Chapter 20

The goddess.

94. “In the middle of those,” says Parmenides, “is the goddess who steers the course of all things.” Aetios, that is, Theophrastos, explains this to mean in the middle of the mixed crowns, while Simplicius declares that it means in the middle of all the crowns, that is to say, in the centre of the world.[475]It is not very likely that either of them had anything better to go upon than the words of Parmenides just quoted, and these are ambiguous. Simplicius, as is clear from the language he uses, identified this goddess with the Pythagorean Hestia or central fire, while Theophrastos could not do this, because he knew and stated that Parmenides held the earth to be round and in the centre of the world.[476]In this very passage we are told that what is in the middle of all the crowns is solid. The data furnished by Theophrastos, in fact, exclude the identification of the goddess with the central fire altogether. We cannot say that what is in the middle ofallthe crowns is solid, and that under it there is again a fiery crown.[477]Nor does it seem fitting torelegate a goddess to the middle of a solid spherical earth. We must try to find a place for her elsewhere.

We are further told by Aetios that this goddess was called Ananke and the “Holder of Lots.”[478]We know already that she steers the course of all things, that is, that she regulates the motions of the celestial crowns. Simplicius adds, unfortunately without quoting the actual words, that she sends souls at one time from the light to the unseen world, at another from the unseen world to the light.[479]It would be difficult to describe more exactly what the goddess does in the Myth of Er, and so here once more we seem to be on Pythagorean ground. It is to be noticed further that in fr.10we read how Ananke took the heavens and compelled them to hold fast the fixed courses of the stars, and that in fr.12we are told that she is the beginner of all pairing and birth. Lastly, in fr.13we hear that she created Eros first of all the gods. Modern parallels are dangerous, but it is not really going much beyond what is written to say that this Eros is the Will to Live, which leads to successive rebirths of the soul. So we shall find that in Empedokles it is an ancientoracle or decree of Ananke that causes the gods to fall and become incarnate in a cycle of births.[480]

We should, then, be more certain of the place which this goddess occupies in the universe if we could be quite sure where Ananke is in the Myth of Er. Without, however, raising that vexed question, we may lay down with some confidence that, according to Theophrastos, she occupied a position midway between the earth and the heavens. Whether we believe in the “mixed crowns” or not makes no difference in this respect; for the statement of Aetios that she was in the middle of the mixed crowns undoubtedly implies that she was in that region. Now she is identified with one of the crowns in a somewhat confused passage of Cicero,[481]and we have seen above (p.69) that the whole theory of wheels or crowns was probably suggested by the Milky Way. It seems to me, therefore, that we must think of the Milky Way as a crown intermediate between the crowns of the Sun and the Moon, and this agrees very well with the prominent way in which it is mentioned in fr.11. It is better not to be too positive about the other details of the system, though it is interesting to notice that according to some it was Pythagoras, and according to others Parmenides, who discovered the identity of the evening and morning star. That fits in exactly with our general view.[482]

Besides all this, it is quite certain that Parmenides went on to describe how the other gods were born and how they fell, an idea which we know to be Orphic, and which may well have been Pythagorean. We shall come to it again in Empedokles. In Plato’sSymposium, Agathon couples Parmenides with Hesiod as a narrator of ancient deeds of violence committed by the gods.[483]If Parmenides was expounding the Pythagorean theology, all this is just what we should expect; but it seems hopeless to explain it on any of the other theories which have been advanced on the purpose of the Way of Belief. Such things do not follow naturally from the ordinary view of the world, and we have no reason to suppose that Herakleitos expounded his views of the upward and downward path of the soul in this form. He certainly did hold that the guardian spirits entered into human bodies; but the whole point of his theory was that he gave a naturalistic rather than a theological account of the process. Still less can we think it probable that Parmenides made up these stories himself in order to show what the popular view of the world really implied if properly formulated. We must ask, I think, that any theory on the subject shall account for what was evidently no inconsiderable portion of the poem.

Physiology.

