[447] “Est ironiæ formula. Quid, ait, feras et serpentes et venena terræ exprobramus, quæ ne ad tuendam quidem illam satis valent?” Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 369.
[448] “ossa vel insepulta cum tempore tellus occultat, deprimentia pondere suo mollitam pluviis humum.” Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 370.
[449] “figura prima.” I may refer to the second chapter of this book, where the author remarked upon the form of the earth as perfect in all its parts, and especially adapted for its supposed position in the centre of the universe.
[450] “... si capita linearum comprehendantur ambitu;” the meaning of this passage would appear to be: if the extremities of the lines drawn from the centre of the earth to the different parts of the surface were connected together, the result of the whole would be a sphere. I must, however, remark, that Hardouin interprets it in a somewhat different manner; “Si per extremitates linearum ductarum a centro ad summos quosque vertices montium circulus exigatur.” Lemaire, i. 370.
[451] “... immensum ejus globum in formam orbis assidua circa eam mundi volubilitate cogente.” As Hardouin remarks, the word mundus is here used in the sense of cœlum. Lemaire, i. 371.
[452] As our author admits of the existence of antipodes, and expressly states that the earth is a perfect sphere, we may conclude that the resemblance to the cone of the pine is to be taken in a very general sense. How far the ancients entertained correct opinions respecting the globular figure of the earth, or rather, at what period this opinion became generally admitted, it is perhaps not easy to ascertain. The lines in the Georgics, i. 242, 243, which may be supposed to express the popular opinion in the time of Virgil, certainly do not convey the idea of a sphere capable of being inhabited in all its parts:
Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum
Sub pedibus Styx atra videt, manesque profundi.
[453] “spiritus vis mundo inclusi.”
[454] “... Alpium vertices, longo tractu, nec breviore quinquaginta millibus passuum assurgere.” To avoid the apparent improbability of the author conceiving of the Alps as 50 miles high, the commentators have, according to their usual custom, exercised their ingenuity in altering the text. See Poinsinet, i. 206, 207, and Lemaire, i. 373. But the expression does not imply that he conceived them as 50 miles in perpendicular height, but that there is a continuous ascent of 50 miles to get to the summit. This explanation of the passage is adopted by Alexandre; Lemaire, ut supra. For what is known of Dicæarchus I may refer to Hardouin, Index Auctorum, in Lemaire, i. 181.