τοιούτων μέντοι καὶ τοσούτων παραδοξολογιῶν οὐ μὰ Δία πήραν, ἀλλὰ θαυματοποιοῦ τινος ἀποσκευὴν καὶ πυλαίαν κατανωτισάμενοι καὶ παρέλκοντες ἑτέρους φασὶ γελοιάζειν ἄνω τὴν σελήνην, γῆν οὖσαν, ἐνιδρύοντας οὐχ ὅπου τὸ μέσον ἐστί. καίτοι γʼ εἰ πᾶν σῶμα ἐμβριθὲς εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ συννεύει καὶ πρὸς τὸ αὑτοῦ μέσον ἀντερείδει πᾶσι τοῖς μορίοις, οὐχ ὡς μέσον οὖσα τοῦ παντὸς ἡ γῆ μᾶλλον ἢ ὡς ὅλον οἰκειώσεται μέρη, αὐτῆς ὄντα τὰ βάρη· καὶ τεκμήριον […] ἔσται τῶν ῥεπόντων οὐ τῇ γῇ μεσότητος πρὸς τὸν κόσμον, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὴν γῆν κοινωνίας τινὸς καὶ συμφυΐας τοῖς ἀπωσμένοις αὐτῆς εἶτα πάλιν καταφερομένοις. ὡς γὰρ ὁ ἥλιος εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφει τὰ μέρη ἐξ ὧν συνέστηκε, καὶ ἡ γῆ τὸν λίθον ὥσπερ ἴδιον καὶ προσήκοντα δέχεται καὶ φέρει πρὸς ἐκεῖνον· ὅθεν ἑνοῦται τῷ χρόνῳ καὶ συμφύεται πρὸς; αὐτὴν τῶν τοιούτων ἕκαστον. εἰ δέ τι τυγχάνει σῶμα τῇ γῇ μὴ προσνενεμημένον ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς μηδʼ ἀπεσπασμένον, ἀλλά που καθʼ αὑτὸ σύστασιν ἔσχεν ἰδίαν καὶ φύσιν, ὡς φαῖεν ἂν ἐκεῖνοι τὴν σελήνην, τί κωλύει χωρὶς εἶναι καὶ μένειν περὶ αὑτό, τοῖς αὑτοῦ πεπιεσμένον μέρεσι καὶ συμπεπεδημένον; οὔτε γὰρ ἡ γῆ μέσον οὖσα δείκνυται τοῦ παντὸς ἥ τε πρὸς τὴν γῆν τῶν ἐνταῦθα συνέρεισις καὶ σύστασις ὑφηγεῖται τὸν τρόπον, ᾧ μένειν τὰ ἐκεῖ συμπεσόντα πρὸς τὴν σελήνην εἰκός ἐστιν. ὁ δὲ πάντα τὰ γεώδη καὶ βαρέα συνελαύνων εἰς μίαν χώραν καὶ μέρη ποιῶν ἑνὸς σώματος, οὐχ ὁρῶ διὰ τί τοῖς κούφοις τὴν αὐτὴν ἀνάγκην οὐκ ἀνταποδίδωσιν, ἀλλʼ ἐᾷ χωρὶς εἶναι συστάσεις πυρὸς τοσαύτας καὶ οὐ πάντας εἰς ταὐτὸ συνάγων τοὺς ἀστέρας σαφῶς οἴεται δεῖν καὶ σῶμα κοινὸν εἶναι τῶν ἀνωφερῶν καὶ φλογοειδῶν ἁπάντων.
Bearing then upon their shoulders, and drawing after them. I do not say a little bag or box, but a whole pack of juggler’s boxes, full of so many absurdities, with which they play the hocus-pocus in philosophy, they nevertheless accuse others of error for placing the moon, which they hold to be earth, on high, and not in the middle or centre of the world. And yet, if every heavy body inclines towards the same place, and does from all sides and with every one of its parts tend to its own centre, the earth certainly will appropriate and challenge to itself these ponderous masses—which are its parts—not because it is the centre of the universe, but rather because it is the whole; and this gathering together of heavy bodies round about it will not be a sign showing it to be the middle of the world, but an argument to prove and testify that these bodies which had been plucked from it and again return to it have a communication and conformity of nature with the earth. For as the sun draws into himself the parts of which he is composed, so the earth receives a stone as a part belonging to it, in such manner that every one of such things is in time united and incorporated with it. And if peradventure there is some other body which was not from the beginning allotted to the earth nor has been separated from it, but had its own proper and peculiar consistence and nature apart, as these men may say of the moon, what hinders but it may continue separated by itself, being kept close, compacted, and bound together by its own parts? For they do not demonstrate that the earth is the middle of the universe; and this conglomeration of heavy bodies which are here, and their coalition with the earth, show us the manner how it is probable that the parts which are assembled in the body of the moon continue also there. But as for him who drives and ranges together in one place all earthly and ponderous things, making them parts of one and the same body, I wonder that he does not attribute also the same necessity and constraint to light substances, but leaves so many conglomerations of fire separated one from another; nor can I see why he should not amass together all the stars, and think that there ought to be but one body of all those substances which fly upwards.
