Science in theAncient World

An Encyclopedia

Russell M. Lawson

Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England

© 2004 by Russell M. Lawson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, orotherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission inwriting from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lawson, Russell M., 1957–Science in the ancient world : an encyclopedia / Russell M. Lawson.

p. cm. (History of science series)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-85109-534-9 (acid-free paper)–ISBN 1-85109-539-X(eBook)1. Science, Ancient—History—Encyclopedias. I.Title. II. Series:ABC-CLIO’s history of science series.Q124.95.L39 2004509.3'03—dc22 2004017715

07 06 05 04 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is available on the World Wide Web as an e-book.Visit abc-clio.com for details.

ABC-CLIO, Inc.130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911

This book is printed on acid-free paper .Manufactured in the United States of America

AAcademy, 1 Aelian, Claudius (floruit early third

century CE), 2Agathemerus (floruit first century CE), 3Agriculture, 3Alcmaeon (floruit early sixth century

BCE), 6Alexander of Macedon (356–323 BCE), 7Alexandria, 9Ammianus Marcellinus (325–395 CE), 11Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500–428

BCE), 13Anaximander of Miletus (610–540 BCE),

15Anaximenes of Miletus (585–525 BCE),

15Apollonius of Perga (floruit 235 BCE), 16Archelaus of Athens (floruit fifth century

BCE), 17Archimedes (287–212 BCE), 17Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BCE), 19Aristotle (384–322 BCE), 20Arrian (89–180 CE), 25

Asclepiades (floruit first century BCE), 26Asclepius/Asclepiads, 27Asia, East and South, 29 Astronomy, 30Athenaeus (floruit early third century

CE), 35Athens, 35Atoms, 39Aurelius, Marcus (121–180 CE), 40Aurelius Augustine (354–430 CE), 42

BBabylon, 45Bronze Age (3500–800 BCE), 46

CCaesar, Julius (100–44 BCE), 51Calendars and Dating Systems, 52Cato, Marcus Porcius (Elder) (234–149

BCE), 55Celsus (floruit 25 CE), 56Cicero (106–43 BCE), 57Columella (5 BCE–60 CE), 58Commentators, 58

Contents

Introduction, xi

Science in the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia

vii

viii Contents

Constantinople, 59Constellations, 62

DDemocritus (460–370 BCE), 63Diogenes Laertius (floruit third century

CE), 65Diogenes of Apollonia (floruit late fifth

century BCE), 65Dreams, 66

EEaster, 69Egypt, 69Eleatic School, 72Elements, 72Empedocles (495–435 BCE), 73Engineering and Technology, 74Epictetus (55–135 CE), 76Epicureanism, 76Epicurus (341–271 BCE), 77Erasistratus (275–194 BCE), 78Eratosthenes (276–195 BCE), 78Euclid (floruit 300 BCE), 79Eudoxus of Cnidus (408–352 BCE), 81Eunapius (floruit fifth century CE), 82

FFrontinus, Sextus Julius (floruit late first

century and early second century CE),83

GGalen (130–200 CE), 85Gaza, 87Geminus (floruit first century CE), 88Geography/Geodesy, 88Greek Archaic Age (800–500 BCE), 94Greek Classical Age (500–323 BCE), 95Greek Hellenistic Age (323–31 BCE), 98

HHecataeus of Miletus (floruit 500 BCE),

101Hellanicus of Lesbos (floruit fifth century

BCE), 101Hellenism, 102Heraclides of Pontus (floruit fourth

century BCE), 103Heraclitus of Ephesus (540–480 BCE),

104Hero (62–152 CE), 104Herodotus of Halicarnassus (490–430

BCE), 105Herophilus of Chalcedon (floruit third

century BCE), 107Hesiod (floruit late eighth century BCE),

107Hipparchus (190–120 BCE), 109Hippo of Croton (floruit late fifth century

BCE), 109Hippocrates (460–377 BCE), 109History, 112Homer (floruit eighth century BCE), 115Hydraulics, 117Hypatia of Alexandria (370–415 CE), 119

IIamblichus (250–325 CE), 121Ionians, 122Iron Age, 123Irrigation Techniques, 124

JJulian (331–363 CE), 127

LLater Roman Empire (180–565 CE), 129Leucippus (floruit fifth century BCE),

131Life Sciences, 132

Contents ix

Logos, 134Lucretius (floruit first century BCE),

135Lyceum, 138

MMagi, 139Magic, 140Magna Graecia, 141Marine Science, 142Mathematics, 144Maximus of Ephesus (floruit fourth

century CE), 145Medicine, 146Mesopotamia (3500–550 BCE), 148Meteorology, 152Miletus, 153Military Science, 155Mountains, 158Myth, 161

NNearchus of Crete (ca. 360–312 BCE),

165Neoplatonism, 167New Testament, 169

OOld Testament (Hebrew Bible), 173Oribasius (floruit fourth century CE),

175

PPaganism, 177Palladius (floruit mid-fourth century

BCE), 179Peripatetic School, 179Philo of Byzantium (260–180 BCE), 180Philolaus (floruit fifth century BCE), 180Philosophy, 181

Philostratus (170–250 CE), 182Phoenicians, 183Physical Sciences, 184Plato (427–347 BCE), 187Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), 190Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE), 193Plotinus (205–270 CE), 194Plutarch (46–120 CE), 195Polybius (208–126 BCE), 199Porphyry (234–305 CE), 200Posidonius of Rhodes (135–50 BCE),

201Prometheus, 201Psychology, 203Ptolemaeus, Claudius (100–170 CE), 208Pythagoras (570–490 BCE), 209Pytheas of Massilia (floruit late fourth

century BCE), 211

RRoman Principate (31 BCE–180 CE),

213Roman Roads and Bridges, 215Rome, 217

SSeneca, Lucius Annaeus (5–65 CE), 221Seven Sages, 222Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,

223Social Sciences, 224Socrates (470–399 BCE), 227Solon (640–560 BCE), 228Stoicism, 229Strabo (63 BCE–21 CE), 230

TTacitus (56–117 CE), 233Thales (625–545 BCE), 234Themistius (317–388 CE), 235

x Contents

Theophrastus (370–286 BCE), 236Thucydides (460–400 BCE), 237Time, 238

VVarro (116–27 BCE), 243Vesuvius, 243Vitruvius (floruit 25 BCE), 245

WWomen and Science, 247

XXenophanes of Colophon (570–478

BCE), 249Xenophon (430–355 BCE), 250

Chronology, 255Bibliography, 261

Index, 269About the Author, 291

Ancient science strove to understand the ori-gins and workings of nature and humanity.Science has encompassed many methods andvaried disciplines over time, occupyinghuman thought for millennia. The questionsthat scientists ask tend to remain constanteven as the answers differ according to timeand culture.The strange and sometimes sim-ple explanations that the ancient Greeks andRomans gave for natural phenomena appearless absurd to us when we consider that theanswers of today may appear ridiculous toobservers a thousand years from now.Amongancient scientists—from Mesopotamia,Persia, India, China, Egypt, Greece, andRome—the Greeks were by far the leaders inscientific inquiry because they asked the mostpenetrating questions, many of which stillelude complete answers. (See GREEK ARCHAIC

AGE; GREEK CLASSICAL AGE; GREEK HELLENISTIC

AGE; PHILOSOPHY.)There is a temptation to view the past

according to the standards and precepts ofthe present. The historian encounters count-less similarities when comparing modern andancient science. Clearly the building blocks oftoday’s science were formed two to threethousand years ago in the ancientMediterranean region—in a preindustrial agebefore the dawn of Islam or Christianity, dur-ing a polytheistic, superstitious time. Magicand astrology were considered as legitimateas medicine and astronomy. (See MAGIC.) Theearth was the center of a finite universe; theplanets twinkled like gods watching from

above; the moon governed the fertility ofnature and woman. (See ASTRONOMY.)Fertility symbols and statuettes of priestessesand mother goddesses dot the archeologicalfinds from the dozens of millennia BCE,reminding us of the power women once hadin ancient societies before the coming of malegods reflecting male dominance. Rhea,Cybele, Artemis, Hera, Isis, and Ishtar wereearly fertility goddesses representing the uni-versal mother image who brought life, love,and death to her children, the humans. (SeeMYTH.)

Ancient humans were animists whobelieved in a spiritual component to naturalphenomena and pantheists who saw in naturesomething warm, maternal, and universal.They lived in an environment wholly alive—with the surrounding woods, mountains, andstreams filled with life and spirit. Nature wasan unpredictable extension of self. Humanssought to charm the spirits of nature thatwere mysterious, yet very familiar. Natureembraced early humans; it was all they knew.Humans joined into communities to seek thebest means to yield life and happiness fromthe environment, which they were dependentupon yet in competition with for food andshelter. (See PAGANISM.)

The most rudimentary form of scientificthought occurred at some vague point in thedistant past when the ancient human began tosense his self in his surroundings, to see otherhumans as like himself, and to be aware oflife—and of death. This awareness of self, of

Introduction

xi

xii Introduction

mortality, of birth, of the future, of the past,allowed ancient man to detach himself notonly from nature but from the moment aswell, to forge a weak notion of the past-pres-ent-future continuum of time, to gain a nas-cent historical perspective. Perhaps he did notknow time, but he knew the passing of daysand change of the seasons and the growth ofthe youth and decline of the aged. Indeed,existence was sufficiently precarious to acceptonly the here and now and avoid being over-whelmed by contemplation of the future.

The transition from awareness to concep-tualization of life, self, and nature dependedin part on advancements in the human com-munity. A secure existence with plentifulfood guaranteed a growing anticipation of thefuture and reflection upon the past, a sense ofbelonging, of love and being loved. Food—that is, economic security—brought freedomto speculate on self and others, on the com-munity and those outside of it, on nature andsurvival, on controlling and being controlled.To explain existence, questions were askedand answers attempted and contemplated.The once vague sense of self became a clearsense of being. The intuitive recognition ofthe maternal spirit-world matured into adesire to understand it. Rudolph Otto (1968)called this object of awareness thenuminous—the awesome, majestic, sublimeOther, of which humans feel a part and arecalled upon to respond to and to know. (SeeMESOPOTAMIA.)

Human science began in pursuit of under-standing the numinous and its manifestations.Science was initially not very different fromreligion. Ancient scientists were religiousleaders, priests who doubled as scientists insearching for signs of the divine in nature. Ifthe motions of the planets determine thefuture—the secrets of life and death—thenthe ancient thinker must turn to the study ofthe heavens for religious purposes. (SeePAGANISM.) The first ornithologists wereprognosticators who sought in the patterns ofthe flight of birds messages from the gods.Soothsayers gained familiarity with animal

organs in the search for abnormal lobes andother intestinal aberrations. Early humansalso turned to the study of flora for the bestbuilding materials and palatable food, such asgrains for bread and edible roots and flowers.Flower petals, stalks, and roots, as well astree bark, leaves, twigs, and roots, largelycomposed the ancient materia medica, thepotions and teas used to relieve pain, stopbleeding, reduce symptoms, and calm thehysterical. (See LIFE SCIENCES.)

In some ways ancient scientists would bescarcely recognizable to twenty-first-centuryscientists. The scientists described and por-trayed in this book were priests, governmentofficials, kings, emperors, slaves, merchants,farmers, and aristocrats. They wrote history,biography, and essays. (See PLINY THE ELDER;PLUTARCH.) They were artists, explorers,poets, musicians, abstract thinkers, and sen-sualists. The demands upon scientific studythen were different from those of today. Thestudy of astrology was necessary to knowone’s fate—the future. Astronomy and math-ematics were essential to forming calendarsto fit the cycles of nature and seasons of theyear. (See ASTRONOMY.) The ancient scientistwas often seeking a practical result ratherthan pursuing scientific thought for its ownsake. At the same time, the ancient scientistwas something of a wise man, a communitysavant who was expected to know—or atleast to have thought about or investigated—all things natural, spiritual, and human. TheGreeks called such a thinker polymathes, aword that is the origin for our word “poly-math,” someone who is learned in many fieldsof knowledge.

But ancient scientists also pursued some ofthe same goals as their modern counterparts.Modern physicists and chemists seek to knowthe basic particles that compose matter in theuniverse; ancient Stoics and Epicureanshypothesized the same particles and soughtthe same knowledge of the movement andpatterns of atoms. (See AURELIUS, MARCUS;LUCRETIUS.) Albert Einstein, the theoreticalphysicist, wanted to know the mind of God,

Introduction xiii

the ultimate secrets of the universe, a searchinaugurated two and three thousand years agoin the ancient Mediterranean region. Einsteinwould have liked Plato; Niels Bohr, the twen-tieth-century Danish physicist, would havefound a friend in Aristotle. (See ARISTOTLE;PLATO.) What are the abstract patterns presentin the universe? Mathematicians today andmillennia ago have been united in the quest tofind out, to set the rational mind of man uponthe most complex and least concrete inquiry.(See ARCHIMEDES; EUCLID; PTOLEMAEUS,CLAUDIUS.) Psychologists today still work inthe shadow of the great psychologists of thepast, although the present concern to knowthe human mind and the nature of personalityis a more secular pursuit than it once was.(See ARISTOTLE; THUCYDIDES.) Political scien-tists today still rely on the initial systematicinquiries into human government that Platoand Aristotle made in the fourth centuryBCE. Students at modern medical schoolstake the Hippocratic Oath, recognizing thatalthough the techniques of medicine havechanged from the days of Hippocrates andGalen the ultimate goals and humanitarianconcerns have not. (See GALEN; HIPPOCRATES.)In short, the college arts and sciences curric-ula and professional scientific careers of todayare not a recent development. Rather, themoderns in pursuit of knowledge of man andthe universe continually ascend the intellectu-al and methodological building blocks con-structed during antiquity.

The ancient Greeks did not have a wordwith the precise meaning of “science,” whichtoday means a methodical, concrete, objec-tive, workmanlike, puzzle-solving approachto understanding natural phenomena. TheGreek word with the closest meaning is epis-teme, to know. The Greek scientist wassomeone who knows. To the ancient mind,science involved much that we would iden-tify as artistic, abstract, subjective, mythical,and emotional. Especially in the last twocenturies, modern science has elevated sci-ence to the unique plateau of objectiveknowledge. The scientist detaches himself

from the environment, seeking in the hereand now the means, intellectually and prag-matically, to reduce, dismantle, control,reconstruct life.The ancient scientist associ-ated with, and attempted to recapture,nature, which was an extension of self,something from the collective past experi-enced in the present moment. Science atpresent is secular and materialistic, seekingthe transcendent—the origins and meaningof life—through the reconstruction of natu-ral history. Ancient science reveled in thespiritual, the oneness of life and being.Science and religion, reason and faith, wererarely discordant in the history of scienceuntil recent times. Today’s phrase “naturaltheology” implies that there is somethingreligious in nature—and something naturalin religion—both of which describe theancient scientific mind-set precisely.

