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Zeno of Elea

This webpage reproduces one of the
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Diogenes Laërtius

published in the Loeb Classical Library, 1925

The text is in the public domain.

This page has been carefully proofread
and I believe it to be free of errors.
If you find a mistake though,
please let me know!


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(Vol. II) Diogenes Laërtius
Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Book IX

 p439  Chapter 5



[link to original Greek text] 33 The orbit of the sun is the outermost, that of the moon nearest to the earth; the orbits of the other heavenly bodies lie between these two. All the stars are set on fire by the speed of their motion; the burning of the sun is also helped by the stars; the moon is only slightly kindled. The sun and the moon are eclipsed <when . . ., but the obliquity of the zodiacal circle is due>3 to the inclination of the earth to the south; the regions of the north are always shrouded in mist, and are extremely cold and frozen. Eclipses of the sun are rare; eclipses of the moon constantly occur, and this because their orbits are unequal. As the world is born, so, too, it grows, decays and perishes, in virtue of some necessity, the nature of which he does <not> specify.

The Loeb Editor's Notes:

1 With the account of Leucippus and Democritus Diels (op. cit. p142) compares Hippolytus, Ref. Haeres. I.12.1‑2 and I.13.1; Aëtius I.3.15, I.18.3, II.1.4, II.2.2, II.7.2, I.3.16; ultimately from Theophrastus, Phys. Opin. Fr. 8.


3 So Diels; but see T. L. Heath, Aristarchus p122, note 3, who prefers to supply "the obliquity of the circles of the stars." Cf. also Aët. III.12.1‑2 (Dox. Gr. p377).

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