Defectus Solis: et de duobus Solibus; ac de causis defectuum Solis et Lunae; deque variis Lunae mutationibus et figuris.

[1] Eodem tempore per Eoos tractus caelum subtextum caligine cernebatur obscura, et a primo aurorae exortu ad usque meridiem, intermicabant iugiter stellae; hisque terroribus accedebat, quod cum lux caelestis operiretur, e mundi conspectu penitus lance abrepta, defecisse diutius solem pavidae mentes hominum aestimabant; primo attenuatum in lunae corniculantis effigiem, deinde in speciem auctum semenstrem, posteaque in integrum restitutum.

[2] Quod alias non evenit ita perspicue, nisi cum post inaequales cursus iter¹ menstruum lunae ad idem² revocatur initium, certis temporum intervallis, id est cum in domicilio eiusdem signi tota reperitur luna sub sole, liniamentis obiecta rectissimis, atque in his paulisper consistit minutis, quae geometrica ratio partium partes appellat.

[3] Ac licet utriusque sideris conversiones et motus, ut scrutatores causarum intellegibilium adverterant, in unum eundemque finem, lunari cursu impleto, perenni distinctione conveniunt, tamen sol non semper his diebus obducitur, sed cum luna e regione (velut libramento quodam igneo) orbi et aspectui nostro opponitur media.

[4] Ad summam tum sol occultatur, splendore suppresso, cum ipse et lunaris globus astrorum omnium infimus, paril1³ comitatu obtinentes circulos proprios, salvaque ratione altitudinis interiectae, iunctim locati, ut scienter et decore Ptolemaeus exponit, ad dimensiones venerint, quas⁴ ἀναβιβάζοντας et καταβιβάζοντας ἐκλειπτικοὺς συνδέσμους (coagmenta videlicet defectiva.) Graeco dictitamus⁵ sermone. Et si contigua eisdem iuncturis praestrinxerint spatia, dilutior erit defectus.

[5] Si vero articulis ipsis inhaeserint, qui coactius ascensus vinciunt et descensus, offunditur densioribus tenebris caelum, ut crassato aere ne proxima quidem et apposita cernere queamus.

[6] Sol autem geminus ita videri existimatur, si erecta⁶ solito celsius nubes, aeternorumque ignium propinquitate collucens, orbis alterius claritudinem tamquam e speculo puriore formaverit.

[7] Nunc veniamus ad lunam. Apertum et evidentem ita demum sustinet luna defectum, cum pleno lumine rotundata, solique contraria, ab eius orbe centum octoginta partibus (id est signo septimo) disparatur. Et quamquam hoc per omne plenilunium semper eveniat, non semper deficit tamen.

[8] Sed quoniam circa terrenam mobilitatem locata, et a caelo totius pulchritudinis extima, non numquam ferienti se subserit lanci, obiectu metae noctis in conum desinentis angustum, latet parumper umbrata, tumque nigrantibus involvitur globis, si sol ut sphaerae inferioris curvamine circumfusus, mole obsistente terrena, radiis eam suis illustrare non possit, quam numquam habere proprium lumen, opiniones variae collegerunt.

[9] Et cum⁷ ad idem signum aequis partibus soli concurrent, obscuratur (ut dictum est) penitus hebetato candore, Graece σύνοδος dicitur.

[10] Nasci autem putatur et tunc lunae⁸ cum parva declinatione velut e perpendiculo, superiectum gerit⁹ solem. Exortus vero eius adhuc gracilescens, primitus mortalitati videtur, cum ad secundum relicto sole migraverit signum. Progressa itaque porrectius, iamque abunde nitens cornutae habitu μηνοειδής est appellata. Cum autem sole longo coeperit interstitio summoveri, et ad quartum¹⁰ pervenerit signum, radiis eius ad se conversis, maius concipit lumen, et fit Graeco sermone διχόμηνις, quae forma semiorbem ostendit.

[11] Procedens deinde iam disiunctissime, quintoque¹¹ signo arrepto, figuram monstrat amphicyrti, utrimque prominentibus gibbis. E regione vero cum normaliter steterit contra, lumine pleno fulgebit, domicilium septimi retinens signi, et in eodem tum etiam agens, paululumque progressa, minuitur, quem habitum vocamus ἀπόκρουσιν, et usque¹² easdem formas repetit senescendo, traditurque doctrina multiplici congruente, non nisi tempore intermenstrui deficere visam usquam lunam.

[12] Quod autem solem nunc in aethere, nunc in mundo inferiore,¹³ versari¹⁴ praediximus, sciendum est siderea corpora quantum quantumi ad universitatem pertinet) nec occidere nec oriri, sed ita videri nostris obtutibus, constitutis in terra, spiritus cuiusdam interni motu suspensa: rerumque magnitudini instar exigui subditum¹⁵ puncti, nunc caelo infixas suspicere stellas, quarum ordo est sempiternus, aliquotiens humana visione languente, discedere suis sedibus arbitrari. Verum ad instituta iam revertamur.

Res Gestae. Ammianus Marcellinus. John C. Rolfe (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-1940.

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Current edition Perseus

Res Gestae (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., editor. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).)

Translations (1)

History Perseus (Ammianus Marcellinus. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English translation, Vols. I-III. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; W. Heinemann, 1935-1940 (printing).) — 20.3 focus

[1] At that same time, throughout the regions of the East the heaven was seen to be overcast with dark mist, through which the stars were visible continually from the first break of day until noon. It was an additional cause of terror when the light of heaven was hidden and its orb removed utterly from the sight of the world, that the timorous minds of men thought that the darkening of the sun lasted too long;¹ but it thinned out at first into the form of the crescent moon, then growing to the shape of the half-moon, and was finally fully restored.