The modern scientific mind-set is utilitar-ian, coercive, technical, and progressive; itembraces change, focusing on things ratherthan ideas. The ancient scientific mind-setwas rather primitive, focusing on values, sen-timents, morality, unity, the static andchangeless, the organic and alive. Sciencetoday is progressive and historicist, focusingon what is becoming through the movement oftime. Science in antiquity focused on being,what is regardless of the passage of time.Finally, modern science is generally a profes-sional discipline practiced by scientists withterminal college degrees. It is well organizedunder prescribed methods, esoteric forms ofcommunication, and agreed-upon theories.Modern scientists join together under theumbrella of a precise system of thought andmethodology that explains clearly what therole of the scientist is in the accumulationand utilization of scientific knowledge overtime.Ancient scientists were amateurs, poly-maths, and generalists who were rarely wellorganized and who adhered to general philo-sophical schools of thought that were inclu-sive to any well-educated, thoughtful indi-vidual. (See HERODOTUS OF HALICARNASSUS;PLUTARCH.)

xiv Introduction

Science in the Ancient World pays respect tothe modern definition and practice of sci-ence while meeting the ancients on theirown terms. Ancient philosophy and sciencewere usually indistinguishable because of theworldview of the ancient thinker. Aristotlewas a leading scientist of antiquity, yet hewas a leading philosopher as well.Hippocrates was the great student of medi-cine, yet much of his work was theoreticaland speculative, not empirical, and focusedon understanding rather than cures. Manyancient scientists were first and foremostsoldiers and explorers who engaged in sci-ence on the side or out of utter necessity.(See ALEXANDER OF MACEDON; ARRIAN; CAE-SAR, JULIUS; NEARCHUS OF CRETE.) Lucretius,the Roman Epicurean, was a scientist whorecorded his ideas in verse. Other ancientscientists were devoted to the study of magicand astrology. (See IAMBLICHUS; MAXIMUS OF

EPHESUS.) Science and superstition oftencomplemented each other in the ancientworld. Moreover, ancient science was inclu-sive of all intellectual pursuits, not only thehard sciences. Historical inquiry, for exam-ple, was as valid an object of scientificinquiry as physics. (See POLYBIUS; TACITUS;THUCYDIDES.)

The scope of this book is science in antiq-uity, which is a broad epoch in the history ofhumankind as generally accepted by scholarsand teachers in the Western world. Thechronological beginning of the ancientworld, for purposes of this book, is the fourthmillennium BCE (about 3500 BCE), whencivilization emerged in ancient Iraq, whichthe Greeks called Mesopotamia, centered onthe lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and inancient Egypt, centered on the lower NileRiver in North Africa. The ancient worldcomes to an end with the decline of theRoman Empire during the fifth and sixth cen-turies CE, roughly 500 CE.The first civiliza-tions in the history of humankind emergedduring this four-thousand-year period.Science was a necessary condition for thedevelopment of civilization.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines civi-lization as a “civilized condition or state; adeveloped or advanced state of human socie-ty.” This is sufficiently vague that a variety ofmore precise definitions have branched outfrom the original. All of them have some ref-erence to the Latin root of the word, civis—“citizen”—one who is part of a body politic.Hence “civilization” generally refers to a levelof society wherein the citizen has certainrights and responsibilities incumbent uponhis or her particular role in the community.Citizenship requires a settled existence,which itself relies on the domestication ofagriculture and livestock; the accumulationof surplus wealth; domestic and internationaltrade; a social structure based on the distri-bution of wealth; a political structure thatadministers and protects wealth; and a systemof writing to record the production, con-sumption, and distribution of wealth.Citizens might be farmers, tradesmen, crafts-men, and scribes. This organized division oflabor requires a glue to bond it together intoa working whole.The glue, in ancient as wellas in modern societies, has been professionalsin political, social, cultural, and religiousinstitutions who are themselves not produc-ers, but who administer production, distribu-tion, and storage of wealth; who are engagedin the educational, social, and cultural sys-tems built upon such wealth; and whoexpress the collective thoughts and feelings ofthe citizenry through literature, art, music,and drama.

Science supported the thoughts, struc-tures, and institutions of society in theancient Near East, where civilization firstbegan. Mesopotamian and Egyptian engi-neers built ziggurats and pyramids from hugeblocks of stone arrayed with incredible preci-sion. Engineers in Mesopotamia designed andimplemented a complicated network ofcanals and dikes for flood control and irriga-tion. (See ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY.)Agriculture appeared as early as 10,000 BCEalong the banks of the Tigris and Euphratesrivers. The people who eventually immi-

Introduction xv

grated to and took control of Mesopotamia,the Sumerians, were agriculturalists wholearned when to plant and how to developtechniques to increase yields. Likewise theearly inhabitants of the Nile River valley dis-covered agriculture—perhaps independent-ly, perhaps learning it from the Sumerians—but without the need for dikes and canals.TheNile rose and fell in such a fashion as to guidefarmers when to plant and harvest. (See AGRI-CULTURE.) Surplus food required a means ofrecord keeping. Scribes invented a form ofwriting—cuneiform in Sumeria, hieroglyph-ics in Egypt—to track daily economic, social,and political activities. Sumerian astronomersdeveloped calendars based on the phases ofthe moon to help in the preparation ofalmanacs to provide meteorological informa-tion for farmers. Egyptian astronomersdeveloped solar calendars. (See ASTRONOMY.)Metallurgists of the ancient Near East figuredout how to heat copper and tin to extremetemperatures to form bronze, a useful metalfor tools and weapons. (See BRONZE AGE.)Inventors built wheeled vehicles for trans-port and wooden and papyrus reed ships forriver and ocean navigation and trade. (SeeMARINE SCIENCE.) Sumerian sailors followedthe coast and the stars as they sailed thePersian Gulf and Arabian Sea to the IndusRiver, where they traded with, and helped tostimulate, the emerging civilization of theIndus River valley (around 2500 BCE). (SeeEGYPT; MESOPOTAMIA.)

The Indus River valley, or Harappan, civi-lization lasted for about a millennium, duringwhich time it exhibited many of the sameaccomplishments as in Mesopotamia andEgypt. The Harappan people lived in fine,well-designed, well-constructed cities (suchas Mohenjo Daro).They invented writing, dis-covered (or learned from others) how tomake bronze, and had a sophisticated agricul-tural system that included the production ofcotton. It is possible that the Indus River civi-lization spread east through land or oceancontacts to influence the origins of the YellowRiver civilization of China. This civilization

emerged during the middle of the second mil-lennium BCE. It featured writing, bronzetools and weapons, dynastic leaders, andsophisticated agriculture. Meanwhile, halfwayaround the world, the Olmec civilizationdeveloped in Central America toward the endof the second millennium.The Olmecs were awarlike people who lived on the YucatanPeninsula. One of their many achievementswas the (apparently) independent develop-ment of a system of hieroglyphic writing. (SeeASIA, EAST AND SOUTH; BRONZE AGE.)

The ancient Near East was the site of anumber of other flourishing civilizations thatemerged in the wake of the Sumerians andEgyptians. The Hittites of Asia Minor were awarlike people who nevertheless developed asystem of writing, had an organized govern-ment, and were the first people to learn tomake iron tools and weapons. (See IRON AGE.)Babylon along the Euphrates River was thecenter of a dynamic civilization that devel-oped from Sumerian origins in Mesopotamia.The Babylonians made significant discoveriesin astronomy, mathematics, and social organ-ization. The law code of the Babylonian kingHammurapi showed progress toward thedevelopment of a more civil society. (SeeBABYLON; MESOPOTAMIA.) Toward the end ofthe second millennium, along the shores ofthe eastern Mediterranean in what is todayLebanon, several seagoing city-statesemerged, their wealth and sophisticated cul-ture based on trade.These Phoenicians devel-oped a system of writing, later adopted bythe Greeks.They had the best naval technolo-gy of the time, and, being explorers, had themost up-to-date knowledge of geographybefore the Greeks.The Phoenicians exploredthe entire extent of the Mediterranean andbeyond to the European and African coasts ofthe Atlantic Ocean. They also came to knowthe Red Sea and the east African coast of theIndian Ocean. (See MARINE SCIENCE; PHOENI-CIANS.) Meanwhile, during the second mil-lennium BCE, the Hebrews were developinga dynamic civilization in Palestine. Influencedby the Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures,

xvi Introduction

the Hebrews developed an astonishing cul-ture centered upon their interpretation of thecosmos encompassed by the one god, omnis-cient, omnipotent, and omnipresent,Yahweh.(See OLD TESTAMENT.)

Other civilizations of the Near East thatdeveloped during the first millennium BCEincluded the Lydians, Assyrians, Chaldeans,and Persians stretching from the Aegean Seaeast to the Indus River.The Lydians dominat-ed Asia Minor for a brief time from their cap-ital at Sardis.They are noteworthy for devel-oping the first system of coinage. (See MILE-TUS.) The Assyrians and Chaldeans centeredtheir respective power around Mesopotamia,particularly at the cities of Assur and Babylon.Chaldean astrologers became famous (andinfamous) during subsequent centuries. (SeeBABYLON.) The Persian Empire existed forabout two hundred years—from the sixth tothe fourth centuries.The Persian gift was fororganization and logistics, developing thelargest and most efficient empire before theRomans. (See ASIA, EAST AND SOUTH.)

Scholars have long debated whether earlycivilizations, such as those in the Indus andYellow river valleys and the Olmec civiliza-tion in Central America, that existed far fromthe first civilizations at Mesopotamia andEgypt, developed in isolation or through cul-tural contacts. Science today is an interna-tional work in progress, one of the greatforces of unification crossing cultural, politi-cal, geographic, and linguistic boundaries.Has it always been this way? Clearly Renais-sance European scientists had the mentalityof cross-cultural scientific exchange, as didbefore them the scientists of Constantinople,the Arab world, and Western Europe, all ofwhom shared a deep interest in especiallyAristotelian science. Greek was the linguafranca of the ancient world from 500 BCE to500 CE—the Greek language was heavilydominated by philosophic and scientificterms. The scientists of the Roman Empirewere typically Greek, as were teachers andphysicians. (See HELLENISM; ROMAN PRINCI-PATE.) The greatest period of scientific

achievement before the European Renais-sance was a thousand-year period mostly inthe eastern Mediterranean region at scientificcapitals in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Scientistsand philosophers at Magna Graecia, Athens,Miletus, Byzantium, and Alexandria con-versed in Greek on a variety of scientific top-ics ranging from mathematics to physics tochemistry to biology. (See GREEK ARCHAIC

AGE; GREEK CLASSICAL AGE.) Many scientistswere great travelers, spreading informationfrom one place to another. (See PYTHEAS OF

MASSILIA.) But the Greeks were probably notthe first people to engage in the sharing andcommunication that is the hallmark of thepursuit of knowledge. The Phoenicians, nodoubt, spread widely their knowledge ofworld geography. Some scholars believe thatbefore the Phoenicians other civilizations ofthe Near East developed naval technologythat allowed the exploration of the Indian,At-lantic, and perhaps even the Pacific oceans.(See MARINE SCIENCE; PHOENICIANS.) If so, cul-tural exchanges included the sharing of scien-tific knowledge. Perhaps the similarities ofculture and science throughout the ancientworld in Asia, Europe, Africa, and Americawere due not to coincidence or isolated par-allel development, but rather to intrepid ex-plorers who brought knowledge of one peo-ple to another, thus beginning the process ofworld scientific achievement that we know sowell today.

Science in the Ancient World is comprehensivebut realistic in its focus on the Mediterraneanregion as the center of scientific activity dur-ing antiquity. Scientific accomplishmentsprior to the first millennium BCE are noted,yet the greatest period of activity wasbetween the years 600 BCE and 200 CE.During this eight-hundred-year period theGreeks adopted the discoveries of theirEgyptian, Phoenician, and Mesopotamianpredecessors, while advancing their ownhighly original theories and observations ofthe natural and human world. (See GREEK

ARCHAIC AGE; GREEK CLASSICAL AGE.) TheRomans, who came to control North Africa,

Introduction xvii

the Middle East, and most of Europe by theend of the first millennium BCE, were them-selves not scientifically inclined. They recog-nized, however, the Greek achievement inthought and adopted Greek philosophy andlearning, which became truly Greco-Roman.(See HELLENISM; ROMAN PRINCIPATE.) Ancientthinkers themselves recognized that the tran-sition that occurred in the Mediterraneanworld from the third to the seventh centuriesCE was the end of one epoch and the begin-ning of another. Science in the Ancient Worldadopts this chronological limit as well.

People rather than schools of thought orcities engage in science. Ancient science,much more than modern science, was anindividual endeavor. It is anachronistic to cat-egorize and conceptualize ancient scientistsaccording to modern expectations of scien-tists, who are professional puzzle-solversoften working in teams to generate solutionsto intricate and esoteric problems of interestto a very few. Hence Science in the Ancient Worldfocuses heavily on the individual scientist—his or her life, discoveries, methods, tools,and writings.The primary sources for ancientscience are the writings of individual scien-tists, the works of ancient historians, and theobservations of philosophical commentators.The best way to study ancient science is tostudy the ancient sources.

