Chaldean theory of the moon (1)

Text
Vitruvius, De Architectura 9.2.1-2:
Berossus, who emigrated from the city in the land of the Chaldeans to Asia, opened up a school in the Chaldean discipline. He taught as follows:
The moon is globe with one hemisphere luminous and the other of a dark blue colour. Now when it traverses the course of its orbit, and comes under the sun’s disk, it is attracted by the sun’s rays and violent heat, and, because of the property of the sun’s light, the shining hemisphere of the moon turns to that light. But while those upper parts which are attracted look towards the sun’s sphere, the lower hemisphere of the moon, which does not shine, seems dark because of its resemblance to the air. When the moon is perpendicular to the sun’s rays, all its light is held back on its upper face, and it is then called the first moon (= new moon). When the moon in its passage moves towards the eastern parts of the sky, it begins to be released from the sun’s force, and the extreme edge of its shining hemisphere in a very thin line lets fall its splendour on the earth; and so therefrom it is called the second moon. Owing to the daily retardation of its revolution, the third and fourth moons and so on are numbered. On the seventh day let the sun be towards the west; the moon occupies the middle region of the sky and has half of the shining hemisphere turned upon the earth because it is distant from the sun by a space equal to the half part of the sky. But when the whole space of heaven separates the sun and moon and the sun is opposed on the west to the rising moon, the moon, burning at a greater distance, is released from the sun’s rays, and on the fourteenth day sends forth its splendour with the full disk of its whole orb. During the remaining days there is a daily decrease until the lunar month is complete; the moon as it revolves along its course is recalled under the sun’s disc and rays, and now completes the order of the days of the month.

Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Vitruvius, De Architectura 9.2.1-2

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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