95. In describing the views of his contemporaries, Parmenides was obliged, as we see from the fragments,to say a good deal about physiological matters. Like everything else, man was composed of the warm and the cold, and death was caused by the removal of the warm. Some curious views with regard to generation were also stated. In the first place, males came from the right side and females from the left. Women had more of the warm and men of the cold, a view which we shall find Empedokles contradicting.[484]It is just the proportion of the warm and cold in men that determines the character of their thought, so that even corpses, from which the warm has been removed, retain a perception of what is cold and dark.[485]These fragments of information do not tell us much when taken by themselves; but they connect themselves in a most interesting way with the history of medicine, and point to the fact that one of its leading schools stood in close relation with the Pythagorean Society. Even before the days of Pythagoras, we know that Kroton was famous for its doctors. A Krotoniate, Demokedes, was court physician to the Persian king, and married Milo the Pythagorean’s daughter.[486]We also know the name of a very distinguished medical writer who lived at Kroton in the days between Pythagoras and Parmenides, and the few facts we are told about him enable us to regard the physiological views described by Parmenides not as isolated curiosities, but as landmarks by means of which we can trace the origin and growth of one of the most influential of medical theories, that which explains health as a balance of opposites.

Alkmaion of Kroton.

96. Aristotle tells us that Alkmaion of Kroton[487]was a young man in the old age of Pythagoras. He does not actually say, as later writers do, that he was a Pythagorean, though he points out that he seems either to have derived his theory of opposites from the Pythagoreans or they theirs from him.[488]In any case, he was intimately connected with the society, as is proved by one of the scanty fragments of his book. It began as follows: “Alkmaion of Kroton, son of Peirithous, spoke these words to Brotinos and Leon and Bathyllos. As to things invisible and things mortal, the gods have certainty; but, so far as men may infer ...”[489]The quotation unfortunately ends in this abrupt way, but we learn two things from it. In the first place, Alkmaion possessed that reserve which marks all the best Greek medical writers; and in the second place, he dedicated his work to the heads of the Pythagorean Society.[490]

Alkmaion’s chief importance in the history of philosophy really lies in the fact that he is the founder of empirical psychology.[491]It is certain that he regardedthe brain as the common sensorium, an important discovery which Hippokrates and Plato adopted from him, though Empedokles, Aristotle, and the Stoics reverted to the more primitive view that the heart performs this function. There is no reason to doubt that he made this discovery by anatomical means. We have some authority for saying that he practised dissection, and, though the nerves were not yet recognised as such, it was known that there were certain “passages” which might be prevented from communicating sensations to the brain by lesions.[492]He also distinguished between sensation and understanding, though we have no means of knowing exactly where he drew the line between them. His theories of the special senses are of great interest. We find in him already, what is characteristic of Greek theories of vision as a whole, the attempt to combine the view of vision as an act proceeding from the eye with that which attributes it to an image reflected in the eye. He knew the importance of air for the sense of hearing, though he called it the void, a thoroughly Pythagorean touch. With regard to the other senses, our information is more scanty, but sufficient to show that he treated the subject systematically.[493]

His astronomy seems surprisingly crude for one who stood in close relations with the Pythagoreans. We are told that he adopted Anaximenes’ theory of the sun and Herakleitos’s explanation of eclipses.[494]It is all the more remarkable that he is credited with originating the idea, which it required all Plato’s authority to get accepted later, that the planets have an orbital motion in the opposite direction to the diurnal revolution of the heavens.[495]This, if true, probably stood in close connexion with his saying that soul was immortal because it resembled immortal things, and was always in motion like the heavenly bodies.[496]He seems, in fact, to be the real author of the curious view which Plato put into the mouth of the Pythagorean Timaios, that the soul has circles revolving just as the heavens and the planets do. This too seems to be the explanation of his further statement that man dies because he cannot join the beginning to the end.[497]The orbits of the heavenly bodies always come full circle, but the circles in the head may fail to complete themselves. This new version of the parallelism between the microcosm and the macrocosm would be perfectly natural for Alkmaion, though it is, of course, no more than a playful fancy to Plato.