The earliest Greek scientists left behindfew writings, keeping their ideas to them-selves and a few select disciples. Fortunately,there was enough interest among later scien-tists and philosophers to record the work oftheir predecessors, either by way of indicatingdifference or debt. Without Plato’s dialogueswe would scarcely know of Socrates’ theoriesand arguments. Aristotle was such a universalthinker that he not only wrote about most sci-entific topics but painstakingly recorded theviews of earlier thinkers as well. From Platoand Aristotle we learn about the first Ionianscientists from western Turkey and the AegeanIsles—Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes,Anaximander—who initiated the scientificquest to seek rational explanations of natural

phenomena. (See IONIANS; MILETUS.) Aristotleand his contemporaries also continued to relyheavily on the teachings of Greeks living inMagna Graecia in southern Italy. Some of thegreatest scientists who ever lived hailed fromthis area: Pythagoras,Alcmaeon, Xenophanes,Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and Zeno.These philosophers of what Diogenes Laertiuscalled the Italian school tended less towardidealism and more toward materialism intheir philosophic and scientific explanations.(See MAGNA GRAECIA.) These early Greekthinkers set the standard for later scientists byasking questions that required deep specula-tive thought and concrete analysis to answer.Doubt was an important scientific tool to theGreek intellectual. Doubt of earlier theoriesdrove Athenian scientists. (See ATHENS.)Doubt of pat answers, of a received tradition,drove Epicureans, Skeptics, and Cynics.Doubt that spurred the continuing search setthe standard for all subsequent scientists.

Greek science during the Archaic andClassical ages (800–323 BCE) extendedbeyond the physical sciences to the life sci-ences, social sciences, and behavioral sci-ences.The Ionian school of medicine at Cos,initiated by Hippocrates, investigated a widevariety of diseases and speculated on theircauses. (See MEDICINE.) The Greeks were fas-cinated by flora and its potential for healingagents—Theophrastus, the student ofAristotle, was an early botanist. (See LIFE SCI-ENCES.) The origins of modern social andbehavioral sciences can be found in the writ-ings of Greek scientists of over 2,000 yearsago. Historians such as Herodotus andPolybius were geographers, ethnographers,and explorers. (See GEOGRAPHY/GEODESY.)History itself was considered a science by theGreeks. (See HISTORY.) The Greek polis (city-state) inspired commentators and analysts todebate its origin and significance. Athenianstook the lead. Aristotle’s Politics and AthenianConstitution brought the study of politics andsociety to the realm of science. (See SOCIAL

SCIENCES.) Plato’s Republic analyzed the con-cept of justice, and his dialogues, particularly

xviii Introduction

Timaeus and Phaedo, initiated the examinationof the self, the psyche, the study of whichexcited many subsequent Greek thinkers,such as the Academics, Neoplatonists, andChristians. (See PSYCHOLOGY.)

During the Roman period in theMediterranean there were more importantaccomplishments in ancient science.Alexandria became the leading scientific cen-ter, from which Euclid, Eratosthenes,Ptolemy, and Hypatia introduced their ideasto the world. (See ALEXANDRIA; HELLENISM.)Science became truly an internationalinquiry, with research centers and scholarsworking in southern Europe, western Asia,and North Africa. Greeks working atAlexandria, Constantinople, and Athensdominated scientific achievements. FewRomans became involved in science; thosewho did were interested more in applied thanin theoretical science—for example, Plinythe Elder. Others, such as the EpicureanLucretius, expounded on Greek science andphilosophy. (See ROMAN PRINCIPATE.) The PaxRomana of the Roman Empire came to anend during the third century CE. So, too, didthe framework of peace and political orderthat maintained a fertile environment for sci-ence to grow and flower. Scientists at the endof the ancient world, during the decay of theRoman Empire, were generally unoriginalthinkers who looked back to the glory days ofancient Greece from which they continued todraw inspiration and theories. (See LATER

ROMAN EMPIRE.)The intellectual activity of ancient

Mediterranean science during the first millen-nium BCE has rarely been equaled. Indeed,modern science, beginning with the scientificrevolution during the sixteenth century CE,built upon the existing foundation of ancientscience. The discoveries of Copernicus,Galileo, Kepler, and Harvey would have beensomething quite different without the initialwork of Ptolemy of Alexandria, Aristotle ofAthens, and Galen of Pergamon. Modern sci-entists continue to work in the shadows of thecolumns and stoa of ancient thought.

Ancient thought, culture, and institutionshad a profound impact on the subsequentcenturies of the European Middle Ages(500–1300 CE), the European Renaissance(1300–1600 CE), the Scientific Revolution(1500–1700 CE), the Enlightenment(1700–1800 CE), and the Modern World.The decline and transition of the RomanEmpire during the fourth and fifth centuriesCE served to bring forward ancient thoughtto the scattered kingdoms of Western Europeand the Byzantine Empire of the easternMediterranean. (See LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.)The Byzantine Empire was a Greek civiliza-tion still beholden to Greek language, ideas,and culture. Kingdoms of Western Europe,such as that of the Franks, adopted Latin lan-guage, customs, institutions, and thought.The king of the Franks, Charlemagne, forexample, had himself declared Emperor ofthe Romans in 800 CE. Several centurieslater, Otto the Great founded the HolyRoman Empire. Meanwhile Byzantinescalled Constantinople the “Second Rome,”and emperors such as Justinian (527–565CE) considered themselves heirs to the tra-ditions and power of Augustus Caesar. (SeeCONSTANTINOPLE; SOCIAL SCIENCES.) Medievalthinkers such as Boethius and ThomasAquinas adopted the intellectual structuresof Greek philosophy. Late medieval thought,following upon developments in Islamic sci-ence, was dominated by Aristotelian science.Renaissance thinkers continued the emphasisupon Platonic and Aristotelian thought andembraced as well ancient Stoicism, skepti-cism, mysticism, and astrology. Catalysts ofthe Scientific Revolution such as Copernicusand Galileo were heavily influenced byAristotle—and others as well, such asClaudius Ptolemy. Indeed the intellectualand scientific paradigms of the ancient worldhave only recently been replaced by newassumptions and theories and hithertounimagined experiments and research tech-nologies. (See ARISTOTLE; PLATO; PTOLE-MAEUS, CLAUDIUS.)

Introduction xix

The Middle AgesThe problem of when and how—and evenif—the Roman Empire declined and fell iscomplicated by the varied dimensions of cul-tural change in the fourth and fifth centuriesCE. In both the Western Roman Empire—and subsequent European kingdoms—andthe Eastern Roman Empire—and subsequentByzantine Empire—polytheistic, supersti-tious, pantheistic pagans, who watched con-stantly for divine signs to indicate the courseof the future, became monotheistic and simi-larly superstitious Christians who conceivedof a variety of supernatural forces of bothgood and evil that waged war over theChristian soul. There were more similaritiesthan differences between paganism andChristianity, so that it was common to findChristians who, like the philosopherBoethius, could not quite rid themselves oftheir pagan proclivities, and pagans who, likethe emperor Constantine, were sufficientlyattracted to Christianity to approach full con-version. (See LATER ROMAN EMPIRE; NEW TES-TAMENT; PAGANISM.)

The European Dark Ages were dark fromthe perspective of the standards of civiliza-tion, in particular those of the cultivated andprogressive cities of Renaissance Italy. Life inthe Middles Ages was short and brutish; fewcould read the few books that survived warand conquest; great ideas vanished, as didschools; time, dates, age, years, were largelyuncertain; ordered political structures wererare; the economy was agrarian and based onbarter; towns were few, but not hunger andfamine; death was frequent and familiar.Literacy all but vanished. Art and sculpturewere primitive, anachronistic, and static. So,too, was thought—the philosophers and the-ologians of the Middle Ages tried to mergefaith in the Scriptures with loyalty to ancientpagan sources such as Aristotle and Virgil.They developed an intricate, esotericapproach to God and the universe that reliedheavily on mind-numbing logic and ontologi-cal as well as nominalist approaches toknowledge.

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo and author ofConfessions and City of God, provides one of thefirst models for what we call “medieval phi-losophy.” In an essay written in 395, he soughtto deduce the existence of God by means ofhis own understanding of knowledge.Augustine began with three fundamentalassumptions about himself: that he exists,that he is alive, and that he has understanding.Humans are separate from animals in possess-ing the capacity for understanding, that is,reason. Since humans display reason in theirtemporal lives, they can recognize the exis-tence of that which transcends reason.Anticipating St. Anselm, Augustine arguedthat God is the being at the limit of humanreason, beyond which humans cannot con-ceive. Reason tells us of the immutability ofnumber. One, for instance, is a fundamentalreality, a singularity, not dependent upon ourtemporal observations. Having establishedthat, because humans possess reason, they canconceive of that which transcends reason, andbecause humans conceive of number and thenumber one must represent the ultimate tran-scendence, Augustine went on to assume thatsince we seek wisdom and know certain wisehumans, something beyond our experiencecalled wisdom necessarily exists. There arecertain common assumptions that all humansshare; such assumptions require wisdom tounderstand them; therefore, all humans sharein this wisdom. Reason, number, wisdomtranscend individual human existence.Likewise knowledge transcends the brieflifespan of the individual knower. In short,Augustine argued that we first know manifoldtruths dependent upon our own independentreason and reflection; realization of thesetemporal, limited truths makes us realize thatsomething similar yet transcendent, Truth,exists—this Truth is God. (See AURELIUS

AUGUSTINE.) The foregoing example of a pattern of

assumption and syllogism, logic and piety,reason and faith describes the religiousthought not only of Augustine but of theMiddle Ages in general. In the several cen-

xx Introduction

turies after the invasions of the northernGermanic tribes and the sack of Rome by theGoths (in 410 CE), people pursuing happi-ness, peace, and order arranged themselvesinto various communal institutions. In Italy,France, and England, for example, primitivekingdoms emerged; warlords and greatlandowners provided protection for farmers,peasants who soon became entangled in theunbreakable cords of feudalism.Those with areligious bent retreated from the dangers ofsociety to form isolated communities of asce-tics. Some particularly zealous believers, suchas St. Anthony and St. Jerome, fled to thedesert to live as hermits. Others, such as theanchorites, lived austere existences in thevain attempt to conquer the flesh so as to ele-vate the soul. Benedict of Nursia practicedsuch asceticism unsuccessfully before findinga balance between isolation and civilization inthe Benedictine monastery. These variedrecluses were often the few thoughtful schol-ars who continued to think about the past andanticipate the future.

The first scientific light to shine in thedarkness of Medieval Western Europeoccurred at Aix-la-Chapelle during the reignof Charles the Great, Charlemagne. The so-called Carolingian Renaissance was inspiredby Charlemagne’s interest in learning andinterest in surrounding himself with able andintelligent counselors such as Alcuin andEinhard. Alcuin tutored Charlemagne in thebasics of philosophy, mathematics, andastronomy. Carolingian scholars studied thetrivium and quadrivium, the traditional liber-al arts course of study. Mathematical studywas primitive, focusing mostly on arithmetic.Astronomy was generally relegated toobserving the stars out of wonder or, morepractically, to set the calendar. Carolingianintellects focused particularly on grammarand rhetoric underpinned by logic—thedialectic. Ancient sources for such studyincluded Cicero, Pliny, Boethius, andAristotle, particularly within the pages ofcompilers and commentators such as Isidoreof Seville (560–636 CE). Isidore wrote the

Etymologies, in which he tried to collect thelearning and wisdom of the ancients regard-ing a variety of objects of inquiry, rangingfrom astronomy and astrology to zoology andbotany to geography and law. He wroteextensively on medicine, mathematics, andrhetoric. (See ASTRONOMY; LATER ROMAN

EMPIRE; LIFE SCIENCES; MATHEMATICS.)Boethius (480–524 CE) was a transitional

figure between ancient and medieval philoso-phy and science. He lived during the sixthcentury, serving under the Gothic kingTheodoric, who ruled the Italian remnant ofthe Western Roman Empire. Boethius wasgifted in both Platonic and Aristotelianthought, referring in The Consolation ofPhilosophy to Aristotle as “my philosopher.”Lady Philosophy, with whom he carried on animaginary conversation in the Consolation,declared that Aristotle was her “disciple” anddiscussed many others as well, such as theStoics Zeno and Cicero, the Pythagoreans,Platonists, Epicureans, and Eleatics. Boethiuswrote Latin commentaries on the two greatphilosophers Plato and Aristotle, bringing tothe Latin Medieval West knowledge of classi-cal metaphysics and logic. He was particular-ly interested in Aristotelian physics, ethics,and astronomy. Boethius was also a student,commentator, and translator (into Latin) ofPtolemy. (See ASTRONOMY; PHILOSOPHY.)

The legacy of ancient science on ChristianEurope and the Muslim Near East is largelythe story of the growing number and sophis-tication of commentators on Aristotle. It isdifficult to underestimate the impact this onescientist and philosopher had on the subse-quent two millennia of thought. After thedecline of Charlemagne’s empire and theCarolingian Renaissance, amid the chaos ofthe ninth century, students of Aristotle con-tinued to think and to speculate using theterms and techniques of ancient science.Before the twelfth century, most ofAristotle’s works were unknown to theMedieval West, and scientists often relied oncompilations of ancient thought, in particu-lar the works of the polymath Isidore. John

Introduction xxi

Scotus Eriugena, for example, in about 870wrote On the Division of Nature, in which hedeclared that Greek philosophy is of funda-mental importance in knowing the actions ofthe word (logos) in the generation of all thingsand the natural laws by which existence isordered. (See LOGOS.) Eriugena incorporat-ed Aristotelian concepts such as the FirstCause, dialectic, essence (ousia), nature(physis), and knowledge (scientia). The latterinvolves the search to discover the order ofall things, how life can be categorizedaccording to genera and species, the reflec-tion of the First Cause in nature. Eriugenaset the stage for subsequent ChristianAristotelians to argue that physics was thebest complement to theology. Eriugena had aprofound impact on the twelfth-centuryBenedictine recluse Honorius of Autun, whowrote a compilation of undigested Greekgeography, physics, and astronomy. (See PHI-LOSOPHY.)

Meanwhile Byzantine scholars atConstantinople, Alexandria, and Gaza con-tinued to read, teach, and transmit to pos-terity the great writings in philosophy andscience of the ancient past, as well as a hostof more recent commentaries on, especially,Aristotle. Byzantine scholars were typicallyChristian (though studying and teachingpagan authors) and were usually lesserthinkers, hence rarely subsequently known,compared to the Greek masters.Typical wasProcopius of Gaza, a polymath who wroteon earthquakes, mechanical devices, andtheology. Timothy of Gaza wrote a zoologi-cal treatise. John Philoponus, writing atConstantinople during the reign ofJustinian, wrote commentaries onAristotelian science and philosophy.Hierocles wrote an account of the geogra-phy of the Roman Empire. Hesychius wrotecommentaries on ancient writings.Anthemius and Isidore excelled as engineersand architects and created the wonderfulChurch of St. Sophia. Justinian sought notonly to restore the Roman Empire to itsancient grandeur, but he also worked to

build Constantinople into a center of beau-ty, learning, and Christianity. He sponsoredschools and scholarship, the greatest accom-plishment being the Digest of Roman Law.(See CONSTANTINOPLE; GAZA.)

