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Aratus, Phaenomena
Aratus's poem
also: Aratio
The astronomical poem of Aratus, which Cicero had translated; he echoes its opening 'From Jove the beginnings of the Muses' to launch the discourse of book 2.
Reading notes
- On the Nature of the Gods §2.104 I shall make use,'' he said, ``of the Aratean verses
Balbus quotes at length Cicero's own youthful Latin verse translation (the Aratea) of the Phaenomena of Aratus of Soli, a Greek astronomical poem. The long catalogue of constellations that follows is this rendering.