Full text: Vitruvius: The architecture of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, in ten books

270 
est the rays of the sun, move round the sun as a centre, 
and appear sometimes retrograde and sometimes progres¬ 
sive, seeming occasionally, from the nature of their cir¬ 
cuit, stationary in the signs. This may be observed in 
the planet Venus, which when it follows the sun, and ap- 
pears in the heavens with great lustre after his setting, 
is called the evening star; at other times preceding him 
in the morning before sunrise, it is called the morning star. 
Wherefore these planets at times appear as if they remained 
many days in one sign, whilst at other times they pass ra¬ 
pidly from one to another; but though they do not remain 
an equal number of days in each sign, the longer they are 
delayed in one the quicker they pass through the succeed- 
ing one, and thus perform their appointed course: in this 
manner it happens that being delayed in some of the signs, 
when they escape from the retention, they quickly pass 
through the rest of their orbit. Mercury revolves in 
the heavens in such a manner, that passing through the 
several signs in three hundred and sixty days, he re¬ 
turns to that sign from which he set out, remaining 
about thirty days in each sign. The planet Venus, 
as soon as she escapes from the influence of the 
sun’s rays, runs through the space of one sign in forty 
days ; and what she loses by stopping a long time in 
one sign, she makes up by her quick passage through 
others. She completes her circuit through the heavens in 
four hundred and eighty-five days; by which time she 
has returned to the sign from whence she set out. Mars, 
on about the six hundred and eighty-third day, completes 
the circuit of the signs, and returns to his place; and if, 
in any sign, he move with a greater velocity, his stationary 
state in others equalizes the motion, so as to bring him
	        
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