That ancient Greek science, philosophy,and mathematics continued to be studied atConstantinople during the European MiddleAges is seen in the example of MichaelPsellus (1018–1096), Byzantine historian,philosopher, and scientist. Psellus wasextremely gifted in many ways, serving asadviser to several Byzantine emperors andholding government posts of importance.He was a Christian who believed that hecould acquire knowledge through deductiveand inductive thinking, mathematics, andthe study of Aristotle, Plato, andNeoplatonists such as Plotinus andPorphyry. He also studied ancient texts onmedicine and astronomy.

Meanwhile Muslim students of Greek phi-losophy and science in Western Asia, NorthAfrica, and Spain studied and commentedupon ancient literature and retained numer-ous writings from the ancient worldunknown to the Latin West. The beginningsof Muslim interest in Greek scienceoccurred during the Abbasid Dynasty of theeighth century. Abbasid scholars were heavi-ly influenced by the work of Nestorian andMonophysite Christians living in Syria whohad for several centuries translated and stud-ied many Greek scientific works into Syriac.Alchemy was an especially popular topic ofstudy, as was medicine. During the ninthcentury, examination and transcription ofGreek scientific manuscripts was ongoing atthe House of Wisdom, the intellectual centerof Baghdad. A century later the leadingArabic alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, wasengaged in intense study of the works of theancient alchemists of Alexandria andAristotelian scientific principles. It was part-ly by means of Arab scholars that the Westwas generally reintroduced to the writings ofGalen and Hippocrates. (See MEDICINE; PHYS-ICAL SCIENCES.)

xxii Introduction

The Muslims Avicenna and Averroes had acentral role in bringing an AristotelianRenaissance to Western Europe. Avicenna,Ibn Sina (980–1037), was, at the beginning ofthe eleventh century, the greatest livingAristotelian scholar. He had an encyclopedicmind, wrote many commentaries, and wasbest known for his studies of medicine.European scientists relied on his works forcenturies.Averroes, Ibn Rushd (1126–1198),was known as the “commentator,” a title thathe earned from his numerous works of studyon Aristotle and from using Aristotle to tack-le metaphysical topics. A Jew born in MuslimSpain who wrote medical and scientific trea-tises in Arabic, Maimonides (1135–1204),was another Aristotelian commentator andstudent of a wide range of Peripatetic writ-ings. (See COMMENTATORS; PERIPATETIC

SCHOOL.)The greatest Aristotelian of the European

Middles Ages, the Christian philosopherThomas Aquinas (1225–1274), attempted toreconcile Greek philosophy and science withChristian theology. The writings of Muslimcommentators on Aristotle had becomeknown through Latin translations by the earlyto mid- thirteenth century.Aquinas thereforehad at his disposal a vast corpus of Aristotle’sworks. He made great use of them in his ownwritings, in particular the Summa Theologica.Aquinas relied heavily on Aristotelian meth-ods to arrive at logical deductions about theexistence and nature of God and God’sworks. Repeatedly Aquinas referred toAristotle as simply “the Philosopher.” Like thePhilosopher, Aquinas used logical syllogismsof common everyday things, such as woodand fire, to arrive at correct answers to thequestions he posed throughout the Summa.Aquinas’s use of science was, of course, lim-ited by his methodology—it was not empiri-cal—and by his focus on Christian theology.His successors in the European Renaissancewere quick to point out his shortcomings, asthey attempted to use ancient scientific liter-ature as the basis for a full study of all naturalphenomena. (See ARISTOTLE; PHILOSOPHY.)

The RenaissanceThe European Renaissance (1300–1600) wasa time of political, cultural, and scientificrebirth of ancient learning. Whereas themedieval focus on ancient science was gener-ally limited to an ongoing commentary onAristotle’s thought and writings, Renaissancethinkers developed a broader understandingof ancient thought because of the rediscoveryof ancient texts, many of which had nothingto do with Aristotle. Renaissance philologistsengaged in the painstaking work of studyingthe varied surviving handwritten copies ofancient works, attempting and succeeding inproviding accurate texts close to the original.Few scholars could read classical Greek, butthere was enough demand that some Italianprinters issued editions of Aristotle, hisPeripatetic followers, the geographer Strabo,and similar works in the original Greek. Latinwas the language of scholarship and learningduring the Renaissance; printers issued Latintranslations of Greek writers such as Euclid,Ptolemy, Galen, and Plato. All of these addedto the growing corpus of knowledge aboutancient Greek science.

The trivium and quadrivium continued toorient Renaissance academic studies. As inthe ancient world, specialization and profes-sionalization of science was still long in thefuture. From this comes the idea of the“Renaissance man” who engaged in the studyof all phenomena, human as well as natural.The study of Aristotle and Plato continued toorient Renaissance pursuits of knowledge.Aristotelian logic was considered by someRenaissance scholars to be “scholastic,” aderogatory term for a medieval thinker whorelied on frozen formulas of thought. Indeedthere was more fluidity to Renaissance think-ing, more openness and a broadening range ofinterests, not all of them religious.Christianity still dominated the Renaissanceworldview, though there was more freedomto inquire into secular topics, perhapsbecause the world itself—the expandingtrade, growing cities, increasing wealth—wasbecoming more secular. (See PHILOSOPHY.)

Introduction xxiii

Most important, the Renaissance became agreat time of questioning. Intellectuals of thefourteenth century, such as FrancescoPetrarca, not only studied the ancient clas-sics, but questioned the foundations ofancient thought—indeed questioned ancientthinkers themselves. Petrarch gained a liter-ary as well as vicarious personal familiaritywith his hero Cicero, the Roman Republicanand orator of the first century BCE. Petrarchdiscovered many of Cicero’s letters, whichgave him a true sense of Cicero’s personalityand opened the doors to a critical under-standing of Cicero and his work. In time, oth-ers imitated Petrarch in their willingness toquestion the ancients. The great challengewould be to question the universally recog-nized Philosopher and Scientist of ancientGreece, Aristotle. (See ARISTOTLE; CICERO.)

The Scientific RevolutionThe initial realization of possible errors inancient scientific thought occurred during thefifteenth century when Renaissance explorersbegan to break from the bonds of ancient geo-graphic thinking to arrive at a new and moreaccurate picture of the world. Portuguese andItalian explorers from the mid to the late fif-teenth century showed the willingness andcourage to question the legends and myths ofthe world initiated during antiquity andaccepted as truth during the Middle Ages.Theancient picture of the world was limited tothree continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa,and two oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian.Ancient Greek philosophers had establishedthe sphericity of the earth and its hemispher-ic nature. But there were many misconcep-tions in Greek geography. There was thenotion of a fiery barrier that separated thenorthern and southern hemispheres, throughwhich no person or ship could pass. ClaudiusPtolemy, whose works, translated into Latin,were more available by the fifteenth century,taught that Africa and Asia were joined by aterra incognita, an unknown land to thesouth, which made the Indian Ocean an inlandsea. Ptolemy also overestimated the size of

Asia and underestimated the circumference ofthe earth, making it appear that the AtlanticOcean—that is, the distance from Europe toAsia—was much shorter than it is. ThePortuguese proved in the late fifteenth centu-ry that the equatorial zone of fire was a myth,that one could sail from north to south andvice versa, and that Ptolemy was wrong inassuming that Africa could not be circumnav-igated. The four voyages of ChristopherColumbus, the Genoese sailor, showed thatPtolemy’s geography of the earth was erro-neous, that the distance from Europe to Asiawas much greater than Ptolemy thought, andthat there were peoples and continents—North and South America—unknown to theancients. Michel de Montaigne, the Frenchthinker, wondered in one of his essays whatPlato, who imagined the lost city of Atlantis,would have made of the inhabitants of theAmericas and the rich civilizations of theAztecs and Incas. The Portuguese sailorMagellan showed, in circumnavigating SouthAmerica and sailing across the Pacific Ocean,just how rudimentary ancient geographicalknowledge was. (See GEOGRAPHY; MARINE SCI-ENCE; PTOLEMAEUS, CLAUDIUS.)

Renaissance discoveries in the science ofgeography were the initial steps in a new wayof thinking about science, which historianscall the Scientific Revolution. The greatthinkers at the dawn of modern science—Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, da Vinci, Bacon,Harvey, and Vesalius—worked in the shadowof Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Aristotle, Pliny,Hippocrates, and Galen.

Italian cities such as Florence, Padua, Pisa,Genoa, Bologna, and Venice were the mostflourishing commercial and cultural centersof the Renaissance; naturally they were oftenthe centers of the new focus on science.Padua, for example, was a center ofAristotelian studies, particularly as applied tomedicine. At Florence at the end of the fif-teenth century, Leonardo da Vinci(1452–1519) studied Greek philosophy andscience, Aristotle and Galen, which encour-aged his studies in physics and anatomy.

xxiv Introduction

Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543), as a stu-dent in Bologna, came in contact with scien-tists and philosophers rediscovering theimportance of Pythagoras and Plato in thehistory of rational and mathematical thought.(See PYTHAGORAS.) Indeed Copernicus, in thededication to Pope Paul III that opened hislandmark On the Revolutions of the HeavenlySpheres, commented on his debt to ClaudiusPtolemy and the inspiration that he receivedat the hands of Plutarch, who had recordedthe Pythagorean hypothesis of a moving andorbiting earth. Sir Thomas Heath claims thatCopernicus knew as well the heliocentrictheory of Aristarchus of Samos. (SeeARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS; ASTRONOMY; PTOLE-MAEUS, CLAUDIUS.)

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) was a stu-dent of Ptolemy in imitation of his mentorTycho Brahe (1546–1601), the Danishastronomer, who was a lifelong defender ofPtolemy’s world system. Kepler, however,converted to Copernicus’s world system,partly because he was also convinced byPlatonic and Pythagorean theories of harmo-ny and mathematics. Like other RenaissanceNeoplatonists, Kepler believed that geomet-ric forms mirrored Plato’s ideal forms andthat the patterns of the universe reflectedboth. Kepler wrote The Harmony of theSpheres, revealing his belief that Pythagoreanharmonies are reflected in the movement ofthe planets. Like the Neoplatonists of theancient world, Kepler assumed that the sun,the source of light and power, must be thecenter of all things. (See NEOPLATONISM;PYTHAGORAS.)

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who perhapsmore than any other Renaissance scientistinaugurated the Scientific Revolution, usedthe works of Archimedes, Ptolemy, andAristotle as the foundation for his own dis-coveries and repudiation of ancient theoriesabout motion and the heavens. Galileo wasItalian, a native of Pisa. A gifted mathemati-cian, he mastered Euclid’s Elements as a stu-dent. He reputedly was the first scientist tostudy the solar system and Milky Way with

the telescope.Although many of his discover-ies contradicted Aristotle, Galileo sympa-thized with the ancient scientist, believingthat had Aristotle had the advantages of sev-enteenth-century thought, he too would havediscovered the errors of his theories ofmotion and the universe. (See ASTRONOMY;MATHEMATICS; PHYSICAL SCIENCES.)

With Galileo in the lead, other scientiststook up the cause of empiricism. FrancisBacon (1561–1626) arrogantly tossed asidethe ancients even as he relied on them for hisinitial assumptions. Andreas Vesalius was anardent student of Galen, using the Roman’sworks and theories in the process of makingnew discoveries to undermine them. WilliamHarvey (1578–1657) likewise developed thetheory of the circulation of the blood by firstwondering whether or not Galen’s theorieswere correct. (See GALEN; MEDICINE.) PierreGassendi (1592–1655), a skeptic whoembraced the theories of the ancient philoso-phers Sextus Empiricus and Pyrrho, declaredemphatically that Aristotelian philosophy is notscience. René Descartes, like Francis Bacon,was declaring revolution from ancient scienceand philosophy as well, rather as a child rebelsfrom the parental strictures of the past.

The Enlightenment and the ModernWorldIn the year that Isaac Newton published hisPrincipia Mathematica, 1687, the curriculum atAmerica’s foremost college, Harvard, contin-ued to be devoted to Aristotle in logic andphysics and Ptolemy in astronomy.Copernicus had made little headway in theAmerican colonies, although a few almanacswere beginning to include descriptions of theCopernican worldview. Even into the eigh-teenth century, Newton was thought to bedifficult reading for American scientists, andcollege curricula struggled to abandon theinfluence of classical physics and astronomy.Medicine continued its relationship withGalen. Aristotle’s Politics was read alongsideHobbes, Locke, and Montesquieu. Stoicthinkers such as Cicero and Seneca continued

Introduction xxv

to intrigue American philosophers. Plutarchwas still the biographer of choice. ThatThomas Jefferson, arguably the most brilliantand revolutionary eighteenth-centuryAmerican thinker, was also the most learnedstudent of the Greek and Roman classics,might seem ironic today, but not during histime, when fluency in Greek and Latin wasstill the mark of the educated person. (See EPI-CUREANISM; MEDICINE; PHILOSOPHY; STOICISM.)

The modern world has in many ways neverentirely broken away from the influence ofancient scientists and philosophers.The liber-al arts education still promoted in collegesand universities derives from Greek modelsof education developed 2,500 years ago andthen resurrected during the Renaissance.Monumental architecture is still classical.Historical inquiry remains beholden to thelikes of Thucydides and Tacitus. The philoso-phers and artists upon which we base our cul-tural expression and institutions—past mas-ters such as Shakespeare, Locke, Montaigne,Jefferson—were themselves heavily depend-ent upon Plutarch, Aristotle, Cicero, andPliny. I. Bernard Cohen has recently noted, inThe Birth of a New Physics, that our conceptionsof the world are still Aristotelian, eventhough we live in a world in which science is

dominated by the Newtonian and Einsteinianparadigms. So subtle has been the influenceof ancient science that, try as we might, westill cannot help but think that the sun risesand sets, the moon benevolently shines downupon us, that when we stand still we aremotionless, at rest on a still earth, and thatheavy objects fall faster than lighter ones.Modern science appears to contradict experi-ence, what we daily observe and sense, whichexplains why it required a revolution inthought to begin to break the spell thatancient science has cast upon the unconsciousand conscious minds of humans. One won-ders whether the works of the ancient Greekswill ever cease to have a hypnotic effect uponthe modern mind.

