De mensibus

Those who wrote the myths were right, then, to make Cronus destroy his own children, hinting, no doubt, that time is at once the father and the destroyer of the things that grow by it. †Throat. The servants of Dionysus called the procession a triumph, from the thyrsuses and the iambi, that is, the mockeries, as it were a thyrs-iamb; or from throein, according to Plutarch. The Lydians say they invented wine; and not wine only, but also the fig plant. That the Romans knew to call wine mustum, as it were mystes. That the Sardians were the first to name it a mystery. Sabinus was named from the cultivation of the vine, by a play on his name; for the name Sabinus signifies a sower and planter of wine. Messapia is Calabria, from Messapus. Lucania, the most wooded land; for the Romans call a grove lucus, by way of privation, from its being without light, as they call matter axylon, without wood. Evander first brought letters from Greece, the so-called letters of Cadmus, into Italy—not as many as there are now (for antiquity did not hand down so many), but only sixteen, with xi and zeta and psi standing for double letters, theta and phi and chi for aspirates, and eta and omega for long vowels, which were discovered later. For there were five vowels in ancient times, the letter epsilon supplying the use of eta, and omicron that of omega, which even now among the Romans is so, and changes its force only by its quantity. Later Marcus Flavius, an Italian grammarian, following the Greeks, added the remaining letters for the Romans. For time loves to change things.

The Phoenicians, being the first money-lenders and usurers, invented letters, weights, and, in a word, the pursuit of profit, whence the poets also call them hucksters. But let us return to the point from which we digressed. They say that Geryon was three-bodied, not because he had so many bodies, but because three islands lying in the ocean fought alongside him. That Erylus in Italy, whom Evander, the son of Carmentis the seer, subdued and held the land, the myth hints most philosophically became three-souled; for Socrates in the Phaedo hands down that the soul has three powers: the charioteer being the mind, and the horses the powers of the soul. In this way the oracles also ordain that the soul be bridled; and a mortal man must bridle his noetic soul, so that it not fall upon the ill-favored earth, but be saved. For since the nature of the whole consists of contrary powers, it is necessary that the soul which pervades all things also fit together the contrary principles; for its rational part is from the monad—that is, from the mind—while its spirited and appetitive parts are from the dyad—that is, from matter; even if the oracle hands down the whole soul as a divine triad; for the same one says: "Mingling a spark of soul with two harmonies, by mind and divine nod, to which he added third holy love, a binding, reverend rider over all, he set it." There was a certain Circe in Italy, distinguished by birth and outstanding in beauty, who, falling in love with Odysseus as he wandered in Italy with Diomedes and consorting with him, bore from him Auson, who later gained mastery over all the land, from whom the western land was also called Ausonia.

This then is Circe, who through excess of beauty boasted that she was a daughter of Helios, and in honor of her supposed father she was the first in Italy to hold a horse race, which was indeed named after her, "circus." But in Greece earlier Enyalius, son of Poseidon, in the days of Moses, used a two-horse chariot, and Oenomaus later a four-horse chariot; this man was king of the Pisatans, and he held the horse race in the month of March on the twenty-fourth, when the sun was rising. And he himself wore a pale green, that is, a green, for the earth; but his competitor wore blue for the sea, and the inland dwellers rejoiced in the green, while the coastal people rejoiced in the blue. As prize for this contest Oenomaus set before the one who defeated him his own daughter Hippodameia, but the one defeated was to be killed at once. When Pelops was about to compete against Oenomaus on the terms that had been declared, Hippodameia, having seen him, fell in love with him and betrayed to him her father's devices, by which he prevailed over his rivals, and thus she prepared Pelops to win. And he, having won, immediately slew Oenomaus, married Hippodameia, and reigned over Greece for thirty-eight years, and he called it Peloponnese after himself. But let the account return again to what came before. For the aforementioned Circe, having first begun to hold horse races in Italy, also built a hippodrome there, four stades in length and one in width.

He made the middle of it of wood, naming this base the Euripus, perhaps from the sea's Euripus and its sevenfold race-course, since that too reverses its motion seven times a day. And there is a pyramid in the middle of the stadium, and the pyramid belongs to Helios, since such an altar is near shadowless; for while all the heavenly light-bearing bodies produce a shadow, he alone is outside it. And at the ends on either side of this Euripus, above the pyramid on the Euripus three altars are set up: of Kronos, of Zeus, of Ares; and below again three altars: of Aphrodite, of Hermes, and of Selene; two tripods, of Helios and Selene, and a statue of a woman carrying a phiale on her head; and it is the earth, bearing the sea. And trumpets at the end of the contests call the victors to the prizes, and twelve starting-gates in imitation of the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he who stands in the middle and holds the signal for the race is called the mapparius, from what then happens in the matter; for the consuls were accustomed formerly to feast in the theater and after the feast to throw the impressions of their hands, which in the Roman tongue are called mappa, whence also mandulia; and the one called the mapparius, taking these up, straightway completed the contest.

The contestants contended around the pyramid—which they now call the obelisk—for no more than seven circuits, which they call spatia, as it were stadia, and misē, that is, contests, because the mile is seven stadia and because the poles of the planets are of that number, which the Chaldeans call stereōmata, apart from the lunar one, because the material refuse of the universe extends as far as it, according to the oracle. And they completed the whole contest with twenty-four prizes because of the reckoning in the pyramid; for the pyramid admits twelve angles, that is, four solid ones, each of which consists of three; and dividing the number twelve twice into two, they even now complete the period of the day. And in another way too the pyramid is suited to the contestants, for it is thought to belong to Nemesis. At any rate, in imitation of Circe, Romulus also, when he later founded Rome, in the month of April, on the twentieth day, constructed in it a race-course of this kind and in all respects similar. And he first made three chariots: the red of Ares, that is, of fire; the white of Zeus, that is, of air; the green of Aphrodite, that is, of the earth. Later the Gauls quarrelled over equal honor, and the blue was added because their cloaks were of such a color, in honor of Kronos or rather of Poseidon. And in later times, after many years, Severus the emperor of the Romans, having campaigned against Niger and arrived at Byzantium, the present city of Constantine and queen of all cities, founded there, because of the

A delightful bath of the city, of enormous size; and finding also the adjacent place dedicated to the Dioskouroi, he made it a hippodrome, adorning it with scaffolds and stoas, and having cut down a grove that was subject to the ownership of two brothers, he brought it to the beauty now seen. That the Romans called two-horse chariots bigae, from which also bigarii. Sailing from there, Aeneas after many wanderings of every sort is brought down to a city of Italy called Laurentum, which they say was once named Opica, from which also oppicizein, and, as the multitude has it, the Italians call opphicizein what is barbarizein. Then, having married into the family of Latinus who was king of the country, and having himself reigned for three years, he departed. Since, then, so many had settled as strangers in Italy, as has been shown, they called the native inhabitants Latins, and those who spoke Greek Graeci, from Latinus just mentioned by us and Graecus, the brothers, as Hesiod says in the Catalogues: "And Agrios and Latinos. And the maiden Pandora in the halls of noble Deukalion, having mingled in love with Zeus the father, the signifier of all the gods, bore Graikos, staunch in battle." Romulus founded Rome on the day before the eleventh of the Kalends of May, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad, or as others say in the second year of the eighth; and the hour of the city was the second hour before the third, as Tarruitius the astrologer established, with Zeus in Pisces, and Kronos and Aphrodite and Ares and Hermes in Scorpio, and Helios in Taurus and Selene in Libra; or as others say, with Helios in Taurus, Selene in Virgo, Kronos in Libra, Zeus in Leo, Ares in Libra, Aphrodite in Taurus, Hermes in Aries.

Romulus gives the beginning of the year to March, in honor of Ares; for the story is that he was born from him in only ten months. The decade is a complete number, whence it is also called all-perfect, containing all the forms of the other numbers and ratios and proportions and harmonies; for the decade is a standard among existing things, characterizing all things, and specifically defining the infinite in each thing, and being the gathering and collecting and perfecting of all things that both the intelligible nature and the nature beneath the Moon contain. For thus Parmenides hands down to us: first the intelligible things, second the things in numbers, third the cohesive things, fourth the perfective things, fifth the divisive things, sixth the life-generating things, seventh the creative things, eighth the assimilative things, ninth the absolved things, tenth the things in the world. Correctly, then, Philolaos called it a decade, as receptive of the infinite, and Orpheus called it branch-holding, from which, as it were branches, all numbers grow. The year, guarded according to the course in the Moon, continued from Kronos until the founding of Rome, and under Romulus it is defined, as we said before, as ten-month, the months having more days than thirty and fewer; for not yet from the motion of the Sun was the interval of time physiologized by them. Pompilius Numa, in whose time Pythagoras was, ordained that the year be counted in twelve months according to Socrates in the Phaedrus, who says that the orders of the whole have been encompassed by the twelve; for God used this number for the whole, painting it through, as Plato says. For this shape is akin to the idea of the whole.

For it is also cyclical, since the nature of the twelve is wonderful, both for other reasons and because it is constituted from the most elementary and oldest of the forms taken among substances, as those from the mathematical studies say, from the right-angled triangle; for its sides, being three and four and five, complete the number twelve, the model of the zodiacal circle; and when the six, the most generative, is doubled—which is the beginning of perfection, being completed from its own parts—Numas ordains the year of twelve months for the completion of the courses of Sun and Moon. And in the time of Romulus the month now called March was first, but in the time of Numas January and February were added. And Numas ordained that the Romans should lead the beginning of the year when the Sun, being in the middle of Capricorn, increases the day, turning back toward us from the southern bend, adding a half-hour to the day. And not only did he thus shape the year, but he also first stamped coinage, so that from him even now the obol is called nummon—as it were Numanon. But indeed he also arranged the house of the kings, which is called the Palatium, according to the priestly ordinance. Hadrian happened to be of the Aelian family, that is, lineage; whence it seemed good to him to prefix the name Aelian to his subjects; whence also Aelia is Jerusalem; for he himself also founded it as a city when it had been captured. That Hypate was formerly the name of Theonike. That it has always been proper to the high priests to cover the head or bind it with a fillet.

And this is clear from the fact that to this day he places the band of our high priest on his shoulders, the one that, as I said, was formerly placed on the head; so that it is still even now called a kaikaphorion. That Numa ordained that the royal robe be made of purple and scarlet in honor of Helios and Aphrodite—and Blatta, from which we call blattia, is a name of Aphrodite among the Phoenicians, as Phlegon says in his work On Festivals. That we find Aphrodite called by nearly three hundred names, and the names are recorded in Labeo—calling the garment in the ancestral manner trabaia, which Agathocles of Sicily is said to have first invented. And trabaia is spoken of as it were tribaphos; for it is produced from three colors, purple, scarlet, and the plant isatis, which is called by most loulakion, and which belongs to Ares. Then he appointed the guardian of the city, whom we now call hyparchos, or as some say poliarches or astydikes, whom they formerly called praitor urbanos, who also appears to preside over the senate of the Romans; and this is clear from his footwear, in which a little crescent is engraved in the shape of the letter sigma, by which the Romans signify the number one hundred—for among them it is what is called the small kappa—so that it is clear that it was first one hundred patricians; for Romulus selected so many. That the generals in wars carried symbols of Zeus and Helios and Selene, and of Hermes and Ares; and of Zeus an eagle, of Helios a lion, of Selene a cow, of Ares a wolf, of Hermes a serpent.

For one might call the serpent-standard a kerykion. Privilegia are certain private laws, not general ones. Decani are the lictors among the Romans. Acede means "come here." That Diocletian was the first after Domitian to be named master and king of the Romans, having marked his head and feet with stones instead of laurel, as Eutropius says. That in the time of Diocletian the entire army of the Romans was thirty-eight myriad, nine thousand, seven hundred and four; and the naval force that was stationed at the advantageous places, both on the rivers and on the sea, was forty-five thousand, five hundred and sixty-two. That to this number the great Constantine, during his reign over the East, so arranged the army that as many again myriads of troops were added to the Roman state. The baked brick among the Greeks is called laterculus among the Romans. And it was a public brick, on which both the names of the senators and those of the soldiers were inscribed, and a certain shape and line was drawn on the wall in a square form—a brick. Some call it a titulus as well, not knowing that titulus properly is the

It is called the registration of dignities, not indeed the squared line. The names of the other troops were written up on a tablet; and among the Romans the broad and thick piece of wood is called matricium; for the ancients used wood and bark and lime-wood tablets for writing. There is also a lime-wood tablet, on which the words of freedom are customarily written. And among them the lime-tree is called tilia, the wood; whence codex means the book. And codex properly is called the trunk among them, and liber the book. But liber is properly the bark; these things are also matricium, and they call the carpenters matricarii. Whence even now before the consuls is carried the so-called scriba of the praetor. But later in time Ptolemy, when Aristarchus the grammarian advised him to embrace the leadership of the Romans, first sent papyrus and entertained Rome as a guest. Yet he is rivaled in repute by Attalus of Pergamum, when Crates the grammarian led the zeal for rivalry against Aristarchus his rival in the art; for having scraped the skins of sheep thin, he sent to the Romans the things called among them membrana; and in memory of the sender even now the Romans call the membrana Pergamena.

It should be known that among the Romans the basket is called satura in sacred rites, but epularia in feasts, which most people through ignorance call apalaria. For it is the custom among the Romans to call feasts epulae. It seemed good that the senate should no longer assemble in the forum, but on the Palatine; and such an assembly the Romans customarily call conventus, that is, a gathering. But for the many who deliberate, silence is necessary; from their zeal for silence—which they call in their native tongue silentium—they decided to name them silentiarii. And when nearly all things had been changed, the office of the so-called magister remained; and a certain order of fifty men in number was obedient to him, who were called frumentarii and curiosi, that is, grain-men and inspectors; and the grain-men maintained the abundance of provisions in the Palatine, while the inspectors commanded the public course. Clabularius ochematicus; for they call the helm clabus. Belox, sharp, which is even now called beraidaricus. For beraidae seem to the Italians to be the yoke-horses, which means to draw the vehicle; whence also they aspirate when writing the name rhaidas, derived from the adverb rhaidios; for those who say that beraidae are rhaidae apart from this are greatly mistaken. Antiquarii are, in Greek terms, calligraphers. This Numa, when Italy was disturbed by barbarian uproars, arranged that it be called Great Greece, and that all the illustrious philosophers came forth from it—I mean Empedocles the natural philosopher and many others before Aristotle. That in the time of Numa and before him the ancient priests used to cut their hair with bronze shears, not iron.

