harley ms 3667 (Unknown) - Page 18

On the Twelve Winds

(Diagram description: A circular diagram representing the twelve winds. Twelve personified heads blow towards a center point, categorized by the four cardinal directions.)

THE EAST

Subsolanus, also known as Apeliotes. original: "Subsolanus ut & apeliot." Subsolanus is the Roman name for the wind blowing from the direction of the rising sun; Apeliotes is its Greek equivalent.

Eurus. The South-East wind.

Euro-Africus, also known as Euronothus. The South-South-East wind.

THE SOUTH

Auster or Nothus. The hot, damp South wind.

Euro-Auster, also known as Africus. A variation in the naming system; usually Africus is the South-West wind.

Africus, also known as Lips. The South-West wind; "Lips" is the Greek name.

THE WEST

Favonius and Zephyrus. The gentle West wind, associated with spring.

Chorus, also known as Agrestis. The North-West wind.

Circius and Thracias. Winds blowing from the North-North-West.

THE NORTH

Septentrio and Aparctias. The North wind, named for the "Seven Oxen" (Septem triones) of the Big Dipper constellation.

Aquilo and Boreas. The cold North-North-East wind.

Vulturnus and Caecias. The North-East wind.

MARTIANUS Martianus Capella, a 5th-century author whose work "The Marriage of Philology and Mercury" was a standard textbook for the liberal arts in the Middle Ages. says: The moon indeed occupies the six-hundredth part of its own orbital circle. But the circle itself is one hundred times larger than the earth. Pythagoras, however—a man of wise mind—concluded that from the earth to the moon it is 126,000 stadia A stadium was a classical unit of distance, roughly 185 meters or 607 feet.. From the moon to the sun, the distance is double that amount. From there to the twelve signs The Zodiac, the distance is tripled. The same author also says that the moon is larger than the earth.