NOTES. CV 



( 4M ) p. 298. Letronne sur 1'origine du Zodiaque grec, p. 29 ; Lepsius, Chro- 

 nologic, S. 83. Letronne contested the ancient Chaldean origin of the " pla- 

 netary week" on account of the number 7 



C 500 ) p. 298. Vitruv. de A.rchit. ix. 4 (ed. Rode, 1800, p. 209). Neither 

 Vitruvius nor Martianus Capella give the Egyptians as the authors of a sys- 

 tem according to which Mercury and Venus were regarded as the satellites 

 of the Sun, that orb being itself viewed as a planet. Vitruvius says : 

 " Mercurii autem et Veneris stellae circum Solis radios. Solem ipsum, uti cen- 

 trum, itineribus coronantes, regressus retrorsum et retardationes faciunt." 



( 501 ) p. 298. Martianus Mineus Felix Capella de nuptiis philos, et Mercurii, 

 lib. viii. ed. Grotii, 1599, p. 289 : " Nam Venus Mercuriusque licet ortus occa- 

 susque quotidianos ostendant, tameu eorum circuli Terras omnino non ambi- 

 unt, sed circa Solem laxiore ambitu circulantur. Denique circulorum suorum 



centron in Sole coustituunt, ita ut supra ipsum aliquando" As this 



passage is entitled " Quod Tellus non sit centrum omnibus planetis," it might 

 indeed, as Gassendi asserts, have exercised some influence on the first views 

 of Copernicus, more so than the passages attributed to the great geometer, 

 Apollonius of Perga. Copernicus, however, only says, "miuirne coutem- 

 nendum arbitror, qnod Martianus Capella scripsit, existimans quod Venus et 

 Mercurius circumerrant Solem in medio existentem." Compare Kosmos, 

 Bd. ii. S. 350 and 503, Anm. 34; Engl. ed. p. 309 and cix., Note 4?4. 



( 502 ) p. 299. Henri Martin, in his commentary on the Timseus (Etudes 

 sur le Timee de Platon, T. ii. p. 129 133), appears to me to have elucidated 

 in a very happy manner the passage of Macrobius on the " ratio Chaldseorum," 

 which had misled the excellent Ideler, in "Wolff's and Buttmann's Museum 

 der Alterthums-Wissenschaft, Bd. ii. S. 443, and in his Memoir on Eudoxus, 

 p. 48. Macrobius (in Somn. Scipionis, lib. i. cap. 19, lib. ii. cap. 3, ed. 1694, 

 pag. 64 and 90) does not appear to have known anything of the system 

 of Vitruvius and Martianus Capella, in which Mercury and Venus are 

 satellites of the Sun, which itself moves, together with the remaining planets, 

 round the Earth, which is fixed in the centre. He merely enumerates the 

 differences in the succession of the orbits of the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and 

 the Moon, according to the assumptions of Cicero. He says, " Ciceroni, 

 Archimedes et Chaldaorum ratio consentit, Plato ^Egyptios secutus est." 

 When Cicero, in the eloquent description of the whole planetary system 

 (Somn. Scip. cap. 4), exclaims "hunc (Solem) ut comites consequuntur 

 Veneris alter, alter Mercurii cursus," he only points to the nearness to each 

 other of the orbits of the Sun and of those two inferior planets, after having 