For iron, according to the Pythagoreans, is assigned to matter; for it is itself dark and for this reason close to formless, and though wrought with much labor and of many uses, it is not free from passion. That after Augustus there was also found among the ranks of the Palatine a body of sixty patricians, with whom the arms fallen from heaven were kept; and moreover also another thirty, with whom the Sibylline oracles were kept. That priests were formerly those who later were magistrates of the Roman state, no one of all is ignorant, when Tyrrhenus, having migrated from Lydia to the West, taught the mysteries of the Lydians to those then called Etruscans—and it was a Sicanian people—who by reason of their divination by sacrifice came to be renamed Thusci; and of these I know we made mention at length in the first book of the treatise written by us concerning the months. For King Numa, having taken the insignia of the magistrates from the Thusci, introduced them into the state, just as also the stubbornness of arms from the Gauls. And the witnesses of these things are both Capito and Fonteius, from whom also the most learned Varro, all Romans, after whom this Sallust, the historian, in his first history clearly instructs. He establishes the Ramnites and Titians and Luceres; and the causes of these names I have set forth in what I have written concerning the months, as has been said. A certain tongue-shaped ornament, that is, a buckle, itself also gold-finished, made in the shape of a cluster of grapes, for the reason which I have set forth in the treatise concerning the months.

For long ago and even now among them the first of those called biarchs carries before the troops in arms a rod entwined with a branch made of silver, in honor of Dionysus who was once honored, as has been sufficiently reported by us in the books On the Months. That the rexillations are the cavalry of the Romans, and the rexilla are hangings made of purple and gold in a square shape; fastening these on long spears, they ride around the kings and cover them. These would be what are called flammula. 2. On the day. ... it seems necessary to me to speak about the months—whence and how each of them received its name, and what things were observed by the Romans of old in each of them, at least as far as we have received from the Roman histories; and in addition to these, also concerning the difference, still earlier, of years, ages, and times, and the beginning of days. This too would be, as it were, a kind of seasoning for the ears of the many. The natural day is taken from the rising of the sun to its setting, but not so among all. For the Babylonians take it from the rising of the sun to its very setting, making no mention of night at all, since it does not exist in its own substance but rather by accident.

The Egyptians and the Hebrews, counting the day that follows from the beginning of evening until the next evening again, evidently join the preceding night together with the day that follows and call both one day, beginning first from the night, because darkness is more primordial than light and before the ordering of this universe the cosmographers suppose darkness and gloom to have existed, and they call night the mother of all things; whence also the myth-makers have Artemis and Apollo born from Leto, and Artemis first, as it were the moon that cuts the air, and after her the Sun. And Leto would be the night; for forgetfulness and sleep come upon it. The Umbrians, however, an Italian people and students of astronomy, take the beginning of the day from midday, calling one day until the next midday again, just as the astrologers do in the case of nativities. The Athenians too reckon from sunset to sunset, just as the Hebrews do. The Romans, however, at first, equally with the Babylonians, according to natural law, themselves defined the day as day only, from the rising of the sun until its setting, reckoning the night as nothing; but later they established that the day be considered and called from midnight—that is, from the beginning of the seventh hour itself—until the middle again of the following night. All rhythms happen to come from the motion of the planets; for Cronus moves in the Dorian mode, Zeus in the Phrygian, Ares in the Lydian, and the rest in the rest, according to Pythagoras, in accordance with the sound of the vowels.

For Hermes [assigns] the number 1, Aphrodite the number 5, Helios the number 8, Kronos the number 10, Ares the number 70, Selene the number 400, and the star of Zeus completes the number 800; but the sound of the numbers does not reach us because of the distance. The Chaldeans around Zoroaster and Hystaspes, and the Egyptians, took the days in a hebdomad from the number of the planets. And they called the first day one, from the monad, but not first, from the hebdomad, according to the Pythagoreans, because it alone is and is not shared with the others. For first is said to be that which leads those after it, but the monad is indivisible and unchanging and self-moving and in the same state; for it is beyond number; so that one would not call it first, but one; for it does not shift to the even nor to the odd nor to any other number. Rightly would it hold the power of the intellect itself, which is good and odd, equal and bounded, and light and straight and stable, male and right. For it is intellect, says the mystical account, substantial, remaining once beyond in its own essence and turned toward itself, standing and remaining. And the monad is referred to Apollo, that is, to the one Sun, who is called Apollo because he is far from the many. And the Romans call him Sol, that is, alone. The Sun is called by many names: Helios, Horos, Osiris, Anax, son of Zeus, Apollo, steward of the seasons and times, of winds and rains, of dawn and of the starry night, guiding the reins.

Pythagoras calls the monad Hyperionides because it surpasses all things in essence, just as the intelligible Sun, having its being above the things that are, has been called Hyperionides. And Helios is referred to the monad as its image, not himself being the monad, but indeed also untiring; for toil is in composite things, but the monad is simple and male, because it is most generative and the cause of the things after it. And how this is so, it is easy to see: for if someone reckons up the twenty-four elements—I mean the letters—into numbers, he will find three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine in all; and when the monad in the six thousand is added, if all are reckoned together, the numbers come to nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, after which nothing remains besides the monad. Hence the myriad occupies the same rank as the monad, since it is itself both beginning and end of incorporeal essences, of which the numbers are paradigms. Orpheus calls the number one agyieus, that is, indivisible; for none of the parts of number is about it, neither the sesquialter nor the sesquitertian; it is perfect because it is whole. [He says] that the monad is so called from remaining in itself; for when the multitude is diminished by subtraction, having been deprived of every number, it alone remains undiminished. And the monad differs from the one as the archetype differs from the image; for the monad is the paradigm, and the one is the imitation of the monad. That the monad is contemplated in the triad, it is possible to take from the hymns; for to the One beyond, Proclus speaks thus: for the world, seeing you, a triad-holding monad, revered you.

So much concerning the one, which, as I said, the multitude calls the first, and which they assigned in the realm of sense to Helios, the steward of all sensible light, through which he both warms and gently dries bodies, being one of the planets according to the Greeks, even if Zoroaster ranks him before the fixed stars. The natural philosophers appear to inscribe the second day to Selene, who moistens and moderately warms, that is, to the overseer of matter; whence she is also called Artemis, from the even and material number; for the even is split in the middle when divided from the one, while the odd alone is indivisible. For the male number is square, a ray and light, consisting of equal sides, while the female is oblong, having night and darkness because of inequality; and the oblong has the lesser side less by one, and the greater more odd by one. So that the number two is not pure, first, because it is empty and not solid, and what is not full is not pure, and it is the beginning of infinity and inequality: of infinity through matter, and of inequality through the oblongs; whence the ancients accept the dyad as matter and otherness. And those around Pherecydes called the dyad boldness, and they call it impulse and opinion, because the true and the false lie in opinion. For matter is all-glib and unstable and much-changing, prone to suffering and enduring of toils, having by nature the divisible and the separated; for the axis, passing through the middle of the whole heaven, first reveals the division into two and the departure from the one, and it is the cause of all the motion of the sensible and altogether separated from the intelligible.

Numas, having discovered these things to be so, forbade the Romans to use the dual number in their festivals; for the Romans do not count, as they say "before four" and "before three," so also "before two"; just as the Athenians formerly excluded the second day of Boedromion, as Plutarch says in the Symposium. The third day they assigned to Pyroeis—and this would be Ares among the Greeks—that is, to the airy and generative fire, which kindles the nature of the whole sensible world and does not allow it to be idle, drying at once and warming with a rushing heat. They say Ares is a child of Hera, that is, from the airy element comes the translucent and fine-particled fire; whence the myth-makers yoke Aphrodite sometimes to Hephaestus, the earthly fire, and sometimes to Ares, the airy fire; for through these the whole sensible world is brought to life, as has been said. The power of the triad is also greatest in respect of sense-perception; for the number according to it has granted to generated things generation, increase, and nourishment. And it has not been said idly: "all things are divided in three," since even the heavenly bodies themselves are three: the aetherial, the starry, and the stony. And the triad is the beginning of the odd numbers, whence also the number three is called specific, not admitting of partition or division. Because the triad rules over all numbers, since it is the beginning of all the odd numbers, which are full and never deficient. And according to Orpheus, three first principles of generation sprouted forth: Night, Earth, and Heaven; and of the gods in generation there are three kinds: the heavenly, the earthly, and that between them. And the three most sovereign parts of the soul are the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive.

Aristotle hands down three kinds of intellect: the material, the habitual, and the one from without; from which also come three ideas: nature, learning, practice. And of music itself, which moves all things, according to Theophrastus there are three divisions: grief, pleasure, and enthusiasm. But indeed also of the body there are three motions: carrying, law, and progression. And there are three compositions of spheres: center, diameter, and circumference. And there are three motions of the stars: forward motion, backward motion, and the extremity. And there are three differences of bodies: for some are material, some aerial, some fiery, as the Chaldean hands down. And there are three movements of each shape: breadth, depth, and length. And there are three circles that bound the breadth of the zodiac: the summer tropic, the winter tropic, and the equinoctial. And there are three celestial centers: east, west, and midheaven. And one could say many things about the triad according to sense, and the whole cosmos is said to have been constituted from three powers: arithmetic, geometry, and harmony; for the intelligible has surpassed the present examination. For we know that the triad set in motion the procession of divine things and wrought for them their eternal station in the same form, as the Pythagorean Ocellus says in these words: "The triad first established beginning, middle, and end." For the odd and limiting equality is creative according to square nature; for the divine is characterized by these three things: the desirable, the sufficient, and the perfect. Moreover also Socrates in the Phaedrus, but indeed also in the Republic, hands down that the intelligible is a certain third

He places nature in the divine: for of it the highest part is substance, the middle is life, and the last is intellect. But perhaps someone will say: what communion do sensible things have with the intelligible triad? It must be known, then, that Timaeus hands down three triads, and Proclus is a witness in his epitome of Plato's philosophy, saying that the summit of intelligible things, being an intelligible triad, is also a monad; for it can be a henad, having in itself the cause and substance of all powers, as Parmenides says. For all intelligible things are contained in the triad, and every divine number has proceeded in this order, as the Chaldean himself also says in the Oracles: "For in the bosoms of this triad all things have been sown," and again: "For from this triad the Father mingled every spirit." For this reason the Pythagoreans posit the triad among numbers, and among figures the right-angled triangle, as the element of the generation of all things. One measure, then, is that by which the incorporeal and intelligible world was constituted; a second measure is that by which the sensible heaven was fixed, having obtained the fifth and more divine substance, immutable and unchanging; and a third is that by which the things beneath the moon were created, admitting generation and corruption from the four powers. The fourth day they dedicated to Stilbon, one of the planets so called according to the Egyptians, which alternately moistens and dries in equal measure, being breathed upon by the swift motion around the sun; the Greeks hold this to be Hermes. To him, then, those who philosophize assigned the tetrad, as overseer of the mixed souls.

For the supports of the soul are four: intellect, knowledge, opinion, perception. For the soul of man, as Pythagoras said, is a right-angled square. But Archytas defines the soul not in a square but in a circle: "For this reason the soul is that which moves itself, and necessity is that which first moves, and this is a circle or a sphere." And this is so in the intelligible realm, but no less can one observe it also in the sensible realm in the generations of animals: for first there is the casting of seed, second the distribution into kinds, third growth, and fourth completion. Moreover, there are four turnings of the sun, by which existing things are preserved: two equinoxes, and the summer and winter solstice. And the first phases of the moon herself are also four, as it were roots and beginnings: conjunction, full moon, and two dichotomies, each phase altering its activity. For from conjunction to the dichotomy it moistens, from this to the full moon it warms, from this to the second dichotomy it dries, and from this to the conjunction it cools. Hence, I think, those who have occupied themselves with farming safely sow and plant around conjunctions or full moons, since the air is then moister and stirred toward the generation of other things; but around the dichotomies they cut whatever timber is workable and gather in the fruits for storage, since the season is then drier. And these things pertain to sensible and intelligible matters. But concerning the axiom according to number, the fourth number is a square.

For it alone is naturally generated equal in equal parts, equal in its parts, from the same elements both in composition and in power—composition from two and two, power from twice two—displaying a most beautiful form of harmony, which has befallen no other number; whence it is also called productive. For if numbers are added in succession from the monad up to the tetrad, they make the decad. The fifth they assigned to Phaethon, the most temperate of all the planets; the Greeks theologize him as Zeus the life-giver. Whence also they wish him to have been born in Crete in myth, where nothing deadly grows, nor is a wolf or an owl found, as Antigonus says. And he is called heavenly according to the circular essence in the pentad, from which they say the heaven was completed according to Aristotle. For the pentad, taking over the tetrad, which has in a certain way the account of matter and is the underlying subject for the things that grow from it, increased it and led it on to the eternal revolution that comes from increase; for the pentad is the boundary of the decad and, as it were, an image of the common perfection. And there are five planets besides the sun and moon, and five circles in a sphere, and five zones. Zeus is said by the philosophers to be the craftsman of perception, and it was fitting that the pentad should be assigned to him by nature; for the pentad is akin to perception, which is divided fivefold: into sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. And for this reason Pythagoras says that the number five is dedicated to Fate, since the account is that Fate presides over perceptible things.

The oracle says that souls being restored pass beyond Fate; for theurgists do not fall under the flock of Fate. They refer the sixth day to the Light-Bringer, which warms and at the same time moistens generatively; this would be the star of Aphrodite, which is also Hesperus, as the Greeks hold. One might call Aphrodite the nature of the whole perceptible universe, that is, the first-begotten matter, which the oracles also call Asteria and Urania. For the number six is the most generative, being even-odd, partaking of both the active essence according to the odd and of the material according to the even. Hence the ancients also called it marriage and harmony; for of the numbers from the monad it alone is perfect in its own parts, being completed from the same: a half being the triad, a third the dyad, a sixth the monad. And to speak simply, it is naturally both male and female, as Aphrodite herself possesses the nature of the male and of the female and for this reason is called male-female by the theologians. And another says: the number six is soul-engendering, being spread out from the hexad upon the sphere of the whole, and it blends opposites together, leading them to concord and friendship; then it produces health in bodies, harmony in the lyre and in music, virtue in the soul, prosperity in the city, and providence in the universe. Hence Orpheus also says these things about the hexad: Be gracious, glorious number, father of the blessed, father of men.

The Egyptians and Chaldeans call the seventh day that of Phainon, the star so named among them, the highest of all, which cools extremely and directly dries; but among the Greeks it is customary to call it Kronos—in theology, "the all-seeing mind," and by etymology "sated mind," as it were full and replete with years, instead of "long-lived," as has been said. The Pythagoreans, at any rate, dedicate the seventh to the ruler of the universe, that is, to the One, and Orpheus is a witness, saying thus: "The seventh, which lord Apollo, worker from afar, loved." We have said before that Apollo mystically means the One, because he is far from the many, that is, alone. Correctly, then, Philolaus called the number seven "motherless," for it alone is by nature neither to generate nor to be generated; and that which neither generates nor is generated is unmoved; for generation is in motion—the one, that it may generate, the other, that it may be generated. Such is God, as the rhetor of Tarentum himself also says; and he speaks thus: "For there is one God, leader and ruler of all, ever existing, steadfast, unmoved, like himself." But the mathematicians, inclining to the more mythical, call the seventh day that of Kronos, as it were of the father of the visible gods. For since the star of what they call Kronos is said to be higher than all the planets, they assigned the seventh day to it, as being the highest of all. The hebdomad, then, consists of one and two and four, having two most harmonious ratios, the triple and the quadruple. It also has divisions constituted in a certain manner in pairs.

