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Plato’s pupil, Philip of Opus, was the first to name the planets in Greek, relying on Egyptian and Mesopotamian learning.
Plato, Epinomis 986e-987d:
… who first observed these things (= stars), was a foreigner: for it was an ancient custom that nurtured those who first remarked these things owing to the fairness of the summer season which Egypt and Syria amply possess, so that they constantly beheld the whole mass of stars, one may say, revealed to their sight, since they had got them continually without obstruction of clouds and rains in the sky; whence they have spread abroad in every direction and in ours likewise, after the testing of thousands of years, nay, of an infinite time. And therefore we should not hesitate to include them in the scope of our laws; for to say that some divine things should have no honour, while others should have it, is clearly a sign of witlessness; and as to their having got no names, the cause of it should be stated as we have done. For indeed they have received titles of gods: thus, that Lucifer, or Hesperus (which is the same), should belong to Aphrodite, we may take as reasonable, and quite befitting a Syrian lawgiver; and that that which follows the same course as the sun and this (= Venus) together may well belong to Hermes.
Let us also note three motions of bodies (= Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) travelling to the right with the moon and the sun. One must be mentioned, the eighth (= fixed stars), which we may especially address as the world-order, and which travels in opposition to the whole company of the others, not impelling them, as might appear to mankind who may have scant knowledge of these matters. But we are bound to state, and do state, so much as adequate knowledge tells us. For real wisdom shows herself in some such way as this to him who has got even a little share of right and divine meditation. And now there remain three stars, of which one is distinguished from the others by its slowness, and some speak of it under the title of Kronos (= Saturn); the next after it in slowness is to be cited as Zeus (= Jupiter); the next after this, as Ares (= Mars), which has the ruddiest hue of all. Nothing in all this is hard to understand when someone expresses it; but it is through learning, as we declare, that one must believe it.
Source (list of abbreviations) (source links will open in a new browser window)
Plato, Epinomis 986e-987d
Bibliography
| Lamb 1964, 468-471 | Lamb, W. R. M. Plato, Charmides, Alcibiades 1 and 2, Hipparchus, The Lovers, Theages, Minos, Epinomis. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, London: Heinemann 1964. |
Amar Annus
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