From Martin West’s The Orphic Poems in his commentary on the Derveni papyrus theogony.
But although civic calendars were based on the moon, it was of no use to those who really needed to know the time of year. They went by the stars. If Orpheus’ ‘many’ has a point, I wonder whether he imagined that the moon’s phases were different as seen from different parts of the earth, so that there were always some peoples to whom it was invisible. Such a notion could not, of course, coexist with any clear sense of spatial geometry. (pg 93)
West was always one of the most dryly funny classicists. This jab in particular hits home because I had the same debate a few months back on moon phases seen from different places on the earth. I managed to reason to it but it took shamefully long.
Extracts 