On the God of Socrates

...they are found, just as in every other part of nature there are animals proper to that place [flying in the ether, walking on the earth].

For since there are four most famous elements, divided as it were into four great parts 30 of nature, and there are animals proper to the lands, || the waters ||, and the flames—insofar as Aristotle VIII is the authority Aristotle (384–322 BCE) was an influential Greek philosopher; Apuleius refers here to a passage in Aristotle's History of Animals regarding "fire-dwellers." for the claim that in blazing furnaces certain unique animals, equipped with small wings, 138 fly about and spend their whole life in fire, being born with it and dying with it; furthermore, since the numerous stars, as has been said before, dwell far up in the ether—that is, in the very clearest heat of fire—why should nature allow this one part out of the four elements, the air, which is situated in such a vast space, to be void of animals and deserted by its own inhabitants? Why would nature not produce animals in it [the air] as well, just as it produced fiery ones in fire, fluid ones in the water, and solid ones on the earth? For if anyone attributes birds to the air, you would 31 rightly say their opinion is false; because none of those [birds] rise higher than the summit of Olympus, which, although said to be the most excellent of all || mountains ||, yet if you measure its height with a plumb-line, 139 as geometricians claim, the height of its peak does not equal || ten || stadia A "stadium" was an ancient unit of length. Ten stadia is approximately 1.15 miles or 1.85 kilometers., while the vast expanse of air extends as far as the nearest orbit of the moon, which is the beginning of the ether looking upward. 140 What then of this great force of air, which lies between the lowest curves of 32 the moon and the highest peak of Olympus? What indeed? Shall it be empty of its own animals, and shall that part of nature be dead and weak? On the contrary, if you pay close attention, even birds should more rightly be called terrestrial animals, not aerial ones. || For || all their food is always on the ground; there is their fodder, there is their nest; they only beat through the air closest to the earth by flying. Otherwise, when the "oarage" of their wings is tired, the earth is like a harbor.

But if reason demands it be clear that proper animals must also be understood to exist in the air, 33 it remains for us to discuss what they are and of what kind. Certainly not earthly ones... IX

5 Aristotle, History of Animals V, 19, page 552 b 10 Bekker edition: "In Cyprus, where the copper-ore is burned, if they throw it in for many days, creatures are born in the fire there, a little larger than large flies, with wings, which jump and walk through the fire."

1 aut (or) in manuscript F | animalia pennulis in aethere (animals with small wings in the ether) in M (pennulis was crossed out by the second hand of M) | in aethere volantia in terra gradientia (flying in the ether, walking on the earth) bracketed by the editor | 3 IIII or (four) in M | 4 sintque (and there are) in the Roman edition | sit que in O | aquarum (of the waters) omitted in O, added by Mercerus | 7 totuaga in M | sursum (upward) in the Roman edition | cursum in O | 8 ardore in the first hands of M and F | ardore (with a long mark) in M | inter (between) omitted in O, added by the editor | quatuor in F | aeris bracketed by the editor | 9 animalibus (by animals) according to Wilamowitz | homnibus (men) in M (with 'h' added and 'm' corrected to 'mi' by the first hand) | omnibus (all) in F | 10 aere (air) bracketed by the editor | gigneret (would produce) according to Mercerus | gigneret in M | gignerent in F | 11 avis in aethere (bird in the ether) in M | 12 quia (because) according to Hildebrand following Oudendorp | que in O | aves bracketed by the editor | que aves bracketed by Mercerus | "because scarcely any [bird]" suggested by a scholar in Oudendorp | 13 montium (of mountains) omitted in O, added by the editor following Rohde | 14 geometerae in M (the 'e' was crossed out by the second hand) | decem (ten) omitted in O, added by Colvius | 15 inmsu written over an erasure in the second hand of M (same as in M, but incorrectly divided) | helicem quae (the orbit which) according to Floridus | feliceq; in F | felicęq; in M | 16 exordium (beginning) in the Roman edition | exortum (origin) in O | 17 olimpi in F | qui tandem (what then) in M | alimalibus (animals) with a correction in the first hand of M | 18 imo in F | 19 per (through) bracketed by Vulcanius | aereum in O | est (is) omitted in O, added in common editions | 20 pabulum ibidem (fodder in the same place) omitted in M | 21 transverberant (they beat through) corrected in M | pennarum (of wings) in F and the second hand of M | pinnarum in M | 22 three letters erased after manifestum in M | intelligi (to be understood) in F