ἀλλʼ ἥλιον μὲν ἀπλέτους μυριάδας ἀπέχειν τῆς ἄνω περιφορᾶς φατε εἶπον ὦ φίλε Ἀπολλωνίδη, καὶ φωσφόρον ἐπʼ αὐτῷ καὶ στίλβοντα καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους πλάνητας ὑφιεμένους τε τῶν ἀπλανῶν καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ἐν διαστάσεσι μεγάλαις φέρεσθαι· τοῖς δὲ βαρέσι καὶ γεώδεσιν οὐδεμίαν οἴεσθε τὸν κόσμον εὐρυχωρίαν παρέχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ καὶ διάστασιν ὁρᾶτε ὅτι γελοῖόν ἐστιν, εἰ γῆν οὐ φήσομεν εἶναι τὴν σελήνην, ὅτι τῆς κάτω χώρας ἀφέστηκεν, ἄστρον δὲ φήσομεν, ὁρῶντες ἀπωσμένην τῆς ἄνω περιφορᾶς μυριάσι σταδίων τοσαύταις καὶ ὥσπερ εἰς βυθόν τινα καταδεδυκυῖαν τῶν μὲν γʼ ἄστρων κατωτέρω τοσοῦτὸν ἐστιν, ὅσον οὐκ ἄν τις εἴποι μέτρον, ἀλλʼ ἐπιλείπουσιν ὑμᾶς τοὺς μαθηματικοὺς ἐκλογιζομένους οἱ ἀριθμοί, τῆς δὲ γῆς τρόπον τινὰ ψαύει καὶ περιφερομένη πλησίον ἅρματος ὥσπερ ἂν ἴχνος ἑλίσσεται φησὶν Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἥ τε περὶ ἄκραν οὐδὲ γὰρ τὴν σκιὰν αὐτῆς; ὑπερβάλλει πολλάκις ἐπὶ μικρὸν αἰρομένην τῷ παμμέγεθες εἶναι τὸ φωτίζον· ἀλλʼ οὕτως ἔοικεν ἐν χρῷ καὶ σχεδὸν ἐν ἀγκάλαις τῆς γῆς περιπολεῖν, ὥστʼ ἀντιφράττεσθαι πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον ὑπʼ αὐτῆς, μὴ ὑπεραίρουσα τὸν σκιερὸν καὶ χθόνιον καὶ νυκτέριον τοῦτον τόπον, ὃς γῆς κλῆρός ἐστι. διὸ λεκτέον οἶμαι θαρροῦντας ἐν τοῖς τῆς γῆς ὅροις εἶναι τὴν σελήνην ὑπὸ τῶν ἄκρων αὐτῆς ἐπιπροσθουμένην.
But you mathematicians, friend Apollonides, say that the sun is distant from our upper sphere infinite thousands of miles, and after him the day-star or Venus, Mercury, and other planets, which being situated under the fixed stars, and separated from one another by great intervals, make their revolutions; and in the mean time you think that the world affords not to heavy and terrestrial bodies any great and large place or distance one from another. You plainly see, it would be ridiculous, if we should deny the moon to be earth because it is not seated in the lowest region of the world, and yet affirm it to be a star, though so many thousands of miles remote from the upper firmanent, as if it were plunged into some deep gulf. For she is so low before all other stars, that the measure of the distances cannot be expressed, and you mathematicians want numbers to compute and reckon it; but she in a manner touches the earth, making her revolution so near the tops of the mountains, that she seems, as Empedocles has it, to leave even the very tracks of her chariot-wheels behind her. For oftentimes she surpasses not the shadow of the earth, which is very short through the excessive greatness of the sun that shines upon it, but seems to turn so near the superficies, and (as one may say) between the arms and in the bosom of the earth, that it withholds from her the light of the sun, because she mounts that shady, earthly, and nocturnal region which is the lot and inheritance of the earth. And therefore I am of opinion, we may boldly say that the moon is within the limits and confines of the earth, seeing she is even darkened by the summits of its mountains.
