"Here Pharnaces... broke in... you are not going to draw me on... to answer your charges against the Stoics, unless we first get an account of your conduct in turning the universe upside." Lucius smiled : "Yes, my friend," he said, "only do not threaten us with... heresy, such as used to think that the Greeks should have had served upon Aristarchus of Samos, for shifting the hearth of the Universe, because that great man attempted 'to save phenomena' with his hypothesis that the heavens are stationary, while our earth moves round in an oblique orbit, at the same time whirling about her own axis. ...[W]hy are those who assume that the moon is an earth turning things upside down, any more than you who fix the earth where she is, suspended in mid air, a body considerably larger than the moon? At least mathematicians tell us so, calculating the magnitude of the obscuring body from... eclipses, and from the passages of the moon through the shadow. For the shadow of the earth is less as it extends, because the illuminating body is greater, and its upper extremity is fine and narrow, as even Homer... did not fail to notice. He called night 'pointed' because of the sharpness of the shadow. Such... is the body by which the moon is caught in her eclipses, and yet she barely gets clear by a passage equal to three of her own diameters. Just consider how many moons go to make an earth, if the earth cast a shadow as broad at its shortest as three moons. Yet you have fears for the moon lest she should tumble, while as for our earth, Aeschylus has perhaps satisfied you that Atlas'Stands, and the pillar which parts Heaven and Earth His shoulders prop, no load for arms t' embrace!'Then you think that under the moon there runs light air, quite inadequate to support a solid mass, while the earth, in Pindar's words, 'is compassed by pillars set on adamant.' And this is why Pharnaces has no fear... of the earth's falling, but pities those who lie under the orbit of the moon... Yet the moon has that which helps her against falling, in her very speed and the swing of her passage round, as objects placed in slings are hindered from falling by the whirl of the rotation. For everything is borne on in its own natural direction unless this is changed by some other force. Therefore the moon is not drawn down by her weight, since that tendency is counteracted by her circular movement. ...[B]ut the earth, being destitute of any other movement, might naturally be moved by its own weight; being heavier than the moon not merely in proportion to its greater bulk, but because the moon has been rendered lighter by heat and conflagration. It would actually seem that the moon, if she is a fire, needs earth all the more, a solid substance whereon she moves and to which she clings, so feeding and keeping up the force of her flame. For it is impossible to conceive fire as maintained without fuel. But you Stoics say that our earth stands firm without foundation or root." "Of course," said Pharnaces, "it keeps its proper and natural place, as being the essential middle point, that place around which all weights press and bear, converging towards it from all sides. But all the upper region, even if it receive any earth-like body thrown up with force, immediately thrusts it out hitherward, or rather lets it go, to be borne down by its own momentum.""