Alkmaion’s theory of health as “isonomy” is at once that which most clearly connects him with earlier inquirers like Anaximander, and also that which had the greatest influence on the subsequent development of philosophy. He observed, to begin with, that “most things human were two,” and by this he meant that man was made up of the hot and the cold, the moist andthe dry, and the rest of the opposites.[498]Disease was just the “monarchy” of any one of these—the same thing that Anaximander had called “injustice”—while health was the establishment in the body of a free government with equal laws.[499]This was the leading doctrine of the Sicilian school of medicine which came into existence not long after, and we shall have to consider in the sequel its influence on the development of Pythagoreanism. Taken along with the theory of “pores,”[500]it is of the greatest importance for later science.

422. Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 111). For the foundation of Elea, see Herod. i. 165 sqq. It was on the coast of Lucania, south of Poseidonia (Paestum).

423. Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Cf. Diels,Rhein. Mus.xxxi. p. 34; and Jacoby, pp. 231 sqq.

424. Plato,Parm.127 b (R. P. 111 d). There are, as Zeller has shown, a certain number of anachronisms in Plato, but there is not one of this character. In the first place, we have exact figures as to the ages of Parmenides and Zeno, which imply that the latter was twenty-five years younger than the former, not forty as Apollodoros said. In the second place, Plato refers to this meeting in two other places (Tht.183 e 7 andSoph.217 c 5), which do not seem to be mere references to the dialogue entitledParmenides. No parallel can be quoted for an anachronism so glaring and deliberate as this would be. E. Meyer (Gesch. des Alterth.iv. § 509,Anm.) also regards the meeting of Sokrates and Parmenides as historical.

425. Plut.Per.4, 3. See below, p. 358,n.852.

426. See above, Chap. II. p. 140,n.308.

427. Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. III), reading Ἀμεινίᾳ Διοχαίτα with Diels (Hermes, xxxv. p. 197). Sotion, in hisSuccessions, separated Parmenides from Xenophanes and associated him with the Pythagoreans (Dox.pp. 146, 148, 166).

428. Strabo, vi. 1, p. 252 (p. 195,n.430); Ceb.Tab.2 (R. P. 111 c). This Kebes is not the Kebes of thePhaedo; but he certainly lived some time before Lucian, who speaks of him as a well-known writer. A Cynic of the name is mentioned by Athenaios (156 d). The statements of Strabo are of the greatest value; for they are based upon historians now lost.

429. O. Kern inArch.iii. pp. 173 sqq. We know too little, however, of the apocalyptic poems of the sixth centuryB.C.to be sure of the details. All we can say is that Parmenides has taken the form of his poem from some such source. See Diels,“Ueber die poetischen Vorbilder des Parmenides”(Berl. Sitzb.1896), and the Introduction to hisParmenides Lehrgedicht, pp. 9 sqq.

430. Diog. ix. 23 (R. P. 111). Plut.adv. Col.1226 a, Παρμενίδης δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα διεκόσμησε νόμοις ἀρίστοις, ὥστε τὰς ἀρχὰς καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐξορκοῦν τοὺς πολίτας ἐμμενεῖν τοῖς Παρμενίδου νόμοις. Strabo, vi. 1. p. 252, (Ἐλέαν) ἐξ ἧς Παρμενίδης καὶ Ζήνων ἐγένοντο ἄνδρες Πυθαγόρειοι. δοκεῖ δέ μοι καὶ δι’ ἐκείνους καὶ ἔτι πρότερον εὐνομηθῆναι.

431. Simpl.Phys.144, 25 (R. P. 117). Simplicius, of course, had the library of the Academy at his command. Diels notes, however, that Proclus seems to have used a different MS.

432. For these see Hesiod,Theog.748.

433. See below, p. 211,n.459.

434. I read μῦθος as in the parallel passage fr. 8ad init.Diels’s interpretation of θυμὸς ὁδοῖο (the MS. reading here) asein lebendiger Wegdoes not convince me, and the confusion of the two words is fairly common.

