Since, therefore, we urged him on and gave him
his opportunity, Theon said that the air in Delphi is
dense and compact, possessing a certain vigour because
of the repulsion and resistance that it encounters from
the lofty hills ; and it is also tenuous and keen, as the
facts about the digestion of food bear witness. So
the air, by reason of its tenuity, works its way into
the bronze and cuts it, disengaging from it a great
quantity of rust like dust, but this it retains and holds
fast, inasmuch as its density does not allow a passage
for this. The rust gathers and, because of its great
abundance, it effloresces and acquires a brilliance and
lustre on its surface.
When we had accepted this explanation, the foreign
visitor said that the one hypothesis alone was sufficient
for the argument. ‘The tenuity,’ said he, ‘will
seem to be in contravention to the reputed density
of the air, but there is no need to bring it in. As a
matter of fact the bronze of itself, as it grows old,
exudes and releases the rust which the density of the
air confines and solidifies and thus makes it visible
because of its great abundance.’
Theon, taking this up, said, ‘My friend, what is
there to prevent the same thing from being both
[p. 269]
tenuous and dense, like the silken and linen varieties
of cloth, touching which Homer1 has said
Streams of the liquid oil flow off from the close-woven linen,
showing the exactitude and fineness of the weaving
by the statement that the oil does not remain on the
cloth, but runs off over the surface, since the fineness
and closeness of the texture does not let it through ?
In fact the tenuity of the air can be brought forward,
not only as an argument regarding the disengaging
of the rust, but, very likely, it also makes the colour
itself more agreeable and brilliant by blending light
and lustre with the blue.’
1 Od. vii. 107. Cf. Life of Alexander, chap. xxxvi. (686 c); Athenaeus, 582 d.