Cicero on the Earth as Sphere

Jim Davila has picked up a discussion about ancient testimony to the earth’s spherical shape. Cicero also, by way of his Stoic character Balbus, comments to this effect, saying,

[T]he sea, which is above the earth, tends still toward the earth’s centre, and so is itself shaped in conformity to the globe of the earth and nowhere spills or overflows. (171; affiliate disclosure; italics added)

So, the Stoics, and perhaps Cicero, also would have acknowledged a spherical earth “before their time” (75, 238).