσι λείοις περιφερόμενον· εἰ δὲ τούτων ὄψις 935b ἀφικνεῖται διὰ τῆς σκιᾶς ἄλλοτʼ ἄλλη πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἐξαλλαγῇ καὶ διαφορᾷ τινι τοῦ περιέχοντος, τό γε μὴν τίμιον οὐκ ἀπόλλυσι τῆς δόξης οὐδὲ τὸ θεῖον ἡ σελήνη, ἥτις ἱερὰ πρὸς ἀνθρώπων νομιζομένη 15 μᾶλλον ἢ πῦρ θολερόν, ὥσπερ οἱ Στωικοὶ λέγουσι, καὶ τρυγῶδες. πῦρ μέν γε παρὰ Μήδοις καὶ Ἀσσυρίοις βαρβαρικὰς ἔχει τιμάς, οἳ φόβῳ τὰ βλάπτοντα θεραπεύουσι πρὸ τῶν σεμνῶν ἀφοσιούμενοι· τὸ δὲ γῆς ὄνομα παντί που φίλον Ἕλληνι καὶ τίμιον, 20 καὶ πατρῷον ἡμῖν ὥσπερ ἄλλον τινὰ θεὸν 935c σέβεσθαι. πολλοῦ δὲ δέομεν ἄνθρωποι τὴν σελήνην, γῆν οὖσαν ὀλυμπίαν, ἄψυχον ἡγεῖσθαι σῶμα καὶ ἄνουν καὶ ἄμοιρον ὧν θεοῖς ἀπάρχεσθαι προσήκει, νόμῳ τε τῶν ἀγαθῶν ἀμοιβὰς τίνοντας καὶ κατὰ 25 φύσιν σεβομένους τὸ κρεῖττον ἀρετῇ καὶ δυνάμει καὶ τιμιώτερον. ὥστε μηδὲν οἰώμεθα πλημμελεῖν γῆν αὐτὴν θέμενοι, τὸ δὲ φαινόμενον τουτὶ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς, ὥσπερ ἡ παρʼ ἡμῖν ἔχει γῆ κόλπους τινὰς μεγάλους, οὕτως ἐκείνην ἀνεπτύχθαι βάθεσι 5 μεγάλοις καὶ ῥήξεσιν ὕδωρ ἢ ζοφερὸν ἀέρα περιέχουσιν, ὧν ἐντὸς οὐ καθίησιν οὐδʼ ἐπιψαύει τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου φῶς, ἀλλʼ ἐκλείπει καὶ διεσπασμένην ἐνταῦθα τὴν ἀνάκλασιν ἀποδίδωσιν.

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.) — 21 focus

[21] As soon as Lucius had said these things, Pharnaces and Apollonides ran both together upon him, to oppugn and refute his discourse; and then Apollonides giving him way, Pharnaces said: This it is that principally shows the moon to be a star and of a fiery nature, that in her eclipses she is not wholly obscured and disappearing, but shows herself with a certain coal-resembling color, terrible to the sight, yet such as is proper to her.

As for Apollonides, he insisted much in opposition to the word shadow, saying, that the mathematicians always give that name to the place which is not enlightened, and that heaven admits no shadow.

To this I thus answered: This instance is rather alleged obstinately against the name, than naturally or mathematically against the thing. For if one will not call the place obfuscated by the opposition of the earth a shadow, but a place deprived of light, yet be it what it will, you must of necessity confess that the moon being there becomes obscure; and every way, said I, it is a folly to deny that the shadow of the earth reaches thither from whence the shadow of the moon, falling upon our sight here on earth, causes the eclipse of the sun. And therefore I now address myself to you, Pharnaces; for this coal-like and burnt color of the moon, which you affirm to be proper to her, belongs to a body that has thickness and depth. For there is not wont to remain any relic, mark, or print of flame in a body that is rare, nor can a coal be made where there is not a solid body which may receive into it the heat of the fire; as Homer himself shows in a certain passage, where he says,

Then, when the languid flames at length subside,

He strows a bed of glowing embers wide.

For the coal seems not properly a fire, but a body enkindled and altered by the fire, which stays and remains in a solid firmly rooted mass; and whereas flames are the setting on fire and fluxions of a nutriment and matter, which is of a rare substance, and by reason of its weakness quickly dissolved and consumed; so that there could not be any more evident and plain argument to demonstrate that the moon is solid and earthly, than if ’her proper color were that of a coal. But it is not so, my friend Pharnaces; but in her eclipses she diversely changes her colors, which the mathematicians, determining with respect to the time and hour, thus distinguish. If she is eclipsed in the evening, she appears horribly black until the middle of the fourth hour of the night; if about midnight, she sends forth this reddish and fire-resembling color, and after the middle of the eighth hour, the redness disappears; and finally, if about the dawning of the morning, she takes a blue or grayish color; which is the cause why she is by the poets, and particularly by Empedocles, called Glaucopis.