435. I read with Zeller (p. 558 n. 1, Eng. trans. p. 584, n. 1) τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι. Apart from the philosophical anachronism of making Parmenides say that “thought and being are the same,” it is a grammatical anachronism to make him use the infinitive (with or without the article) as the subject of a sentence. On the other hand, he does use the active infinitive after εἶναι in the construction where we usually use a passive infinitive (Monro,H. Gr.§ 231sub fin.). Cf. fr. 4, εἰσὶ νοῆσαι, “are for thinking,”i.e.“can be thought.”

436. The construction here is the same as that explained in the last note. It is surprising that good scholars should acquiesce in the translation of τὸ λέγειν τε νοεῖν τε as “to say and think this.” Then ἔστι γὰρ εἶναι means “it can be,” not “being is,” and the last phrase should be construed οὐκ ἔστι μηδὲν (εἶναι).

437. I construe οἷς νενόμισται τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν καὶ οὐ ταὐτόν. The subject of the infinitives πέλειν καὶ οὐκ εἶναι is theit, which has to be supplied also with ἔστιν and οὐκ ἔστιν. This way of taking the words makes it unnecessary to believe that Parmenides said (τὸ) οὐκ εἶναι instead of (τὸ) μὴ εἶναι for “not-being.” There is no difference between πέλειν and εἶναι except in rhythmical value.

438. I take πάντων as neuter and understand παλίντροπος κέλευθος as equivalent to the ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω of Herakleitos. I do not think it has anything to do with the παλίντονος (or παλίντροπος) ἁρμονίη. See Chap. III. p. 150,n.347.

439. I still prefer to read ἔστι γὰρ οὐλομελές with Plutarch (adv. Col.1114 c). Proklos (in Parm.1152, 24) also read οὐλομελές. Simplicius, who has μουνογενές here, calls the One of Parmenides ὁλομελές elsewhere (Phys.p. 137, 15). The reading of [Plut.]Strom.5, μοῦνον μουνογενές helps to explain the confusion. We have only to suppose that the letters μ, ν, γ were written above the line in the Academy copy of Parmenides by some one who hadTim.31 b 3 in mind.

440. Diels formerly read ἔκ πη ἐόντος, “from that which in any way is”; but he has now reverted to the reading ἔκ μὴ ἐόντος, supposing that the other horn of the dilemma has dropped out. In any case, “nothing but what is not can arise from what is not” gives a perfectly good sense.

441. For the difficulties which have been felt about μᾶλλον here, see Diels’s note. If the word is to be pressed, his interpretation is admissible; but it seems to me that this is simply an instance of “polar expression.” It is true that it is only the case of there being less of what is in one place than another that is important for the divisibility of the One; but if there is less in one place, there is more in anotherthan in that place. The Greek language tends to express these implications. The position of the relative clause makes a difficulty for us, but hardly for a Greek.

442. Simplicius certainly read μὴ ἐὸν δ’ ἂν παντὸς ἐδεῖτο, which is metrically impossible. I followed Bergk in deleting μή, and have interpreted with Zeller. So too Diels.

443. For the construction of ἔστι νοεῖν, see above, p. 198,n.435.

444. As Diels rightly points out, the Ionic φατίζειν is equivalent to ὀνομάζειν. The meaning, I think, is this. We may name things as we choose, but there can be no thought corresponding to a name that is not the name of something real.

445. This is Zeller’s way of taking the words, and still seems to me the best. Diels objects that ἑτέρην would be required, and rendersnur eine derselben, das sei unerlaubt, giving the words to the “mortals.” This seems to me to involve more serious grammatical difficulties than the use of μίαν for τὴν ἑτέραν, which is quite legitimate when there is an emphasis on the number. Aristotle must have taken it so; for he infers that one of the μορφαί is to be identified with τὸ ἐόν.