[2] This phenomenon never takes place so clearly as when the moon, after its shifting courses,² brings back its monthly journey to the same starting-point after fixed intervals of time; that is to say, when the entire moon,³ in the abode of the same sign of the zodiac, is found in a perfectly straight line directly under the sun, and for a brief time stands still in the minute points which the science of geometry calls parts of parts.⁴

[3] And although the revolutions and movements of both heavenly bodies, as the searchers⁵ for intelligible causes had observed, after the course of the moon is completed,⁶ meet at one and the same point always at the same distance from each other,⁷ yet the sun is not always eclipsed at such times, but only when the moon (by a kind of fiery plumb-line)⁸ is directly opposite the sun and interposed between its orb and our vision.

[4] In short, the sun is hidden and his brightness suppressed, when he himself and the orb of the moon, the lowest of all the heavenly bodies, accompanying each other and each keeping its proper course, maintaining the relation of height between them and being in conjunction, as Ptolemy wisely and elegantly expresses it⁹ have come to the points which in Greek we call ἀναβιβάζοντας and καταβιβάζοντας ἐκλειπτικοὶ σύνδεσμοι¹⁰ (that is, eclipse nodes). And if they merely graze the spaces adjacent to these nodes, the eclipse will be partial.

[5] If, on the other hand, they stand in the nodes themselves which closely unite the ascent and the descent, the heaven will be overcast with thicker darkness, so that because of the density of the air we cannot see even objects which are near and close at hand.

[6] Now it is thought that two suns are seen, if a cloud, raised higher than common and shining brightly from its nearness to the eternal fires,¹¹ reflects a second brilliant orb, as if from a very clear mirror.

[7] Let us now turn to the moon. Then only does she suffer a clear and evident eclipse, when, rounded out with her full light and opposite the sun, she is distant from its orb by 180 degrees (i.e. is in the seventh sign).¹² But although this happens at every full moon, yet there is not always an eclipse.

[8] But since the moon is situated near the movement of the earth, and is the most remote from heaven of all that celestial beauty,¹³ she sometimes puts herself directly under the disc¹⁴ that strikes upon her, and is overshadowed and hidden for a time by the interposition of the goal of darkness ending in a narrow cone;¹⁵ and then she is wrapped in masses of darkness, when the sun, as if encompassed by the curve of the lower sphere, cannot light her with its rays, since the mass of the earth is between them; for that she has no light of her own has been assumed on various grounds.

[9] And when under the same sign she meets the sun in a straight line, she is obscured (as was said) and her brightness is wholly dimmed; and this in Greek is called the moon’s σύνοδος.¹⁶

[10] Now she is thought to be born,¹⁷ when she has the sun above her with a slight deviation from the plumbline, so to speak. But her rising, which is still very slender, first appears to mortals when she has left the sun and advanced to the second sign. Then having progressed farther and now having abundant light, she appears with horns and is called μηνοειδής.¹⁸ But when she begins to be separated from the sun by a long distance and has arrived at the fourth sign and the sun’s rays are turned towards her, she gains greater brilliance, and is called in the Greek tongue διχόμηνις,¹⁹ a form which shows a half-circle

[11] Then, proceeding to the greatest distance and attaining the fifth sign, she shows the figure called amphicyrtos,²⁰ and has humps on both sides. But when she has taken a place directly opposite the sun she will gleam with full light, making her home in the seventh sign; and still keeping her place in that same sign, but advancing a little she grows smaller, the process which we call ἀπόκρουσις²¹ ; and she repeats the same forms as she grows old,²² and it is maintained by the unanimous learning of many men that the moon is never seen in eclipse except at the time of her mid-course.²³

[12] But when we said that the sun had its course now in the ether and now in the world below,²⁴ it must be understood that the heavenly bodies (so far as the universe is concerned) neither set nor rise, but that they seem to do so to an eyesight whose fixed situation is on the earth; this is kept hanging in space by some inner force and in its relation to the universe is like a tiny point; and that now we seem to see the stars, whose order is eternal, fixed in the sky, and often through the imperfection of human vision we think that they leave their places. But let us now return to our subject.

Notes on the current edition

Res Gestae

1. iter, Val.; inter, V.

2. idem, G; id, V.

3. infimus parili, G; infimis parilis, V.

4. quas, Novák; quos, V.

5. dictitamus, Clark, c.c.; dictitant, G ; dictitata, V.

6. erecta, V; euecta, Gardt.

7. et cum gerit, added by V 2 in margin.

8. et tune lunae, Her., Clark; mene, BG; tune nae, V 2.

9. egerit, Clark; gerit, V 2.

10. quartum, Val.; quintum, V.

11. disiunctissime quintoque, Val.; disiunctissimo, V.

12. et usque, Her.; atque A; G omits; absque, B; absque ea idem, V.

13. inferiore, Val.; interiore, V.

14. uersari, Bent.; cursare, G; cursari, V.

15. subditum, Gutschmid; subditam, V.

Ammianus Marcellinus Res Gestae 20.3

John C. Rolfe (Translator)

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Defectus Solis: et de duobus Solibus; ac de causis defectuum Solis et Lunae; deque variis Lunae mutationibus et figuris.

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