Since then they clearly see that the moon changes into so many colors in the shadow, they do ill to attribute to her only that of a burning coal, which may be said to be less proper to her than any other, being only a small remnant and semblance of light, appearing and shining through a shadow, her own proper color being black and earthy. And since that here below, red and purple garments, and rivers and lakes, which receive the rays of the sun, cause neighboring shady places to take the same appearances of colors and to be illuminated by them, casting and sending back by reason of reflections several rebated splendors; what wonder is it if a copious flux of shadow, falling as it were into an immense celestial sea of light, not steady and quiet, but agitated by innumerable stars, and besides admitting several mixtures and mutations in itself, takes from the moon the impression sometimes of one color, sometimes of another, and sends them hither to us? For it is not to be denied but that a star of fire cannot appear in a shadow black, gray, or violet; but there are seen upon hills, plains, and seas, several various resemblances of colors, caused by the reflection of the sun, which are the very tinctures that brightness mixed with shadows and mists, as if it were with painters’ colors, brings upon them. And as for the tincture or colors of the sea, Homer has indeed in some sort endeavored to name and express them, when he sometimes terms the sea violet-colored or red as wine, at other times the waves purple, and again the sea blue, and the calm white. As for the diversities of tinctures and colors appearing upon the earth, he has, I suppose, omitted them, because they are in number infinite. Now it is not probable that the moon has but one superficies all plain and even, as the sea; but rather that of its nature it principally resembles the earth, of which old Socrates in Plato seemed to mythologize at his pleasure; whether it were, that under covert and enigmatical speeches he meant it of the moon, or whether he spake it of some other. For it is neither incredible nor wonderful, if the moon, having in herself nothing corrupt or muddy, but enjoying a pure and clear light from heaven, and being full of heat, not of a burning and furious fire, but of such as is mild and harmless, has in her places admirably fair and pleasant, resplendent mountains, purple-colored cinctures or zones, and store of gold and silver, not dispersed here and there within her bowels, but flourishing in great abundance on the superficies of her plains, or spread all over her smooth hills and mountains.

And if the sight of all these things comes to us through a shadow, sometimes in one manner and sometimes in another, by reason of the diversity and different change of the ambient air, the moon does not therefore lose the venerable persuasion that is had of her, or the reputation of divinity; being esteemed by men a heavenly earth, or rather (as the Stoics say) a troubled, thick, and dreggish fire. For even the fire itself is honored with barbarian honors among the Assyrians and Medes, who through fear serve and adore such things as are hurtful, hallowing them even above such things as are of themselves indeed holy and honorable. But the very name of the earth is truly dear and venerable to every Greek, and there is through all Greece a custom received of adoring and revering it, as much as any of the Gods. And we are very far from thinking that the moon, which we hold to be a heavenly earth, is a body without soul and spirit, exempt and deprived of all that is to be offered to the Gods. For both by law we yield her recompenses and thanksgivings, for that we receive of her and by nature we adore what we acknowledge to be of a more excellent virtue and a more honorable power; and therefore we do not think that we offend in supposing the moon to be earth.

Now as to the face which appears in her, as this earth on which we are has in it many great sinuosities and valleys, so it is probable that the moon also lies open, and is cleft with many deep caves and ruptures, in which there is water or very obscure air, to the bottom of which the sun cannot reach or penetrate, but failing there, sends back a dissipated reflection to us here below.

Notes on the current edition

Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon

1. = S. V. F. ii, frag. 672. cf. Pliny, Nat. Hist. ii. 9. 42. ( deficiens et in defectu tamen conspicua); Olympiodorus, In Meteor. p. 67. 36-37; Philoponus, In Meteor. pp. 30. 37-31. 1 and p. 106. 9-13. The moon is seldom invisible to the naked eye even in total eclipses ( cf. Dyson and Woolley, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, p. 30; C. A. Young, M anual of Astronomy [1902], § 287; Boll, s.v. Finsternisse, R. E. vi. 2344); and the apparent colour of the moon in total eclipse was as late as the 16th century adduced as evidence that the moon had light of its own, a notion entertained as possible even by W. Herschel ( cf. Pixis, Kepler als Geograph, pp. 132-133).

2. For a Stoic this follows from the definition of οὐρανός as ἔσχατον αἰθέρος and πύρινον ( cf. S. V.F. i, p. 33, frags. 115 and 116; S. V. F. ii, frag. 580 [p. 180. 10-12]).

3. cf. 922 A-B supra. With ἀνθρακογένεσις, incandescence, Raingeard compares ἀνθρακοποιΐα in Gregory of Nyssa, iii. 937 A.