For it is first divided into a unit and a six, then into a five and a two, and lastly into a three and a four; and the proportion of these numbers is most musical. Its nature extends also to all visible substance, heaven and earth; for instance, they say that heaven is girded by seven circles, whose names are these: the arctic, the antarctic, the summer solstice, the winter solstice, the equinoctial, the zodiacal, and besides these the Milky Way; for such a number is divine. Hence the things in our soul are divided sevenfold through the ruling reason, with reference to the five senses and the vocal organ and, above all, the generative part. And this whole is observed in seven: in body, in interval, in shape, in magnitude, in color, in motion, in rest; and besides these nothing else has befallen the things seen; for of perceptible things solids are conceived first, of solids planes, of planes surfaces, of surfaces lines, of lines points, of points numbers, which indeed also belong to body. And there are seven changes of voices: acute, grave, circumflex, consonant, bare, and long and short. Hence also seven-month infants are naturally brought to full birth, as Hippocrates says; for the soul-generating power of the number makes seven-month infants perfect, because the perfect period of the spherical is contained by a perfect and cosmic number, the soul-governing and soul-generating one; for Timaeus also composed the soul from seven numbers. And all motions are only seven: up and down, to the right, to the left, forward, backward, and in a circle.

Of the elements, the vowels are seven, since they seem both to be sounded by themselves and, when arranged with the others, to produce articulate sounds; for they fill up what is lacking in the semivowels, and they make the sounds complete, and they turn and change the natures of the voiceless, so that what is unspeakable becomes speakable. And why should we speak at length, when not even the nature of waters has been left outside the power of the seven? At any rate, Dionysius says in his Foundations that the Chalcidian Euripus, turning seven times a day, stands still at the sole periods of seven. And from the intelligible aeon itself one can discern the articulations; for they are gathered first from seasons, then from days, then from weeks, then from months, then from years, thence from times, and for the rest from aeons, toward the archetypal form of the intelligible and Father-begotten aeon. 3. On the month. That Anacharsis the Scythian said that there once arose a rivalry between Egyptians and Scythians concerning the antiquity of each, perhaps with each side deeming its own affairs to take precedence from each of the Bears, and that it was judged that the Scythians were older, because both their land lies under the Great Bear and by nature, as it were from an upper chamber, our sea receives its beginning from the Hyperborean Ocean; for it is clear to all that there are two inlets that make it: one from Spain, and the other, as has been said, from the Hyperborean Ocean, which the geographers also call the Cronian Sea, contrary to the opinion of Ptolemy; for he holds that there is one and only one inlet, that from the western Ocean through Gades.

And regarding universal antiquity, one might suppose that the Scythians hold first place, from the fluid substance, which is indisputably first among the elements. Whence also the Parthians, that is, the Persians, pride themselves greatly on their antiquity; that they are Scythians, all testify, and Arrian demonstrates; for the name Parthos, in his account, is interpreted in the Scythian tongue as "Scythian" and "stranger." And regarding Greek antiquity, the books hand down that after Deucalion the first of all men were the Greeks—Arcadians and Sicyonians—as it were "archadians" and archetypes and first-born; whence also the Arcadians honored Pan, that is, this whole universe, believing that nothing exists beyond things perceptible. And the myth holds that they were also "before the moon"—not that one would ever grant that men existed before the moon; but he says that the Arcadians and Sicyonians were born before the shaping of the months. The ancients counted the month according to the lunar course; hence also the month (mēn) is named from the mēnē, that is, the moon; and the moon (selēnē) from having a light (selas) ever new. For a month is the time in which the sun has completed its course, during which the light carried from the center of the sun to the moon, having gone round, returns to the same place from which it began to go round; whence also, honoring the new moon from conjunction to conjunction, they reckoned the year to be three hundred and fifty-four days, so as to encompass for each month twenty-nine and a half days.

That Timaeus now defines the cosmos as generated by cause, now as ungenerated: ungenerated on account of the intelligible powers within it, but generated as being visible and tangible and at the same time having body. The decade is the circle and limit of every number; for the numbers, rolling around it and bending back as around a turning-post, run their long course. For it is the boundary of their infinity; for from the monad up to it and it alone, having counted and stood at it, we turn back again to the monad. And that the decade is the container of every number, nature is witness, having provided man with fingers not more than ten nor yet fewer. Thus indeed it is possible to find also in the nature of the year, that when completed it turns back upon itself again, just like the number ten; and for this reason it was named "year" (eniautos), from its moving within itself; for it is a circle rolled upon itself. And the circle is a plane figure contained by a single line, and for this reason it is called a circular figure, beginning from itself and ending in itself, which is precisely the property of time, turning back upon itself and nowhere coming to an end. Whence also the Egyptians, according to sacred doctrine, engrave a serpent devouring its tail upon the pyramids. For they suppose an abyss and a serpent in it, from which they hold that the perceptible gods and the whole perceptible universe came to be. Moreover, it is their custom also to inscribe in their temples a circle drawn in a straight line, because the year becomes both beginning and end of itself. For this reason the Pythagoreans named the head of time not "first" but "one.

The Egyptians are said to have reckoned the year as of four months, whence they also record that certain men once lived a thousand years among them. But Hesiod and Hecataeus, Hellanicus and Acusilaus and Ephorus and Nicolaus say that the long-lived lived beyond a thousand years, and not only they, as being heroic souls, but also certain human beings, as Diogenes in his work On Thule deems worthy of record. The Arcadians reckoned the year as of three months, the Sicyonians as of six, the Latins as of thirteen; among the Romans in ancient times the year was formed to have ten months, but later by King Numa two others were added—January in honor of the intelligible, February of the material. Later Gaius Caesar, from the teaching of the Egyptians, ordained that the time be of three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days, and that some months have thirty days, others thirty-one, and February twenty-eight. For antiquity reckoned all twelve months of the solar year as of thirty days, and added the five and a quarter days in a thirteenth month. A year is the time in which the sun, having begun from a solstice or any equinox whatsoever, from whatever point of the circle from the diameter, arrives at the same point.

The lunar months were observed, with the other two added to them by Numa, as we were saying, until the reign of Gaius Caesar; and they say that he, surpassing the others in fortune and wisdom and especially in astrology, came up to Rome and gave to the lunar months eleven days intercalated, and thereby made the year solar. That the bissextum is so called because the Romans count twice before the sixth of the Kalends of March every four years, and in this they observe the life-generating number; and this belongs to Aphrodite, and Aphrodite is the overseer of the Romans. That the moon has directly stepped upon all that is begotten and all things here are clearly governed by it, as the oracles say: Nymphs of the springs and all watery spirits and chthonic hollows and airy and open-to-the-sun monthly ones, steppers-upon and steppers-up of all the heavenly and starry wood and of the abysses. For since the changeable body, according to its own proportion of weight, was poured around the earth, it was necessary that what was about to approach it should partake of every power. Therefore God, fitting together the lunar sphere as partaking of every power of the active spheres, set it near the whole perceptible world as overseer of the elements. Whence the mystic account also hands down that Hecate is four-headed because of the four elements; and the fire-breathing head of the horse clearly refers to the sphere of fire, the bellowing of the bull with a certain daemonic bellowing to that of air, the bitter and unstable nature of the water-snake to that of water, and the punitive and avenging nature of the dog to the earth.

Hence the poets also call her Cerberus, as it were flesh-devouring. Since, then, the moon herself rules the four elements, the ancients reasonably assigned the beginning of the year to both lights at once. The festivals of sowing, called by the Romans Semantivae, that is, sowing-festivals, did not receive a fixed day, because not every season is suitable for the beginning of sowing; for it is either too early on account of the rains or too late on account of the delays. They were held over two days, not consecutively but with seven days in between; and on the first they sacrificed to Demeter, as to the Earth that receives the fruits; then after seven days to Kore, the overseer of the fruits, since every seed emerges on the seventh day, and not only seed, but also of living creatures the birds observe the seventh day after the third in generation, with the exception of geese and such as the natural philosophers indicate; for on the third day the heart begins to move, on the seventh the whole is supplied with blood, on the fourteenth the body is articulated, and on the twentieth, when the shell is first broken, it sends forth sound. For great is the power of the hebdomad; for the number according to it is unmixed and motherless, neither begetting nor begotten, as each of the numbers in the decade. Hence the Pythagoreans also dedicate the hebdomad to Athena; for they say that by the circuit of the hebdomad all immortal things are preserved. And for this reason they call her a virgin, mighty-fathered, because she is the offspring of the monad alone, which contains all things and established them; for the monad is the cause of all things.

It is also called judgment because by her number all things receive their outcome in one direction or the other. And this is clear from the universal age of human beings; for in the sixty-third year—and it comprises seven nines—the genesis is judged, when the soul-ruling [number], which is the seventh, and the body-forming [number], which is the ninth, come together. Numa, honoring everywhere the odd and not the even number, shaped the festivals of the month in three ways; for the tripod is proper to Apollo, and it is also an image of the monad. In this way he also arranged the festivals of the month; for since the courses of the moon are said to be three—the swift, the middle, and the relaxed—on account of which the poets also call Hecate—that is, the Moon—Trioditis, he divided the month by three festivals. For the Moon is three-formed, and how this is so must be learned from the oracle; for it says thus: I am the maiden, much-visible, heaven-traversing, bull-faced, three-headed, relentless, golden-quivered Phoebe, of infinite art, shining on mortals, Eileithyia, bearing the three tokens of a threefold nature. For, as Aristotle says, she makes her course swifter toward the winter solstice, slower toward the summer solstice, and even toward the equinox. The first festival of the month, then, is what is called among the Romans the Kalends, and among the Greeks the Neomenia. And the first day of the month is "new" among the Attics, and the last is "old.

The ancients called them Kalends from a Greek meaning, from the high priest's calling the council in the so-called Calabrian basilica and indicating whether the festival of the Nones should be completed on the fifth day or at the half-moon of the moon, from which they observed the mid-month. For in the case of the months that even now preserve the lunar festivals, he indicated the Nones as fifth days, on which, at the thirteenth and certain degrees, it is reasonable that the middle of the lunar body, not of the light, coincides. For the number thirteen is composed of the first two squares, of four and of nine—even and odd—having as sides, of the even the material form, the dyad, and of the odd the active idea, the triad. This number, then, has become for the ancients the greatest and most perfect observance of festivals. For the fifteenth, strictly speaking, is the mid-month at six degrees. For it is the middle of the light itself. Whence also they have considered it a festival of Zeus, as it were of the Sun, through whom we agree that the Moon is illuminated. But in the case of the solar months they indicated the Nones as seventh days; for the number seven is of the Sun, as has been said before. For it is clear that the least period of the moon is twenty-seven days and certain hours, and that of the light nearly thirty, so that the middle restoration of the lunar body is the thirteenth, and the mid-month of the light, that is, the fifteenth. First, then, is the new moon, from which it is the custom for the Romans to proclaim the second festival, that is, the Nones.

The middle days from the new moon up to the Nones are either four or six, so that the total including the new moon itself is either five or seven. If, then, one reckons nine days further from the fifth day itself—this addition is called Nones among the Romans, in place of "nine," for that is how many there are—he will find the middle of the small lunar revolution, that is, the thirteenth. So too, counting the nine days from the seventh day together with it, he will find the mid-month of the light, that is, the fifteenth. They regarded the Nones as wholly inauspicious, now as reckoned from the fifth day, now as from the half-month, not suffering either this or that phase to be named, but rather the mid-month that arrives after nine days, that is, the Ides, or else honoring them for another reason, on account of the observation of the lights. That the name of the Kalends is born from a Greek meaning, one can grasp from the writing itself; for even now the Romans write the Kalends with the Greek kappa. It should be known that the Kalends were a festival of Hera, that is, of Selene; for the natural philosophers, as we said before, held Zeus to be the Sun and Hera to be the Moon, and they referred the new moon to her, but the Ides, that is, the mid-month, to Zeus, that is, the Sun, calling the Ides plenilunium, as it were the full moon. The name of the Ides we find introduced among the statesmen from the appearance of the Moon, but among the priests from a certain manner of sacrifice which was called eidoulis. The Nones, from the fifth or seventh day after the Kalends

They proclaimed that each of the two numbers is most akin to the lights. Labienus says that January and February, April and June, Sextilis and September received in ancient times twenty-nine days, but March and May, Quintilis and October thirty-one; whence those drawing from twenty-nine days have their Nones on the fifth day, as being lunar, while those from thirty-one have them on the seventh, as being solar. February the Tuscans deliberately made shorter, since it appears to have been conceded by the priest Numa to the festivals of the underworld, and it was not lawful that it be honored equally with the heavenly months, but rather that the month allotted to these chthonic deities, who diminish the whole, be reduced; whence, though all the months draw an odd number, February alone appears to have obtained an unequal one. And this number is that of matter, and on account of it the Romans, at their festivals, reject the number two, calling it secundus, as it were "fortunate," in their ancestral tongue by euphemism, just as they call the Eumenides, Adrasteia, and the Parcae—the Fates who spare no one. And from the Nones themselves to the Ides themselves they observed only nine days in between, because the number nine is most akin and natural to the moon; for this number begets itself, according to Xenocrates. For the progression up to the number nine is indefinite and dwells with multitude.

They called the first day of the month the Kalends, and the second day of the month the fourth or the sixth day before the Nones, as has been said—let the example be as when the Nones fall on the fifth day—the third day the third before the Nones, the fourth the day before the Nones because the number two is reckoned ill-omened, the fifth the Nones, the sixth the eighth before the Ides, the seventh the seventh before the Ides, the eighth the sixth before the Ides, the ninth the fifth before the Ides, the tenth the fourth before the Ides, the eleventh the third before the Ides, the twelfth the day before the Ides, the thirteenth the Ides; the fourteenth, if the Nones were on the fifth day and the month had thirty days, the eighteenth before the Kalends of the following month, but if the Nones were on the fifth day and the month had thirty-one days, likewise the nineteenth before the Kalends; but if the Nones were on the seventh day and the month had thirty-one days, the fifteenth likewise the seventeenth before the Kalends. In February alone the fourteenth is the sixteenth before the Kalends of March, and thereafter in descending order of the number of the Kalends. But whenever it is leap year, they called the twenty-fifth and the twenty-sixth the sixth before the Kalends of March, as has also been said. March, May, July, and October have their Nones on the seventh day, but all the rest on the fifth. Nevertheless it pleased Caesar, even after the solar arrangement of the months, to leave the lunar festivals to the months. And this much concerning the apparent irregularity of the months that have their Nones on the fifth and the seventh day.

