Chapter XIX. How Stars Prognosticate, and What Is the Cause of Winter and Summer

Chapter XVIII. What Are Those Stars Which Are Called the Dioscuri, the Twins, or Castor and Pollux?

Xenophanes says that those which appear as stars in the tops of ships are little clouds brilliant by their peculiar motion. Metrodorus, that the eyes of frighted and astonished people emit those lights which are called the Twins.

Plato says that the summer and winter indications proceed from the rising and setting of the stars, that is, from the rising and setting of the sun, the moon, and the fixed stars. Anaximenes, that the rest in this are not at all concerned, but that it is wholly performed by the sun. Eudoxus and Aratus assign it in common to all the stars, for thus Aratus says:—

Thund'ring Jove stars in heaven hath fixed,
And them in such beauteous order mixed,
Which yearly future things predict.