104 pliny's natueal histoey. [Book II. 



pole, otlierwise^ its stars would be seen from all parts of the 

 world ; they indeed are supposed to be higher by those who 

 are nearest to them, but the stars are sunk below the horizon 

 to those who are more remote. As this pole appears to be 

 elevated to those who are beneath it; so, when we have 

 passed along the convexity of the earth, those stars rise up, 

 which appear elevated to the inhabitants of those other <fi- 

 stricts ; all this, however, could not happen unless the earth 

 had the shape of a globe. 



CHAP. 72. — IN WHAT PLACES ECLIPSES ABE INVISIBLE, AND 

 WHY THIS IS THE CASE. 



Hence it is that the inhabitants of the east do not see 

 those eclipses of the sun or of the moon which occur in the 

 evening, nor the inhabitants of the west those in the morn- 

 ing, while such as take place at noon are more frequently 

 visible^. We are told, tliat at the time of the famous vic- 

 tory of Alexander the Great, at Arbela'', the moon was 

 eclipsed at the second hour of the night, while, in Sicily, the 

 moon was rising at the same hour. The eclipse of the sun 

 which occurred the day before the calends of May, in the 

 consulship of Vipstanus and Ponteius*, not many years ago, 

 was seen in Campania between the seventh and eighth hour 

 of the day ; the general Corbulo informs us, that it was seen 



* "Aut;" as Poinsinet remarks, ''aut est ici pour alioqui-" and he 

 quotes another passage from our author, xix. 3, where the word is employed 

 in a similar manner. 



2 We may presume that the author meant to convey the idea, that 

 the eclipses which are visible in any one country are not so in those 

 which are situated under a different meridian. The terms "vesperti- 

 nos," " matutinos," and " meridianos," refer not to the time of the day, 

 but to the situation of the ecUpse, whether recurring in the western, 

 eastern, or southern parts of the heavens. 



3 Brewster, in the art. " Chronology," p. 415, mentions this eclipse as 

 having taken place Sept. 21st, U.C. 331, eleven days before the battle of 

 Arbela ; while, in the same art. p. 423, the battle is said to have taken 

 place on Oct. 2nd, eleven days after a total ecHpse of the moon. 



4 It took place on the 3()th of April, in the year of the City 811, 

 A.D. 59 ; see Brewster, ubi sv/pra. It is simply mentioned by Tacitus, 

 Ann. xiv. 12, as having occurred among other prodigies which took place 

 at this period. 