ReferencesCohen, I. Bernard. The Birth of a New Physics. New

York:W.W. Norton and Co., 1985.Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1968.St. Augustine. City of God. Translated by Henry

Bettenson. London: Penguin Books, 1984._____. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-

Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1961.

Sullivan, Richard E. Aix-la-Chapelle in the Age ofCharlemagne. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1963.

AcademyThe words academy, academe, and academicderive from the fourth-century Athenianschool founded by the Greek philosopher andscientist Plato. Plato founded his academy inthe years after he had been a student ofSocrates, had experienced his teacher’s deathin 399, and had traveled to places throughoutthe Mediterranean, ending up at Syracusewhere he had failed in trying to make thetyrant of that city, Dionysus, into a philoso-pher-king. Plato decided that if he could notturn kings into philosophers, at least he couldtrain the sons of Athens in the art of thinking,the understanding of what is real and true,the best way to live, and the art of citizenship.

The Academy was named for a local godand was dedicated to Zeus’s daughters, theMuses. Men and women were admitted onequal terms to the Academy, the two require-ments being a good understanding of mathe-matics, particularly geometry, and wealth—the school was free but relied on donations ofwealthy alumni. Mathematics formed the coreof the curriculum: arithmetic, geometry, andrelated subjects such as astronomy and music.Plato used Socrates’ technique of the dialoguesupplemented by lectures and discussions.

Upon Plato’s death in 346, the director-ship of the school was assumed by Speusippusand then Xenocrates. Xenocrates was the

epitome of the philosopher: dedicated to wis-dom, chaste, and poor by choice. Students ofthe Academy taught others the Socratic ap-proach to knowledge and life, engendering aschool of thought focusing on transcendentrealities perceived by human reason and intu-ition, subsequently termed “academic.” Manyof the great mathematical accomplishmentsof the age were initiated by the Academics.Plato’s most famous student, Aristotle, at-tended the Academy but never became headof the school. Instead,Aristotle eventually (in334 BCE) opened a rival school at Athens, theLyceum, the curriculum of which was basedon Aristotle’s inductive scientific approachrather than Plato’s deductive, rational, and in-tuitive approach. As time passed, the Acad-emy gained the reputation for sophistry andfor splitting hairs over minute philosophicalissues, as opposed to Aristotle’s successorswho focused on practical solutions to themany questions of life and nature. An exam-ple was Carneades, who led the Academy inthe second century BCE and who could notfind anything in the daily happenings of life inAthens—or anywhere else, for that matter—that resembled reality, which is unseen, un-known. Academics of the first century, suchas Philo and Antiochus, were less concernedwith finding reality and more concerned withtheir reputations in comparison to other

A

1

schools of thought. Significantly, Philo andAntiochus were teachers of Marcus TulliusCicero: hence the Academy began to influ-ence Roman philosophy and culture, as hadother schools of thought—the Epicurean, theStoic—before it.

See also Aristotle; Athens; Greek Classical Age;Lyceum; Plato; Socrates

ReferencesDurant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1939.Hare, R. M. Plato. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1982.Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Aelian, Claudius (floruit earlythird century CE)Aelian was a Roman who wrote in Greekduring the first half of the third century CE.He was a Sophist, connected, perhaps, to thecourt of Julia Domna, the empress and wifeof Septimius Severus and the patroness ofphilosophers. Philostratus, who knew him,wrote a brief life of Aelian in his Lives of theSophists. Aelian’s On the Characteristics of Ani-mals is an eclectic compilation of facts aboutanimals purporting to illustrate their moral(and immoral) behavior. Aelian’s work is notan original contribution to science—it isheavily reliant upon earlier authors.As such itfurnishes us with a varied catalog of ancientwriters and commentators. Aelian took as hismodel such writers as Herodotus, who wroteof places in Europe, Asia, and Africa and pre-sented, uncritically, fact and fancy. Aeliannever traveled the Mediterranean to learnfirsthand the facts and stories about which hewrote. Aelian’s work proceeds from onetopic to another in an apparently randomfashion, order being determined only by spe-cific animals under discussion according tohearsay, legend, and myth.

On the Characteristics of Animals is anecdotaland filled with comparisons to current prac-tices, beliefs, and verbal expressions. For ex-ample, Aelian described the Egyptian venera-

tion for lions, which come to people in theirdreams and give them a sense of the future.Following Democritus, he attributed to hotweather and warm south winds a more rapidbirth in animals because the organs and tis-sues are warm and fluid. He wrote thatbitches have many babies in a litter becausethey have many wombs. Ancient myth in-formed the credulous mind of Aelian thatsome animals are particularly loved by thegods, who use animals to send their messagesand do their will. According to Aelian, manyanimals have human characteristics. Somenurture and raise infant humans (one thinksof the she-wolf raising Romulus and Remus).Others come to the aid of humans, as whenthe dolphin saved Arion.Animals such as dol-phins, mares, and stingrays enjoy humanmusic; others enjoy dancing. Indian elephantstake pleasure in the scent of flowers, drinkwine, and are grateful when the forerunnersof veterinarians apply salves and other con-coctions to heal their wounds. Aelian re-ported on a thieving octopus, a male hare thatbore baby rabbits, on tritons (half human,half fish) seen at sea, and on the two hearts ofthe elephant—one good, one bad. Interestedin medicine, Aelian described remedies forphysical ailments derived from various ani-mal parts.The sea urchin is good for stomachproblems; the ashes of the hedgehog mixedwith pitch is good for hair loss; hedgehogashes and wine help purify the kidneys.

If Aelian was not a discriminating scientist,he was at least a writer interested in compil-ing all that he had learned on natural history.His On the Characteristics of Animals helps schol-ars supplement surviving fragments of earlierphilosophers. Most importantly,Aelian’s workreveals the amazing degree to which people ofthe Later Roman Empire bought into theclaims and stories of pseudoscientists.

See also Later Roman Empire; Life Sciences;Philostratus

ReferencesAelian. On the Characteristics of Animals. 3 vols.

Translated by A. F. Scholfield. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1971.

2 Aelian, Claudius

Philostratus. Lives of the Sophists. Translated byW. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1921.

Agathemerus (floruit firstcentury CE)Little is known of Agathemerus, except thathe wrote the treatise Geography that has sur-vived in fragments. Perhaps he lived at thebeginning of the Common Era, making him acontemporary of Strabo. Agathemerus ap-pears to have been a Roman. He was in-trigued by Greek geographers who hypothe-sized the spherical nature of the earth andbelieved that Delphi, sacred to Apollo,formed the center. He lauded Democritusfor his conception of an earth more widethan long. He claimed that Anaxagoras wasthe first to draw a world map. Agathemerushad the benefit of having the works ofHecataeus and Herodotus before him and theincreased knowledge of the world broughtabout by Alexander’s conquests and the ex-plorations of Pytheas of Massilia andNearchus of Crete.

See also Geography/Geodesy; Roman PrincipateReferenceBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.

AgriculturePerhaps the greatest of all human revolutionsin science was the invention and developmentof agriculture nearly twelve thousand yearsago in western Asia. The domestication ofplants—the process of planting the seed;waiting for germination; cultivating theplant; harvesting the mature grain, vegetable,or fruit; collecting the seed; and then plant-ing again as before—ushered in the NeolithicAge. How purposeful this process was in thebeginning is unclear. Perhaps accident playeda large role in the initial discovery—indeedmuch of science has occurred serendipi-tously. Some gatherer of wild grain used hisor her observation and reason to figure outthe process, which resulted in a complete

change in all aspects of life. Agriculture sug-gested the possibility, eventually accom-plished, of sufficient food production to lastmore than just a day or two. Surplus foodmeant that the nomadic ways of the past wereover—that there was little reason to keep onthe move searching for food and that stabilityand order beckoned. Agriculture allowed forthe first stable communities to be made per-manent where the soil was rich, moistureplentiful, and enemies at a distance. Thesefirst villages were at places such as CatalHuyuk in eastern Turkey and Jericho near theDead Sea. Surplus food provided a sense ofwell-being and wealth, an opportunity forrest and planning for the future, and a senseof time’s passing in the seasons as plantingand harvesting occurred. Writing was a con-sequence of the need to keep track of surplusgoods from year to year—the first pic-tographs simply recorded agricultural data.This sense of time, the continuum of past,present, and future, was a prerequisite forscientific thought. Science is fundamentallyan intellectual activity involving a historicalperspective, wherein the data of experience(natural and human) is accumulated and ex-amined in the present in order to speculateupon, and perhaps predict, the future. Thesense of time incumbent upon agriculturewas therefore fundamental to the emergenceof science.

The first civilizations were built upon thebanks of rivers because of the need to irrigatecrops in a dry climate. Agriculture inMesopotamia involved tremendous humanlabor and organization to control the waters ofthe Tigris and Euphrates—to build canals forirrigation and dikes for flood control. Sumeri-an agriculture involved simple bronze tools—spades, hoes, scythes, and sickles. Plows hadplowshares and seed feeders, a device to allowthe immediate dropping of seed into the fur-row. The Sumerians, according to Kramer(1980), performed simple agricultural experi-ments such as “shade-tree gardening” to seehow plants growing under broad shade trees,like the fig or sycamore, would perform.

Agriculture 3

Egyptian AgricultureThe Nile River was at the center of agricul-ture in Egypt. Only the simplest tools wererequired to prepare the soil once the waters ofthe Nile had receded after its annual floodingleaving behind a rich layer of extremely fertilesilt.When Herodotus visited Egypt about 450BCE he was astonished at the ease with whichthe Egyptians farmed, the Nile literally doingall of the work. In areas that were not inun-dated by the Nile, the shaduf, a simple deviceto hoist water in a vessel and then rotate to aholding area or canal, was used to irrigatefields. Egyptian farmers used a simple two-handled plow drawn by oxen to prepare thesoil for seed. The plowshare that cut throughthe soil was made of wood. Egyptian farmersdevised a two-handled, two-bladed hoe forbreaking up dirt clods. After the scattering ofseed, sheep or hogs were driven through thefield to trample the seed into the soil. At har-vest, the grain of wheat, barley, or millet wascut with a sickle, bound into sheaves, and

brought to a threshing floor to be threshed—donkeys were used to separate the fruit fromthe stalk. The threshed grain was then win-nowed by tossing in the air, the heavier grainfalling down and the lighter chaff being blownaway by the wind.

Greek AgricultureThe mountainous peninsula of Greece didnot easily support agriculture, although wefind in the Works and Days of Hesiod, writtenabout 700 BCE, a portrait of the pastoral ex-istence of the farmer and herder. Hesiod gavedirections for planting and harvesting basedon astronomical phenomena. Homer’sOdyssey emphasized the agricultural wealth oflandowners at the beginning of the first mil-lennium; the details of production of grain,hogs, wine, and beef could hardly have beenbased on mere poetic imagination. Greecewas fit more for the cultivation of wine andolives, the latter requiring little effort to cul-tivate properly, the former perfectly adapted

4 Agriculture

An Egyptian man plowing and an Egyptian woman sowing seed. (Instructional Resources Corporation)

to the climate of the Mediterranean. Therocky soil hosted enough successful viticul-ture, olive production, farming of grains, andraising of cattle and goats for milk and cheesethat the population of Greece grew—suchthat by the time of Homer and Hesiod variouscity-states sent colonists elsewhere in theMediterranean region to find fertile land toraise crops and establish trade. Another rea-son for colonization appears to have been de-clining yields of grain due to the lack of thefertility of the soil and soil erosion. ArchaicAge Greeks knew little about fertilizationand vainly hoped prayers to fertility gods andgoddesses would increase yields. It was nocoincidence that during this time Bolos ofMende wrote treatises on both agricultureand signs from the heavens.

Roman AgricultureThe Roman Empire was initially built on suc-cessful cultivation of the Italian soil by hardyfarmers and shepherds. Roman writers in-cluding Livy eulogized the sturdy farmers,such as Cincinnatus, who were loyal to Romeand formed the basis for middle-class armiesof freeholders who could defeat any army inthe Mediterranean world. The practicalRoman mind-set produced quite a few agri-cultural writers. Examples include the ElderCato, Varro, Celsus, Columella, the ElderPliny, and Palladius. These writers empha-sized the pastoral, the valuable peace that ac-companied the farm life. Some, such as Cato,wrote to the increasing number of wealthyplantation owners who rarely got their handsdirty but rather had armies of slaves, cap-tured in war, who performed the manuallabor. Roman politics of the second centuryBCE revealed the conflict over land, as smallfreeholders were being forced to sell to thegrasping owners of slave plantations, latifun-dia. Palladius, writing in the fourth centuryCE, indicated that Roman agricultural meth-ods were the same throughout the thousand-year history of the Roman Empire.The sandyMediterranean soil required simple methodsand tools; the heavy plow of the Middle Ages

was developed later in response to the thickand rocky soil of northern Europe. The Ro-mans practiced an elementary form of croprotation involving leaving land fallow in in-termittent years. Palladius suggested leavingland burned by fire for five years, at whichtime its fertility would be astonishing. Dunghad different purposes, depending on the an-imal and how the dung was kept. Palladiusprovided detailed information on when cropsand fruits should be sown according to theseason and phases of the moon. He provideda full listing of the types of tools the Mediter-ranean farmer should use. For example, hedescribed an ox-drawn cart with a toothedjaw at the front that gathered the wheat andseparated the chaff from the grain. The hus-bandmen, like hunters, wore leather coatsand hoods to protect themselves from thecountless thorn-bushes in the woods.

The staple of the ancient Mediterraneandiet was bread made from grains such as bar-ley, millet, and wheat. Mills ground the graininto flour. Roman mills, for example, reliedon two massive millstones, lying flat and par-allel against each other, one being drivenaround by human or animal power to grindthe grain.

Palladius counseled hard work to achievehigh yields. By the time of his writing in themid-fourth century, however, most of thoseworking the land were agricultural laborersrather than independent freeholders. Themajor change in Roman agriculture from thefirst millennium BCE to the first millenniumCE was the increasing number of slaves andpeasants involved in cultivation of land thatthey did not own. The inequality of LaterRoman agriculture meant that there was asmall class of the very rich who were lookedto for leadership in war and local politics anda huge dependent class of agriculture labor-ers, the coloni.

