Note 825 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

Aet. ii. 20, 13 (Chap. IV. p. 275, n. 609); cf. ib. 12 (of Philolaos), ὥστε τρόπον τινὰ διττοὺς ἡλίους γίγνεσθαι, τό τε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πυρῶδες καὶ τὸ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ πυροειδὲς κατὰ τὸ ἐσοπτροειδές· εἰ μή τις καὶ τρίτον λέξει τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐνόπτρου κατ’ ἀνάκλασιν διασπειρομένην πρὸς ἡμᾶς αὐγήν. Here τὸ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πυρῶδες is the central fire, in accordance with the use of the word οὐρανός explained in another passage of Aetios, Stob. Ecl. i. p. 196, 18 (R. P. 81). It seems to me that these strange notices must be fragments of an attempt to show how the heliocentric hypothesis arose from the theory of Empedokles as to the sun’s light. The meaning is that the central fire really was the sun, but that Philolaos unnecessarily duplicated it by supposing the visible sun to be its reflexion.