indeed in nature
and extent very unlike the notions of geographers, as I believe on the
authority of one who shall be nameless.

What do you mean, Socrates? said Simmias. I have myself heard many
descriptions of the earth, but I do not know, and I should very much
like to know, in which of these you put faith.

And I, Simmias, replied Socrates, if I had the art of Glaucus would tell
you; although I know not that the art of Glaucus could prove the truth
of my tale, which I myself should never be able to prove, and even if
I could, I fear, Simmias, that my life would come to an end before the
argument was completed. I may describe to you, however, the form and
regions of the earth according to my conception of them.

That, said Simmias, will be enough.

Well, then, he said, my conviction is, that the earth is a round body
in the centre of the heavens, and therefore has no need of air or any
similar force to be a support, but is kept there and hindered from
falling or inclining any way by the equability of the surrounding heaven
and by her own equipoise. For that which, being in equipoise, is in the
centre of that which is equably diffused, will not incline any way in
any degree, but will always remain in the same state and not deviate.
And this is my first notion.

Which is surely a correct one, said Simmias.

Also I believe that the earth is very vast, and that we who dwell in
the region extending from the river Phasis to the Pillars of Heracles
inhabit a small portion only about the sea, like ants or frogs about a
marsh, and that there are other inhabitants of many other like places;
for everywhere on the face of the earth there are hollows of various
forms and sizes, into which the water and the mist and the lower
air collect. But the true earth is pure and situated in the pure
heaven--there are the stars also; and it is the heaven which is commonly
spoken of by us as the ether, and of which our own earth is the sediment
gathering in the hollows beneath. But we who live in these hollows are
deceived into the notion that we are dwelling above on the surface of
the earth; which is just as if a creature who was at the bottom of the
sea were to fancy that he was on the surface of the water, and that the
sea was the heaven through which he saw the sun and the other stars,
he having never come to the surface by reason of his feebleness and
sluggishness, and having never lifted up his head and seen, nor ever
heard from