Among the ancients the new moon was celebrated in honor of Hera, who is Selene, the Nones in the name of Zeus, and the Ides again in the name of Zeus. They called the first day of the moon the new moon, and both Romans and Greeks celebrated it, nor was it despised even among the Hebrews, as the psalmist says: "Blow the trumpet at the new moon." There is no difficulty in briefly stating, from what the ancients have said, what the new moon actually is and for what reason the power of the new moon appears honored among all peoples—if one is to speak the truth, being observed in the nature of things. And of this Antigonus is a witness, saying that ants rest at the new moons; for it is impossible to see an ant at work at the new moons, as has also been stated by Archelaus. And the name of the new moon is honored, as we were saying, as being the cause of the renewal of the whole perceptible world; for since all things in the realm of sense are subject to increase and decrease, such a nature of the moon has been fashioned by the Creator, encompassing the whole of sense-perception; and this is clear from the nature of waters and of the living creatures in them, and from the humors within us.

For as the moon waxes, things under it wax, and then as it wanes they cease and contract into themselves. And from this the Egyptians seemed to honor the ibis and the monkey; for both these creatures are held to share in the moon's sympathy. The ibis is like the moon in its very shape, dark at the extremities and white in the middle, just like the moon in the upper air. For when the sky is moonless, the ibises do not see, but close their eyes during this time and endure without food, awaiting their kindred element. The monkey has more manifest effects; for when the light of the moon waxes, the circle of its eyes widens, and when that light diminishes, the roundness of its eyes contracts. Some say, among whom is Dercyllus, that in the river Hydaspes is born a stone called lychnis; this, as the moon waxes, gives forth a sound of melody. Moreover, in the river Arar of Gaul, or rather the Saône of Sybaris, is born a fish, which the natives call klopia. They say that this fish grows white as the moon waxes, and turns black again as its light diminishes. Callisthenes the Sybarite records this. But Archelaus also says that the livers of mice have fifteen lobes, which do not all come into being at once, but each day one lobe is added, coming into being from nothing, from the new moon until the full moon, and again from the full moon, one by one each day, a lobe waning, until the new moon they all fail.

And again from that source they begin to come into being in accordance with the moon's cycle and the number of its days, themselves both coming to be and passing away, both increasing and diminishing. The same historian says that the eggs of sea urchins undergo the same thing. Anaximenes, then, holds that the moon is a circle nineteen times the size of the earth, full of fire like the sun's; Xenophanes that it is a cloud set on fire; the Stoics that it is a mixture of fire and air; Plato that it is composed of more of the fiery element; Anaxagoras and Democritus that it is a solid mass inflamed, having within itself plains and mountains and ravines; Heraclitus that it is earth enveloped in mist; Pythagoras, however, that it is a fiery body. Concerning the light in it, we shall say that Anaximander holds that it has its own light, but somewhat rarer; Antiphon says that the moon shines with its own radiance, but that the part concealed around it is darkened by the impact of the sun, since it is natural for the stronger light to darken the weaker, which indeed happens also with the other stars. Thales and those after him judged that the moon is illuminated by the sun. Heraclitus at any rate says that the sun and the moon have suffered the same thing; for being bowl-shaped in their forms, they are illuminated from the moist exhalation in accordance with the appearance, but the sun is brighter because it appears in pure air. The account according to Eratosthenes is that the moon is distant from the earth by seventy-eight myriads of stades, and the sun by four hundred and eight times ten thousand. For the moon, occupying the seventh zone, is closer to the earth than the other stars.

Hence they say that it is not pure, compacted aether like the other stars, but a mixture of aetherial and aerial substance; for its visible dark part, which some call its face, is nothing other than the air mingled in it, which, being dark by nature, extends as far as it. And that point is worth not passing over. The new moon is called by the ancients the head of the month. They introduce ten shapes of the moon, from which the thirty-day cycle is completed; and these are: conjunction, rising, crescent, half-moon, gibbous, full, again half-moon, again gibbous, again crescent, again conjunction. Others wish there to be eleven shapes; for after the conjunction they also count the birth, when the moon has departed one degree from the sun. The Kalends, then, as we were saying, the Romans honored as a kind of new moon, and after these in order the Nones, and in third rank the Ides. For the power of Hecate, that is of the Moon, is three-formed; for what Apollo is in the sun, Hecate is in the moon.

That the number thirty is most natural: for what the triad is among units, the thirty is among tens; since indeed the cycle of the month is composed of the four successive squares from the unit, 1, 4, 9, 16, whence not without reason Heraclitus calls the month a generation. After the Kalends we find that time is divided in many ways: into aeon, into time, into season, into year. An aeon, then, is a certain boundless circuit of the heavenly bodies, or the complete revolution of the whole heaven itself; while time is the indefinite extension from the aeon. In this way Cronus too is called a child of Uranus; for time proceeds from the motions of heaven. So that a season is a paradigm of time, and not time itself. That the greatest restoration differs from the perfect period in that the restoration takes place from the same point to the same point in length and breadth and depth, whereas the perfect period is completed from the gathering of the limits; for the ancients say that there are three periods of all the planets—greatest, least, and middle—and that of Cronus is the greatest, of fifty-seven years, that of Zeus of seventy-nine, that of Ares sixty-six—whence Caesar led so many thousands of men, as being in this respect at least most experienced both in the civil war and in his other wars, and reasonably prevailed—that of Helios of one hundred twenty—for which reason it is impossible for a man to live beyond so many years—that of Aphrodite of eighty-two, and of Selene of one hundred eight.

The least period of Kronos is thirty, of Zeus twelve, of Ares fifteen—on which account the Romans also set the cycle of the so-called indiction at this number—of Helios nineteen, of Aphrodite eight, of Hermes twenty, and of Selene twenty-five. The mean period of Kronos is forty-three and a half, of Zeus forty-five and a half, of Ares forty and a half, of Helios fifty-nine and a half, of Aphrodite forty-five, of Selene sixty-six and a half. Such are the greatest, least, and mean periods; but the complete returns of the planets are as follows: Kronos makes his return in two hundred and sixty-five years, Zeus in four hundred and twenty-seven, Ares in two hundred and forty-nine, Helios in one thousand four hundred and sixty-one, Aphrodite in one thousand one hundred and fifty-one, Hermes in four hundred and eighty, Selene in twenty-five. The return of the whole takes place through one million seven hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred years, and then occurs the conjunction of all the stars at the thirtieth degree of Karkinos or the first of Leon; and at Karkinos there would be a deluge, but at Leon a conflagration—not universal, according to the Stoics, but certainly partial.

For they hold that the whole perceptible universe is subject to such conditions, and they think it right to give some such cause as this: they say that the whole is dried up by infinite time or by the conflagrations of the luminaries in the heavens, or is dissolved and falls apart by the inundations of waters from the moisture that spreads over it, and is broken up and loses its firm cohesion. Of necessity, therefore, Providence must adapt itself to each alternative, and like a farmer now summon forth by fire the heat in the depths of nature, and now irrigate by water the parched dryness of the earth. That the Greeks made the beginning of the year, that is the solstice, from the twenty-fifth of December, but the Romans eight days later, on the first of January—the Greeks observing the solstice itself, but the Romans [observing] when the shadow of the gnomon begins to contract; for up to the eight days the diminution of the shadow is imperceptible. That on account of generation the motion of the heavenly bodies has become twofold; for if the revolution were simple, which the fixed heaven makes, containing all things in itself and whirling them about, nothing would be produced from it; for what else could be accomplished from simple motion besides itself? But since many and varied motions are carried in opposition to the one revolution, all generation is produced together from them. For thus Aristotle says in the second book On Generation and Corruption: "Since the motion is one, it is not possible for both to come to be, generation and destruction, because they are opposites; for the same thing, being always in the same state, is naturally disposed to produce the same thing, so that there is always either generation or destruction. But the motions must be more numerous and opposite either in respect of the motion or in respect of the irregularity.

For the causes of opposites are opposite. Therefore the first motion is not the cause of generation and destruction, but the motion along the oblique circle; for in this there is both continuity and being moved with two motions. That the fixed heaven, made wholly simple by the One beyond all things, according to the oracle, containing all things and whirling all things, moves all things and imparts itself to all things, and is the swiftest of all motion and always in the same state, and gives being to the whole perceptible universe, having obtained no change or variation. And that they honored the year as a god is clear from the very royal city of the Lydians. For Xanthus calls it Sardis and Xyaris, and if anyone reckons the name Sardis according to number, he will find, summing the units, three hundred and sixty-five; so that from this too it is clear that the city was named Sardis in honor of the sun, which brings the year together in so many days. And that "new sardis" means "new year" is even now agreed by the multitude; and there are some who say that in the ancient language of the Lydians the year is called sardis.

The Lydians take Pan to mean the nature of this universe: horned from the moon, fiery in his eyes from the aether, shaggy in body from the earth, and in his remaining parts of a baser nature because of the irrational variety of matter. The twelve months, which exist among all other peoples, are called differently by different nations. For among the Athenians they are as follows: Elaphebolion, Mounychion, Thargelion, Skirophorion, Hekatombaion, Metageitnion, Boedromion, Pyanepsion, Maimakterion, Poseideon, Gamelion, Anthesterion. Among the Greeks they are as follows: Gorpiaios, Hyperberetaios, Dios, Apellaios, Audonaios, Peritios, Dystros, Xanthikos, Artemisios, Daisios, Panemos, Loos. Among the Hebrews they are as follows: Thesri, Marchesouban, Chaseloth, Tebeth, Saphath, Adar, Nisan, Iar, Siban, Thamouth, Aab, Eloul. Among the Egyptians they are as follows: Thoth, Phaophi, Athyr, Choiak, Tybi, Mechir, Phamenoth, Pharmouthi, Pachon, Pauni, Epiphi, Mesori. Among the Romans they are as follows: September, October, November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August. So this is how the months stand among the nations; but the Babylonians and Egyptians defined the beginning of the year as the spring turning-point, taking the equinox in Aries as it were from the head, because all perceptible nature grows in spring. The Greeks, however, [took] the first degree of Cancer, as one might say, the twenty-third day of the

They handed down the month of June as the beginning of the year. But for these and all other nations one single beginning of the year was observed, while for the Romans there were three: one sacred, another ancestral, and the other cyclical and civil. The sacred one is at January, when the sun, passing through Capricorn, makes the day increase; the ancestral one is what they call the first of the month of March, on which it is still and even now the custom for Romans to move their weapons. The civil, or rather cyclical, one is the first of the month of September, which the Greeks call the epineme-sis, but they themselves call the indiction; for the Romans in their ancestral tongue call the announcement of the annual cycle an indiction. For since antiquity had its cycle extending to what they call the lustrum, that is, to the five-year period—and a purification and mysteries of the Mother were celebrated at it—it seemed good later, in honor of Ares—a god ancestral to the Romans, as they say—that the cycle be renewed every fifteenth year. For the perfect restoration of Ares is watched for in two ways: the lesser at fifteen, the middle at seventy-nine. That the Romans received March as the ancestral beginning of the year is clear also from the fact that those among them called matrons, that is, the well-born women, feast their slaves, just as in the Kronia it was the custom for owners to do this.

Of these, some serve the male members of the household because of their superior nature, in honor of Ares; while the others—introducing, as it were, an averting remedy in service to Kronos—were slaves to their own slaves, so that they might not, having in truth suffered something deserving of nemesis, fall into slavery to their enemies. The Greeks named it Epineme-sis from the very thing itself. For when the sun comes to the balance, it shows the quality of the fruits; and at that time the ancients, in a spirit of humanity, distributed the taxes to their subjects, so that those taxed might not seem to be impiously burdened beyond the assessment of these. With good reason, then, they called it epineme-sis, as it were a distribution of the dues. For the collection of taxes was not so inexorable, nor was it some fixed amount or rather increased little by little, but it was according to the need of the circumstances that arose for those in power. For this reason even now the Asians call the taxes epitagmata. Hence, when in peacetime they distributed them for the most part and for the rest conceded them to the taxpayers, such wonderful things accrued to the cities—I mean baths and marketplaces and channels of water—proclaiming the boundless prosperity of the inhabitants.

January. It has been sufficiently stated by us that the month of January was appointed by King Numa to be the beginning of the sacred year for the Romans, during which they made offerings to the beings above the moon, just as in February to those beneath it. It must now be said concerning Janus, who he is and what opinion has arisen about him among the ancients. Labeo, then, says that he is called Janus Consivius, that is, "of counsel," Janus Cenuulus and Cibullius—for the Romans called food cibus—as it were "feasting," Patricius as it were "native," Clusivius for "of the threshold," Junonius, that is, "aerial," Quirinus as it were "champion," Patulcius and Clusius as it were "shield," Curiatius as it were "guardian of the well-born"; for Curiatii and Horatii are names of patricians. And some mythologize him as two-formed, now carrying keys in his right hand as it were a shield, now counting with his right hand three hundred and with the other sixty-five pebbles, as it were the year. Hence also four-formed from the four seasons; and such a statue of him in the forum of Nerva is said to be preserved even now. Longinus, however, calls him Aionarius

...forces one to interpret it as, as it were, the father of the age (aion), or because the Greeks called the year "enon," as Callimachus in the first book of the Aitia: "the four-year-old son of Damasus, Telestorides," or from "ia" instead of "mia" (one) according to the Pythagoreans. Whence Messala thinks that this is the age (aion); for indeed on the fifth of this month the ancients used to celebrate a festival of Aion. They say that twelve prytaneis were appointed by Numa, the ones called Salii, who hymn Janus according to the number of the Italian months. But Varro in the fourteenth book of the Divine Matters says that among the Tuscans he is called heaven (ouranos) and overseer of every action, and Popanon because popana (cakes) are offered on the Kalends. Fontëius in his work On Statues thinks that he is overseer of all time, and for this reason his temple is twelve-altared according to the number of the months. But Gabius Bassus in his work On the Gods thinks that he is a daimon appointed over the air, and that through him the prayers of humans are carried up to the superior beings; for this reason he is said to be two-formed, both from his aspect toward us and from his aspect toward the gods. And in Philadelphia among us even now a trace of the antiquity is preserved; for on the day of the Kalends there comes forth one shaped as Janus himself, so to speak, with a two-formed face, and they call him Saturn, as it were Kronos. Lutatius, at any rate, calls him Helios (Sun) from his ruling over each gate, perhaps of the east and of the west. They say that the same one is also overseer of those setting out to war, and that through the one face he sends out the army and through the other he calls it back.

