M. Bonhier, to the different
and diurnal motions of these stars; one sort from east to west, the
other from one tropic to the other: and this is the construction which
our learned and great geometrician and astronomer, Dr. Halley, made of
this passage.

[130] This mensuration of the year into three hundred and sixty-five
days and near six hours (by the odd hours and minutes of which, in
every fifth year, the _dies intercalaris_, or leap-year, is made) could
not but be known, Dr. Halley states, by Hipparchus, as appears from the
remains of that great astronomer of the ancients. We are inclined to
think that Julius Caesar had divided the year, according to what we call
the Julian year, before Cicero wrote this book; for we see, in the
beginning of it, how pathetically he speaks of Caesar's usurpation.

[131] The words of Censorinus, on this occasion, are to the same
effect. The opinions of philosophers concerning this great year are
very different; but the institution of it is ascribed to Democritus.

[132] The zodiac.

[133] Though Mars is said to hold his orbit in the zodiac with the
rest, and to finish his revolution through the same orbit (that is, the
zodiac) with the other two, yet Balbus means in a different line of the
zodiac.

[134] According to late observations, it never goes but a sign and a
half from the sun.

[135] These, Dr. Davis says, are "aerial fires;" concerning which he
refers to the second book of Pliny.

[136] In the Eunuch of Terence.

[137] Bacchus.

[138] The son of Ceres.

[139] The books of Ceremonies.

[140] This Libera is taken for Proserpine, who, with her brother Liber,
was consecrated by the Romans; all which are parts of nature in
prosopopoeias. Cicero, therefore, makes Balbus distinguish between the
person Liber, or Bacchus, and the Liber which is a part of nature in
prosopopoeia.

[141] These allegorical fables are largely related by Hesiod in his
Theogony.

Horace says exactly the same thing:

Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules
Enisus arces attigit igneas:
Quos inter Augustus recumbens
Purpureo bibit ore nectar.
Hac te merentem, Bacche pater, tuae
Vexere tigres indocili jugum
Collo ferentes: hac Quirinus
Martis equis Acheronta fugit.--Hor. iii. 3. 9.

[142] Cicero means by _conversis casibus_, varying the cases from the
common rule of declension; that is, by departing from the true
grammatical rules of speech; for if