10 i PLIKT'S IS^ATUEAL HISTOET. [Book II. 
pole, otherwise^ 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 di- 
stricts ; all this, however, could not happen unless the earth 
had the shape of a globe. 
CHAP. 72. — m WHAT PLACES ECLIPSES AEE II^YISIBLE, AKD 
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, that at the time of the famous vic- 
tory of Alexander the Grreat, 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 Yipstanus and Fonteius^, 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 echpses which are visible in any one country are not so in those 
wliich 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 echpse, whether recurring in the western, 
eastern, or southern parts of the heavens. 
2 Brewster, in the art. " Chronology," p. 415, mentions tliis ecHpse 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 30th of April, in the year of the City 811, 
A.D. 59 ; see Brewster, ubi su]pra. It is simply mentioned by Tacitus, 
Ann. xiv. 12, as having occurred among other prodigies which took place 
at this period. 
