Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.)

BOOK II. AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD AND THE ELEMENTS.

Table of Contents

Go to

CHAP. 31. (31.)--MANY SUNS.

And again, many suns have been seen at the same time¹ ; not above or below the real sun, but in an oblique direction, never near nor opposite to the earth, nor in the night, but either in the east or in the west. They are said to have been seen once at noon in the Bosphorus, and to have continued from morning until sunset. Our ancestors have frequently seen three suns at the same time² , as was the case in the consulship of Sp. Postumius and L. Mucius, of L. Marcius and M. Portius, that of M. Antony and Dolabella, and that of M. Lepidus and L. Plancus. And we have ourselves seen one during the reign of the late Emperor Claudius, when he [p. 1063] was consul along with Corn. Orfitus. We have no account transmitted to us of more than three having been seen at the same time.

¹ Aristotle, Meteor. lib. iii. cap. 2. p. 575, cap. 6. p. 582, 583, and Seneca, Quæst. Nat. lib. i. § 11, describe these appearances under the title which has been retained by the moderns of parêlia. Aristotle remarks on their cause as depending on the refraction (anaklasis) of the sun's rays. He extends the remark to the production of halos (halôs) and the rainbow, ubi supra.

² This occurrence is referred to by Livy, xli. 21.

Cross references from Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898):
fig.01358.2 [Radulum. (Rich.)]
zoroaster [Zoroaster]
zoroaster [Zoroaster]
zoroaster [Zoroaster]
zoroaster [Zoroaster]
zoroaster [Zoroaster]

This text is based on the following book(s):
The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.