Pliny
The Natural History
Translated with Copious Notes and Illustrations by the late
John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. and H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A., Late Scholar of Clare Hall, Cambridge
Published by Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, London, 1855
The chapter numbers do not correspond with more recent translations of Pliny, therefore I have used only the book number and chapter title with each excerpt and have appended the current Loeb references in parentheses. All footnotes for these excerpts are from the nineteenth century translation.
Excerpt from Natural History, Book II – Chapter: In what places eclipses are invisible, and why this is the case.
(Refer to Book II. 180 in Loeb edition..)
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 morning, while such as take place at noon are more frequently visible. We are told, that at the time of the famous victory 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.
Excerpt from Natural History, Book II – Chapter: What regulates the daylight on the earth.
(Refer to Book II. 181 in Loeb edition..)
Philonides, a courier of the above-mentioned Alexander, went from Sicyon to Elis, a distance of 1200 stadia, in nine hours, while he seldom returned until the third hour of the night, although the road was down-hill. The reason is, that, in going, he followed the course of the sun, while on his return, in the opposite direction, he met the sun and left it behind him. For the same reason it is, that those who sail to the west even on the shortest day, compensate for the difficult of sailing in the night and go farther, because they sail in the same direction with the sun.
Excerpt from Natural History, Book II – Chapter: When and where there are no shadows.
(Refer to Book II. 184 185 in Loeb edition..)
The Oretes, a people of India, have a mountain named Maleus, near which the shadows in summer fall towards the south and in winter towards the north. The seven stars of the Great Bear are visible there for fifteen nights only. In India also, in the celebrated sea-port, Patale,(1) the sun rises to the right hand and the shadows fall toward the south. While Alexander was saying there it was observed that the seven northern stars were seen only during the early part of the night.(2) Onesicritus, one of his generals, informs us in his work, that in those places in India where there are no shadows, the seven stars are not visible; those places, he says, are called “Ascia,” and the people there do not reckon the time by hours.
(1) Our author, in a subsequent part of his work, describes the island of Patale as situated near the mouth of the Indus. His account of the position of the sun does not, however, apply to this place.
(2) If we may suppose this to have been actually the case, we might calculate the time of year when Alexander visited this place and the length of his stay.
Excerpt from Natural History, Book II – Chapter: Of the Mode in which the days are computed.
(Refer to Book II. 188 in Loeb edition..)
The days have been computed by different people in different ways. The Babylonians reckoned from one sunrise to the next; the Athenians from one sunset to the next; The Umbrians from noon to noon; the multitude, universally, from light to darkness; the Roman priests and those who presided over the civil day, also the Egyptians and Hipparchus, from midnight to midnight. It appears that the interval from one sunrise to the next is less near the solstice than near the equinoxes, because the position of the zodiac is more oblique about its middle part, and more straight near the solstice.
Excerpt from Natural History, Book II – Wonders of fountains and rivers.
(Refer to Book II. 228 in Loeb edition..)
The pool of Jupiter Ammon, which is cold during the day, is warm during the night.