446. Note the curious echo ofIl.v. 214. Empedokles has it too (v. 154). It appears to be a joke, made in the spirit of Xenophanes, when it was first discovered that the moon shone by reflected light.

447. This fragment of the theory of knowledge which was expounded in the second part of the poem of Parmenides must be taken in connexion with what we are told by Theophrastos in the “Fragment on Sensation” (Dox.p. 499; cf. p. 222). It appears from this that he said the character of men’s thought depended upon the preponderance of the light or the dark element in their bodies. They are wise when the light element predominates, and foolish when the dark gets the upper hand.

448. This is a fragment of Parmenides’s embryology. Diels’s fr. 18 is a retranslation of the Latin hexameters of Caelius Aurelianus quoted R. P. 127 a.

449. Arist.de Caelo, Γ, 1. 298 b 21, ἐκεῖνοι δὲ (οἱ περὶ Μέλισσόν τε καὶ Παρμενίδην) διὰ τὸ μηθὲν μὲν ἄλλο παρὰ τὴν τῶν αἰσθητῶν οὐσίαν ὑπολαμβάνειν εἶναι κ.τ.λ. So too Eudemos, in the first book of his Physics (ap.Simpl.Phys.p. 133, 25), said of Parmenides: τὸ μὲν οὖν κοινὸν οὐκ ἂν λέγοι. οὔτε γὰρ ἐζητεῖτό πω τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἀλλ’ ὕστερον ἐκ τῶν λόγων προήλθεν, οὔτε ἐπιδέχοιτο ἂν ἂ τῷ ὅντι ἐπιλέγει. πῶς γὰρ ἔσται τοῦτο “μέσσοθεν ἰσοπαλὲς” καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα; τῷ δὲ οὐρανῷ (the world) σχεδὸν πάντες ἐφαρμόσουσιν οἱ τοιοῦτοι λόγοι The Neoplatonists, of course, saw in the One the νοητὸς κόσμος, and Simplicius calls the sphere a “mythical figment.” See especially Baümker,“Die Einheit des Parmenideischen Seiendes”(Jahrb. f. kl. Phil.1886, pp. 541 sqq.), andDas Problem der Materie, pp. 50 sqq.

450. We must not render τὸ ἐόν by “Being,”das Seinorl’être. It is “what is,”das Seiende,ce qui est. As to (τὸ) εἶναι it does not, and could not, occur. Cf. p. 198,n.435, above.

451. See above, p. 198,n.437.

452. Plato,Tht.180 e 3, ὡς ἕν τε πάντα ἐστὶ καὶ ἕστηκεν αὐτὸ ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔχον χώραν ἐν ᾗ κινεῖται.

453. Arist.de Caelo, Γ, 1. 298 b 21, quoted above, p. 203,n.449.

454.Greek Thinkers, pp. 180 sqq.

455.Met.Α, 5. 986 b 31 (R. P. 121 a). Aristotle’s way of putting the matter is due to his interpretation of fr.8, 54, which he took to mean that one of the two “forms” was to be identified with τὸ ὄν and the other with τὸ μὴ ὄν. Cf.Gen. Corr.Α, 3. 318 b 6, ὥσπερ Παρμενίδης λέγει δύο, τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν εἶναι φάσκων. This last sentence shows clearly that when Aristotle says Παρμενίδης, he means what we should call “Parmenides.” He cannot have supposed that Parmenides admitted the being of τὸ μὴ ὄν in any sense whatever (cf. Plato,Soph.241 d 5).

456. Theophr.Phys. Op.fr. 6 (Dox.p. 482; R. P. 121 a), κατὰ δόξαν δὲ τῶν πολλῶν εἰς τὸ γένεσιν ἀποδοῦναι τῶν φαινομένων δύο ποιῶν τὰς ἀρχάς. For Alexander cf. Simpl.Phys.p. 38, 24.

