Quemadmodum, si in rota, qua figuli utuntur, inpositae fuerint septem formicae canalesque totidem in rota facti sint circum centrum in imo adcrescentes ad extremum, in quibus hae cogantur circinationem facere, verseturque rota in alteram partem, necesse erit eas contra rotae versationem nihil minus adversus itinera perficere, et quae proximum centrum habuerit, celerius pervagari, quaeque extremum orbem rotae peragat, etiamsi aeque celeriter ambulet, propter magnitudinem circinationis multo tardius perficere cursum: similiter astra nitentia contra mundi cursum suis itineribus perficiunt circuitum, sed caeli versatione redundationibus referuntur cotidiana temporis circumlatione.
To illustrate this: let us suppose that on a wheel such as potters use, seven ants are placed, and as many channels are made in the wheel round the centre as the lowest point, increasing in length to the most distant; let the ants be compelled to make a circuit in these channels and let the wheel be turned the other way; in spite of the revolution of the wheel, they will necessarily complete their journeys in the opposite direction. That which has the channel nearest the centre completes its wanderings more quickly; that which traverses the farthest circuit of the wheel, even if it walks as quickly, finishes its course much more slowly on account of the magnitude of the orbit. In like fashion, the planets advancing in a direction opposite to the movement of the firmament complete a circuit along their own paths. Yet in the revolution of the sky they are carried backwards, by the excess of it over their own motion, in the daily circuit of time.
final_alignments\Vitruvius_Architecture_Book_9.json