There is no distinction between the equator and the ecliptic.

But Plato is no doubt led to imagine that the planets have an opposite motion to that of the fixed stars, in order to account for their appearances in the heavens.

In the description of the meadow, and the retribution of the good and evil after death, there are traces of Homer.
The description of the axis as a spindle, and of the heavenly bodies as forming a whole, partly arises out of the attempt to connect the motions of the heavenly bodies with the mythological image of the web, or weaving of the Fates.

The giving of the lots, the weaving of them, and the making of them irreversible, which are ascribed to the three Fates--Lachesis, Clotho, Atropos, are obviously derived from their names.

The element of chance in human life is indicated by the order of the lots.