BOOK II. viii. 49-52 



its size by the evidence of the eyes and by logical 

 inference, arguing that it is immeasurably large for 

 the following reasons : (1) the shadow that it throws 

 of rows of trees along the balks of fields are at equal 

 distances apart for ever so many miles, just as if over 

 the whole space the sun were in the centre ; " (2) during 

 the equinoxes it reaches the vertical simultaneously 

 for all the inhabitants of the southern region ; (3) the 

 shadows of the people Uving round the Tropic of Cancer 

 fall northward at midday but westward at sunrise, 

 which could not happen unless the sun were much 

 larger than the earth ; (4) when it is rising its breadth 

 exceeds Mount Ida, overlapping it widely right and 

 left — and that though it is separated from it by so 

 great a distance. 



The ecHpse of the moon supphes indubitable 

 proof of the size of the sun, just as the sun itself 

 when it suffers ecUpse proves the smaUness of the 

 earth. For shadows are of three shapes, and it is 

 clear that, if the soUd object that throws a shadow 

 is equal in area to the shaft of Ught, the shadow 

 projected is shaped Uke a pillar and is of infinite 

 length, but if the soUd body is larger than the Ught, 

 the shadow has the shape of an upright spinning-top, 

 so that it is narrowest at the bottom, and infinite 

 in length as in the former case, while if the soUd is 

 smaUer than the Ught the result is the figure of s 

 cone narrowing down to end in a point, and this is 

 the nature of the shadow observed during an ecUpse 

 of the moon ; hence it is proved without any further 

 possibiUty of doubt remaining that the sun exceeds 

 the earth's size. Indeed, this is also proved by the 

 silent testimony of nature herself ; for why in the 

 division of the turns of the year does the winter sun 



