90 



COSMOS. 



anchini (probably of the third century after Christ), exam- 

 ined by myself elsewhere,* and as they are met with in the 

 Egyptian monuments of the time of the Caesars, does not be- 

 long to the ancient astronomy, but to the subsequent epochs, 

 in which astrological chimeras had become universally dif- 

 fused.! We must not be surprised that the Moon was in- 

 cluded in the series of the seven planets, since, with the ex- 

 ception of a memorable theory of attraction put forward by 

 Anaxagoras {Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 309, and note), its more 

 intimate connection with the Earth was scarcely ever sus- 

 pected by the ancients. On the contrary, according to an 

 opinion respecting the system of the world which VitruviusJ 

 and Martianus Capella§ quote, without stating its originator, 

 Mercury and Venus, which we call planets, are represented 

 as satellites of the Sun, which itself revolves round the Earth. 



* Humboldt, Monumens des Peuples Indigenes de V Amirique, vol. ii., 

 p. 42-49. I have already directed attention in 1812 to the analogy be- 

 tween the zodiac of Bianchini and that of Dendera. Compare Letronne, 

 Observations Critiques sur les Representations Zodiacales, p. 97 ; and 

 Lepsius, Chronologie der JEgypter, 1849, p. 80. 



t Letronne, Sur VOrigine du Zodiaque Grec, p. 29. Lepsius, Chro 

 nol. der yEgypt., p. 83. Letronne opposes the old Chaldean origin of 

 the planetary week on account of the number seven. 



t Vitruv., De Arckit., ix., 4 (ed. Rode, 1800, p. 209). Neither Vitru- 

 vius nor Martianus Capella mention the Egyptians as the originators of 

 a system, according to which Mercury and Venus are considered as sat- 

 ellites of the planetary Sun. The former says, " Mercurii autem et Ve- 

 neris stelhe circum Solis radios, solem ipsum, uti centrum, itineribus 

 coronantes, regressus retrorsum et retardationes faciunt." "But Mer- 

 cury and Venus, which encircle in their orbits the Sun itself as a center, 

 retrogress and proceed slowly round its rays." 



§ Martianus Mineus Felix Capella, De Nuptiis Philos. et Mercurii, lib. 

 viii. (ed. Grotii, 1599, p. 289) : " For though Venus and Mercury appear 

 to rise and set daily, yet their orbits do not, however, go round the 

 Earth, but revolve round the Sun in a wider orbit. In fact, the center 

 of their orbits is in the Sun, so that they are sometimes above it . . . ." 

 " Nam Venus Mercuriusque licet ortus occasusque quotidianos osten- 

 dant, tamen eorum circuli Terras omnino non ambiunt, sed circa Solem 

 laxiore ambitu circulantur. Denique circulorum suorum centrum in 



Sole constituunt, ita ut supra ipsum aliquando " As this place is 



written over, " Quod Tellus non sit centrum omnibus planetis," *' Be- 

 cause the Earth is not the center of all the planets," it may certainly, as 

 Gassendi asserts, have had an influence upon the first views of Coper- 

 nicus, more than the passages attributed to the great geometer, Apol- 

 lonius of Perga. However? Copernicus only says, " Minime contem- 

 nendum arbitror, quod Martianus Capella scripsit, existimans quod Ve- 

 nus et Mercurius circumerrant Solem in medio existentem." " 1 by no 

 means think that we should despise what Martianus Capella has writ- 

 ten, who supposes that Venus and Mercury revolve round the Sun, 

 which is fixed in the center " Compare Cosmos, vol. ii., p. 312, and 

 note. 



