The words as to the earth occupying ‘a point central to the sphere (i. e. orbit) of the moon’ are quoted from the Second Hypothesis of Aristarchus (see Introduction). It has been proposed (by Dr. Max Adler) to substitute the name of Clearchus for that of Hipparchus. But the quarrel of Lamprias is not with philosophers but with astronomers and mathematicians, represented by Apollonides and Menelaus. The greatest of them is of absolute authority as to angles of reflexion, &c., not so when he propounds a physical theory of vision, which many find unsatisfactory. For the theory itself see the quasi-Plutarchean De Placitis, 4, 13.
For the words καίτοι γε φίλε πρίαμ᾽ (omitted in the translation), Turnebus proposed καίτοι γε φίλε Λαμπρία, which is very attractive as to the letters, but impossible, unless the text be wholly reconstructed, because Lamprias is himself the speaker.
For discrepancies between the mathematically correct theory of reflexion and its physical application see chapters 17 and 23.
(4) c. 7, 924 B. That segments of beams.... The sense intended by the translation is this: A beam is sawn into two segments on the earth’s surface. The two segments, which at first are separated by a short interval, move simultaneously towards the earth’s centre, but in converging, not parallel, lines, and jam each other long before they reach it. (This is suggested by Aristotle, de Caelo, 2, 14, 296 b 18.)
For ἀποκρίπτεσθαι Dr. Purser suggests ἀποθρύπτεσθαι, which I have rendered; ἀποκύπτεσθαι (Aristoph. Lysis. 1003), ‘to crouch aside’, seems possible.
(5) c. 9, 925 B. Perhaps the line of Empedocles may run ἅρματος ὡσπερανεὶ (L. C. P.) χνόη ᾄσσεται.
(6) c. 10, 925 E. The MSS. have ἀλλὰ καὶ κινητικὸ ταύτῃ διάστημα τὸ δέον, for which Madvig (Adv. Crit., vol. i, p. 665) makes the admirable correction: ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐκείνῃ καὶ ταύτῃ δυίστημα δοτέον.
(7) c. 14, 927 F. The growth within. I read αὔξησιν, which is sometimes confused with ἕξιν. Cp. Ar. Eth. N. 3, 14, 149 b 4.
(8) c. 19, 932 C. [the moon ... bodies also]. The words in brackets have been supplied from the substance of the passage of Aristotle mentioned in the footnote.
(9) c. 19, 932 C. Posidonius’ definition is introduced because it contains an admission that the moon casts a shadow, and is therefore an earthlike, not a starlike, body. It has been proposed to alter σκιᾶς into σκιᾷ, and the construction with σύνοδος could be justified by Platonic examples (see R. Kunze in Rhein. Mus. vol. 64, p. 635), but the assumed corruption is improbable. E appears[[375]] to read οἷς not ἧς; the clause introduced by the relative seems to contain a limitation of the phenomenon to ‘those who experience the obscuration’, i.e. those in the track of the shadow over the earth’s surface. In this case, the words may either have come from a marginal gloss on τόδε τὸ πάθος, or should be transposed with those words, as suggested by Dr. Purser. This will be consistent with the account of a solar eclipse given by Cleomedes (2, 3, p. 172), doubtless after Posidonius; it is not αὐτοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ πάθος ἀλλὰ τῆς ἡμετέρας ὄψεως, whereas an eclipse of the moon is αὐτῆς τῆς θεοῦ πάθος, irrespective of the place of the terrestrial observer.