[295] It is unnecessary to give an account of the other names here mentioned; but that of Lænas is probably less known. He was Publius Popillius Lænas, consul 132 b.c., the year after the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and it became his duty to prosecute the accomplices of Gracchus, for which he was afterward attacked by Caius Gracchus with such animosity that he withdrew into voluntary exile. Cicero pays a tribute to the energy of Opimius in the first Oration against Catiline, c. iii.
[296] This phenomenon of the parhelion, or mock sun, which so puzzled Cicero’s interlocutors, has been very satisfactorily explained by modern science. The parhelia are formed by the reflection of the sunbeams on a cloud properly situated. They usually accompany the coronæ, or luminous circles, and are placed in the same circumference, and at the same height. Their colors resemble that of the rainbow; the red and yellow are towards the side of the sun, and the blue and violet on the other. There are, however, coronæ sometimes seen without parhelia, and vice versâ. Parhelia are double, triple, etc., and in 1629, a parhelion of five suns was seen at Rome, and another of six suns at Arles, 1666.
[297] There is a little uncertainty as to what this age was, but it was probably about twenty-five.
[298] Cicero here gives a very exact and correct account of the planetarium of Archimedes, which is so often noticed by the ancient astronomers. It no doubt corresponded in a great measure to our modern planetarium, or orrery, invented by the earl of that name. This elaborate machine, whose manufacture requires the most exact and critical science, is of the greatest service to those who study the revolutions of the stars, for astronomic, astrologic, or meteorologic purposes.
[299] The end of the fourteenth chapter and the first words of the fifteenth are lost; but it is plain that in the fifteenth it is Scipio who is speaking.
[300] There is evidently some error in the text here, for Ennius was born 515 a.u.c., was a personal friend of the elder Africanus, and died about 575 a.u.c., so that it is plain that we ought to read in the text 550, not 350.
[301] Two pages are lost here. Afterward it is again Scipio who is speaking.
[302] Two pages are lost here.
[303] Both Ennius and Nævius wrote tragedies called “Iphigenia.” Mai thinks the text here corrupt, and expresses some doubt whether there is a quotation here at all.
[304] He means Scipio himself.