Agriculture in the New TestamentThe Greek New Testament provides an inter-esting portrait of agriculture during the firstcentury CE in the eastern Mediterranean of

Agriculture 5

the Roman Empire. Jesus moved among apeople who were intimately tied to the land.The soil of the valleys that sometimes had suf-ficient rainfall and was therefore a rich loamwas prepared for the seed by a simple plowused as a hoe by the farmer. Soil in dry uplandareas could rarely hold the seed, the thin soilcovering often exposing rock just below thesurface. According to the Gospel of Luke(8:5–8), “a sower went out to sow his seed:and as he sowed, some fell by the way side;and it was trodden down, and the fowls of theair devoured it. And some fell upon a rock;and as soon as it was sprung up, it witheredaway, because it lacked moisture. And somefell among thorns; and the thorns sprang upwith it, and choked it.And other fell on goodground, and sprang up, and bore fruit an hun-dred-fold.” Jesus’s use of agricultural terms todescribe the process of judgment was not loston the simple Palestinian farm folk: God,“whose fan is in his hand, . . . will thoroughlypurge his floor, and will gather the wheat intohis garner; but the chaff he will burn with fireunquenchable” (Luke 3:17).

Agriculture and the Fall of RomeSome scholars have argued that the principalcause of the decline of the Roman Empire,particularly in the Western Roman Empire(Britain, Spain, Gaul, Italy, North Africa),was that agriculture, the dominant feature inthe Roman economy, declined in the thirdand fourth centuries. Declining agriculturalproductivity and food surpluses spelled dis-aster for the lower classes, who frequentlywere victims of famine, malnutrition, anddisease. The population of the Roman Em-pire was dramatically reduced during thethird century. More and more thousands ofacres went untilled. Declining food reservesencouraged declining population, leading toless acreage under cultivation. The problemdid not go away for centuries—in the mean-time the Western Empire fell to Germanictribes who knew little about agriculture,which helped to bring about the Dark Agesin Europe.

See also Cato, Marcus Porcius; Celsus;Columella; Egypt; Hesiod; IrrigationTechniques; Later Roman Empire;Mesopotamia; New Testament; Palladius; Plinythe Elder

ReferencesErman, Adolf. Life in Ancient Egypt. Translated by

H. M.Tirard. New York: Dover Books, 1894.French, A. “The Economic Background to Solon’s

Reforms.” Classical Quarterly 6 (1956).Jones, A. H. M. The Decline of the Ancient World.

London: Longman, 1966.Kramer, Samuel Noah. History Begins at Sumer.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,1980.

Palladius. On Husbandrie. Translated by BartonLodge. London: Early English Text Society,1879.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and NewTestaments. New York: American Bible Society,1865.

Von Hagen,Victor W. Roman Roads. London:Werdenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.

Alchemy See Physical Sciences

Alcmaeon (floruit early sixthcentury BCE)Alcmaeon was a younger contemporary ofPythagoras—perhaps his student. LikePythagoras he lived at Croton in southernItaly. Alcmaeon was a naturalist and physicianin addition to being a philosopher. DiogenesLaertius, in the Lives of the Philosophers,claimed that Alcmaeon wrote a natural his-tory, the first of its kind, and that likePythagoras he believed in the transcendentsoul and the spiritual make-up of the stars,planets, and moon. He was known as ateacher who was true to the basic teachingsof the Pythagorean school. He believed thatthe spiritual is not still but rather in constantmovement. The soul is eternal, unlike thebody. Human bodily existence is transientrather than transcendent, subject to time andhence death. One’s birth and death are alwaysat opposite ends.

6 Alcmaeon

Alcmaeon as a physician was more thephilosopher, believing that all life exists inpairs, or opposites, such as wet and dry, goodand bad, angry and happy. Illness in humansderives from an imbalance of these opposites.The well person does not want to be morehot than cold, and vice versa. Aristotle’s stu-dent Theophrastus quoted Alcmaeon as be-lieving that sound is caused by echoes in theear canal, that the nose brings air to the brainto detect scent, that taste is dictated by thetongue and its saliva, and that the eyes havewater that helps reflect an image that is ex-ternal to it. Alcmaeon hypothesized that thebrain and the senses are somehow or otherconnected, and that should the former fail thelatter will fail too.

Alcmaeon also made his mark as an as-tronomer. A Pythagorean, he doubtless be-lieved in the sphericity of the earth and itsplace in the center of the universe sur-rounded by planets and the fixed stars. ThePythagoreans also believed in the geocentricuniverse. He advocated (and perhaps con-ceived of) the theory that “the planets have amotion from west to east, in a direction op-posite to that of the fixed stars,” which moveeast to west (Heath 1913). Such a conclusionabout the movement of the stars demandedpatient observation and a willingness to puz-zle over the major problem of ancient plane-tary astronomy: the retrograde motion of theplanets, the “wanderers.”

See also Astronomy; Greek Archaic Age;Hippocrates; Medicine; Pythagoras

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1981.

Alexander of Macedon(356–323 BCE)The original thinking, unique personality, andirrepressible will of Alexander the Great in-augurated the Hellenistic Age (323–31 BCE).Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire

and his vision to link the Greeks and Mace-donians of Europe with the Africans of Egyptand the Asians of Anatolia, Palestine,Mesopotamia, and Iran resulted in a mixtureof unique cultures that stimulated a newepoch of intellectual and scientific achieve-ment. The diversity of thinkers brought to-gether at such centers of learning as Alexan-dria, Egypt, founded by Alexander in 331BCE, resulted in significant scientific writingsand theories that have influenced subsequentscientists and philosophers for centuries evento the present. Alexander himself, as the stu-dent of Aristotle, was a scientist, a philoso-pher-king, who appended curiosity and scien-tific discovery to his principal aims ofconquest and military glory.

Alexander was raised in a kingdom thatvalued brutal strength and military prowess.Fourth-century BCE Macedonians had faithin the traditional Greek gods who werethemselves divine and eternal symbols of rawhuman emotions and violent confrontations.Not surprisingly, Alexander identified withthe great Homeric hero and warrior Achillesand the legendary strongman Heracles. Hisconquest of Asia was motivated in part by hisdesire to exceed Achilles and Heracles inglory. His mother, Olympias, reputedly be-lieved that she had conceived Alexander withthe seed of Zeus, king of the gods; Alexandergrew up thinking of himself as (perhaps) theson of Zeus. Olympias, a princess from thekingdom of Epirus west of Macedonia, was asnake charmer who introduced Alexander toother deities, such as Bacchus, the god ofwine, whose worship involved orgiastic ritu-als brought on by divine intoxication.Alexan-der learned as well that the gods often re-vealed truth and destiny by means of oracles.Alexander traveled to the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon at Siwah in the Sahara Desert afterhis conquest of Egypt in 331. Alexander re-garded Homer’s tale in the Iliad to have beenan accurate account of valor, conduct, and re-lations between humans and gods. Through-out his life he tried to live up to the poetic,heroic model wrought by Homer.

Alexander of Macedon 7

Another important influence on Alexan-der’s life was the scientist and philosopherAristotle and his teachings. Aristotle servedas Alexander’s tutor for three years, from 343to 340. Aristotle’s approach to the divine(and to every other form of human inquiry)was much more sophisticated than the youngAlexander had hitherto experienced. Thephilosopher helped Alexander to see that be-sides Homeric valor and beliefs are the valuesof civilized culture and the understanding ofthe divine by means of the intellect ratherthan blind superstition. Aristotle opened upAlexander’s mind to the infinite possibilitiesof life and the potential diversity of humanbehavior and belief.

No precise record survives to indicatewhat Aristotle taught and Alexander learned.One can hypothesize that Aristotle brought toAlexander many of the theories and observa-tions that would make up the philosopher’simmense corpus of writings. Aristotle re-jected the Homeric worldview, arguing in-stead that truth is metaphysical and that thegods are elementary representations of being(ousia), which is the transcendent creative

force in the universe.Whereas strength mat-tered most in Macedonia, Aristotle arguedthat the best form of government is the statethat is run according to virtue and which en-courages virtue in its citizens. Aristotletaught the young prince techniques of obser-vation, inductive reasoning, and deductivelogic. He encouraged Alexander to becomemore than a king—to be a philosopher aswell. Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, wrotethat Alexander, upon learning that Aristotlehad published his book of Metaphysics, wrotethe philosopher from Asia chiding him forpublishing his teachings hence allowing oth-ers to be privy to the same information thatAlexander himself had been taught. What isthe point in being a king if one’s subjects havethe same knowledge? Plutarch added thatAlexander was particularly interested in whatAristotle taught him about medicine. Thephilosopher’s influence upon the student wasso great that Alexander acted as a physician tohis friends, making diagnoses and recom-mending cures and regimens to restorehealth.

Alexander never attended Aristotle’sschool, the Lyceum, at Athens, though theking admired the Athenians for their manyscientific and philosophic accomplishments.Perhaps the model of Athens inspired Alexan-der’s vision of a center of learning in his newempire that would eclipse the old—the grandbut limited ideas of Athens and its philoso-phers.When in 331 Alexander saw Pharos Is-land near the mouth of the Nile River inEgypt, he knew he had found the site for hiscity. Indeed, within a generation of his death,Alexandria had already emerged as one of theleading centers of trade and science in theMediterranean world.

Alexander led not only a host of warriorsto conquer the Persian Empire but a host ofscientists as well. Aristotle’s grandnephewCallisthenes accompanied the king, serving asofficial historian. Other historians, such asAristander of Telmessus and Cleitarch ofColophon, accompanied Alexander, as well asSophists such as Anaxarchus of Abdera, Indian

8 Alexander of Macedon

Alexander the Great.Anonymous, ca. 320 BCE. (KathleenCohen/J. Paul Getty Museum)

sages such as Calanus, and soothsayers such asAristobulus of Cassandreia. His interest ingeographic exploration inspired Alexander tosend Nearchus to explore the Arabian Sea;Archias, Androsthenes, and Hieron on sepa-rate expeditions to explore the Arabianpeninsula; and unnamed explorers to explorethe Caspian Sea. Arrian, the Greek biogra-pher of Alexander, wrote that Alexander hadmany questions regarding the Caspian:whether or not it was linked to the Black Seaor connected to an outer ocean, and if not,what rivers fed the Caspian.

Alexander has been the object of muchdiscussion among ancient and modern histo-rians, who debate what his motives were inplanning and carrying out his ten-year con-quest of the Persian Empire. Some seeAlexander driven by an idealist desire tounite all humans under his sole rule. Othersargue that Alexander was a megalomaniacconqueror like so many other tyrants beforeand since. A possible interpretation for thehistorian of science is that Alexander’s con-quests were fueled by a deep personal moti-vation for glory and power as well as a strongdesire to confront and conquer the unknown.Arrian’s Anabasis quoted unnamed sources,perhaps Nearchus, that Alexander used a spe-cific word, pothos, to describe this longing toexplore the unknown. Arrian cited severalexamples of Alexander’s use of the word.Upon the death of King Philip, Alexander,trying to solidify his hold on power, marchednorth to the Danube River to put down re-bellions. Upon reaching the Danube, accord-ing to Arrian, Alexander longed to cross theriver.This longing was partly an insatiable cu-riosity to know. Likewise in his Indica, Arrianquoted Nearchus’s sense that Alexander’s de-sire (pothos) to know was the origin of hisplan to send Nearchus to explore the ArabianSea and Persian Gulf. Again, when Alexanderhad returned from his conquests and the dis-astrous journey across the Gedrosian Desert,upon reaching Persepolis he again felt theyearning for discovery, and wished to see thePersian Gulf for himself. Arrian cited various

writers who claimed that Alexander had alonging to see and conquer much more, in-cluding Arabia and Africa, both of which heproposed to circumnavigate, the latter all theway to the Pillars of Heracles at the Strait ofGibraltar. He was also interested in Sicily andItaly, having heard of the Romans’ growingstrength, and also longed to explore the Eux-ine Sea (as the Black Sea was called in antiq-uity) and conquer the savage Scythians to thenorth.

See also Aristotle; Arrian; Geography/Geodesy;Hellenism; Nearchus of Crete; Plutarch

ReferencesArrian. Anabasis and Indica. Translated by P. A.

Brunt and E. Iliff Robson. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1933, 1976.

Ehrenberg,Victor. Alexander and the Greeks.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Fox, Robin Lane. The Search for Alexander. Boston:Little, Brown, 1979.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

AlexandriaAlexandria, founded and named by Alexan-der the Great in 331 BCE, became the lead-ing center of science and thought in the an-cient world from 300 BCE to 500 CE. As thecenter of Hellenistic culture after Alexander’sdeath in 323 and supported by Ptolemy I andhis successors, Alexandria brought together ahost of different scientists, philosophers, cul-tures, and peoples.This dynamic, cosmopoli-tan mix ensured that the city would be vi-brant, diverse, sometimes chaotic, and calmneither in its political affairs nor in its intel-lectual debates.

Alexandria was the namesake of Alexanderthe Great, the enigmatic Macedonian con-queror who founded the city after having re-cently sacked the Phoenician city of Tyre andthe Palestinian city of Gaza. Alexander hadarrived in Egypt fresh also from defeatingDarius III at the Battle of Issus. He came toEgypt as a liberator for Egypt from Persiancontrol; the Egyptians responded by naming

Alexandria 9

him pharaoh of Egypt. Alexander knew thathis emerging empire encompassing EasternEurope, northern Africa, and western Asiawould require a center of trade, government,and learning. He had the foresight to see thata city at the mouth of the Nile River wouldfulfill that role.

