Note 133 — Chapter I · THE MILESIAN SCHOOL

The true meaning of this doctrine was first explained by Diels (Dox. pp. 25 sqq.). The flames rush forth per magni circum spiracula mundi, as Lucretius has it (vi. 493). The πρηστῆρος αὐλός, to which these are compared, is simply the nozzle of a pair of bellows, a sense which the word πρηστήρ has in Apollonios Rhodios (iv. 776), and has nothing to do with the meteorological phenomenon of the same name, for which see Chap. III. § 71. It is not now necessary to refute the earlier interpretations.