4. Iliad, ix. 212-213 in our texts read:

αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ κατὰ πῦρ ἐκάη καὶ φλὸξ ἐμαράνθη,

ἀνθρακιὴν στορέσας ὀβελοὺς ἐφύπερθε τάνυσσε,

but the first line as Plutarch gives it was known to Aristarchus, who rejected it ( cf. Ludwich, Aristarchs Homerische Textkritik, i, p. 302; Eustathius, Ad Iliadem, 748. 41; Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. Dindorf, i, p. 312).

6. Purser has pointed out ( Hermathena, xvi [1911], p. 316) that ἄνθραξ may mean all degrees of burning coal from complete incandescence to ashes and that fire’s need of solid matter to work upon was often used as an argument against the Stoic conflagration of the world: cf. Philo, Aeternitate Mundi, §§ 86-88 (vi, pp. 99. 14-100. 10 [Cohn-Reiter]).

7. cf. Aemilius Paulus, 17 (264 B), Nicias, 23 (538 E) and for a description and explanation of the phenomenon cf. Sir John Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy, §§ 421-424, and J. F. J. Schmidt, r Mond (Leipzig, 1836), p. 35. Astrology assigned special significance to the various colours of the moon in total eclipse: cf. Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, vii (Brussels, 1908), p. 131. 6 ff.; Ptolemy, Apotelesmatica, ii. 14. 4-5 (pp. 101-102 [Boll-Boer]) and ii. 10. 1-2 (pp. 91-92); and Boll in R. E. vi. 2350 assumes that by μαθηματικοί in the present passage Plutarch means astrologers (but see 937 F s.v.). Neither there nor in his article, Antike Beobachtungen farbiger Sterne, does Boll mention any classification of the colours according to the time of the eclipse, however, nor does Gundel, s.v. Mond in R. E. xvi. 1. 101-102. Geminuss calendar for the different phases of the moon (ix. 14-15 [pp. 128-130, Manitius]) has no connection with this matter and so is not, as Adler supposes ( Diss. Phil. Vind. x, p. 157), an indication that Plutarchs source in the present passage was Posidonius.

8. This, pace Prickard, must be the meaning of ἀνίσταται here; cf. ἀνιστάμενος in Pompey, 34 (637 D) and ἀναστάντος in Appian, B.C. i. 56 (ii, p. 61. 7 [Mendelssohn-Viereck]).

9. In Marius, 11 (411 D) χαροπότης is used of the eye-colour of the Teutons and Cimbrians, and in Iside, 352 D the colour of the flax-flower is said to resemble τῇ περιεχούσῃ τὸν κόσμον αἰθερίῳ χαροπότητι.

10. See 929 D supra and note b there; but Diels ( Hermes, xv [1880], p. 176) because of ἀνακαλοῦνται thought that Plutarch must here have had in mind a verse of Empedocles that ended with the invocation, γλαυκῶπι, Σελήνη. cf. also Euripides, frag. 1009 (Nauck²).

11. Kepler remarks on this sentence (note 56): Ecce Plutarchum meae sententiae proxime accedentem, nisi quod non dicit, a quo lucente sit illud lumen, num ab aethere, an a Sole ipso, per refractionem ejus radiorum.

12. cf. the similar but more elaborate description in Genio Socratis, 590 C ff., where the stars are islands moving in a celestial sea, and also Sera Numinis Vindicta, 563 E-F.

13. For λαμπρόν, brilliance, as a colour cf. Plato, Timaeus, 68 A ; Theophrastus calls it τὸ πυρῶδες λευκόν ( Sensibus, § 86 [ Dox. Graeci, p. 525. 23]).

14. e.g. Iliad, xi. 298 .

15. e.g. Iliad, i. 350.

16. e.g. Iliad, i. 481-482.

17. Only in Iliad, xvi. 34 ( cf. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, ed. Dindorf, ii, p. 92).

18. Odyssey, x. 94.

19. Plato, Phaedo, 110 B ff.

20. This one, tau/thn, means the earth, not the moon, as most translators since Wyttenbach have thought; some other, ἄλλην τινά, means some other earth, which is exactly what Lamprias believes the moon to be. So Lamprias means that what Socrates said must be considered as a riddle if he was really talking about our earth but can be taken as straightforward description if he was referring to some other earth, i.e. the moon.

21. Or, if νοτεροῦ is a scribal error for νοεροῦ, intellectual; cf. Class. Phil. xlvi (1951), p. 145.

22. The details of this description were suggested by Phaedo, 110 C 111 C, to which Plutarch has referred above.

23. See 928 D and 933 D supra. The present passage is not listed in S. V. F.

24. See note c on 929 A supra.

25. For this discontinuousness of the reflection cf. 921 C supra and especially Quaest. Conviv 686 a-c.

Plutarch De Facie Quae in orbe Lunae Apparet 21

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

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