M. MANILIUS

ASTRONOMICON

BOOK ONE

[v. 188] ...and so that nature might preserve the paths which she herself had made,
and not fail through inexperience, and the day might be carried around
with eternal light, which the seasons show—
now in these, now in those regions of the orb—
and the rising always going further to the risings,
or the setting to the settings: the sky endures with the sun.
Nor indeed should the nature of the suspended earth seem
admirable to you, since the world itself hangs
and plants its footsteps upon no foundation,
which is evident from the very motion and course of the flying [stars],
since Phoebus the sun goes suspended and reflects his chariot
agilely here and there and preserves his boundaries in the ether;
since the moon and the stars fly through the emptiness of the world,
the earth also, having imitated the laws of the air, has hung.
The earth, therefore, having obtained the middle cavern
of the air, is raised equally in the total depth
and is not stretched into wide plains but is built into a globe
rising everywhere equally and falling equally.
This is the appearance of nature; thus the world itself,
flying into convex shapes, makes the figures of the stars
to be round; and we see the round orb of the sun and the moon
seeking light with a swollen body,
because the whole globe does not receive the oblique fires.
This form remains eternal and most similar to the gods,
for which there is neither a beginning anywhere, nor an end in itself,
but it remains similar with its whole face and is equal through all things.
Thus the figure remains gathered in the stars and the world.
For that reason, we do not see all the signs from all the lands.
You will nowhere find the Canopus a bright star in the southern constellation of Carina shining
until you have come through the sea to the Niliacas Nile-dwelling shores;
but those whom that fire overcomes will seek Helice the constellation Ursa Major,
because they inhabit the tracts of the sides, and in the middle tumor
[v. 220] they snatch the sky from the earth, and the views are coherent.