aestas

Latin noun

Last edited: 2025-10-07
Primary meaning summer
Literal translation summer
Variants
aestas
Edited by

summer season

Nam et caput eius in Germania esse comperimus, et aestate quidem incipit crescere sed, adhuc manente intra mensuram suam Nilo, primis caloribus, cum sol vehementior intra extrema veris nives mollit, quas ante consumit quam tumescere Nilus incipiat; reliquo vero aestatis minuitur et ad hibernam magnitudinem redit atque ex ea demittitur. At Nilus ante exortum Caniculae augetur mediis aestibus ultra aequinoctium.

‘For we have found out that the source of the Danube is in Germany. It does begin to rise in the summer but at a time when the Nile is still flowing within its normal limits, when a strong sun between the beginning and the end of spring softens the snows, which the sun melts entirely before the Nile begins to rise. In the rest of the summer the Danube diminishes and returns to its winter level, and even falls below it. But the Nile increases from the middle of the summer, before the rise of the Dog Star, to beyond the equinox.’

— Seneca, Natural Questions 4a.1.2

Genre: philosophy
Date: 62/63 CE

Seneca. Natural Questions, Volume II: Books 4-7. Translated by Thomas H. Corcoran. Loeb Classical Library 457. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. 20-21


Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). aestas (Lemma #1817). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/

Chicago (Author-Date)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). aestas (Lemma #1817). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/

MLA (9th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). aestas (Lemma #1817). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/

Harvard
Meinhardt, K. (2025) aestas (Lemma #1817), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/ (Accessed: December 1, 2025).

BibTeX
@misc{zodiac1817,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2025-12-01]},
	author = {Meinhardt, Kierán},
	year = {2025},
	title = {aestas ({Lemma} #1817)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/1817/},
}