Plutarch, De faciae quae in orbe lunae apparet
Goodwin, Ed.

We have then, said I, related, as far as our memory would carry it away, whatever was there said. It is now time to desire Sylla, or rather to exact of him, that he would make us his narration, as being on such condition admitted to hear all this discourse. If you think good therefore, let us give over walking, and sitting down on these seats, make him a quiet and settled audience.

Every one approved this motion. And therefore, when we had seated ourselves, Theon thus began: I am indeed, O Lamprias, as desirous as any of you can be to hear what shall be said; but I would gladly first understand [p. 274] something concerning those who are said to dwell in the moon; not whether there are any persons inhabiting it, but whether it is impossible there should be any; for if it is not possible for the moon to be inhabited, it is also unreasonable to say that she is earth; otherwise she would have been created in vain and to no end, not bearing any fruits, not affording a place for the birth or education of any men, for which causes and ends this earth wherein we live was made and created, being (as Plato says) our nurse and true guardian, producing and distinguishing the day from the night. Now you know, that of this matter many things have been said, as well merrily and in jest as seriously and in earnest. For of those who dwell under the moon, it is said that she hangs over their heads, as if they were so many Tantaluses; and on the contrary, of those who inhabit her, that being tied and bound to her, like a sort of Ixious, they are with violence turned and whirled about. Nor is the moon indeed moved by one only motion, but is, as they were wont to call her, Trivia, or Three-wayed; performing her course together according to length, breadth, and depth in the Zodiac; the first of which motions mathematicians call a direct revolution, the second volutation, or an oblique winding and wheeling in and out; and the third (I know not why) an inequality; although they see that she has no motion uniform, settled, and certain, in all her circuits and reversions. Wherefore it is not greatly to be admired, if through violence of her motion there sometime fell a lion from her into Peloponnesus, but it is rather to be wondered, that we do not daily see ten thousand falls of men and women and shocks of other animals tumbling down thence with their heels upwards on our heads; for it would be a mockery to dispute about their habitation there, if they can have there neither birth nor existence. For seeing the Egyptians and the Troglodytes, over whose heads the sun directly stands only [p. 275] one moment of one day in the solstice, and then presently retires, can hardly escape being burnt, by reason of the air's excessive dryness; is it credible that those who are in the moon can bear every year twelve solstices, the sun being once a month just in their zenith, when the moon is full? As for winds, clouds, and showers, without which the plants can neither come up nor, when they are come up, be preserved, it cannot be so much as imagined there should be any, where the ambient air is so hot, dry, and subtile; since even here below, the tops of mountains never feel those hard and bitter winters, but the air, being there pure and clear, without any agitation, by reason of its lightness, avoids all that thickness and concretion which is amongst us; unless, by Jupiter, we will say that, as Minerva instilled nectar and ambrosia into the mouth of Achilles, when he received no other food, so the moon, which both is called and indeed is Minerva, nourishes men, producing for them and sending them every day ambrosia, with which, as old Pherecydes was wont to say, the Gods themselves are fed. For as touching that Indian root, which, as Megasthenes says, some people in those parts, who neither eat nor drink, but have pure mouths, burn and smoke, living on the smell of its perfume; whence should they have any of it there, the moon not being watered or refreshed with rain?