Dante and the early astronomers . ntinued it for many centuries theywould have found that their year was too long, andthe months were all falling in the wrong actually happened with Hindus and Parsis,who now keep their New Year in the middle of ourApril, although when their calendar was fixed, aboutthirteen hundred years ago, the years began at thespring equinox. For the sun is like a runner in acircular race-course who thinks he has completed alap when he returns opposite a group of spectatorsoriginally standing at the starting-point, but afterseveral laps he finds that the sp
Dante and the early astronomers . ntinued it for many centuries theywould have found that their year was too long, andthe months were all falling in the wrong actually happened with Hindus and Parsis,who now keep their New Year in the middle of ourApril, although when their calendar was fixed, aboutthirteen hundred years ago, the years began at thespring equinox. For the sun is like a runner in acircular race-course who thinks he has completed alap when he returns opposite a group of spectatorsoriginally standing at the starting-point, but afterseveral laps he finds that the spectators and the goalno longer coincide; either they, and also all the others 128 HIPPARGHUS, surrounding the course are walking away from it,or an unseen hand has been moving the flag towardshim, and so shortening the lap. It is the flag which must count, in any case, notthe spectators, and with the sun it is the equinoxwhich must count, and not the stars, for this is thepoint at which, he crosses the equator, making day B C 280. A D 150 ^
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjectastronomy, booksubjectdantealighieri
