The Timaeus of Plato

XI.
TIMAI02. 123
Time then has come into being along with the universe,
that being generated together, together they may be dissolved,
should a dissolution of them ever come to pass and it was
;
made after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it
might be as
like to it as was possible. For the pattern
is existent for all
eternity but the ; copy has been and is and shall be throughout
all time continually. So then this was the plan and intent of
God for the generation of time the sun and the moon and five
;
other stars which have the name of planets have been created
for defining and preserving the numbers of time. And when
God had made their several bodies, he set them in the orbits
wherein the revolution of the Other was moving, in seven circles
seven stars. The moon he placed in that nearest the earth, and
in the second above the earth he set the sun ;
and the morningstar
and that which is held sacred to Hermes he assigned to
those that moved in an orbit having equal speed with the sun,
'iva. ta,v Trore >} cirra* apria ylyvijTai, Kal
avTai apTiai yiyvuvTai, a"r)/J.aii'ui> yui) jueraireffLffda.L
TO.S TrepHpopas lirl TO apriov, OVTW
877 Kal vvv -qyeiffOai vofJ.iffT^ov irepl TT)J
aXucnas T^S rou /cocrjuou re Kal TOV xpovov.
5. 6 8' afl] Lindau understands
Xpofos : but this produces tautology ;
evidently ovpavos is to be supplied.
7. [Hva -yevvrjOTJ XP VOS ] Although
these words are in all mss. and in Proklos,
they appear to me so unmistakably
a mere gloss on wpoj XP OVOV y^vecnv that
I have bracketed them. They are not
represented in Cicero's translation.
8. irK\Tiv ?x VTa ir\avt]Ta] I have
retained the reading of A, though Stallbaum's
irXavrjrai is perfectly good grammar;
emK\r)v ^x ot>Ta being equivalent to
eTTiKaXov/jLtva: compare Symposium 205 D
TO TOV ti\ov 6vofJ.a tffx ovffl-v > fywrd rt Kal
epav Kal ipaaTai. In Laws 82 [ B Plato
condemns the term TrXa^T/rd, on the score
of irreverence, as implying that these
bodies wandered at random without law.
10. els TO.S Trepi4>opas| sc. the zodiac.
1 1. rjXiov 8' ls TOV Stvrtpov] This
was the usual arrangement in Plato's time
and down to Eudoxos and Aristotle: later
astronomers placed the sun in the fourth
or middle circle, above Venus and Mercury.
12. i>os. It is somewhat strange that he
gives none of the planets their usual appellations
except Mercury; for these names
must have been current in his day : they
are all given in Epinomis 987 B, c.
Other Greek names were for Saturn ut>,
for Jupiter QatOuv, for Mars irvpoeis,
for Mercury ffriXfiuv, while Venus was
w(Topos, eo>(Tos, or &T7re/>os : see
Cicero di? natura deorum n 52, 53;
pseudo-Aristotle de mundo 392* 23.
13. els TOVS ra\u jUv l