Note 838 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

The difficulty appears clearly in Adam’s note on Republic, 617 b (vol. ii. p. 452). There the ἀπλανής appears rightly as the νήτη, while Saturn, which comes next to it, is the ὑπάτη. It is inconceivable that this should have been the original scale. Aristotle touches upon the point (de Caelo, Β, 10. 291 a 29 sqq.); and Simplicius sensibly observes (de Caelo, p. 476, 11), οἱ δὲ πάσας τὰς σφαίρας τὴν αὐτὴν λέγοντες κίνησιν τὴν ἀπ’ ἀνατολῶν κινεῖσθαι καθ’ ὑπόληψιν (ought not the reading to be ὑπόλειψιν?), ὥστε τὴν μὲν Κρονίαν σφαῖραν συναποκαθίστασθαι καθ’ ἡμέραν τῇ ἀπλανεῖ παρ’ ὀλίγον, τὴν δὲ τοῦ Διὸς παρὰ πλέον καὶ ἐφεξῆς οὕτως, οὗτοι πολλὰς μὲν ἄλλας ἀπορίας ἐκφεύγουσι, but their ὑπόθεσις is ἀδύνατος. This is what led to the return to the geocentric hypothesis and the exclusion of earth and ἀπλανὴς from the ἁρμονία. The only solution would have been to make the earth rotate on its axis or revolve round the central fire in twenty-four hours, leaving only precession for the ἀπλανής. As we have seen, Boeckh attributed this to Philolaos, but without evidence. If he had thought of it, these difficulties would not have arisen.