Praetextatus the hierophant, who with Sopater the initiator and Constantine the emperor conspired for the founding of this blessed city, wishes him to be a certain power stationed on each side of the Bear, sending the more divine souls to the lunar chorus. So much for the hierophants of the Romans. But another says that Janus was a hero and first built sanctuaries and performed honors for the gods, and for this reason his memory was established among the sacred rites. Demophilus at any rate wishes that he first built houses and gateways, and that from "ianua," which means "door," January was named. He also had a sister named Camasene. Ovid the Roman allegorizes Janus as chaos. Dio the Roman says that Janus was a certain ancient hero, who through the hospitality of Cronus received knowledge of things to come and of things that existed before, and for this reason is fashioned with two faces by the Romans; from which the month was called January, and the beginning of the year comes from that same month. This month was formerly called Monias, from the unit. The first festival of the Kalends is most revered by the Romans. And the consul, riding on a white horse and himself clad in white, leading the procession, rode up to the Capitol—this manner of procession they called in ancestral fashion an "obavatio," from the sacrifice of sheep. And the consul offered the horse to Zeus—for he is himself Helios, according to Pherecydes—and then, having received from there the consular robe, he proceeded.

This was done in honor of Zeus, as though the Giants had been subdued by him, instead of winter being conquered by the sun. The mythographers call winter Briareus, a many-handed being, because in it the moisture pours forth in many branching streams. And now Briareus fights against Zeus, that is, against the sun, and again becomes his ally, because the moist substance is an ally of the hot. So then, as the sun lengthens the day, the consul proceeds forth, and the day is one of festival and truce. For the sake of auspice the magistrates would appear on the tribunal steps, and all the troops with their standards were gathered together. And in old times they would give each other figs, ostensibly beginning with sweet food. They would give laurel leaves, which they called strena, in honor of a certain deity so named, who is the overseer of victories. And strena among the Greeks signifies a good beginning in military skill. For it is not—as the multitude thinks—brought in for the sake of sport and ease. They say that Latinus, the brother of Telegonus and son of Circe, and father-in-law of Aeneas, while founding the citadel of Rome before the arrival of Aeneas, happened by chance upon a laurel on the spot and thus again left it to remain there; and for this reason even here they call the Palatine Daphne. The ancients consecrate the laurel to Apollo, because the plant is full of fire, as Plutarch says, and Apollo is fire; for he is the sun.

Hence this plant is also hateful to the daimones, and from this fact it is clear that where there is laurel, the daimones are gone; and in their oracles, when people burn this, they seem to have found an assurance of prophecy. The older writers dedicated the laurel to Ares, but those after them to Helios, whence also they used to crown the victors over their enemies with laurels, just as again the saviors with oak, because in ancient times, before the discovery of grain, the oak was a means of safety; for the ancients ate acorns instead of grain. Elpidianus, in his work On Festivals, says that health is called strenan in the Sabine tongue, on account of which laurel leaves were given to the magistrates by the people on the first day of the month of January; for it is productive of health. For neither will the sacred disease nor a heavy daimon trouble the place in which there is laurel, just as neither will lightning where there is a fig tree; but it is also dispersive of apparitions. For this reason, indeed, those who desire to obtain a divine manifestation through dreams partake of dried figs, and of these only. And since laurel leaves were also given out together with the dried figs, the custom has prevailed even to now of putting laurel leaves into the vessels of dried figs. Nevertheless the custom has persisted, changed only in respect of mere abundance; for instead of dried figs it gives out cakes, and instead of the leaves, gold. The Romans call the honey cakes plakountes, because in the city of Placentia in Italy such food first came in from the Greeks, or rather from the Samians, and for this reason it is so called, as Tarantina from Tarentum and Canubica from Canubus and Copta from Coptus.

A certain Samian named Dion was the first to knead bread with honey and made it, and he invented the so-called sísamon in Samos; whence the place is also akin in name to the fruit. And at Rome the emperors received the magistrates with a kiss in honor of freedom, after the tyrants had been driven out by Brutus the consul of the Romans. That the serpent is sacred, according to Iamblichus; for he speaks thus: "The serpent is a divine creature, the most spiritual of all reptiles and fiery; wherefore its speed is unsurpassable through its breath, without feet or hands or any other of the external parts by which the other animals make their movements; and it produces forms of various shapes and in its course has spiral impulses toward whatever speed it wishes. And it is the longest-lived, and not only does it slough off old age and grow young, but it is also naturally capable of receiving greater increase, and when it has fulfilled its appointed measure, it is consumed into itself. Wherefore this creature has also been included in sacred rites and mysteries." And it sees most sharply of all, whence it has also been named drakōn.

On this day Trajan dedicated a temple to the Fortune of All, decreeing according to the sacred law that no one should taste of the sacrifice except the one who had sacrificed. That Homer nowhere makes mention of the name of Fortune, but Hesiod does. Fate (Heimarmenē) is so called as it were "strung together" (eiromenē), because it requires time and interval, so that the sequence of underlying things may be preserved. That the name of Fortune and Fate has been set forth in relation to birth; and Hermes is a witness in the so-called Perfect Discourse, speaking thus: "The seven so-called spheres have as their beginning the so-called Fortune or Fate, which alters all things and does not allow them to remain in the same state. And Fate is also the fated activity, either God himself or the order appointed after him over all things heavenly and earthly together with Necessity. And the one conceives the very beginnings of things, while the other compels the ends also to come to be; and these are followed by order and law and nothing disorderly." That according to the doctrines of Hermes Porphyry seems rather to speak about Fortune, saying thus: "The ancients connected Fortune with the number seven, as having the spinning of the seven, as much as is spun by her for the living creature and for the activity outside it, since she herself becomes mistress of all things." And they also assign occasion (kairos) to Fortune, because occasion in affairs is also the good aim of each thing toward the underlying subject. And Proclus in his Outline of Platonic Philosophy concerning the doctrines of the soul says these things: "Some received leaders of daemons that are solar, others lunar, others others. In accordance with the nature, then, of the leaders, the good fortunes of men proceed;

For through them as intermediaries the good things are transmitted from the divine to us according to worth. And Euripides' Peleus is a witness: for no mortal prospers apart from a god. Alas for mortal affairs—how uneven are their fortunes! For some fare well, while upon others, though they revere God, harsh calamities fall. But the Romans, thinking that there is nothing else besides happiness among humans, have held that it alone is the ruler of all things, naming it Fortuna from "bearing" (phora) in like manner. It is clear that Plato, in his divinely inspired simplicity, mentions the name of fortune without qualification, yet when theologizing he does not place it in the rank of gods. But Aristotle and Theophrastus and all those of their school do not deem it even to exist, saying: if there is virtue, there is no fortune; for the affairs of fortune are exercised up and down in human matters—in wealth and power and especially in injustice. But those who are disposed toward virtue and mindful of God, and who hold firm hopes for better things in immaterial and blessed matters, despise the goods of this world; for nothing of fortune is secure, as Euripides says in the Hypsipyle: O mortal follies of men, who say in vain that fortune exists and not gods! For if fortune exists, there is no need of a god; but if the gods have power, fortune is nothing. For the name of fortune is something random and without substance. Human affairs are naturally likened to a ladder because of their uneven motion; "for in one day," as someone said, it cast one man down from on high and raised another up, since nothing among our affairs is naturally able to remain in the same state, but changes with all manner of turns.

Or do not rulers come from private citizens, and private citizens from rulers, and poor men from rich and rich men from poor, and famous men from the neglected, and the most illustrious from the obscure? Worse are those who desire wealth beyond measure, for wealth is a servant of vice rather than of nobility and goodness, says Isocrates the orator; and I think Plato, having attended to these things, said that no one becomes master of the greatest wealth unless he has first been penalized in his soul. On the first of the Kalends, then, as I said, the priests declared by the Sibylline oracles that for the sake of health all should taste of unmixed wine early in the morning before any other food, as a averting of gout. It should be known that on the day of the Kalends the sun comes to its height, and the Crown sets at dawn. On the next day, which is the fourth before the Nones of January, they kept holiday for the sacred rites of the hippodrome. And before the procession to the horse race, with the chief priests present with them, they made offerings to the demons, and on the streets they distributed what are called among them miliarensia in abundance in honor of Scipio; for he first, in the one hundred and ninth Olympiad, through lack of gold, gave the soldiers the miliarensia

having furnished it, he gave it over, while Hannibal was pressing his affairs. That a timely gift is called a profit, and miliarisia were named from militia, that is, from military service. But Dardanus, in his work On Weights, says that the miliarision was long ago a thousand obols, and was so named from the thousand obols. After it, the vota publica, as it were public prayers. The consuls also performed sacred rites on behalf of the state and the Roman people, and all the magistrates swore to preserve justice for their subjects. And they did this as if by necessity, since often magistrates who broke the law or were caught in bribery were placed under guard by the tribunes. And the multitude mocked the magistrates without fear, not only with words but also with gestures tending to the ridiculous; and they did this in honor of liberty, and the magistrates gave way, as if yielding to custom as to law. And the consuls reported the augury to the emperors, by which it was known what sort the year would be. For since the natural philosophers assign the first day of the week to the Sun, the second to the Moon, the third to Mars, the fourth to Mercury, the fifth to Jupiter, the sixth to Venus, and the seventh to Saturn, if it happened that the festival of the Kalends, that is, the first of January, coincided with the day of the Sun, they expected wars and dissensions of magistrates and, through them, discord among their subjects, but dry fruits in abundance and strange rumors;

But if it is the day of the Moon, no longer such things, but they thought it would bring destruction of infants and scarcity of necessities, a cold spring, and that it would abundantly yield up fruits; but if of Ares, conflagrations and diseases, but abundance of wine and oil and pulse, and civil strife; but whenever of Hermes, destruction of the very young and diseases from flux of the belly, and destruction for women in middle age and a famine altogether to be deprecated. But on the day of Zeus, when the festival of the Kalends falls, all good things were given to be expected, but snowy and rainy weather, so that not even the rivers were content with their own beds; and on the sixth, which is believed to be of Aphrodite, they awaited for rulers turmoil, for crops increase, and for the commons heavy wars, and destruction of men and especially of the young; and on the seventh, winter altogether—for cold is Cronus—and as great a fruitfulness as may be, since he himself is supposed to be the overseer of crops, and diseases and dangers and winds in summer and a bringing on of hail around the Crab, and an unexpected report for affairs they augured.

That they say the phoenix, every five hundred years, descends to a certain place in upper India and prepares for itself a heap of cinnamon and leaves of nard and fennel, and mounts upon it; and when this has been set alight by some sudden spirit, the phoenix itself is consumed by the fire; but not long after, from it a worm of similar nature grows up, and once it has been furnished with wings, it flies up straightway to the sun. This is done at the altar in Heliopolis, according to Apollonius; and from there, when certain of the most illustrious men in Egypt have assembled, it is lifted up on high and departs with an escort of those gathered, to the place from which it came. That when a portent occurred among the Romans, neither was an army set in motion nor was an assembly held, even if it touched upon a few drops of rain, it was a hindrance. That in the same way as the magnet stone draws iron toward that which it is moved by, through the resemblance of the consubstantial power according to the incorporeal reason, in this way like soulless things obey like ensouled things, being drawn along. And that iron is similar to the magnet stone in some power it is easy to perceive; for the

Iron mined from it attracts iron mined from other material no less toward that for which it moves, unless it is smeared with the juice of onions, as the natural philosophers hold. And again, when the magnet is anointed with goat's blood, it receives its attractive power. The origin of pepper according to the ancients and Ctesias of Cnidus is as follows: there is a people in Azume, by name the Bessadai, possessing small and very feeble bodies, with large heads and hairless, and, contrary to the nature of the Indians, with simple hair; they dwell in underground caves and know how to walk the cliffs because of their upbringing in the place. These, plucking the pepper from the stunted trunks of shrubs growing alongside the bushes, gather it. But Maximus says: "There is a plant in India, first, thornless, cultivated like a vine trained on trees or under a stake, and it bears fruit in clusters like the terebinth, and it has an ivy-like leaf, rather long; when planted, in its third year it begins to bear fruit, and it dies in its eighth year; and when gathered, it does not turn black by roasting, but from being exposed to the sun; whence it happens that the shade-cooled pepper remains white.

That the chief priests among the Romans were called pontifices, just as in Athens in olden times all the interpreters of the ancestral rites and chief priests—administrators of all things—were called bridge-men (gephyraioi), because they served as priests at the bridge of the river Spercheius in honor of the Palladium. For the Romans call a bridge pons, and bridge-timber pontilia. Whence also they were called praxiergiae, as it were fulfillers of rites. For this is what pontifex means, from being powerful in works. On the eighteenth day before the Kalends of February, Varro says a battle of winds occurs, and Democritus says the southwest wind comes with rain. The philosophers say the Dioscuri are the hemisphere beneath the earth and above the earth; they die alternately, in mythical fashion, as it were carried in turn beneath the antipodes. But those around Epimenides mythologized the Dioscuri as male and female, calling the one Aeon, as a monad, and the other Nature, as a dyad; for from the monad and the dyad all the life-generating and soul-generating number sprang forth. It should be known that on this day the kids set and a turning occurs, according to Philip. Fifteen days before the Kalends of February, Democritus says the dolphin sets and a turning for the most part occurs. Thirteen days before the Kalends of February, Euctemon says the crab sets, and Callippus says the water-bearer rises, whom Hipparchus calls Deucalion... in glens and ravines of the mountains. Twelve days before the Kalends of February, Eudoxus says the water-bearer rises. Eleven days before the Kalends of February, Caesar says the sun comes to be in the water-bearer, and Eudoxus says it rises and signifies rains.

On the day before the tenth of the Kalends of February, Democritus says that a southwest wind blew. That Fabius the senator was condemned by the senate, because he was shown to have acquired silver beyond the amount fixed by law. For it was not permitted for anyone to possess beyond his rank, nor even for ordinary persons to use silk clothing, even if they were wealthy, but this was granted as a special privilege to the patricians alone. They called Domitian "master," but not "king," because of his tyrannical nature. Some of the natural philosophers maintain that Hera is water, and Zeus is fire; and that by the mixture of moisture and heat the fruits are produced. But they also theologize her as Selene, inasmuch as she is set over the moist substance, and they say that Ares was born from her, meaning by this the airy and active fire from the compression of the clouds; and the natural philosophers assign the peacock, the bird, to the sacred rites of Hera, as it were the starry air, that is, the heaven. That Athena, according to Cingius and his school, is a divine and incorruptible spirit; whence also Euripides calls her Athana, from "immortal." And she came forth from the head of Zeus, as it were from heaven; for the head of the whole universe is heaven, according to those who call Zeus the entire universe. They call her Tritogeneia and Tritonis, not because of her birth from Triton according to the poets, but because the energies of the soul are threefold. And the Chaldeans also say that the soul is simple and intelligent and rational, and that proceeding from the intelligible things to the sensible world, it receives the spirited part from the aether; for the aether is fiery.