σκόπει δὲ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀφεὶς ἀπλανεῖς καὶ πλάνητας, ἃ δείκνυσιν Ἀρίσταρχος; ἐν τῷ Περὶ μεγεθῶν καὶ ἀποστημάτων ὅτι τὸ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀπόστημα τοῦ ἀποστήματος τῆς σελήνης ὃ ἀφέστηκεν ἡμῶν πλέον μὲν ἢ ὀκτωκαιδεκαπλάσιον ἔλαττον δʼ ἢ εἰκοσαπλάσιόν ἐστι καίτοι ὁ τὴν σελήνην ἐπὶ μήκιστον αἴρων ἀπέχειν φησὶν ἡμῶν ἓξ καὶ πεντηκονταπλάσιον τῆς,· ἐκ τοῦ κέντρου τῆς γῆς· αὕτη δʼ ἐστὶ τεσσάρων μυριάδων καὶ κατὰ τοὺς μέσως ἀναμετροῦντας· καὶ ἀπὸ ταύτης συλλογιζομένοις ἀπέχει ὁ ἥλιος τῆς σελήνης πλέον ἢτετρακισχιλίας τριάκοντα μυριάδας οὕτως ἀπῴκισται τοῦ ἡλίου διὰ βάρος καὶ τοσοῦτο τῇ γῇ προσκεχώρηκεν, ὥστε, εἰ τοῖς τόποις τὰς οὐσίας διαιρετέον, ἡ γῆς μοῖρα καὶ ὥρα προσκαλεῖται σελήνην καὶ τοῖς περὶ γῆν πράγμασι καὶ σώμασιν ἐπίδικὸς ἐστι κατʼ ἀγχιστείαν καὶ γειτνίασιν. καὶ οὐδὲν, οἶμαι, πλημμελοῦμεν, ὅτι τοῖς ἄνω προσαγορευομένοις βάθος τοσοῦτο καὶ διάστημα διδόντες ἀπολείπομὲν τινα καὶ τῷ κάτω περιδρομὴν καὶ πλάτος, ὅσον ἐστὶν ἀπὸ γῆς ἐπὶ σελήνην οὔτε γὰρ ὁ τὴν ἄκραν ἐπιφάνειαν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ μόνην ἄνω τἄλλα δὲ κάτω προσαγορεύων ἅπαντα μέτριός ἐστιν, οὔθʼ ὁ τῇ γῇ μᾶλλον δʼ ὁ τῷ κέντρῳ τὸ κάτω περιγράφων ἀνεκτός· ἀλλὰ καὶ κινητικο […] ταύτῃ διάστημα τὸ δέον ἐπιχωροῦντος τοῦ κόσμου· διὰ μέγεθος. πρὸς δὲ τὸν ἀξιοῦντα πᾶν εὐθὺς ἄνω καὶ μετέωρον εἶναι τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ἕτερος ἀντηχεῖ πάλιν εὐθὺς εἶναι κάτω τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀπλανοῦς περιφορᾶς.
But leaving the stars, as well erring as fixed, see what Aristarchus proves and demonstrates in his treatise of magnitudes and distances; that the distance of the sun is above eighteen times and under twenty times greater than that of the moon from us. And yet they who place the moon lowest say that her distance from us contains six and fifty of the earth’s semidiameters, that is, that she is six and fifty times as far from us as we are from the centre of the earth; which is forty thousand stadia, according to those that make their computation moderately. Therefore the sun is above forty millions and three hundred thousand stadia distant from the moon; so far is she from the sun by reason of her gravity, and so near does she approach to the earth. So that if substances are to be distinguished by places, the portion and, region of the earth challenges to itself the moon, which, by reason of neighborhood and proximity, has a right to be reputed and reckoned amongst the terrestrial natures and bodies. Nor shall we, in my opinion, do amiss if, having given so vast an interval and distance to these bodies which are said to be above, we leave also to those which are below some space and room to turn them in, such as is that between the earth and the moon. For neither is he who calls only the utmost superficies of the heaven above and all the rest beneath moderate or tolerable; nor is he to be endured who confines beneath only to the earth, or rather to its centre; seeing the vast greatness of the world may afford means for the assigning farther to this lower part some such space as is necessary for motion. Now against him who holds that whatever is above the earth is immediately high and sublime, there is presently another opposition to encounter and contradict it, that whatever is beneath the sphere of the fixed stars ought to be called low and inferior.
