Note 452 — BOOK II. AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD AND THE ELEMENTS. (continued 2)
John Bostock translation
As our author admits of the existence of antipodes, and expressly states that the earth is a perfect sphere, we may conclude that the resemblance to the cone of the pine is to be taken in a very general sense. How far the ancients entertained correct opinions respecting the globular figure of the earth, or rather, at what period this opinion became generally admitted, it is perhaps not easy to ascertain. The lines in the Georgics, i. 242, 243, which may be supposed to express the popular opinion in the time of Virgil, certainly do not convey the idea of a sphere capable of being inhabited in all its parts:
Hic vertex nobis semper sublimis; at illum Sub pedibus Styx atra videt, manesque profundi.