BOOK II, Lxiii, 158-LXIV. 160 



existed, assuredly even they would have been dug up 

 ere now by the burrowings of avarice and luxury ! 

 And can we wonder if earth has also generated some 

 creatures for our harm ? since the wild animals, I 

 well beHeve, are her guardians, and protect her from 

 sacrilegious hands ; do not serpents infest our mines, 

 do we not handle veins of gold mingled with the roots 

 of poison ? Yet that shows the goddess all the kinder 

 towards us, because all these avenues from which 

 wealth issues lead but to crime and slaughter and 

 warfare, and her whom we besprinkle with our blood 

 we cover with unburied bones, over which neverthe- 

 less, when at length our madness has been finally 

 discharged, she draws herself as a veil, and hides even 

 the crimes of mortals, 



I would reckon this too among the crimes of our 

 ingratitude, that we are ignorant of her nature. 

 LXIV, But her shape is the first fact about which Theearth'. 

 men's judgement agrees, We do undoubtedly '^^^^^' 

 speak of the earth*s sphere, and admit that the globe 

 is shut in between poles, Nor yet in fact do all these 

 lofty mountains and widely spreading plains com- 

 prise the outline of a perfect sphere, but a figure whose 

 circuit would produce a perfect sphere if the ends of 

 all the Unes " were enclosed in a circumference. This 

 is the consequence of the very nature of things, it is 

 not due to the same causes as those we have adduced 

 in the case of the heaven ; for in the heaven the 

 convex hollow converges on itself and from all sides 

 rests upon its pivot, the earth, whereas the earth 

 being a soUd dense mass rises Uke an object sweUing, 

 and expands outward. The world converges to its 

 centre, whereas the earth radiates outward from its 

 centre, the ceaseless revolution of the world around 



295 