From the lunar series comes the appetitive faculty; for the moon is by nature moist, whence also the sorceries concerning love are performed with reference to the moon, as being Aphrodite, as they say. Some say Athena is the air, and she is called Tritogeneia because the air is altered by three changes—clearly into spring, summer, and winter; and glaukopis because the appearance of the air is gleaming. Perseus is the sun and the Gorgon is the day, from speed, so to speak, because the sun, running through the air, cuts off the days, having received the sickle—instead of sharpness—from Athena, that is, from providence; and for this reason it is customary in clocks to engrave a Gorgon instead of the day. Health is the power prevailing over the opposing qualities according to the preservative principle. Trajan was called Ulpius according to his father's surname, but it seemed to the Romans that he was called Crinitus, as it were "fair-haired," because of his care for the hairs of his head. And in body he was short, but otherwise good in character, in the practice of arms and bodily exercise, though he happened to be of no noble family; for he was previously a tribune, that is, a phylarch. And Nerva, perceiving that he was a lover of the suburb that belonged to him—for they happened to be rather close neighbors regarding each other's property—immediately wrote a deed of gift for the suburb and brought it to Nerva; and he, admiring Trajan, took him in adoption, whereby a path to the kingship opened for him, since Nerva died shortly after. And perceiving that he was slandered for drunkenness, he kept entirely away from drinking wine.

Adramyttium, a city of Asia, was founded by Trajan, called after Adramys the brother of Croesus; and its name in ancient times was Hypoplacian Thebes. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and of goats I do not want, nor if you come to appear before me; for who has required these things at your hands? You shall not proceed to tread my court. If you bring fine flour, it is vain; incense is an abomination to me. Your new moons and sabbaths and the great called day I cannot endure; my soul hates your fasting and idleness and your new moons and your feasts; you have become to me a fullness. February. The month February has its name from Februa, a goddess so called; and the Romans received Februa as a goddess presiding over and purifying matters. Anyseus, in his work On Months, says that Februus is the subterranean god in the language of the Tuscans, and that he is propitiated by the Luperci for the increase of fruits. But Labeo says that February was named from mourning; for "fever" among the Romans is the name for mourning; and according to him the

They honored the dead; and indeed February is the name given to the cleansing of the pontifical books, calling Pluto Pheron. That the race of demons beneath the moon is divided threefold according to Iamblichus: and its terrestrial part is punitive, the aerial part purificatory, and the part near the lunar zone is saviorly, which we know also as the heroic; and a certain greatest demon is said to lead all of this; and this would rather be Pluto, as the same Iamblichus says. They deem the month February consecrated to Hera because Hera seems to the natural philosophers to be the air lying beneath; and cleansing is directly suited to the air. The temples and sacred vessels were cleansed during this month; and likewise in private matters all clung to the cleansing. And because in February the libations of the dead were performed, for this reason Numa diminished it, judging it impious that it be honored equally with the others, since it is assigned to the chthonic deities who diminish the whole. And it is called not only February but also Februatus, because of its overseer, and Februata and Februalem are applied to the sacred rites. Those of the Romans who write natural history say that the seed deposited in the womb on the third day is altered into blood, and first delineates the heart, which is said to be formed first and to die last; for if three is the beginning of numbers, and it is an odd number, then it is also the beginning of generation from it. And on the ninth day it congeals and is coalesced into flesh and marrow.

And at the fortieth [day] it is brought to full form and complete configuration, and, to speak simply, to a perfect human being. Likewise, by analogy with the days, also in the case of months: in the third month it is engendered and clings to the womb, but in the ninth month it is completely finished and hastens toward exit. And if it is female, [this happens] in the ninth month, but if the superior [sex], at the beginning of the tenth, because the number nine, being female and proper to Selene, is referred to matter, while the tenth is altogether perfect and male. And female and male come about according to the predominance of heat: when the heat in the seed is in excess, since the coagulation occurs quickly, it is made male and is formed quickly; but when it is deficient, it is overpowered by the influx and, being defeated, is made female, and coagulating more slowly, it is also formed more slowly. That the account is true [is shown by the fact that] males, even within forty days, when miscarried, come forth fully formed, while females, even after forty days, [come forth] fleshy and unshaped. And after conception, they say, a child born in the third [month] is unswaddled, and in the ninth is strengthened and endures touch; and in the fortieth it acquires the power of laughter and begins to recognize its mother. And in the case of the dissolution back into elements, they say that nature again, by way of return, preserves the same numbers, and that by the same [numbers] through which it was constituted, it is again dissolved. When a human being, then, has died, in the third [day] the body is completely changed and utterly loses the recognition of its appearance.

And on the ninth day the whole [body] dissolves, while the heart is still preserved in it; and on the fortieth day this too perishes together with the whole. For this reason those who make offerings to the dead observe the third, ninth, and fortieth days, recalling both the original formation and the development after it, and indeed the end of dissolution. That when the Gauls had seized Rome, Camillus gathered a multitude and fell upon the enemy all at once; and when a fierce battle took place and their swords were broken along with their weapons—for the Romans did not yet use iron breastplates, but bronze ones, in accordance with antiquity—the rest [of the fighting] came to hands and they dragged one another both by the crests of their helmets and indeed by the very hairs of their beards; and finally he drove the barbarians off and saved Rome and was named a second Romulus. And thus it was ordained that they cut their beards at the tip and fashion iron breastplates and have helmets without crests.

in the appearance before the people, as it were, in the address. That the spatharius is a bodyguard, and the fabricenses are the makers of weapons. On the Ides of February: from this day, from the sixth hour, on account of the libations to the dead, the sacred places were closed, and the magistrates went about in the dress of private citizens until the eighth day before the Kalends of March. And the modest women—the Romans call them matrons, while the Greeks call them house-mistresses—took such care for modesty that they did not even converse with the many women, but also set apart for themselves certain quiet places in the baths away from the crowd, which even now they call matronikia. These modest women, then, made offerings to the spirits of Brutus for the following reason: Lucretia, a certain Roman woman, exceptionally beautiful and modest, is said to have been violated once by Tarquin, the last of the kings, or by his own son; the history calls him Superbus, as it were, arrogant; for he himself first invented instruments of punishment and mines; and so that they should not be softened by the tortures of those being punished, he gave them a drug which produced laughter, contrary to expectation, in those suffering. And such a drug grows even now on the island of Sardinia, whence they speak of Sardonian laughter. Hence they called Tarquin Superbus, meaning harsh and cruel; for nothing would beget hatred like these things.

That Lucretia, then, esteeming chastity above royal intercourse—and not only above it but above her own life—summoned her own people and, having declared that the sin could have remained hidden if she had so wished, slew herself in the presence of the witnesses of her chastity. The people, therefore, was stirred to this, and it took up hatred against the tyrant, who, seizing the opportunity, leads the Roman people and thrusts Tarquin from the kingship. Brutus, then, as we were saying, was honored among the women of the Romans after his death with public mourning, as the avenger of chastity; and they deemed it worthy to call themselves Brutas in honor of Brutus. The Romans call the public slave a vernaclus. Since the Roman people was divided into three parts, the tribe was named among them a tribus, and the tribunes of the people tribuni. Their concern was for the horse-race, that it be accomplished fittingly; and for this reason a tribune even now is set over the bouleutatoi, in place of the pleasures. That the place is called both agon and agonia because of its circular shape, from its not having a corner, in the likeness of which circular crowns were placed upon the victors. The three obelisks signify the threefold nature—of water, fire, earth; for on these alone death has its operation. Whence also the myth gives Pluto a three-headed dog, in place of threefold; for the air is life-giving. Through the obelisks, then, it is signified that they performed the contest in honor of those who die for their fatherland, with three chariots and not four contending in the horse-race.

The Russatoi are, as it were, red; the Albatoi, as it were, white; the Birides, as it were, flowery—though now they call them green. And the Russatoi claimed to belong to Ares, the white to Zeus, and the flowery to Aphrodite. Later there was also the Veneton; and they call them Venetoi in the local tongue, “iron-dyers,” from the Enetoi around the Adriatic who use such garments; for the Romans call the color that is “kallaïnon” among us “veneton.” The Gauls, then, observing a particular place in the hippodrome, used to fill it, and called them Venetoi from their garments, and the region Venetia, because no one ever in that region had an abundance of raiment. And because of the four elements they made four factions: the flowery in place of fire, for the honor of Rome—and they called her Flora, just as we call her Anthousa—second the white for the air, third in order to Ares, and fourth, newly adopted, to Kronos or Poseidon; for to both the dark blue has been assigned. The red were dedicated to fire because of the color, likewise the green to earth because of the flowers, the blue to Hera, and the white to water. But some say that green is spring, red is summer, blue is autumn, and white is winter. They therefore took it as an omen of misfortune that the flowery faction received the worse vote, as though Rome herself had been defeated. For since the western center is referred to the element of earth, it was natural for them to care about it.

Hence the Romans are seen to have honored Hestia before all things, just as the Persians honored the rock-born Mithras because of the point of fire, and those beneath the Bear honored the moist substance because of the point of water, and the Egyptians honored Isis, that is, the Moon, the overseer of all the air. Just as the infant in the womb has no need of other nourishment, but is fed from pure blood, so neither did they pour libations for the dead during the first year, as we said, since they lie hidden in nature as in a womb. For the libations were brought as a kind of consolation to the images of the dead—milk, blood, and wine, and fine flour, and a shell, and certain other things. And they called them choai from being poured out upon the tombs. A trace of this is preserved even now; for in the sacred rites we offer bread and wine. That the Egyptian Hermes in his discourse called the Perfect says that the avenging daemons, present in matter itself, punish the human race according to worth, while the purifying ones, fixed in the air, purify the souls after death as they try to run back up, around the hail-like and fiery zones of the air, which the poets and Plato himself in the Phaedo call Tartarus and Pyriphlegethon; and the savior ones, stationed near the lunar region, preserve the souls. March. The Romans considered March, as we also said before this, the beginning of the year; and they dedicated it to Ares; but formerly it was called Zephyrites and Primus.

For Romos, who founded Rome, also completed a precinct of Ares in it during this month and renamed it Martius, that is, of Ares in that ancestral tongue of his. The mythologists say: Zeus, having come together with his sister Hera, begot Ares—as it were, the aether joined with the air squeezes out the fiery air. But the natural philosophers say that Ares was not named, as the children of the grammarians claim, from arsis and anairesis, but from aregein and syllambanein—that is, from aiding and assisting in the misfortunes that come by force and battle—or as being arktikos and the cause of change; and they assign to him as his exaltation the Capricorn. That the Romans called Martem "mortem," as it were death, either as the mover of arts, or as Ares honored by males and males only, or from marnasthai according to Philoxenus; and in Egyptian it is called Ertoi; and this signifies the life-giving of every kind and the life-giving ordering of every substance and matter according to nature and power. Ares was the discoverer of bronze and iron. Aphrodite the natural philosophers join sometimes to him, sometimes to Hephaestus—as it were the fiery substance to the moist, hinting that generation proceeds, of course, from the moist and the hot; or also because the scorpion is common to them, the sting belonging to Ares and the claws to Aphrodite. And Aphrodite turns away from Ares, as in the myth, since winter follows the proper condition of Ares, while Aphrodite is well-tempered. So that they are disposed in opposition to each other, but not wholly; for they are also [joined] to one another in accordance with

They seem to connect what is next in season; for after winter spring is brought back. Ares is honored with the clash of arms and with trumpets, and for this reason the Romans performed the first festival to him, calling it Armilustrium, as it were a purification of arms, since neither winter nor any other circumstance hindered the movement of arms on the plain of Ares. His name among the Egyptians is Pyroeis, whence also Xanthikos among the Macedonians; but the Greeks, as has been said, called him Ares from his deeds. For no one could find a proper name of a god according to Apollodorus, nor indeed a mark of nature, since those who philosophize introduce the forms now as male, now as female; but they assigned names to them from their effects, introducing the male gods as creative powers and the female as life-generating. That the star of Ares is especially good, and that of Kronos, if indeed all things are good and nothing base according to Plato, but their divinity—things under the moon that do not endure are destroyed, as Iamblichus says. That the astrologers call Ares maleficent, not because he is such by nature, but because he accompanies souls descending to generation by the law of justice, doing what is just upon them according to their worth; and good indeed is he who allies with justice. That it is possible to learn from the successor Proclus that evil is not in existence nor in substance, saying that it is not even possible for evil to be, nor is it imagined as contrary to good. That for the sake of the good even evil itself exists; but all things are for the sake of the good; and the divine is not the cause of evil.

For evil would not be evil from that source, but from other causes, and from those in whom generation comes about not through power but through weakness. Therefore it seems to me that Plato too, having placed all things around the King of all, also grants that evil itself exists, appearing as it were as good. For if it is among beings, then one must accordingly call it the cause of all things—and not simply of all things, nor of evils either, but he is the cause of these too, and the cause of all that exists; so that the gods do not make evil, but rather as good, and they destroy it as evil. For the definition of evil is not a living and ensouled substance, but a disposition in the soul that is disposed contrary to virtue, arising through sloth from the falling away of the good. One might therefore piously understand also the so-called maleficent planets, which are not such by nature, but contribute to the governance of the whole. For if Kronos cools and Ares heats, then they contribute to generation, and in themselves they are destructive, but when mingled they are preservative. That Ptolemy in the Harmonics says: there are definite numbers through which, in all things that come together and are harmonized with one another, a concordant symphony arises; and nothing can come together with anything except through these numbers. And these are: the epitritic (4:3), the hemiolic (3:2), the spondaic (2:1), the double, the triple, the quadruple.

That the perceptible comes from the sun, but the natural comes to us from the lunar sphere, and by the beneficence of both lights this life of ours is constituted in an exceptional manner; yet our conduct and the advances of our actions are referred partly to these two lights, partly also to the five planets. But of these stars, the mediation of the numbers mentioned above joins and unites some well with the lights. No other bond of number brings others into harmony with the lights. Therefore the stars of Aphrodite and of Zeus are joined to each of the two lights through these numbers: the star of Zeus to the sun through all of them, but to the moon through more; and the star of Aphrodite is fitted to the moon through all, but to the sun through more numbers. Hence, although each of these is especially beneficent, the star of Zeus with the sun is nevertheless more advantageous, and that of Aphrodite with the moon. But the stars of Kronos and Ares do not have such a conjunction with the lights, except that by some last appearance of numbers Kronos looks toward the sun and Ares toward the moon. And for this reason they seem less beneficial to human life. But why they too are sometimes believed to provide wealth and distinction to men belongs to another examination.

