LIBER II · CAPUT 109
THE HARMONICAL PROPORTION OF THE UNIVERSE
Latine · Mayhoff 1906
alia Dionysodoro fides. neque enim subtraham exemplum vanitatis Graecae maximum. Melius hic fuit, geometricae scientia nobilis; senecta diem obiit in patria. funus duxere ei propinquae, adquas pertinebat hereditas. hae, cum secutis diebus iusta peragerent, invenisse dicuntur in sepulchre epistulam Dionysodori nomine ad superos scriptam: pervenisse eum a sepulchre ad infimam terram; esse eo stadiorum XLII. nec defuere geometrae qui interpretarentur, significare epistulam a medio terrarum orbe missam, quod deorsum ab summo longissimum esset spatium et idem pilae medium. ex quo consecuta conputatio est, ut circuitum esse CCLII stadiorum pronuntiarent.
Harmonica ratio, quae cogit rerum naturam sibi ipsam congruere, addit huic mensurae stadiorumXII terramque XCVI partem totius mundi facit.
English · Bostock & Riley 1855–57
Dionysodorus is certainly less worthy of confidence; but I cannot omit this most remarkable instance of Grecian vanity. He was a native of Melos, and was celebrated for his knowledge of geometry; he died of old age in his native country. His female relations, who inherited his property, attended his funeral, and when they had for several successive days performed the usual rites, they are said to have found in his tomb an epistle written in his own name to those left above; it stated that he had descended from his tomb to the lowest part of the earth, and that it was a distance of 42,000 stadia. There were not wanting certain geometricians, who interpreted this epistle as if it had been sent from the middle of the globe, the point which is at the greatest distance from the surface, and which must necessarily be the centre of the sphere. Hence the estimate has been made that it is 252,000 stadia in circumference.
That harmonical proportion, which compels nature to be always consistent with itself, obliges us to add to the above measure, 12,000 stadia; and this makes the earth one ninety-sixth part of the whole universe.