t distinguish him by
having recourse to a famous old tradition, which may amuse as well as
instruct us; the narrative is perfectly true, although the scepticism of
mankind is prone to doubt the tales of old. You have heard what happened
in the quarrel of Atreus and Thyestes? 'You mean about the golden lamb?'
No, not that; but another part of the story, which tells how the sun
and stars once arose in the west and set in the east, and that the god
reversed their motion, as a witness to the right of Atreus. 'There is
such a story.' And no doubt you have heard of the empire of Cronos, and
of the earthborn men? The origin of these and the like stories is to be
found in the tale which I am about to narrate.

There was a time when God directed the revolutions of the world, but
at the completion of a certain cycle he let go; and the world, by a
necessity of its nature, turned back, and went round the other way.
For divine things alone are unchangeable; but the earth and heavens,
although endowed with many glories, have a body, and are therefore
liable to perturbation. In the case of the world, the perturbation is
very slight, and amounts only to a reversal of motion. For the lord of
moving things is alone self-moved; neither can piety allow that he goes
at one time in one direction and at another time in another; or that God
has given the universe opposite motions; or that there are two gods, one
turning it in one direction, another in another. But the truth is, that
there are two cycles of the world, and in one of them it is governed by
an immediate Providence, and receives life and immortality, and in the
other is let go again, and has a reverse action during infinite ages.
This new action is spontaneous, and is due to exquisite perfection of
balance, to the vast size of the universe, and to the smallness of the
pivot upon which it turns. All changes in the heaven affect the animal
world, and this being the greatest of them, is most destructive to men
and animals. At the beginning of the cycle before our own very few of
them had survived; and on these a mighty change passed. For their life
was reversed like the motion of the world, and first of all coming to a
stand then quickly returned to youth and beauty. The white locks of the
aged became black; the cheeks of the bearded man were restored to their
youth and fineness; the young men grew softer and smaller, and, being
reduced to the condition of children in mind as well as b