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[3] And although the revolutions and movements of both heavenly bodies, as the searchers 1 for intelligible causes had observed, after the course of the moon is completed, 2 meet at one and the same point always at the same distance from each other, 3 yet the sun is not always eclipsed at such times, but only when the moon (by a kind of fiery plumb-line) 4 is directly opposite the sun and interposed between its orb and our vision.

1 The natural philosophers.

2 At the end of each lunar month.

3 I.e. are in conjunction.

4 According to Clark's punctuation, based upon metrical clausulae (Introd., p. xxii); but igneo seems to be more naturally taken with orbi.

Ammianus Marcellinus. With An English Translation. John C. Rolfe, Ph.D., Litt.D. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1935-1940.

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