457. Simpl.Phys.p. 39, 10 (R. P. 121 b). Gomperz,Greek Thinkers, p. 180. E. Meyer says (Gesch. des Alterth.iv. § 510,Anm.): “How too can we think that a teacher of wisdom taught his disciples nothing as to the way in which they must take the existing sensible world, even if only as a deception?” This implies (1) that the distinction between Appearance and Reality had been clearly grasped; and (2) that a certain hypothetical and relative truth was allowed to Appearance. These are palpable anachronisms. Both views are Platonic, and they were not held even by Plato in his earlier writings.

458. Cf. frs.4and6, especially the words αἵπερ ὁδοὶ μοῦναι διζήσιός εἰσι νοῆσαι. The third way, that of Herakleitos, is only added as an afterthought—αὐτὰρ ἔπειτ’ ἀπὸ τῆς κ.τ.λ.

459. I read χρῆν δοκιμῶσ’ εἶναι in fr. 1, 32 with Diels, but I do not feel able to accept his renderingwie man bei gründlicher Durchforschung annehmen müsste, dass sich jenes Scheinwesen verhalte. We must, I think, take χρῆν δοκιμῶσαι (i.e.δοκιμάσαι) quite strictly, and χρῆν with the infinitive means “ought to have.” The most natural subject for the infinitive in that case is βροτούς, while εἶναι will be dependent on δοκιμῶσαι, and have τὰ δοκοῦντα for its subject. This way of taking the words is confirmed by fr.8, 54, τῶν μίαν οὐ χρεών ἐστιν, if taken as I have taken it with Zeller. See above, p. 201,n.445.

460. The view that the opinions contained in the Second Part are those of others, and are not given as true in any sense whatsoever, is that of Diels. The objections of Wilamowitz (Hermes, xxxiv. pp. 203 sqq.) do not appear to me cogent. If we interpret him rightly, Parmenides never says that “this hypothetical explanation is ... better than that of any one else” (E. Meyer, iv. § 510,Anm.). What he does say is that it is untrue altogether. Itseemsseemsto me, however, that Diels has weakened his case by refusing to identify the theory here expounded with Pythagoreanism, and referring it mainly to Herakleitos. Herakleitos was emphaticallynota dualist, and I cannot see that to represent him as one is even what Diels calls a “caricature” of his theory. Caricatures must have some point of likeness. It is still more surprising to me that Patin, who makes ἓν πάντα εἶναι the corner-stone of Herakleiteanism, should adopt this view (Parmenides im Kampfe gegen Heraklit, 1899). E. Meyer (loc. cit.) seems to think that the fact of Zeno’s having modified the δόξα of Parmenides in an Empedoklean sense (Diog. ix. 29; R. P. 140) proves that it was supposed to have some sort of truth. On the contrary, it would only show, if true, that Zeno had other opponents to face than Parmenides had.

461.Met.Α, 5. 986 b 34, θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρόν;Phys.Α, 5. 188 a 20;Gen. Corr.Α, 3. 318 b 6; Β, 3. 330 b 14.

462.Phys.Α, 5. 188 a 21, ταῦτα δὲ (θερμὸν καὶ ψυχρὸν) προσαγορεύει πῦρ καὶ γῆν;Met.Α, 5. 986 b 34, οἷον πῦρ καὶ γῆν λέγων. Cf. Theophr.Phys. Op.fr. 6 (Dox.p. 482; R. P. 121 a). [Plut.]Strom.fr. 5 (Dox.p. 581), λέγει δὲ τῆν γῆν τοῦ πυκνοῦ καταρρυέντος ἀέρος γεγονέναι. Zeller, p. 568, n. 1 (Eng. trans. p. 593, n. 2).

463.Phys.p. 25, 15, ὡς Παρμενίδης ἐν τοῖς πρὸς δόξαν πῦρ καὶ γῆν (ἢ μᾶλλον φῶς καὶ σκότος).

464.Met.Α, 5. 986 b 35, τούτων δὲ κατὰ μὲν τὸ ὂν τὸ θερμὸν τάττει, θάτερον δὲ κατὰ τὸ μὴ ὄν. See above, p. 208,n.457.

