406 COSMOS. 



ing its originator, Mercury and Venus, which we call planets, 

 are represented as satellites of the Sun, which itself revolves 

 round the Earth. There is as little foundation for considering 

 such a system as this to be Egyptian, 10 as there is for con- 



Mercury revolve round the Sun, which is fixed in the centre.' 7 

 Compare Cosmos , vol. ii. p. 693, and note 



10 Henry Martin, in his Commentary to the Timceus 

 (Etudes sur le Timee de Platon, torn. ii. pp. 129-133), appears 

 to me to have explained very happily the passage in Macro- 

 bius respecting the ratio Chaldaorum, which led the praise- 

 worthy Ideler into error (in Wolff's and Buttmann's Museum 

 der Alterthums-Wissenschaft, bd. ii. s. 443, and in his Treatise 

 upon Eudoxus, p. 48). Macrobius (in Somn. Scipionis, lib. i. 

 cap. 19, lib. ii. cap. 3, ed. 1634, pp. 64 and 90,) says nothing 

 of the system mentioned by Vitruvius and Martianus Capella, 

 according to which Mercury and Venus are satellites of the 

 Sun, which, however, itself revolves with the other planets 

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

 only the differences in the succession of the orbits of the 

 Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, according to the views of 

 Cicero. He says, u Ciceroni, Archimedes et Chaldaoorum 

 ratio consentit; Plato -ZEgyptios secutus est." " Archimedes 

 and the system of the Chaldaeans agree ; Plato followed that 

 of the Egyptians." When Cicero exclaims in the eloquent 

 description of the whole planetary system (Somn. Scip., 

 cap. 4 ; Edmonds' translation, ed. Bohn, p. 294) : " Hunc 

 (Solem) ut comites consequuntur Veneris alter, alter Mer- 

 curii cursus;" "The motions of Venus and Mercury follow 

 it (the Sim) as companions," he refers only to the prox- 

 imity of the Sun's orbit and those of the two inferior planets, 

 after he had previously enumerated the three cursus of 

 Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars : all revolving round the im- 

 movable earth. The orbit of a secondary planet cannot 

 surround that of a principal planet, and yet Macrobius says 

 distinctly: "^Egyptiorum ratio talis est: circulus, per quern 

 Sol discurrit, a Mercurii circulo ut inferior ambitur, ilium 

 quoque superior circulus Veneris includit." " The following 



