the
rest of these stars: the farther they are from the outermost limits of
the heaven, and the nearer their orbits to the earth, the sooner they
are seen to finish their courses; for those of them that have a smaller
orbit often pass those that are higher, going under them.

15. For example, place seven ants on a wheel such as potters use, having
made seven channels on the wheel about the centre, increasing
successively in circumference; and suppose those ants obliged to make a
circuit in these channels while the wheel is turned in the opposite
direction. In spite of having to move in a direction contrary to that of
the wheel, the ants must necessarily complete their journeys in the
opposite direction, and that ant which is nearest the centre must finish
its circuit sooner, while the ant that is going round at the outer edge
of the disc of the wheel must, on account of the size of its circuit,
be much slower in completing its course, even though it is moving just
as quickly as the other. In the same way, these stars, which struggle on
against the course of the firmament, are accomplishing an orbit on paths
of their own; but, owing to the revolution of the heaven, they are swept
back as it goes round every day.

16. The reason why some of these stars are temperate, others hot, and
others cold, appears to be this: that the flame of every kind of fire
rises to higher places. Consequently, the burning rays of the sun make
the ether above him white hot, in the regions of the course of Mars, and
so the heat of the sun makes him hot. Saturn, on the contrary, being
nearest to the outermost limit of the firmament and bordering on the
quarters of the heaven which are frozen, is excessively cold. Hence,
Jupiter, whose course is between the orbits of these two, appears to
have a moderate and very temperate influence, intermediate between their
cold and heat.

I have now described, as I have received them from my teacher, the belt
of the twelve signs and the seven stars that work and move in the
opposite direction, with the laws and numerical relations under which
they pass from sign to sign, and how they complete their orbits. I shall
next speak of the waxing and waning of the moon, according to the
accounts of my predecessors.

CHAPTER II

THE PHASES OF THE MOON

1. According to the teaching of Berosus, who came from the state, or
rather nation, of the Chaldees, and was the pioneer of Chaldean learning
in Asia, th