465. See below, Chap. VII.§ 147.

466. Theophr.Phys. Op.fr. 6 (Dox.p. 482; R. P. 121 a), followed by the doxographers.

467. Note the identification of the dense element with “air” in [Plut.]Strom., quoted p. 213,n.462; and for the identification of this “air” with “mist and darkness,” cf. Chap. I.§ 27, and Chap. V.§ 107. It is to be observed further that Plato puts this last identification into the mouth of a Pythagorean (Tim.52 d).

468. See above, p.121.

469. It seems most likely that ἐπαλλήλους here means “crossing one another,” as the Milky Way crosses the Zodiac. The term ἐπάλληλος is opposed to παράλληλος.

470.Rep.x. 616 d 5, καθάπερ οἱ κάδοι οἱ εἰς ἀλλήλους ἁρμόττοντες; e 1, κύκλους ἄνωθεν τὰ χείλη φαίνοντας (σφονδύλους).

471.Tim.36 b 6, ταύτην οὖν τὴν σύστασιν πᾶσαν διπλῆν κατὰ μῆκος σχίσας, μέσην πρὸς μέσην ἐκατέραν ἀλλήλαις οἷον χεῖ (the letter Χ) προσβαλὼν κατέκαμψεν εἰς ἓν κύκλῳ.

472.Hymn to Ares, 6:πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσωναἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοιζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.So, in allusion to an essentially Pythagorean view, Proclus says to the planet Venus (h. iv. 17):εἴτε καὶ ἑπτὰ κύκλων ὑπὲρ ἄντυγας αἰθέρα ναίεις.

472.Hymn to Ares, 6:

πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσωναἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοιζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.

πυραυγέα κύκλον ἑλίσσων

αἰθέρος ἑπταπόροις ἐνὶ τείρεσιν, ἔνθα σε πῶλοι

ζαφλεγέες τριτάτης ὑπὲρ ἄντυγος αἰὲν ἔχουσι.

So, in allusion to an essentially Pythagorean view, Proclus says to the planet Venus (h. iv. 17):

εἴτε καὶ ἑπτὰ κύκλων ὑπὲρ ἄντυγας αἰθέρα ναίεις.

473. On the concentric spheres of Eudoxos, see Dreyer,Planetary Systems, chap. iv. It is unfortunate that the account of Plato’s astronomy given in this work is wholly inadequate, owing to the writer’s excessive reliance on Boeckh, who was led by evidence now generally regarded as untrustworthy to attribute all the astronomy of the Academy to their predecessors, and especially to Philolaos.

474. Such a repetition (παλινδρομία) is characteristic of all Greek style, but the repetition at the end of the period generally adds a new touch to the statement at the opening. The new touch is here given in the word ἵεται. I do not press this interpretation, but it seems to me much the simplest.

475. Simpl.Phys.p. 34, 14 (R. P. 125 b).

476. Diog. ix. 21 (R. P. 126 a).

477. I do not discuss the interpretation of περὶ ὃ πάλιν πυρώδης which Diels gave inParmenides Lehrgedicht, p. 104, and which is adopted in R. P. 162 a, as it is now virtually retracted. In the second edition of hisVorsokratiker(p. 111) he reads καὶ τὸ μεσαίτατον πασῶν στερεόν, <ὑφ’ ᾧ> πάλιν πυρώδης [sc. στεφάνη]. That is a flat contradiction. It is of interest to observe that Mr. Adam also gets into the interior of the earth in his interpretation of the Myth of Er. It is instructive, too, because it shows that we are really dealing with the same order of ideas. The most heroic attempt to save the central fire for Pythagoras was my own hypothesis of an annular earth (1st ed. p. 203). This has met with well-deserved ridicule; but all the same it is the only possible solution on these lines. We shall see in Chap. VII. that the central fire belongs to the later development of Pythagoreanism.

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