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[990a] in what manner one will learn the proper reverence of the gods. It is, indeed, a rather strange thing to hear; but the name that we, at any rate, give it—one that people would never approve, from inexperience in the matter—is astronomy; people are ignorant that he who is truly an astronomer must be wisest, not he who is an astronomer in the sense understood by Hesiod and all the rest of such writers, the sort of man who has studied settings and risings; but the man who has studied the seven1 out of the eight orbits, each travelling over its own circuit in such a manner as


1 i.e. of the sun, the moon, and the five planets; cf. 987 B. With the astronomy and mathematics of the rest of the Epinomis cf. Plato, Laws, vii. 818-820.

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