Berossus & Manetho · a new plain-English translation from the original language
F17. Berossus — who, having gone forth from the city, or rather nation, of the Chaldeans, opened up their learning in Asia as well — taught as follows: that the moon is a ball, glowing white over one half and of a dark blue color over the rest. When in the course of its journey it passes below the sun's disc, it is caught by the sun's rays and the force of its heat, and its glowing side is turned toward the sun's light, because of the affinity of light for light. When, drawn upward toward the sun's disc, its glowing half faces above, then its lower part, since it is not glowing, appears dark from its likeness to the air. When it stands perpendicular to the sun's rays, all its light is held on its upper face, and it is then called the first moon. When, passing on, it moves toward the eastern parts of the sky, it is released from the sun's force, and the very edge of its glowing side sends its brightness to the earth in an exceedingly thin line, and from this it is called the second moon; and by the daily easing of its turning, the third and fourth moons are counted day by day. On the seventh day, when the sun is in the west and the moon holds the middle regions of the sky between east and west, since it stands distant from the sun by half the breadth of the sky, it likewise has half its glowing side turned toward the earth. And when the whole span of the heavens lies between sun and moon, and the moon, passing to the west, looks back toward the sun's disc in the east, then, being farthest released from its rays, on the fourteenth day it sends forth its brightness with the full wheel of its whole disc; and on the remaining days, decreasing daily until the completion of the lunar month, by its turnings and its course it passes back, recalled by the sun, beneath its rays — and so makes up the monthly reckoning of the days.
F18. Berossus says the moon is a sphere fiery over one half.
F18. Berossus says the moon has a light of its own.
F19. Berossus: the moon fails when its unfired part turns toward us.
F20. The hemicycle, hollowed out of a square block and cut back to the latitude, Berossus the Chaldean is said to have invented; the bowl, or hemisphere, Aristarchus of Samos.
F21. Some think the earth too is shaken, and that when the ground is torn open new springs of rivers are uncovered, which pour forth more abundantly as if from a full source. Berossus, the interpreter of Belus, says these things come about by the course of the stars; and he affirms it so confidently as to assign dates to the conflagration and the deluge. For he maintains that the world will burn when all the stars which now run their different courses come together in Cancer, so placed under one and the same track that a straight line can pass through the discs of them all; and that the inundation will come when the same throng of stars gathers in Capricorn. Under the one sign the summer solstice is made, under the other the winter: signs of great power, since on them turn the very moments of the changing year.
F22. Epigenes teaches that among the Babylonians observations of the stars covering seven hundred and twenty years stand inscribed on baked tablets — and he is an especially weighty authority; Berossus and Critodemus, who give the least, say four hundred and eighty years (others: three hundred and ninety). From which it appears that the use of letters is eternal.
F23. Epigenes denied that one hundred and twelve years of life can be fulfilled; Berossus, that one hundred and seventeen can be exceeded.
F23. Epigenes fixed the longest life at one hundred and twelve years, Berossus at one hundred and sixteen.
F24. As for the rest of star-lore — what effects the twelve signs, the five planets, the sun, and the moon have on the course of human life — this must be conceded to the reckonings of the Chaldeans, since the science of casting nativities is properly theirs, enabling them to explain past and future from their calculations of the stars. And their discoveries, which they left in writing, show with what skill and sharpness of mind they worked, those who flowed forth from the Chaldean nation itself. First Berossus settled on the island and in the city of Cos, and there opened up the discipline; after him came the student Antipater, and likewise Achinapolus, who moreover left the methods of nativity-casting set out not from birth but from conception.
F25. Innumerable sciences of the various arts have shone forth, which it is fitting to touch on, sampling the flower of mankind. In star-lore: Berossus, to whom, for his divine predictions, the Athenians set up at public expense in the gymnasium a statue with a gilded tongue.