The ancient biographers Arrian andPlutarch related that Alexander sailed downthe Nile to its mouth, then along theMediterranean coast a brief distance to a nat-ural harbor, formed by a quiet lagoon situatedbetween the mainland and an island calledPharos. The harbor was protected from thefresh westerly breeze, and the island hinted ofits importance as a seamark for sailors.Alexander decided that such a location wouldbe perfect for the kind of city he envisioned.He himself eagerly set out the plan of thetown, using barley meal to set the bound-aries. According to Plutarch, Alexander con-ceived of the city as a semicircular arc pro-ceeding from one point in equal segments.Alexander wanted a city built according tothe theories of Hippodamus of Miletus, whobelieved in an ordered city of rectangularstreets and buildings where the predominantshape would be the right angle. Alexanderdeparted, leaving others to complete his vi-sion; he appointed a student of Hippodamus,Deinocrates of Rhodes, as lead architect andplanner. Deinocrates was notable for buildingthe Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a wonderof the world, and for accompanying Alexan-der on his conquest of Persia; he built the fab-ulous funeral pyre in honor of Alexander’sfriend Hephaistion. Deinocrates designed thecity to be wide, with a central boulevard con-necting different quarters of peoples andplaces. A series of canals and other hydraulicmasterpieces were built by Crates of Olyn-thus. A causeway connected the island ofPharos to the mainland, which itself was avast peninsula practically surrounded bywater. The causeway formed two harbors oneither side; the harbor to the east was en-closed and able to host scores of ships. Thesouthern part of the city had important har-

bors on Lake Mareotis. Upon Alexander’sdeath, one of his successors, Ptolemy,marched to Egypt with Alexander’s em-balmed corpse, set himself up as pharaoh, andbuilt a tomb for Alexander.

Ptolemy I inaugurated the idea of a massivelighthouse constructed on Pharos; his succes-sor Ptolemy II Philadelphus completed it,using the talents of the architect Sostratus ofCnidus. The lighthouse, subsequently calledsimply Pharos, was justifiably considered oneof the seven wonders of the ancient world. Itwas built in three levels— the first rectangu-lar, the second hexagonal, the third a cylinderculminating in the pinnacle, where stood amassive fire fed by wood and resin.The ElderPliny implied that the fire burned continu-ously. Some scholars have hypothesized theexistence of mirrors that illuminated theflame. Its builders dedicated Pharos to Zeusand Poseidon. One inscription states that Sos-tratos called upon the gods to preserve thelives of mariners. Pliny praised Ptolemy II forallowing Sostratos the honor of an inscriptionwith his name as builder. Pharos survived fornearly fifteen hundred years, during which itfascinated scores of travelers, sailors, writers,and scientists. It helped to make Alexandria acenter of trade, culture, and learning.

Other prime attractions in HellenisticAlexandria were the museum and the library.The museum, reputedly sponsored byPtolemy I working with Aristotle’s studentDemetrius of Phaleron, housed scholars whoengaged in research, writing, speaking, andsymposia, which even included the pharaohs.The library adjoined the museum and held upto seven hundred thousand papyrus scrolls.Pliny the Elder claimed that papyrus parch-ment came into being with the creation ofAlexandria. Directors of the library includedthe likes of Apollonius of Rhodes, the authorof Argonautica, and Eratosthenes of Cyrene,the geographer. Great thinkers lived andworked in Alexandria—Euclid, the mathe-matician, author of Elements; Ctesibius, thepneumatic engineer, thought to have workedwith water clocks; Timochares, an architect

10 Alexandria

who worked with magnets; Hero, the mathe-matician and engineer; Potamo, founder ofthe Eclectic school of philosophy and authorof Elements of Philosophy;and physicians such asHerophilus, Erasistratus, and Serapion. Oneof the great thinkers of the ancient world,Claudius Ptolemaeus, the astronomer, geog-rapher, and mathematician, lived and workedin Alexandria. Such scholars made Alexandriathe leading center of thought in the ancientworld, eclipsing even Athens, Antioch,Rome, and Constantinople.

As the years passed, even as the RomanEmpire began to have problems and decline,Alexandria continued to be a bright light oflearning in the eastern Mediterranean. Dur-ing the age of Constantine, for example, themathematician Hypatia lived and taught atAlexandria, as did her father, Theon, also amathematician as well as a physicist, as-tronomer, and commentator on the works,the Almagest, of Ptolemy. Other importantmathematicians included Diophantus, Pap-pas, and Proclus.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Apollonius ofPerga; Engineering and Technology;Erasistratus; Eratosthenes; Euclid; Hellenism;Hero; Hypatia of Alexandria; Mathematics;Ptolemaeus, Claudius; Seven Wonders of theAncient World

ReferencesArrian. Anabasis and Indica. Translated by P. A.

Brunt and E. Iliff Robson. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1933, 1976.

Casson, Lionel. Libraries in the Ancient World. NewHaven:Yale University Press, 2001.

Empereur, Jean-Yves. Alexandria Rediscovered. NewYork: George Brazziler, 1998.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Hamilton, J. R. Alexander the Great. Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974.

Jones,Tom B. In the Twilight of Antiquity.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1978.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Plutarch. Life of Alexander. Translated byBernadotte Perrin. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1986.

Ammianus Marcellinus(325–395 CE)Ammianus Marcellinus was a soldier turnedhistorian during the Later Roman Empire.He was a native of Antioch in Syria, a Greekfrom an aristocratic family who served in theRoman military under the emperors Con-stantius II and Julian. As a soldier he traveledthroughout the Roman Empire, from Gaul(France) in the west to the eastern extremeof the empire at Mesopotamia (Tigris andEuphrates river valleys). Marcellinus was awell-educated man who in his surviving His-tory was willing to discuss and speculate upona variety of natural and human phenomena.In the role of a man of affairs and historianwho occasionally dipped into the world of thescientist, he mirrored his hero Cornelius Tac-itus, the great historian of the Roman Princi-pate. Indeed, Ammianus Marcellinus con-ceived his massive History to be a continuationof the Histories of Tacitus. The first fourteenbooks of Marcellinus’s History are lost. In thesurviving books, however, we have a full nar-rative account of many of the events offourth-century Rome, as well as plentiful dis-cussions of the lands and peoples of Romeand its enemies. Marcellinus was a pagan dur-ing a time when Christianity was becomingmore widespread throughout the RomanEmpire and most emperors (except Marcelli-nus’s hero Julian) were Christian. Antiochwas one of the cultural centers of the easternMediterranean. Marcellinus had a classicaleducation and was familiar with the bestwriters and thinkers of the Greco-Romanworld.

Because of the many years in which Ammi-anus Marcellinus traveled about the RomanEmpire as a soldier and the wide variety ofpeoples and places he saw, his History is partic-ularly useful in its geographic and ethno-graphic descriptions. In Book 14, for exam-ple, Marcellinus described the Saracens, anomadic people living on the fringes of theempire near Arabia. The men were greathorsemen but not agriculturalists. Plowingthe soil was eschewed by men who lived on

Ammianus Marcellinus 11

horseback under the great canopy of the opensky and twinkling stars of night. Of the Gauls,whom Marcellinus had come to know in war,he wrote of their irrepressible courage, par-ticularly exhibited by Gaulish matrons whofought with the same fury and strength astheir husbands. Marcellinus was particularlygood at describing the Alps, the Rhine River,the Rhone River, Mesopotamia, and otherplaces that he had seen on his travels.

At other times, eschewing experience forthe wisdom of other sources, Marcellinus re-lied on authors whom he considered like-minded, such as Strabo the geographer andPliny the natural historian. For his long andfascinating discussion of the Euxine (Black)Sea, in which he mixed legend, myth, andnatural history, Marcellinus used Pliny andStrabo extensively. From Strabo, Marcellinuslearned of the Druids, whom he compared toPythagorean philosophers in their attempts touncover the essence of things, and the Eu-hages, also of Britain, who pried into themysteries of nature. For his description ofEgyptian hieroglyphics, he relied onPlutarch, Seneca, and Diodorus Siculus. Plinythe Elder’s Natural History assisted Marcelli-nus in wading through the varied theories toaccount for the rising of the Nile River inEgypt. Marcellinus knew from Eratosthenesthat the sun was directly overhead at the sum-mer solstice at Syrene. He identified thesource of the word “pyramid” from the Greekpyre, or fire, the flames of which form a pointas they rise. Marcellinus was heavily depend-ent upon Herodotus for his discussion of Per-sia. However, when he took time to considerthe origins of pearls, that they are formed bythe rays of the moon, he relied upon his ownsingular imagination.

As an astronomer Marcellinus was not, ofcourse, original, relying heavily on his fore-bears, particularly Claudius Ptolemy. Theuniverse of the Later Roman Empire wasgeocentric, the moon closest to the earth,the sun in the third spot between Venus andMars.The inaccuracies of such a system weredaunting for an Aristotle or a Ptolemy and

simply overwhelming for a lesser thinkersuch as Marcellinus. His account of a solareclipse in 360 CE is fascinating for its de-scription of the darkness of the day such thatstars could be seen. Marcellinus knew that alunar eclipse occurred when the moon stoodat the opposite extreme of the spherical pathor elliptic of the sun. Marcellinus’s explana-tion of rainbows was accurate that the lightof the sun confronting mist in the atmos-phere forms the rainbow. He thought, how-ever, that the rainbow is opposite in respectto the sun, rather like what happens in histheory of the lunar eclipse, and it extendsacross the entire starry vault of the heavens.Marcellinus’s theory of meteors fit perfectlythe ancient conception of the spiritual natureof the heavenly bodies. He condemned theidea that meteors are physical bodies—rather they are sparks of heaven, or at leastrays of light produced by the confrontationof sunlight and dense clouds.

Northwestern Turkey, even today subjectto frequent tremors of the earth, experi-enced an earthquake in August of 358: Mar-cellinus was (perhaps) an eyewitness.The cityof Nicomedia was flattened by the earth-quake, which indicated its coming by thedarkness of the sky and terrible thunder-storms revealing the anger of the gods. Mar-cellinus duly presented an extensive discus-sion on the cause of earthquakes, describingthe views of Aristotle, that water surgingthrough fissures in the earth is the cause; ofAnaxagoras, that it is subterranean winds;and Anaximander, that it is an earth either toodry or soaked by rains that succumbs to theforce of wind.

Marcellinus’s history is a narrative of causeand effect, with arbitrary actions of Adrastia(Nemesis) underlying this. As the universalspiritual power pervades the earth and cos-mos, some humans, exercising prescience,gain knowledge of the future with the help ofThemis, who makes known what fate has de-termined. The gods send birds, the flight ofwhich, the noises they make, the path theypursue, indicate the future for the clever

12 Ammianus Marcellinus

augur. Another source of future knowledgecomes from the sun, Helios, the life andbreath of the universe who sends thought (di-vine sparks) to the human seeking mentalawareness.

Ammianus Marcellinus was a supporter ofJulian, the emperor and Neoplatonist. Mar-cellinus’s conception of human and naturalhistory was that of a Neoplatonist—believingthat the source of all being exudes from theinvisible One. Like Julian as well, he had theStoic belief in the order of things and in theimportance of human experience in the ac-quisition of knowledge.

See also Astronomy; History; Julian; LaterRoman Empire; Neoplatonism; Pliny theElder; Stoicism; Strabo;Tacitus

ReferencesRolfe, John C., trans. Ammianus Marcellinus. 2 vols.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950.Rowell, H. Ammianus Marcellinus, Soldier Historian

of the Late Roman Empire. 1964.Thompson, E. A. The Historical Work of Ammianus

Marcellinus. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1947.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae(500–428 BCE)Anaxagoras, a native of the Ionian town ofClazomenae, was one of the last members ofthe Ionian school. He was influenced by hispredecessors Thales, Anaximander, andAnaximenes. Anaxagoras was a questionerwho sought explanations for the ultimate ori-gins of all phenomena. According to Dioge-nes Laertius, Linus of Thebes, a poet whowrote a cosmology that featured a centralcausative power, mind (nous), influencedAnaxagoras. Anaxagoras spent his youth dur-ing a period of Persian occupation of westernTurkey.After the Persian Wars he migrated toAthens at the invitation of Pericles, the greatgeneral and leader. Plutarch claimed in hisLife of Pericles that Anaxagoras, who was nick-named nous, helped to form the philosophicmind of Pericles. Some historians believe thatPericles’ concubine Aspasia, a native Milesianinclined toward philosophy, was influential in

bringing Anaxagoras to Athens. Anaxagoras,the student of the Milesian Anaximenes, hada major impact on the development of scien-tific speculation in Athens, as his students in-cluded Archelaus, who was himself theteacher of Socrates.

Anaxagoras reputedly wrote a treatise,Physics, in which he stated his belief that allexistence is encompassed by nous, an infiniteand transcendent presence of which humanspartake, and by which humans can know re-ality. Anaxagoras, according to Plutarch, ini-tiated among philosophers the cosmology ofa universe that is not the result of chance orwhim but reason. One can clearly see the in-fluence of Anaximander and Anaximenes onAnaxagoras’s conception of infinity.Anaxago-ras hypothesized that there are infinite parti-cles moving in an infinite space of ether. Herehe anticipated the atomists. The glue, as itwere, that holds this infinite multiplicity to-gether is mind.

Anaxagoras’s concept of mind is a highlyoriginal idea similar to the Hebrew Yahweh,the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten’s Aten, andthe Stoic logos. Mind (nous) is a universalforce, the first cause, the knower of all things,yet unique in its singularity, its aloofness fromhuman concerns. Mind is self-reliant, havingno need for anything besides itself. Infinite andeternal, it encompasses time and knowledge.

As an astronomer and physicist, Anaxago-ras made some startling discoveries. He wasthe first to understand the true nature oflunar and solar eclipses because he was thefirst to understand that the moon producesno light of its own but merely reflects thelight of the sun. The commentator Aëtiuswrote that “Anaxagoras, in agreement withthe mathematicians, held that the moon’s ob-scurations month by month were due to itsfollowing the course of the sun by which it isilluminated, and that the eclipses of the moonwere caused by its falling within the shadowof the earth, which then comes between thesun and the moon, while the eclipses of thesun were due to the interposition of themoon” (Heath 1913).

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae 13

Anaxagoras also had a remarkable inter-pretation of the origins of the universe. In thebeginning “all things were together” andnothing was separate. Mind made the wholeto revolve. As it turned, “in consequence ofthe violence of the whirling motion, the sur-rounding fiery aether tore stones away fromthe earth and kindled them into stars” (Heath1913). In time, the air and ether were sepa-rated and formed two realms wherein werethe opposites of wet and dry, cold and hot,dark and light. Echoing Thales, Anaxagorasbelieved that the moist and cold produced theearth and the dry and hot the heavens. Theheavenly bodies, he agreed with his teacherAnaximenes, are stones of fire. Anaxagoras

broke from most ancient astronomers in hisbelief that the order of the heavenly bodiesorbiting Earth was Moon, Sun, Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.

