Diogenes Laërtius · fl. 3rd century CE
Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.144 — Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Translation by R. D. Hicks (1925)
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.144
Reported speech · Diogenes Laërtius on the Stoics
Of the stars some are fixed, and are carried round with the whole heaven; others, the wandering stars or planets, have their special motions. The sun travels in an oblique path through the zodiac. Similarly the moon travels in a spiral path. The sun is pure fire: so Posidonius in the seventh book of his Celestial Phenomena. And it is larger than the earth, as the same author says in the sixth book of his Physical Discourse. Moreover it is spherical in shape like the world itself according to this same author and his school. That it is fire is proved by its producing all the effects of fire; that it is larger than the earth by the fact that all the earth is illuminated by it; nay more, the heaven beside. The fact too that the earth casts a conical shadow proves that the sun is greater than it. And it is because of its great size that it is seen from every part of the earth.
Cite this passage
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.144 (on the Stoics), tr. R. D. Hicks (1925)
https://whatwouldstoicsdo.com/passage/lives-of-the-stoics/7.144
Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, tr. R. D. Hicks (Loeb, 1925). Text: Perseus Digital Library (CC BY-SA 4.0). Sources and licences
In plain English
AI-written notesAncient astronomy: some stars are fixed and some wander, the sun is pure fire and larger than the earth, and the moon moves in a spiral path. Proofs include that the sun does everything fire does and that the earth casts a conical shadow.
Older wording
- “zodiac”
- — the band of constellations the sun appears to pass through
- “oblique”
- — slanting, at an angle
- “conical”
- — cone-shaped
Themes and situations
- Nature and the cosmos
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