the celestial mysteries?

And Philus replied: Do you think, then, that it does not concern our
houses to know what happens in that vast home which is not included in
walls of human fabrication, but which embraces the entire universe--a
home which the Gods share with us, as the common country of all
intelligent beings? Especially when, if we are ignorant of these
things, there are also many great practical truths which result from
them, and which bear directly on the welfare of our race, of which we
must be also ignorant. And here I can speak for myself, as well as for
you, Laelius, and all men who are ambitious of wisdom, that the
knowledge and consideration of the facts of nature are by themselves
very delightful.

_Laelius._ I have no objection to the discussion, especially as it is
holiday-time with us. But cannot we have the pleasure of hearing you
resume it, or are we come too late?

_Philus_. We have not yet commenced the discussion, and since the
question remains entire and unbroken, I shall have the greatest
pleasure, my Laelius, in handing over the argument to you.

_Laelius._ No, I had much rather hear you, unless, indeed, Manilius
thinks himself able to compromise the suit between the two suns, that
they may possess heaven as joint sovereigns without intruding on each
other's empire.

Then Manilius said: Are you going, Laelius, to ridicule a science in
which, in the first place, I myself excel; and, secondly, without which
no one can distinguish what is his own, and what is another's? But to
return to the point. Let us now at present listen to Philus, who seems
to me to have started a greater question than any of those that have
engaged the attention of either Publius Mucius or myself.

XIV. Then Philus said: I am not about to bring you anything new, or
anything which has been thought over or discovered by me myself. But I
recollect that Caius Sulpicius Gallus, who was a man of profound
learning, as you are aware, when this same thing was reported to have
taken place in his time, while he was staying in the house of Marcus
Marcellus, who had been his colleague in the consulship, asked to see a
celestial globe which Marcellus's grandfather had saved after the
capture of Syracuse from that magnificent and opulent city, without
bringing to his own home any other memorial out of so great a booty;
which I had often heard mentioned on account of the great fame of
Archimedes; but its appearance, however, did