50 pliny's katural histort. [Book 11. 
renders it redder, a windy planet gives it a lowering aspect, 
while tlie sun, at the union of their apsides, or the extremity 
of their orbits, completely obscures them. Each of the 
planets has its peculiar colour^ ; Saturn is white, Jupiter 
brilliant. Mars fiery, Lucifer is glowing, Vesper refulgent, 
Mercury sparkling, the Moon mild ; the Sun, when he rises, 
is blazing, afterwards he becomes radiating. The appearance 
of the stars, which are fixed in the firmament, is also afiected 
by these causes. At one time we see a dense cluster of stars 
around the moon, when she is only half-enlightened, and 
when they are viewed in a serene evening ; while, at another 
time, when the moon is full, there are so few to be seen, that 
we wonder whither they are fled ; and this is also the case when 
the rays of the sun, or of any of the above-mentioned bodies^, 
have dazzled our sight. And, indeed, the moon herself is, 
without doubt, differently affected at different times by the 
rays of the sun ; when she is entering them, the convexity 
01 the heavens^ rendering them more feeble than when they 
fall upon her more directly^. Hence, when she is at a right 
angle to the sun, she is half-enlightened ; when in the trine 
aspect, she presents an imperfect orb^, while, in opposition, 
she iis full. Again, when she is waning, she goes through . 
the same gradations, and in the same order, as the three stars 
that are superior to the sun^. 
CHAP. 17. (19.) — OP THE MOTIOK OP THE SUN AND THE CAUSE 
OP THE IREEaULAEITY OP THE DATS. 
The Sun himself is in four different states ; twice the night 
^ Ptolemy's account of the colours of the planets is nearly similar to 
that of our author ; " Candidus color Jovialis est, rutilus Martius, flavus 
"Veneris, varius Mercurii j " De Jur. Astrol. ii. 9. 
2 This effect cannot be produced by any of the planets, except perhaps, 
to a certain extent, by Yenus. ^ "mundi." 
^ It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the method which Phny 
employs to explain the different phases of the moon betrays his ignorance, 
not only of the cause of these particular phsenomena, but of the general 
principles which affect the appearance of the heavenly bodies. 
^ " seminani ambitur orbe." According to the interpretation of Har- 
douin, " Orbe non perfecto et absoluto ; " *' major dimidia, minor plena ; '* 
Lemaire, ii. 284. 
^ As Alexandre justly remarks, our author refers here to the aspects 
only of the planets, not to their phases ^ ii. 284. 
