Physics 135
destruction in his On the Universe, Chrysippus in book one of the Physics,
Posidonius in book one of his On the Cosmos, and [so does] Cleanthes
and [also] Antipater in book ten of his On the Cosmos. Panaetius, though,
claims that the cosmos is indestructible.
Chrysippus in book one of On Providence, Apollodorus in his Physics
and Posidonius say that the cosmos is also an animal, rational and alive
and intelligent; 143. an animal in the sense that it is a substance which
is alive and capable of sense-perception. For an animal is better than a
non-animal; and nothing is better than the cosmos; therefore, the cosmos
is an animal. And [it is] alive, as is clear from the fact that the soul of
[each of] us is a fragment derived from it. Boethus says that the cosmos
is not an animal. And Zeno says that it is one in his On the Universe,
and so do Chrysippus and Apollodorus in his Physics and Posidonius in
book one of his Account of Physics. According to Apollodorus, the totality
is said to be the cosmos, and in another sense it is said to be the composite
system of the cosmos and the void outside it. Anyway, the cosmos is
limited and the void is unlimited.- The fixed stars are carried around with the entire heaven, and
the planets move with their own unique motions. The sun makes its
elliptical journey through the circle of the zodiac; similarly, the moon
makes its journey in a spiral And the sun is pure fire, as Posidonius says
in book seven of On Meteorological Phenomena; and it is bigger than the
earth, as the same [philosopher] says in book six of his Account of Physics;
and it is also spherical, as the followers of this same man say, just like
the cosmos. So [they say] it is fire, because it does everything that fire
does; and that it is bigger than the earth, because the entire earth is
illuminated by it-but so is the heaven. And the fact that the earth
produces a conical shadow also shows that [the sun] is bigger; and because
of its size it is seen from all over [the earth]. - The moon is more like the earth, since it is closer to the earth.
And these fiery [phenomena] and the other stars are nourished, the sun
[being nourished] by the great sea, as it is an intelligent kindling [of its
exhalations]; and the moon [is nourished] by bodies of potable water,
since it is mixed with air and is closer to the earth, as Posidonius says
in book six of his Account of Physics; the others [are nourished] by the
earth. [The Stoics] believe that both the stars and the immovable earth
are spherical. The moon does not have its own light, but receives its
light from the sun by being shone upon.
The sun is eclipsed when the moon covers it on the side which is
towards us, as Zeno writes in his On the Universe. 146. For at the
conjunctions it [the moon] is seen gradually to approach [the sun] and
to occlude it and then to pass by. This is observed in a pan of water.