Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3 · Plutarch
CHAPTER XXV. OF THE ESSENCE OF THE MOON.
Anaximander affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times bigger than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of fire; and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel makes a revolution,--which he describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it there being a hollow nave replenished with fire, which hath but one way of expiration. Xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. The Stoics, that it is mixed of fire and air. Plato, that it is a body of the greatest part fiery. Anaxagoras and Democritus, that it is a solid, condensed, and fiery body, in which there are flat countries, mountains, and valleys. Heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a bright cloud. Pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature resembling a mirror. The Stoics declare, that in magnitude it exceeds the earth, just as the sun itself doth. Parmenides, that it is equal to the sun, from whom it receives its light. The Stoics believe that it is of the same figure with the sun, spherical. Empedocles, that the figure of it resembles a quoit. Heraclitus, a boat. Others, a cylinder.
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