Plotinus himself, in the book entitled "How the Stars Act," declares concerning this matter, saying that nothing happens to men either by their power or by their authority, but that whatever the necessity of divine providence has ordained for each, is thus shown through the forward motion or station or retrograde motion of these seven, just as birds, either flying about or keeping still, signify the future by their wings or their voices, knowing it. From the same discourse of Plotinus: "All things in the perceptible realm signify, but they produce other things, whatever they manifestly produce; and we perform the works of the soul according to nature, as long as we have not erred in the multitude of the universe; but having erred, we have our punishment." That, as Plotinus himself says: "For Plato the spindle is both the wandering and the unwandering part of the revolution; and the Fates and Necessity, who is their mother, turn it and spin at the birth of each, and through her things that are born come into generation; and in the Timaeus the god who made the beginning of the soul gives it; but the gods who are carried along [give] the terrible and necessary passions, spiritedness and desires, and pleasures and pains besides, and another kind of soul, from which these passions come. For these accounts bind us to the stars, receiving soul from them, and subject us to necessity as we come here; and characters too from them, and actions according to characters, and passions from a passive condition; so that what remains for us, except what we truly are, to whom nature has also given the power to rule the passions? For nevertheless, in these evils, taken captive through the body, god has given virtue that is not subject to a master.

For we do not need virtue when we are at rest, but when there is danger of being in evils without virtue present. Therefore one must flee from here and separate oneself from the things that have accrued, and not be a composite, ensouled body, in which the nature of the body prevails more, having received some trace of soul, so that the common life belongs more to the body. For all bodily things are wholly hers, while the other soul, the one outside, has its upward motion and the beautiful and the divine, which no one controls, but either uses them, so that that soul may be there and live according to this by withdrawing, or, having become bereft of this soul, lives in fate; and here the stars not only signify to him, but he himself becomes, as it were, a part and follows the whole of which he is a part. For each person is twofold: the one is the composite, the other is himself and the whole world; the one is what is from body and a soul bound to a body, the other is the soul of the whole, which is not in a body but illuminates traces in the soul that is in a body; and the sun and the rest are thus twofold. That, since this whole has been embroidered by an ineffable art and is full of harmony and blessed, it is surely necessary that its nature be fitted together, so to speak, from sharp and heavy, gentle and harsh sounds and rhythms and tones. That the ancients burned the bodies after death, deifying the body together with the soul, as it were; for just as the soul is fiery in nature and hastens upward, so the body is heavy and cold and inclines downward. They seemed, then, to purify the very image from the body by the sanctification of fire.

The account according to Anaximander is not true—he declared that this universe is made of fire, and for this reason bodies were handed over to fire by the ancients; nor is the account according to the Stoics, who, awaiting a universal conflagration, used to cremate the dead beforehand. For such a reconstitution of bodies is much older than the most ancient of the doctrines in philosophy. However, the teeth, since they do not have a nature to be consumed either by fire or at any rate by long time, they left upon the pyre itself, looking forward to them as being for the rest useless for the account of rebirth. For they themselves also quite strongly accepted the account concerning it, on the grounds that the man who would, as they supposed, be born again would not need teeth in his mother's womb. That the stars are not evildoers, but all are good; but since the whole is constituted according to harmony, some of them are dry, others moisten, and others have some other quality relative to their mixtures; therefore they seem to harm according to their activity, not according to their intention, and because the things on the earth, sometimes not enduring their unmitigated powers, are harmed, as even eyes are by the intensity of light. On the first day of the month of March they honored Hera, as it were the moon, because of the new moon; and the priest proclaimed that all ought to use sweet drinks and foods for the preservation of health. The Romans moved their weapons on the field or precinct of Ares. On this day they also rested from labors, and the so-called Matronae among them, that is, the well-born, feasted their household slaves, just as in the Kronia it was the custom for those who owned slaves to do this.

Of these women, some serve the male slaves out of honor for Ares, because of the superior nature; but others, introducing as it were an averting service to Kronos, enslaved themselves to their own slaves, so that they might not in truth suffer some thing worthy of nemesis and fall into slavery to enemies. And all in March took food made from beans; and the bean is Ares's, from "conceiving" (kyein) blood; and they anointed each other's eyes, taking the anointing of the bean instead of blood, and in this way honoring Ares. That Pythagoras utterly turned away from the bean; for beyond other fruits, when eaten, it stirs bodies to intercourse, and in this way drags souls down to generation. And Heraclides of Pontus says that if someone puts a bean into a new vessel and hides it in dung for all forty days, he will find the bean changed into the appearance of a fleshed human being, and for this reason the poet says: "It is equal to you to eat beans and the heads of your parents." And Diogenes in the thirteenth book of Unbelievable Things says these things: that then from the same putrefaction a human being was formed and a bean sprouted. And he brought clear proofs of this; for if someone chews a bean and grinds it with his teeth and places it in a mortar in the sun's ray for a little while, then rises and returns not long after, he would find it smelling of human blood.

But if someone, when the bean is blooming in its sprouting and the flower is turning dark, takes a little of it and puts it in a ceramic vessel, and having put on a lid, buries it in the earth and guards it for ninety days after burial, then afterwards digs it up and takes it and removes the lid, he would find instead of the bean either a child's head formed or a woman's pudendum. So, according to Pythagoras, one must abstain from the bean, as also from the so-called golden vegetables, since their generation too is from the menses of women. For this reason beans are thrown into tombs for the safety of humans. That the bean is named from blood, one can learn by experience; for if anyone soaks it for a day and a night, he will find the water in it like gore. The mangipes, that is, craftsmen of the slavish bread, used to send annonae to those in repute in Romulia; for so they called these, because at the ninth hour the food was distributed by Romulus to the soldiers; for Valentinian was uneducated and only heavy-wrathful. On the fourth day before the Nones of March, Eudoxus foretells that a rather violent wind blows for the most part. On the third day before the Nones of March, the voyage of Isis was completed,

...which even now those who celebrate the rites call Ploiaphesia. And Isis in the language of the Egyptians signifies "ancient," that is, the moon; and fittingly they honor her when beginning sea voyages, because she, as we said, presides over the nature of the waters. They say that she is also the giver of health, just as we say Asclepius is. And it would be the same thing; for just as we, taking the sun to be Asclepius, say in myth that after his setting, when night comes on, he is the cause of sleep and night and rest, and the cause and giver of health. But the man of Chaeronea wishes Isis to be the earth and Osiris the Nile, and Typhon the sea, into which the Nile falls and disappears. The Greeks depict Fortune with a cow's face; but I think she is the moist substance, whence it is the custom of the Romans to call her Acua, from equality, since water is uniform and equal in nature. And she has been well named Acua by them, since they invoke equality, that is, uniformity, from "acua" by derivation. "Sibylla" is a Roman word, interpreted as prophetess, that is, seeress, whence with a single name the female seers were called Sibyls; and there have been ten Sibyls in different places and times. The first is the one also called Chaldaean and Persian and by some Hebrew, whose proper name was Sambethe, from the race of the most blessed Noah, who is said to have foretold the events concerning Alexander the Macedonian, whom Nicanor, the one who wrote the history of Alexander's life, mentions, the one who prophesied countless things about the Lord God and his coming.

But the rest also agree with her, except that hers are twenty-four books containing [an account] of every nation and country. And that her verses are found to be incomplete and unmetrical is not the fault of the prophetess but of the tachygraphs, who either did not keep pace with the rush of what was said, or were uneducated and inexperienced in letters; for at the very moment of the inspiration the memory of the things spoken ceased in her, and for this reason verses are found incomplete and the sense limping—whether this came about by the dispensation of God, so that her oracles might not be known by the many and the unworthy. The second Sibyl is the Libyan; the third Sibyl is the Delphic, she who was born in Delphi; and she lived before the Trojan times and wrote oracles in epic verses in the times of the judges, when Deborah was a prophetess among the Jews. The fourth is the Italic, the one in Cumae of Italy; the fifth is the Erythraean, from the city called Erythra in Ionia, she who foretold concerning the Trojan War. The sixth is the Samian, whose proper name was Phyto, about whom Eratosthenes wrote, and she too lived in the times of the judges among the Jews. The seventh is the Cumaean, who is also called Amaltheia or Herophile; and Cumae is an Italian city, near which is a shaded and very hollow cave, in which this Sibyl, dwelling, gave oracles to those who inquired. The eighth is the Gergithian; and Gergithium is a small town around the Hellespont. The ninth is the Phrygian; the tenth is the Tiburtine, by name Albunea. That the Jewish Sibyl was also called Chaldian.

For Philo too, in writing the life of Moses, says that he was a Chaldean, and that he was born in Egypt, since his ancestors had gone down there because of famine after having occupied Babylon and the neighboring regions. And as it seems, the Canaanites were so called from the beginning, either because Abraham had set out from there. The same Philo also says concerning the writings of Moses, that they were written by him in the Chaldean tongue, but later were translated into Greek by Ptolemy, who was the third of those after Alexander who took over Egypt, called Philadelphus. I came upon a book of this Hebrew Sibyl in Cyprus, in which she prophesies many things, including Greek matters, and sets them forth; and indeed also concerning Homer, that God will raise up a certain wise man who will record the war of the heroes and sing of the noblest of them; she foretells also concerning Christ and the things that have happened after the coming of Christ; and indeed also concerning things that will come to be until the consummation, among which she prophesies certain ambiguous things concerning Cyprus and Antioch, that the one will fall by war and never rise again, and that the island will become submerged; for she says: Wretched Antioch, never will they call you a city, when by your own follies you fall around the spears, and so on: Alas, alas, wretched Cyprus, and a great wave will cover you, when the sea is stirred on wintry days. This Sibyl anticipated the coming of Christ by two thousand years, whose is also this verse foretelling the precious cross: O wood, O most blessed, by which God was stretched out.

That Tarquinius Priscus was the fourth king in Rome after Romulus the founder; and that a certain woman, Amalthea, came to him carrying three books, the prophecies of the Cumaean Sibyl, and sought to give them to him for thirty pieces of gold. But when he disdained her, the woman in indignation burned one of the books, and coming again she demanded to receive the thirty pieces of gold even for the two remaining. But when he disregarded her still more, she burned the other as well. For the one remaining, then, she sought the same price. The king, therefore, reckoning that it was necessary for the kingdom, took it, giving the thirty pieces of gold; and finding in it the fortunes of the Romans inscribed especially and alone, he handed over their guarding to a body of sixty patricians. On the Nones of March, Varro says that at dawn the crown is put on and the north wind blows. On the Ides of March there is a festival of Zeus because of the mid-month, and public prayers that the year be healthy. And they sacrificed a six-year-old bull on behalf of the fields in the mountains, with the high priest leading and the basket-bearers of the Mother. There was also led a man clothed in goatskins, and they struck him with thin, long rods, calling him Mamurius. This man, having become a craftsman in armor-making, because the heaven-sent ancile shields were being damaged by being moved continually, made others like those originals; whence the many, making a proverb in mockery at those who are beaten, say that those who strike are playing the Mamurius with him.

For the account is that even that man Mamurius, when certain difficulties fell upon him because of the withholding of the archetypal shields from the Romans, was beaten with rods and cast out of the city. Metrodorus hands down this day as evil. The day before the seventeenth of the Kalends of April is unsuitable for action. On this day Eudoxus hands down that the fish rise and that the north wind blows. Liber among the Romans is Dionysus, as it were "free," that is, the Sun. Mysteries, from the deprivation of the pollution, instead of holiness. Dionysus, through whom is the nyssa—the turning-post—and the revolution of time. Terpander the Lesbian says that Nyssa nursed Dionysus, who is called Sabazius by some, born from Zeus and Persephone, then torn apart by the Titans. There is also brought forward a certain myth concerning him according to Apollodorus, that he was born from Zeus and Earth, and Earth being called Themelē because all things are founded upon her, whom the poets, by the interchange of one letter, the sigma, have called Semelē. According to the poets there are five Dionysuses: the first of Zeus and Lysithea; the second of the Nile, who also reigned over Libya and Ethiopia and Arabia; the third the child of Cabeirus, who reigned over Asia, from whom is the Cabeiric rite; the fourth of Zeus and Semelē, to whom the mysteries of Orpheus were performed, and by whom wine was mixed; the fifth of Nisus and Thyone, who established the trieteric festival. And these things

The Greeks say these things; but the Romans say that Dionysus is the Bacchic one of Cithaeron, as it were the Bacchic one and the one running up through the heaven, whom from the concord of the seven stars they named Cithaeron; whence Hermes mystically gives a lyre to Apollo, that is, the Word gives to the sun the harmony of the whole. And in secret the mysteries were celebrated for Dionysus, because the communion of the sun with the nature of the whole is hidden from all. And they received phalli in his sacred rites, as it were the generative organs, and a mirror as it were the translucent heaven, and a sphere as it were the earth; for Plato in the Timaeus says: "To the earth the spherical form." Wherefore also Pythagoras says that in the ten spheres souls have thus been sown in it as well. And in the sacred rites they called him Fire-born and All-ruling, because the sun is fiery in nature, and he presides over and rules the whole. And they make the name panther from him, as it were the all-beast earth receiving from him its life-giving and gladdening nourishment. And they make Bacchae and Nymphs for him, as it were the waters obeying, and by the motion of the sun the nature of the waters is made life-giving; and they give them cymbals and thyrsi, the sound of the waters; and the Maenads driven by Satyrs, that is, when the nature of the waters is pushed by the winds, thunders and crashes are produced. And Dionysus, as it were the mind of Zeus, that is, the soul of the world; for we find in many places that the whole world is named Zeus because of its ever-living and unending nature.

They make him the son of Semele, as one hidden beneath the earth and coming forth through Hermes, that is, through the Word; and nurtured in the thigh of Zeus, as it were lying hidden in the secret places of the world; and Dithyrambus and Dimeter, the one who obtained two processions, the eastern one toward the south in winter, and the northern one toward the west in summer. And these things concerning Dionysus. But on the day of the Bacchanalia Democritus says that the fish dive down, while Varro hands down that there will be a battle of winds. Thus does antiquity treat the Dionysia. That when a disturbance occurred on the Capitol by the seditious, it is said that at that time a shepherd appeared, having seemed to the place, and having judged that the people were gathered to him, the multitude ran together; and there, when the base-born were separated by the shepherd, peace came to the people, but he himself vanished. That there is and has been great disagreement among the theologians concerning the God honored by the Hebrews; for the Egyptians and the first Hermes theologize him as Osiris who is, concerning whom Plato in the Timaeus says: "What is that which is always, and has no generation, and what is that which becomes, but never is?" But the Greeks theologize him as the Dionysus of Orpheus, because, as they themselves say, at the innermost shrine of the temple in Jerusalem, vines made of gold on both sides formerly drew back the curtains embroidered with purple and scarlet, from which they also supposed the temple to be of Dionysus. But Livy in his Universal Roman History says that the one honored there is unknown.

