decided that he regarded it as spherical and finite, because he said it was "equal every way."[1] It really appears that Xenophanes did not feel the contradiction involved in calling the world "equal every way" and infinite. We have seen that he said the sun went right on to infinity, and that agrees with his view of the earth as an infinitely extended plain. He also held (fr. 28) that, while the earth has an upper limit which we see, it has no limit below. This is attested by Aristotle, who speaks of the earth being "infinitely rooted," and adds that Empedokles criticised Xenophanes for holding this view.[2] It further appears from the fragment of Empedokles quoted by Aristotle that Xenophanes said the vast Air extended infinitely upwards.[3] We are therefore bound to try to find room for an infinite earth and an infinite air in a spherical finite world! That comes of trying to find science in satire. If, on the other hand, we regard these statements from the same point of view as those about the heavenly bodies, we shall see what they probably mean. The story of Ouranos and Gaia was always the chief scandal of the Theogony, and the infinite air gets rid of Ouranos altogether. As to the earth stretching infinitely downwards, that gets rid of Tartaros, which Homer described as situated at the bottommost limit of earth and sea, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth.[4] This is pure conjecture, of course; but, if it is even possible, we are entitled to disbelieve that it was in a cosmological poem such startling contradictions occurred.
- ↑ This is given as an inference by Simpl. Phys. p. 23, 18 (R. P. 108 b), διὰ τὸ πανταχόθεν ὅμοιον. It does not merely come from M.X.G. (R. P. 108), πάντῃ δ' ὅμοιον ὄντα σφαιροειδῆ εἶναι. Hippolytos has it too (Ref. i. 14; R. P. 102 a), so it goes back to Theophrastos. Timon of Phleious understood Xenophanes in the same way; for he makes him call the One ἴσον ἁπάντῃ (fr. 60, Diels; R. P. 102 a).
- ↑ Arist. De caelo, B, 13. 294 a 21 (R. P. 103 b).
- ↑ I take δαψιλός as an attribute and ἀπείρονα as predicate to both subjects.
- ↑ Il. viii. 13-16, 478-481, especially the words οὐδ' εἴ κε τὰ νείατα πείραθ' ἵκηαι | γαίης καὶ πόντοιο κτλ. Iliad viii. must have seemed a particularly bad book to Xenophanes.
