76 plint's natural histoet. [Book XVIIT. 



been made for twelve " successive years, upon its being found 

 that tlie year which before had anticipated the constellations, 

 was now beginning to fall behind them. Even Sosigenes him- 

 self, too, though more correct than his predecessors, has not 

 hesitated to show, by his continual corrections in the three 

 several treatises which he composed, that he still entertained 

 great doubts on the subject. The writers, too, whose names ai-e 

 inserted at the beginning of this work,^*' have sufficiently re- 

 vealed the fact of these discrepancies, the opinions of one being 

 rarely found to agree with those of another. This, however, 

 is less surprising in the case of those whose plea is the difference 

 of the localities in which, they WTote. But with reference to 

 those who, though living in the same country, have still arrived 

 at different results, we shall here mention one remarkable 

 instance of discrepancy. Hesiod — for under his name, also, 

 we have a treatise- extant on the Science of the Stars ^^ — has 

 stated that the morning setting of the Vergilise takes place at 

 the moment of the autumnal equinox; whereas Thales, we 

 find, makes it the twenty-fifth day after the equinox, Anaxi- 

 mander the twenty-ninth, and Euctemon the forty-eighth. 



As for ourselves, we shall follow the calculations made by 

 Julius Caesar," which bear reference more particularly to Italy ; 

 though at the same time, we shall set forth the dicta of various 

 other writers, bearing in mind that we are treating not of an 

 individual country, but of Nature considered in her totality. 

 In doing this, however, we shall name, not the writers them- 

 selves, for that would be too lengthy a task, but the countries 

 in reference to which they speak. The reader must bear in 

 mind, then, that for the sake of saving space, under the head 

 of Attica, we include the islands of the Cyclades as well ; under 

 tliat of Macedonia, Magnesia and Thracia; under that of JEgypt, 



^^ Soon after the corrections made by order of Julius Caesar, the Pon- 

 tificcs mistook the proper method of intercalation, by making it every 

 third year instead of the fourth ; the consequence of which was, that 

 Auf^ustus was oblip;cd to correct the results of their error by omitting the 

 intercalary day for twelve years. 



2" He most probably refers to the list of writers originally appended to 

 the First Book ; but which in the present Translation is distributed at the 

 end of each ]{ook. For the list of astronomical writers here referred to, 

 sec the end of the present Book. 



2' Or 'AcrrpiK// /3ij3Xog. It IS now lost. 



22 Ic his work mentioned at the end of this Book. It is now lost. 



