Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/138

104 pliny's natural history. [Book II. pole, otherwise^ its stars would be seen from all parts of the world ; they indeed are supposed to be higher by those who are nearest to them, but the stars are sunk below the horizon to those who are more remote. As this pole appears to be elevated to those who are beneath it ; so, when we have passed along the convexity of the earth, those stars rise up, which appear elevated to the inhabitants of those other di- stricts ; all this, however, could not happen unless the earth had the shape of a globe. CnAP. 72. — Ilf WHAT PLACES ECLIPSES ABE INVISIBLE, AND WHY THIS IS THE CASE. Hence it is that the inhabitants of the east do not see those eclipses of the sun or of the moon which occur in the evening, nor the inhabitants of the west those in the morn- ing, while such as take place at noon are more frequently visible^. We are told, that at the time of the famous vic- tory of Alexander the Grreat, at Arbela'"', the moon was eclipsed at the second hour of the night, while, in Sicily, the moon was rising at the same hour. The eclipse of the sun which occurred the day before the calends of May, in the consulship of Vipstanus and I^onteius"*, not many years ago, was seen in Campania between the seventh and eighth hour of the day ; the general Corbulo informs us, that it was seen 1 " Aut ;" as Poinsinet remarks, " aut est ici pour alioqui ;" and he quotes another passage from our author, xix. 3, where the word is employed in a similar manner. 2 We may presume that the author meant to convey the idea, that the echpses which are visible in any one country are not so in those which are situated under a diiFerent meridian. The terms "vesperti- nos," "matutinos," and " meridianos," refer not to the time of the day, but to the situation of the echpse, whether recurring in the western, eastern, or southern parts of the heavens. 3 Brewster, in the art. " Chronology," p. 415, mentions this echpse as having taken place Sept. 21st, tt.C. 331, eleven days before the battle of Arbela ; wliile, in the same art. p. 423, the battle is said to have taken place on Oct. 2nd, eleven days after a total echpse of the moon. ■* It took place on the 30th of April, in the year of the City 811, A.D. 59 ; see Brewster, uhi supra. It is simply mentioned by Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 12, as having occurred among other prodigies which took place at this period.