Republic X: the Spindle of Necessity
Myth of Er, 616b–617d; with Timaeus 38c–39e
In the Myth of Er, Plato pictures the heavens as eight whorls on a spindle, ranked by width and speed, the seven inner circles turning gently against the whole; the passage names no planets, and modern mappings of whorls to planets disagree. In the Timaeus (38c–38d) the planets help mark out time, and Venus and Mercury move at the Sun's speed but with a contrary power, so that they and the Sun overtake one another. Neither passage describes stations or retrograde motion; they are background to the problem Eudoxus later modelled.
- Author
- Plato
- Date
- c. 375 BCE (Republic); c. 360 BCE (Timaeus)
- Original language
- Greek
- Kind
- Theory / model
- Planets
- General · no planet named
Editions
3 editions.
| Year | Edition | © |
|---|---|---|
| 1935 | Plato, Republic, tr. Paul Shorey, Loeb Classical Library 237/276, Harvard University Press / Heinemann, 1930-1935 | ? |
| 1925 | Plato, Timaeus, tr. W. R. M. Lamb, Plato in Twelve Volumes vol. 9, Harvard University Press / Heinemann, 1925 | ? |
| 1937 | F. M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato translated with a running commentary, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937 | © |
Read it
No digitised copy known.
No digitised copy known. The editions above are the way in.
Myths we don’t repeat
Checked, and left out.
- Myth 01
Not a description of retrograde motion: the counter-rotation is the planets' ordinary west-to-east motion, stated of unnamed whorls.
- Myth 02
Not 'Sun, Mercury and Venus move at equal speed' in the Republic: the passage names no planets.
- Myth 03
Not Plato's own challenge to 'save the phenomena': that story rests on Simplicius, writing six centuries and more later.
References
- Plato, Republic 616e–617b, tr. Shorey, Perseus Digital Library
- Plato, Timaeus 38c–38d, tr. Lamb, Perseus Digital Library
- MacTutor, 'Plato describes the planets' (2016)
- MacTutor, D'Arcy Thompson on Plato's planets
Also on the Greece and Rome shelf
| Date | Source | Planets | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 350–330 BCE | Metaphysics Λ.8AristotleTheory / model | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Theory / model |
| c. 2nd–1st century BCE (debated); reconstruction 2021 | Antikythera Mechanism: Front Cover InscriptionAnonymous (Greek makers)Math. astronomy | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Math. astronomy |
| Hipparchus fl. c. 150–127 BCE; reported by Ptolemy c. 150 CE | Hipparchus in Almagest IX.2Hipparchus of NicaeaObservation | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Observation |
| c. 1st century BCE – 5th century CE (papyri); edition 1999 | Astronomical Papyri from OxyrhynchusAnonymous (Greco-Egyptian scribes)Math. astronomy | General | Math. astronomy |
| 1st century BCE (often placed c. 50 BCE) | Introduction to the PhenomenaGeminusMath. astronomy | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Math. astronomy |
| 1st century CE (Greek original); Arabic version c. 800 CE | Carmen AstrologicumDorotheus of SidonAstrological | General | Astrological |