on grammatical and lexicological grounds.[1] We have therefore to ask what motion of translation is compatible with the statement that the earth is "at the centre," and there seems to be nothing left but a motion up and down (to speak loosely) on the axis of the universe itself. Now the only clearly attested meaning of the rare word ἴλλομαι is just that of motion to and fro, backwards and forwards.[2] It may be added that a motion of this kind was familiar to the Pythagoreans, if we may judge from the description of the waters in the earth given by Sokrates in the Phaedo, on the authority of some unnamed cosmologist.[3]
What was this motion intended to explain? It is impossible to be certain, but it is clear that the motions of the circles of the Same and the Other, i.e. the equator and the ecliptic, are inadequate to "save the appearances." So far as they go, all the planets should either move in the
- ↑ In the first place, the meaning globatam, "packed," "massed" would have to be expressed by a perfect participle and not a present, and we find accordingly that Simplicius is obliged to paraphrase it by the perfect participle, δεδεμένη or δεδεσμηνένη. Sir T. L. Heath's "wound" (Aristarchus, p. 177) ought also to be "winding." In the second place, though Par. A has εἰλλομένην, the weight of authority distinctly favours ἰλλομένην, the reading of Aristotle, Proclus and others. The verbs εἵλλω (εἴλλω), εἰλῶ and ἴλλω are constantly confused in MSS. It is not, I think, possible to regard ἴλλω as etymologically connected with the other verbs. It seems rather to go with ἰλλός and ἰλλαίνω, which are both used in Hippokrates. For its meaning, see below, n. 2.
- ↑ Cf. Soph. Ant. 340 ἰλλομένων ἀρότρων ἔτος εἰς ἔτος, clearly of the ploughs going backwards and forwards in the furrows. Simplicius makes a point of the fact that Apollonios Rhodios used ἰλλόμενος in the sense of "shut in," "bound," εἰργόμενος (cf. Heath, Aristarchus, p. 175, n. 6). That, however, cannot weigh against the probability that the scribes, or even Apollonios himself, merely fell into the common confusion. Unless we can get rid of the article τὴν and the testimony of Aristotle, we must have a verb of motion.
- ↑ Cf. Plato, Phaed. 111 c 4, where we are told that there is an αἰώρα in the earth, which causes the waters to move up and down in Tartaros, which is a chasm extending from pole to pole. See my notes in loc.
is in Par. A and also in the Palatine excerpts, and it is difficult to suppose that any one would interpolate it. On the other hand, it might easily be dropped, as its meaning is not at once obvious. It is to be explained, of course, like τὴν ἐπὶ θάνατον or Xenophon's προεληλυθότος . . . τὴν πρὸς τὰ φρούρια, and implies a path of some kind, and therefore a movement of translation.