Following him, Lucanus says that the temple in Jerusalem belongs to an unknown god; Numenius says that he is unapproachable and the father of all the gods, deeming no one worthy to share his honor. And the emperor Julian, when he was campaigning against the Persians, writing to the Jews says: "For I am raising up with all zeal the temple of the most high god." For this reason some of the uneducated, and also because of circumcision, think he is Cronus; for Cronus, they say, is higher than the planets. They do not see that circumcision is a symbol of the purification of the intellectual soul, as seems right to the mystics of the Hebrews, and that circumcision is not a Cronian rite. And of the Arabs those called Scenitae circumcise their children in the thirteenth year, as Origen says, though they honor Astarte and not Cronus. And the Ethiopians seal the knuckles of the knees of the young with a branding iron for Apollo. Porphyry, however, in his commentary on the Oracles holds that the one twice beyond—that is, the demiurge of all things—is the one honored by the Jews, whom the Chaldean theologizes as second from the once beyond, that is, from the Good. Those around Iamblichus and Syrianus and Proclus, however, think he is the demiurge of the sensible world, calling him the god of the fourfold row. Varro the Roman, treating of him, says that among the Chaldeans in their mysteries he is called Iao, meaning intelligible light in the Phoenician tongue, as Herennius says. And he is often called Sabaoth, as it were the one above the seven poles, that is, the demiurge.

Many opinions about him have thus arisen, but those who theologize him as unknown and obscure are the stronger. That those who think he is Dionysus are mistaken, both from the vines mentioned, which lifted the curtains, and from some other source, persuaded to celebrate the profane rites of the Hebrews, one might gather from their own laws; for they ordain that not the profane but the priests do this, saying thus: "You shall not drink wine and strong drink whenever you enter the tabernacle." Fifteen days before the Kalends of April, Euctemon says that various winds blow. One might call Athena "capital" as prudence; for it is said that prudence lies for humans on the crown of the head, at the opposite of the head, near the roots of the brain; whence Homer made Achilles, when angry, pressed from the crown by Athena, saying: "And she seized the son of Peleus by his blond hair." And they depict her grey-eyed because of the fiery, and they assign to her the owl as her bird, which keeps awake through the whole night, as one might say, the human soul at no time being idle; for it is immortal and ever-moving by nature; for what has a pause of motion has a pause of life according to Plato. That on the day before the fourteenth of the Kalends of April it was the custom for the Salii to lay aside the heaven-sent weapons, which they called ancilia, which Numa established. These were accustomed to be moved in honor of warlike Ares on that day on which a voice is said to have been heard from heaven saying that the city would be preserved until then, as long as the ancilia are preserved.

That in Rome too they used to mock the sins of the citizens on wagons and bring hidden ones to light, according to the custom of the Athenians, who threatened those who sinned that they would tell the things from the wagon. Fourteen days before the Kalends of April, a festival is honored among the Romans, not as a Roman one but as having the greatest honor among the Egyptians, for this reason: when the Nile once refused its annual increase of waters and the Egyptians were perishing thereby, a certain good spirit appearing as a man, his whole body covered in mud, cried out to the Egyptians that the Nile was gushing forth, and that he himself had fallen into the waters; and when they disbelieved, but by the deed found the truth, a festival was established among them and among the Greeks, called Pelusium. That the Egyptians founded Philadelphia in Lydia. That those around the philosopher Proclus used to call Philadelphia "little Athens" because of its zeal for those places and because of the festivals and the sacred rites of the idols. On the day eleven days before the Kalends of April, a pine tree was carried by the tree-bearers in the Palatine. And the emperor Claudius established the festival, a man so just in his judgments that he ordered a mother who was denying her own child, as if

that a foreign woman was married to him, and she, having refused, judged her mother. On the day before the tenth of the Kalends of April, a purification of the trumpet and a movement of arms, and honors of Ares and Nerine, a goddess thus addressed in the language of the Sabines, whom they deemed to be Athena or also Aphrodite; for nerine is manliness, and the Sabines call the brave nerones. That she leads wars together with Ares, Homer too shows, saying: "These things will be a care to swift Ares and to Athena, all of them." For those who think Nerine is Aphrodite are mistaken, and Homer is a witness here too: "Not to you, my child, are the works of war given." Philip says that the Hyades set on the day before the ninth of the Kalends of April with the south wind, and Metrodorus says they rise. On the day before the eighth of the Kalends is the spring equinox. That a psalis is a kind of building having the shape of a half-cylinder. That Demeter is the founder of a city, as it were the earth; whence they also depict her bearing towers. And the earth is called Cybele from the cubic shape in geometry, because of its being walkable and stable; even if the Stoics define it as spherical. April. Since the first month, as we were saying, was dedicated to the honors of the intelligible beings according to the preeminence of the monad, reasonably the one after it, that is the second, which the Romans in their ancestral fashion call February, was assigned according to the infinity of number to Pluto and the underworld powers. And they call him Hades; for the dyad is, as it were, formless and indefinite, whence he himself is said to be king of the formless and of those who have obtained a departure from the divine things.

Philolaus therefore rightly says that the dyad is the consort of Cronus, whom one might plainly call time. And the dyad is joined to time as being the cause of corruption; and it itself happens to be the mother of fluid substance. The third month, that is March, they assigned either according to the first odd number, or as to the ancestral god Ares, to this number of order; for the triad is the beginning of number; so that they do not join Ares to Aphrodite outside of philosophy; for when the monad comes together with the dyad, the first number is produced, which is called by some perfect, because it first signifies all things, and first showed beginning, middle, and end; for it is an image of a plane and the first substance in triangles; for there are three kinds of them: equilateral, isosceles, scalene. The fourth month, which they call April, they assigned according to the nature of the elements to the fourth number, that is, to Aphrodite; for the nature of the whole sensible world is from four elements, and this would be Aphrodite according to the natural philosophers. This, then, is the first square number and the tetractys, but indeed it also first showed solid nature; for a point, then a line, then a surface, then a solid, which is a body. And from four they assigned the fourth number to Aphrodite, that is, to the nature of things. Why it seemed good to the Romans thus to name the fourth month, I shall state briefly; for now, according to what was promised before, I shall set out a few things about the contemplation concerning Aphrodite. The natural philosophers, then, wish Aphrodite to be the spring season; and this would be the sun in Taurus.

And they make her turn away from Ares, as we were saying, the month of Ares—and this would be March—and attach herself to Adonis, that is, to May, in which the birds already mate in spring; and they say that this one was killed by Ares changed into a boar, as it were spring being killed by summer; for the nature of the pig is hot, and the myth-makers take it in place of summer. Or, as others think, Adonis is the fruit, and Ares is the boar; and the animal is hostile to fruits, just as the ox is preservative; and for this reason the Egyptians even now as a rule abstain from oxen, but make the most use of swine for food. Euripides thinks that she herself should be named Aphrodite from her making lovers senseless. But Chrysippus thinks that she should be named not Dione but Didone, from her giving forth the pleasures of generation, and that she was named Cypris from her providing conception, and Cytherian likewise, from her giving forth conception not only to humans but also to beasts. Hence Hermes in the cosmogony delivers the parts of Aphrodite above the loins as male, and those after it as female; whence the Pamphylians once honored Aphrodite as having a beard too; and they think that she was born from the genitals of Cronus, that is, from eternity, and the nature of things is everlasting and incorruptible. To benisai is said among the multitude for to have intercourse. Plato delivers two Aphrodites, Urania and Pandemos; and the one attends the gods, the other humans; but the other poets deliver four.

One, they say, was born from Heaven and Day; another from foam, from whom also Eros was born to Hermes; a third from Zeus and Dione, from whom also they say Anteros was born to Ares; a fourth, the one of Syria and Cyprus, called Astarte. But others say that the first was that of Heaven and Day, called Urania; the second that of Foam and Eurynome the daughter of Ocean; and the third the one joined to Hermes the son of the Nile, from whom also the second Eros, the winged one; the fourth that of Zeus and Dione, whom Hephaestus married, but Ares, secretly consorting with her, begot Anteros. And she is called in many places also Pasiphae, she who sends pleasure upon all; and Ericyne, from the fact that she stirs up loves. From her and Hermes, the account goes, Hermaphroditus was born, that is, the fluent and refined speech, which from pleasure softens the rough. And they say that her star follows the moon because of nocturnal conjunctions, whence also it produces a shadow because it is capable of receiving bodies. And they sacrificed to her geese and partridges, because the former delight in waters—for Aphrodite is of the sea—and the latter, led by the voices of the females, are caught. Such, then, are the opinions of the ancients concerning Aphrodite according to mythical and physical speculation. But the philosophers say that Aphrodite is Dione, the nature that is through all things that exist; and that she was born from the genitals of Heaven and from the sea, that is, from even number and odd; and odd from form, but even from the sea, that is, from indefinite matter.

Cinclus the Roman sophist says that Aphrodite was born from foam, meaning that spring is born, as it were, from the snowy air and the cold substance. So much concerning Aphrodite. [He says] that April was named by Aeneas in honor of his mother, as it were "Aphrodisian," but some wish it to have been so named by Romulus; for since the first month was supposedly dedicated to Ares, it was fitting that the second be dedicated to Aphrodite. Thus, then, the Greeks; but the Romans say "April" as it were "Aperile," meaning the opener of the season; for when nature has been shut up, as it were, by winter, spring is naturally disposed to open up things. And it was fitting that the month of Aphrodite be joined to the month of Ares, as has been said; because, as the Egyptians say, by the gentleness of Aphrodite the star of Ares is calmed. And in the hymns we find Aphrodite called by nearly three hundred names. But the Phoenicians wish Aphrodite to be Astarte, their city's guardian—as it were the starry one or the virtue of the city. For from Lebanon—and there is a mountain there so called from its inclination toward the southwest—two rivers flow down to the sea, of which the greater and more transparent is called Adonis, and the lesser and more earthy Ares. And Ares, falling into Adonis, does not preserve its own name as far as the sea. Since, therefore, Adonis is wholly mingled with the deep, he seems rather himself to be loved by Aphrodite instead of by the sea. On the April Kalends, then, the venerable women honored Aphrodite for concord and a temperate life.

The women of the crowd bathed in the men's baths, crowned with myrtle for her worship, either because myrtle is suitable for infants—for it strengthens the bodies of the newly born, and myrtle happens to be the most fragrant of the evergreen plants besides others—or because it alone among plants rejoices in the sea. Aphrodite was honored with the same offerings as Hera. In Cyprus they sacrificed to Aphrodite a sheep covered with a fleece—the manner of the priesthood in Cyprus came once from Corinth—and then they also sacrificed wild boars to her because of the plot against Adonis, on the day before the fourth Nones, that is, on the second day of April. The natural philosophers say that females whose vessels have their opening in a straight line are fertile, while those whose opening is oblique are barren. On the day before the third Nones of April, Heracles was honored as a bringer of victory, as a giver of health. And it is a custom for the Romans to abstain from radishes during this month. Heracles is called time by Nicomachus, and indeed also the sun, saying thus: "Heracles, then, is the one who makes the bending around the air by the turning of the seasons, that is, the sun." Therefore in his mysteries they adorn the males with women's garments, since from the wildness and barrenness of winter, the seminal birth begins to be feminized. And these rites they performed in spring. Three apples in his left hand were a symbol of the division of time through him; for an apple is due to his sympathy with the ram, and the spring solstice is the beginning of time. And in another way three, because time is threefold.

It is said that he brought up the three-headed dog from Hades, because time is both guarding and destructive, just as a dog is; and it has three heads—the past, the present, and the future time. And in another sense the three apples must be understood in the case of Heracles according to philosophical doctrine, because the hero, having completed the three circuits of the practical life, is deemed to be perfect. For this reason he is also called threefold-evening-born according to Lycophron, for he says: of the threefold-evening lion, which once the jagged dog devoured with the jaws of Triton. For that Heracles was sown in three nights is mythical. And they give him Hebe of the beautiful ankles, as it were the creative power, and the beauty that is in the world. And the crown is a proof of perfection; therefore it was given first to gods and kings and priests. But since Fortune took the crown away from Virtue, the priests for the rest, shearing off their hair, procure for their head a kind of circle of hair instead of a crown. And they say he performed twelve labors, because the twelve signs of the zodiac run their course. And having revived Alcestis for Admetus, he gives her back, as it were the sun restoring to the world the life-giving nature that had been deadened in winter; for Admetus is the world, from its being untiring and ever-living. And he is said to have destroyed Augeas; for the sun, rising, scatters the early morning time, which most people call the dawn. And Heracles is commanded by Eurystheus to accomplish the twelve labors, instead of the sun being commanded by the great god, while Hera—that is, the sphere—resists, and he, running counter to it, escapes the twelve-zodiac heaven. Thus the philosophers.

From the histories we find that there were seven Heracles: first, the son of Zeus, who was of Aether, and of Lysithoe, the daughter of Oceanus; second, the son of Nile; third, the son of Hellen, the son of Zeus, and of the nymph Anchiale; fourth, the son of Zeus and Thebe of Egypt; fifth, the one born in India, the son of Libanus and Nyssa; sixth, the son of Zeus and Alcmena; seventh, the son of Zeus and Maia, the daughter of Atlas. That Apelles, painting the Graces as three—Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thaleia—makes one of them departing and two coming; for when one grace is given, more return to those who have given. That fire... when the winds are dashed together, the thunderbolts are squeezed out upon the clouds. And Miletus was formerly called Anactoria. And Amaltheia, the nurse of Zeus, who at once and in a single moment increases the things that are for Zeus; for althein means to increase. Crates wishes Zeus to have been named from diainein, that is, to fatten the earth, the one who pervades all things; Poseidonius, Zeus who administers all things; Chrysippus, because all things exist through him. Others wish Zeus to have been named from dein, that is, to bind and hold together the whole perceptible world; others from zen, to live. And some, according to the heroic and divisible reason, wish there to be three Zeuses: one of Aether, another born in Arcadia, from whom they say Athena was born, and a third, the Cretan. But the Phoenicians say that he became a most just king, so that the opinion concerning him became stronger than time; for this reason Cronus is said to have cast him out of his kingdom, as if to say that he surpassed time and the forgetfulness that comes from it.

But Melias says that he was reared by Amaltheia, as it were from power, that is, from unsoftening. And Crates says that Cronus ruled Sicily and Italy and the greater part of Libya harshly, and that his son attacked his father and drove him to the farthest limit of the west, but took up the kingship most gently, and for this reason was honored as a god. Eratosthenes, however, says that Zeus was born in Crete, and was carried from there to Naxos because of fear of Cronus. But Eumelus of Corinth wishes Zeus to have been born in the Lydia of our time, and he is more truthful, insofar as it is in history; for even now, in the western part of the city of the Sardians, on a height of Tmolus, there is a place which formerly was called the Births of Zeus the Rainy, but now, with the wording distorted by time, is called Deusium. Its guardians were the Curetes. Others say he was the son of Prometheus, as it were of forethought. But most of the natural philosophers wish Zeus to be Idaean and to have been born on Ida, that is, in the heaven seen near Ida. And they say that he is the father of Kore, that is, that he became the cause of satiety and feasting; for he is said, having reigned first, to have taught men to farm. And many are called Dioi from the whole Zeus, just as Apollos or Dionysi.