ὅλως δὲ πῶς λέγεται καὶ τίνος ἡ γῆ μέση κεῖται; τὸ γὰρ πᾶν ἄπειρόν ἐστι; τῷ δʼ ἀπείρῳ μήτε ἀρχὴν ἔχοντι μήτε πέρας οὐ προσήκει μέσον ἔχειν· πέρας γάρ τι καὶ τὸ μέσον, ἡ δʼ ἀπειρία περάτων στέρησις. ὁ δὲ μὴ τοῦ παντὸς ἀλλὰ τοῦ κόσμου μέσην εἶναι τὴν γῆν ἀποφαινόμενος ἡδύς ἐστιν, εἰ μὴ καὶ τὸν κόσμον αὐτὸν ἐνέχεσθαι ταῖς αὐταῖς ἀπορίαις νομίζει· τὸ γὰρ πᾶν οὐδὲ τούτῳ μέσην ἀπέλιπεν, ἀλλʼ ἀνέστιος καὶ ἀνίδρυτός ἐστιν ἐν ἀπείρῳ κενῷ φερόμενος πρὸς οὐδὲν οἰκεῖον, ἢ ἄλλην τινὰ τοῦ μένειν εὑράμενος αἰτίαν ἕστηκεν, οὐ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ τόπου φύσιν. ὅμοια καὶ περὶ γῆς καὶ περὶ σελήνης εἰκάζειν τινὶ πάρεστιν, ὡς ἑτέρᾳ τινὶ ψυχῇ καὶ φύσει μᾶλλον […] διαφορᾷ, τῆς μὲν ἀτρεμούσης ἐνταῦθα τῆς δὲ καὶ φερομένης. ἄνευ δὲ τούτων, ὅρα μὴ μέγα τι λέληθεν αὐτούς· εἰ γὰρ ὅ τι ἂν καὶ ὁπωσοῦν ἐκτὸς γένηται τοῦ κέντρου τῆς γῆς ἄνω ἐστίν, οὐδέν ἐστι τοῦ κόσμου κάτω μέρος, ἀλλʼ ἄνω καὶ ἡ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς καὶ πᾶν ἁπλῶς σῶμα τὸ κέντρῳ περιεστηκὸς ἢ περικείμενον ἄνω γίγνεται· κάτω δὲ μόνον ἕν, τὸ ἀσώματον σημεῖον ἐκεῖνο, ὃ πρὸς πᾶσαν ἀντικεῖσθαι τὴν τοῦ κόσμου φύσιν ἀναγκαῖον εἴ γε δὴ τὸ κάτω πρὸς τὸ ἄνω κατὰ φύσιν ἀντίκειται. καὶ οὐ τοῦτο μόνον · τὸ ἄτοπον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν ἀπόλλυσι τὰ βάρη, διʼ ἣν δεῦρο καταρρέπει καὶ φέρεται· σῶμα μὲν γὰρ οὐθέν ἐστι κάτω πρὸς ὃ κινεῖται, τὸ δʼ ἀσώματον οὔτʼ εἰκὸς οὔτε βούλονται τοσαύτην ἔχειν δύναμιν, ὥστε πάντα κατατείνειν ἐφʼ ἑαυτὸ καὶ περὶ αὑτὸ συνέχειν. ἀλλʼ ὅλως ἄλογον εὑρίσκεται καὶ μαχόμενον τοῖς πράγμασι τὸ ἄνω τὸν κόσμον ὅλον εἶναι, τὸ δὲ κάτω μηδὲν ἀλλʼ ἢ πέρας ἀσώματον καὶ ἀδιάστατον· ἐκεῖνο δʼ εὔλογον, ὡς λέγομεν ἡμεῖς, τῷ τʼ ἄνω χώραν καὶ· τῷ κάτω πολλὴν καὶ πλάτος ἔχουσαν διῃρῆσθαι.
In a word, how is the earth said to be the middle, and of what is it the middle? For the universe is infinite; and infiniteness having neither beginning nor end, it is convenient also that it should not have any middle; for the middle is a certain end or limit, but infiniteness is a privation of all sorts of limits. Now he that affirms the earth to be the middle, not of the universe but of the world, is certainly a pleasant man, if he does not think that the world itself is subject to the same doubts and difficulties. For the universe has not left a middle even to the very world, but this being without any certain seat or foundation, it is carried in an infinite voidness to no proper end; or if perhaps it has stopped, it has met with some other cause or stay, not according to the nature of the place. As much may be conjectured of the moon, that by the means of another soul and another Nature, or (to say better) of another difference, the earth continues firm here below, and the moon moves. Besides this, see whether they are not ignorant of a great inconvenience and error. For if it is true that all which is without the centre of the earth, however it be, is above, there will then be no part of the world below; but the earth and all that is upon it will be above; and in brief, every body that shall be placed about the centre will be above, and there will be nothing below or underneath, but one only point which has no body, which will of necessity make head against and oppose all the rest of the world’s nature, if above and beneath are naturally opposite to one another. Nor is this the only absurdity that will follow; but all heavy and ponderous bodies will also lose the cause for which they move and tend downwards hither, for there will be no body below to which they should move; and as for that which is incorporeal, it is not probable, neither will they themselves allow, that it should be so forcible as to draw and retain all things about itself. But if it is unreasonable and contrary to Nature that the whole world should be above, and that there should be nothing below but an incorporeal and indivisible term or limit, then is this, as we say, yet more reasonable, that the region above and that below being divided the one from the other, have nevertheless each of them a large and spacious room.
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