[201] This is supposed to have been in the year 72 of our æra, when it is said that the sun was eclipsed, in Italy, on the 8th, and the moon on the 22nd of February; see Hardouin and Alexandre, in Lemaire, ii. 261.
[202] In a subsequent part of the work, xviii. 75, the author gives a different rate of increase, viz. 511⁄2 minutes; neither of these numbers is correct; the mean rate of increase being, according to Alexandre, about 54′ or 55′; Lemaire, ii. 261, 262. See also Marcus in Ajasson, ii. 311-14.
[203] It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the effect, as here stated, has no connexion with the supposed cause.
[204] “luminum canonica.”
[205] Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
[206] They are then said, in astronomical language, to rise heliacally.
[207] In the last chapter this distance was stated to be 7 degrees; see the remarks of Alexandre, in Lemaire, ii. 263.
[208] “radiorum ejus contactu reguntur.” The doctrine of the ancient astronomers was, that the motions of the planets are always governed by the rays of the sun, according to its position, attracting or repelling them.
[209] A planet appears to be stationary, i. e. to be referred to the same point of the zodiac, when it is so situated with respect to the earth, that a straight line passing through the two bodies forms a tangent to the smaller orbit. The apparent motion of the planets, sometimes direct and at other times retrograde, with their stationary positions, is occasioned by the earth and the planets moving in concentric orbits, with different velocities. One hundred and twenty degrees is the mean distance at which the three superior planets become stationary. We have an elaborate dissertation by Marcus, on the unequal velocities of the planets, and on their stations and retrogradations, as well according to the system of Aristotle as to that of Copernicus; Ajasson, ii. 316 et seq. He remarks, and, I conceive, with justice, “... ce n’est pas dans les traités d’astronomie de nos savans que l’on doit puiser les détails destinés à éclaircir le texte des chapitres xii, xiii, xiv et xv du second livre de Pline.... Je ne dis rien des commentaires de Poinsinet, d’Hardouin et d’autres savans peu versés en matière d’astronomie, qui ont fait dire à Pline les plus grandes absurdités.”
[210] “Occasus planetæ vespertinus dicitur, quo die desinit post occasum solis supra horizontem oculis se præbere manifestum;” Alexandre in Lemaire, ii. 265. It is then said to set heliacally.