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The Midnight Planet
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2013
Extract
Choeroboscus preserves the following notice, which came down to him from Herodian (i 45. 14, ii 743. 24 Lentz):
Μεσόνυξ Μεσόνυχος εἶς τῶν ἐπτὰ πλανήτων παρὰ τοῖς Πυθαγορείοις ὀνομάζεται. μέμνηται Στησίχορος(PMG 259).
It has been almost entirely overlooked by historians of Greek astronomy. The only published discussion known to me is a short article by P. J. Bicknell in Apeiron (Monash University) ii 2 (1968) 10-12. He observes that it is a notice of considerable significance, and he makes some important inferences from it. The only planet mentioned in Hesiod and Homer, or in early poetry generally, is Venus, under the names ῾´ Εσπερος and ῾ Εωσφόρος. Bicknell notes that the name Mesonyx must have been chosen ‘on analogy with ’ those names; I would prefer to say, by antithesis to them. Hesperos was the luminary that only appeared in the evening, Heosphoros always presaged the dawn: Mesonyx was the planet that could be seen in the middle of the night.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1980
References
1 I owe the reference to Dr Malcolm Davies.
2 Hes. Th. 381, Il. xxii 3 18, xxiii 226, Sappho 104ab, 117B?, Ibyc. 331, Pind. I. iv 26; without name, Od. xiii 93 f.
3 There is a confusion in Bicknell's account. 780 days is Mars' synodic period, not its sidereal period, which is 687 days.
4 Nilsson, M. P., Primitive Time-Reckoning (Lund 1920) 120Google Scholar, citing Schulze, L., Aus Namaland und Kalahari (1907) 367Google Scholar ff.
5 Brugsch, H., Thes. Inscr. Aeg. i 68 f.Google Scholar; Aegyptologie (Leipzig 1889) 336.
6 It is difficult to say from what source Herodian would have got information about Pythagoreans. Epicharmus might be a possibility. It is inconceivable that Stesichorus himself referred to Pythagoras or Pythagoreans.
7 Th. 381 f. See further Wilamowitz, , Hermes xviii (1883) 417–20Google Scholar=Kl. Schr. i 131–4.
8 PMG 331 συνήγαγε or εἰς ἒν συνέστειλε τὰς προσηγορίας. See further Burkert, W., Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism (Cambridge Mass. 1972) 307Google Scholar. Burkert wrongly infers from Callimachus, fr. 442Google Scholar (D.L. ix 23) the existence of a Pythagorean poem which included mention of Venus. Καλλίμαχος δέ ϕησι μὴ εἶναι αὺτοῦ τὸ ποίημα is a detached scrap of information concerning Parmenides, unconnected with what precedes. Pfeiffer too misinterpreted the passage.
9 Aët. ii 14.3. See my Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (Oxford 1971) 102–4.
10 Porph., VP 41Google Scholar=Arist. fr. 196; West (n. 9) 215 f.
11 Aët. ii 16.2 3=DK 24 A 4.
12 Aët. ii 15.7=DK 28 A 40a. We do not understand his cosmology well enough to say whether he treated other planets individually.
13 Aët. ii 13.11=DK 31 A 54.
14 Daimachus, (FGrH 65Google Scholar F 8) ap. Plut., Lys. 12Google Scholar; cf. Plin., NH ii 149Google Scholar, Sen., QN vii 5Google Scholar. 3. Pliny's date of Ol. 78/2 =467/6 agrees with Marm. Par. 239 A 57 (468/7), and is supported by the Chinese Shih Chi, which records the appearance of a comet in 467 (Yoke, Ho Peng, Vistas in Astronomy v [1962] 142Google Scholar, no. 13).
15 DK 59 A 1 § 9 and A 81. Democritus, who repeated this theory, said that some ἀστέρϵς had been seen at the dissolution of comets (Arist., Meteor. 343b25)Google Scholar: comets do occasionally have a double or multiple nucleus, and if the comet of 467 presented this appearance during part of its period of visibility, Anaxagoras' theory was a natural one.
16 Arist., Meteor. 342b29Google Scholar ff.=DK 42 A 5; Act. iii 2.1; Gilbert, O., Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums (Leipzig 1907) 642Google Scholar ff.
17 Aët. ii 15.3 (Placita)=DK 68 A 86; A 92.
18 986c–7c. Cf. Gundel, , RE xx 2 (1950) 2025, 2029Google Scholar; Burkert (n. 8) 301 n. 9. The names Στίλβων, Πυρόεις, Φαέθων, Φαίνων, are Hellenistic, the earliest evidence for them being dated to 265 (Ptolemy, Almagest 9Google Scholar. 10 p. 288 Heib.). See Cumont, , Ant. Class. iv (1935) 19 ff.Google Scholar; Gundel, 2030 (where the date is wrongly given as 264).
19 Eudoxus D 6, F 123–4 Lasserre; Pl. Tim. 38d; Epin. loc. cit.; Sen., QN vii 3.2Google Scholar.
20 Cf. Cumont (n. 18) 12; Gundel 2031. The Persians too at some date adopted the Babylonian system; see van der Waerden, B. L., Science Awakening ii (Leyden & New York 1974) 86CrossRefGoogle Scholar ff.
21 De caelo 293a18 ff. and fr. 204, DK 58 B 37; Aët. ii 7.7=DK 44 A 16; and other passages. See Guthrie, , History of Greek Philosophy i (Cambridge 1962) 282 ff.Google Scholar; Burkert (n. 8) 231 ff., 337 ff.