"brims" or anything of that sort,[1] but it seems incredible that it should be used of spheres. It does not appear, either, that the solid circle which surrounds all the crowns is to be regarded as spherical. The expression "like a wall" would be highly inappropriate in that case.[2] We seem, then, to be face to face with something like the "wheels" of Anaximander, and it is highly probable that Pythagoras adopted the theory from him. Nor is evidence lacking that the Pythagoreans did regard the heavenly bodies in this way. In Plato's Myth of Er, which is certainly Pythagorean in its general character, we do not hear of spheres, but of the "lips" of concentric whorls fitted into one another like a nest of boxes.[3] In the Timaeus there are no spheres either, but bands or strips crossing each other at an angle.[4] Lastly, in the Homeric Hymn to Ares, which seems to have been composed under Pythagorean influence, the word used for the orbit of the planet is ἄντυξ, which must mean "rim."[5]
The fact is, there is no evidence that any one ever adopted the theory of celestial spheres, till Aristotle turned the geometrical construction which Eudoxos had set up as a hypothesis "to save appearances" (σῴζειν τὰ φαινόμενα)
- ↑ As Diels points out, στεφάνη in Homer is used of a golden band in the hair (Σ 597) or the brim of a helmet (Η 12). It may be added that it was used technically of the figure contained between two concentric circles (Proclus, in Eucl. I. p. 163, 12). It always means something annular.
- ↑ It must be remembered that τεῖχος is a city-wall or fortification, and that Euripides uses στεφάνη for a city-wall (Hec. 910). Heath's remark (p. 69) that "certainly Parmenides' All was spherical" is irrelevant. We have nothing to do with his own views here.
- ↑ Rep. x. 616 d 5, καθάπερ οἱ κάδοι οἱ εἰς ἀλλήλους ἁρμόττοντες; e 1, κύκλους ἄνωθεν τὰ χείλη φαίνοντας (σφονδύλους).
- ↑ Tim. 36 b 6, ταύτην οὖν τὴν σύστασιν πᾶσαν διπλῆν κατὰ μῆκος σκίσας, μέσην πρὸς μέσην ἑκατέραν ἀλλήλαις οἷον χεῖ (the letter Χ) προσβαλὼν κατέκαμπψεν εἰς ἓν κύκλῳ.
- ↑ Hymn to Ares, 6: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 αἰθερα ναίεις.
