[158] According to Aristotle, this planet had the three appellations of Stilbon, Mercury, and Apollo; De Mundo, cap. 2. p. 602; see also Apuleius, De Mundo, § 710. Cicero inverts the order of the planets; he places Mercury next to Mars, and says of Venus, that it is “infima quinque errantium, terræque proxima;” De Nat. Deor. ii. 53. Aristotle places the stars in the same order, _ubi supra_, and he is followed in this by Apuleius, _ubi supra_; this appears to have been the case with the Stoics generally; see Enfield’s Phil. i. 339. [159] For the periodical revolution of Mercury see note[142], p. 27. Its greatest elongation, according to Playfair, p. 160, is 28°. Mrs. Somerville, p. 386, states it to be 28° 8′. Ptolemy supposed it to be 26·5 degrees; Almagest, ix. 7. We learn from Hardouin, Lemaire, i. 246, that there is considerable variation in the MSS. with respect to the greatest elongation of Mercury. [160] Sosigenes was an Egyptian mathematician and astronomer, who is said to have assisted Cæsar in the formation of his Kalendar, as our author informs us in a subsequent part of his work, xviii. 25; see also Aikin, Gen. Biog., _in loco_; Enfield’s Phil. ii. 96; Whewell, p. 210; and Hardouin’s “Index Auctorum,” in Lemaire, i. 213. [161] Concerning the “magnus annus” Cicero remarks, “efficitur cum solis et lunæ et quinque errantium ad eandem inter se comparationem, confectis omnibus spatiis, est facta conversio.” De Nat. Deor. ii. 51. See the remarks of Marcus in Ajasson, ii. 281-3. [162] For the various appellations which the moon has received in the ancient and modern languages, and their relation to each other, the reader is referred to the learned remarks of Marcus in Ajasson, ii. 283-5. [163] Marcus conceives that the epithet _maculosa_ does not refer to what are called the spots on the moon, but to the circumstance of the edge of the disc being not illuminated when it is near the full; Ajasson, ii. 286. But, from the way in which the word is employed at the end of the chapter, and from the explanation which is given of the cause of the “maculæ,” I think it ought to be referred to the spotted appearance of the face of the moon. [164] “Quum laborare non creditur.” It was a vulgar notion among the ancients, that when the moon is eclipsed, she is suffering from the influence of magicians and enchanters, who are endeavouring to draw her down to the earth, in order to aid them in their superstitious ceremonies. It was conceived that she might be relieved from her sufferings by loud noises of various kinds which should drown the songs of the magicians. Allusion is frequently made to this custom by the ancient poets, as Virgil, Æn. i. 742, Manilius, i. 227, and Juvenal, vi. 444; and the language has been transferred to the moderns, as in Beattie’s Minstrel, ii. 47, “To ease of fancied pangs the labouring moon.”