One can see a direct influence of thethought of Anaxagoras upon Socrates andPlato, and therefore all of Western philosophyand science. The Platonic vision of a realityunperceived by the senses was inspired byIonian philosophers such as Anaxagoras.Socrates, in the Phaedo, claimed that Anaxago-ras set him on the path of seeking the essenceof what is in mind.

See also Anaximenes of Miletus; Archelaus ofAthens; Astronomy; Athens; Greek ClassicalAge; Ionians; Physical Sciences; Socrates

14 Anaxagoras of Clazomenae

Ionian philosopher and scientist Anaxagoras (500–428 BCE), tutor to Pericles and Archelaus. Engraving from ca. 1493.(From Hartmann Schedel, Liber Chronicorum Mundi, Nuremberg Chronicle.) (Hulton Archive)

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1981.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

Anaximander of Miletus(610–540 BCE)Anaximander was the student of Thales, aleader in the early development of the Ionianschool of thought. He continued his teacher’ssearch to discover the one source of allthings, whether material or spiritual. Thaleshad argued for the origin of all things inwater; Anaximander sought the unity of allthings in the uncreated, unlimited infinite(apeiron). Anaximander engaged in the con-tradictory pursuit of imposing limits and def-initions on the limitless that by its very natureis indefinable.Yet he was the first ancient sci-entist to try to explain all phenomena ac-cording to a single principle.

Anaximander reputedly wrote a book, OnNature, but nothing survives from it except byparaphrase and a quote or two found in thecommentators of later antiquity. Plutarch,Simplicius, Hippolytus, and Diogenes Laer-tius, among others, recorded the general out-line of Anaximander’s principle of the infiniteand its necessary corollaries, that there hasbeen, is, and will always exist an unendingcycle of creation and destruction, for whatpurpose is unclear. This infinite is an anony-mous, impersonal force, not a personal deitybut rather an amoral, eternal absolute that istruly unrecognizable to humans. The infiniteas a creative principle made the earth, whichis a cylinder that rests in air surrounded by themoon, sun, planets, and stars, all made of fire.Parenthetically, Anaximander would add thatan infinite universe must accommodate an in-finite number of worlds.We see the heavenly

bodies because the fire protrudes throughgaps or holes in the air. The heavenly bodiesvary in size, though they are all equally distantfrom the earth. The sun, the source ofwarmth, acting upon water produces life.Thefirst form of life, rather like a fish, crawled upon land and eventually ended up looking re-markably like humans. Not surprisingly,Anaximander rarely had fish for dinner.

The ancients claimed other accomplish-ments for Anaximander. The geographerAgathemerus wrote that Anaximander wasthe first to draw a map of the earth, whichmust have been on a long and narrow parch-ment. Hecataeus reputedly used Anaximan-der’s map as the basis for his own. Pliny theElder believed that Anaximander was the firstto use a globe, even if it was awkwardlyshaped. Diogenes Laertius recorded thatAnaximander was the first to introduce to theGreeks the sundial or gnomon, with which togauge time by day and to approximate thesummer and winter solstices and the fall andspring equinoxes. Herodotus, however, as-signed these scientific accomplishments tothe Mesopotamians, from whom, perhaps,Anaximander took his own ideas. Many ofAnaximander’s ideas were carried forward byhis fellow Milesian and disciple, Anaximenes.

See also Anaximenes of Miletus;Geography/Geodesy; Greek Archaic Age;Hecataeus of Miletus; Physical Sciences;Thales

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1981.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Anaximenes of Miletus(585–525 BCE)Anaximenes of Miletus was the student ofAnaximander and the teacher of Anaxago-ras. He was an important figure in the de-velopment of the Ionian school because he

Anaximenes of Miletus 15

continued the focus of inquiry established byhis predecessors Thales and Anaximander.Anaximenes, like his teacher, believed thatthere is a constant indivisible source of allbeing, all existence. Thales believed waterwas the primal element and Anaximanderthought it was the infinite, but Anaximenespointed to air as the source of all things. Airis always changing, always in movement; itscondition of relative heat or cold generatesother founding substances such as water,fire, and earth.

Like his predecessors, nothing survivesfrom Anaximenes’ own pen. Later commen-tators, notably Hippolytus, Plutarch, andAristotle, summarized and assessed his be-liefs. Anaximenes believed that the earth,planets, sun, and moon are literally “sus-pended in mid-air”—all heavenly bodies areround, flat disks that ride upon the all-en-compassing air. The earth existed first, andthen moisture from the earth became rarifiedand produced the bright, fiery heavenly bod-ies. The planets and sun orbit about the flatinhabited top of the earth, but they never passunderneath. The sun is sometimes hidden(night) because it is obscured by highlands tothe west. Sir Thomas Heath (1913) arguedthat Anaximenes understood the planets(“wanderers”) to behave differently from thestars—the former were moved about by theair; the latter were fixed to the vault ofheaven. Anaximenes also believed that thestars were a much greater distance from theearth.The sun gives off heat because of its rel-atively close proximity to the earth.

Anaximenes’ meteorological beliefs appearmore sophisticated. He had realistic assess-ments of rainbows, caused by the light of thesun and the moisture of the clouds. He real-ized that moisture dropping from the cloudscould become cold and solid: hail and snow.Anaximenes clearly believed that hot and coldhad a tremendous impact upon the earth, pro-ducing, among other things, earthquakes.

The impact of heat and cold on matterplays an important role in the physical uni-verse. Plutarch recorded Anaximenes’ view

that hard substances are cold, and fluid sub-stances are hot. Anaximenes’ argument thatthe cooling of air is the cause of much that ex-ists laid the groundwork for later generationsto seek the chemical properties of the basicsubstances of existence: earth, air, fire,water. Atomists especially appreciatedAnaximenes’ work. One can see his influenceon the thinking of Lucretius the Epicurean.Anaximenes also had a direct impact onAnaxagoras and through him the philoso-phers and scientists of fifth-century Athens.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Anaximanderof Miletus; Astronomy; Ionians; Meteorology;Miletus; Physical Sciences

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1987.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. LoebClassical Library, 1931, 1938.

Apollonius of Perga (floruit235 BCE)Apollonius of Perga was a Hellenistic mathe-matician, geometer, and astronomer. Likemany of the great Hellenistic mathemati-cians, Apollonius studied and taught atAlexandria. An Ionian, he also taught at Eph-esus in Asia Minor. Apollonius wrote one ofthe definitive works on geometry of the an-cient world. His Conics was a masterpiece ofexamining the intersection of the cone andplane. He coined the terms for many geo-metrical shapes, such as the hyperbola, el-lipse, and parabola. Apollonius was a prolificwriter of treatises on geometric shapes. HisUniversal Treatise tried to show in Platonicfashion that geometry is the fundamentalbasis of thought and the means to uncover thetruth. Apollonius also wrote on irrationalnumbers and the means to arrive at quickcomputations. The latter treatise revealed adeep thinker with a practical mind. Apollo-nius was not just a theoretician but an inven-tor as well, working with hydraulics and time

16 Apollonius of Perga

measurement. He built a highly accurate sun-dial at the same time that other Hellenistic as-tronomers, such as Aristarchus, were experi-menting with such devices. Apolloniusinfluenced the mathematics and astronomy ofHipparchus and anticipated the theories ofepicycles and eccentrics used by Ptolemy inthe Almagest.

See also Astronomy; Euclid; Hipparchus;Mathematics; Ptolemaeus, Claudius

ReferencesCrowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from

Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York:Dover Books, 1990.

Durant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1939.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:Dover Books, 1913.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

Archelaus of Athens (floruit fifthcentury BCE)Archelaus was the student of Anaxagoras andthe teacher of Socrates. He was a transitionalfigure in the movement of the Ionian schoolof thought to Athens where it would find itsgreatest exponents in Socrates, Plato, andAristotle. Archelaus was probably born atAthens, though some accounts claim he was anative of Miletus.At any rate he had the samescientific interests as the Milesians.This debtis clearly seen in Archelaus’s ideas that heatand cold are the two basic principles of mat-ter and that life emerged from mud. LikeAnaxagoras he believed that mind (nous) is theinitial cause, the essence of being. He antici-pated Aristotle by arguing that hot is move-ment and cold is rest. Hippolytus, the LateRoman writer, noted that Archelaus believedin the four elements of air, water, fire, andearth, arguing like Thales that water becom-ing rarefied generates air and earth—the lat-ter being at rest in the center of the universe,the former being the substance upon whichthe earth is suspended. As an astronomer,Archelaus was hardly original, although Hip-polytus recorded Archelaus’s belief that theearth must be spherical because it is hollow.

Archelaus assigned thought to animals as wellas humans, though by degree of complexityone excels the other in the development ofthe attributes of civilization.

How precisely Archelaus influencedSocrates is unclear. Diogenes Laertiusclaimed that philosophy took a turn withSocrates because of his development ofethics, a field of thought he learned fromArchelaus. More important, Socrates be-lieved mind was the essence of all things andreality is immaterial and transcendent, whichwere ideas clearly developed by the Ionianschool of thought, in particular by Anaxago-ras.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Athens;Elements; Ionians; Miletus; Socrates

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Archimedes (287–212 BCE)Archimedes of Syracuse was one of the an-cient world’s great scientists, mathemati-cians, and engineers. In mathematics, hiswork on geometry, particularly cones,spheres, and cylinders, was unsurpassed. Heanticipated calculus and studied in depth hy-drostatics, mechanics, matter, and force. Heperfected the screw used in irrigation andsolved many engineering problems associatedwith the use of the pulley, wedge, and lever.In geodesy, Archimedes estimated the cir-cumference of the earth to be 300,000 stadia.Archimedes was the first to study and makean accurate approximation of pi (π).

Archimedes, like other ancient engi-neers, plied his craft in making fascinatinginventions, particularly in military science.During the Second Punic War and the battlefor Sicily in 212 BCE, the Romans laid siegeto the Greek city of Syracuse, ruled byHiero. The king compelled Archimedes to

Archimedes 17

apply his inventions based on research intothe principles of mechanics to help defendthe city. Plutarch, in his Life of Marcellus, de-scribed the fascinating array of military de-vices that Archimedes had invented. Al-though the Romans took the city and

Archimedes was killed, they were aston-ished by the incredible power ofArchimedes’ machines. Huge cranes wereable to latch onto Roman triremes and pickthem up and dash them against the walls ofthe city and rocks below.

18 Archimedes

Renaissance engraving of Archimedes (ca. 287–212 BCE), Greek mathematician and inventor. (Bettmann/Corbis)

As Mathematician and AstronomerArchimedes reputedly discovered thirteensolids that are known by means of the Mathe-matical Collection of Pappus of Alexandria.These solids were as follows: the truncatedtetrahedron, the cuboctahedron, the truncatedoctahedron, the truncated cube, the rhom-bicuboctahedron, the truncated cuboctahe-dron, the icosidodecahedron, the truncatedicosahedron, the truncated dodecahedron, thesnub cube, the rhombicosidodecahedron, thetruncated icosidodecahedron, and the snubdodecahedron. He claimed to be the first toform explanatory postulates on the surface ofthe sphere, the radii of circles, and the mea-surements of the cylinder. Aristarchus appliedsuch principles to astronomy, declaring thatthe “universe” is a “sphere, the centre of whichis the centre of the earth, while its radius isequal to the straight line between the centre ofthe sun and the centre of the earth” (Heath1913).

As Hydraulic EngineerArchimedes developed several basic proposi-tions of hydraulics that became a basis formany of his inventions. His studies of fluiddisplacement showed that when pressure isapplied to a given volume of water the partunder pressure will necessarily displace an-other part not under the same pressure. Heexamined the weight of objects relative tovolume of water: a solid of the same weight asa proportional amount of fluid will float atjust below the surface. A solid of lesserweight than a proportional amount of fluidwill extend part of its surface above thewater. The amount of water displaced by thesolid is of the same weight as the water. If asolid is forced into water the reciprocal forceis proportional to the weight of the water andweight of the water displaced.

See also Engineering and Technology; Hellenism;Irrigation Techniques; Mathematics; Plutarch

ReferencesDurant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1939.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:Dover Books, 1913.

Plutarch. Makers of Rome. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1965.

Thatcher, Oliver J., ed. The Library of OriginalSources. Vol. 3, The Roman World, pp. 286–292.Milwaukee: University Research Extension,1907.

ArchitectureSee Engineering and Technology

Aristarchus of Samos(310–230 BCE)Aristarchus of Samos was a mathematicianwho was the first human to argue that thesun, not the earth, was the center of the uni-verse. Aristarchus was a theorist more thanan empiricist. His treatise, On the Sizes andDistances of the Sun and Moon, provided thetheoretical, mathematical basis for measure-ments of the heavenly bodies and calculationsof their distances. Aristarchus was a Peri-patetic philosopher, the student of Strato whowas himself the student of Theophrastus.

On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun andMoon suggests the respective size of the moonand sun based on measuring their radii and,using geometric and trigonometric tech-niques based on angles of observation, esti-mates of the relative distances of the sun andmoon from the earth. Aristarchus’s estimatethat the sun is almost twenty times the dis-tance from the earth as the moon was an un-derestimate of 50 percent. His estimate thatthe sun’s diameter is seven times that of theearth was a dramatic underestimate (109times).Aristarchus’s hypothesis that the earthmoves about the sun, which is the true centerof the universe, is known from Archimedesand Plutarch. Archimedes reported thatAristarchus conceived of the earth’s orbit ascircular and the distance of the fixed starsfrom the center of the universe (sun) to be

Aristarchus of Samos 19

much greater than hitherto thought. Thisawareness of the astonishing distances of thestars allowed him to realize that the realmovements of the stars respective to theearth (parallax) cannot be observed (withoutprecise scientific instruments). FollowingHeraclides of Pontus, Aristarchus also arguedthat the earth orbits on its own axis.

How Aristarchus conceived of this theoryis subject to speculation. One possibility isthat he assumed that the sun’s greater size ne-cessitated that the earth orbit it rather thanvice versa. He could also have been influ-enced by Pythagorean philosophers such asPhilolaus who suggested that all the heavenlybodies orbit about a central fire.

See also Archimedes; Astronomy; Hellenism;Heraclides of Pontus; Peripatetic School;Philolaus

ReferencesAristarchus. “On the Sizes and Distances of the

Sun and Moon.” In Sir Thomas Heath.Aristarchus of Samos. 1913; reprint ed., NewYork: Dover Books, 1987.

Crowe, Michael J. Theories of the World fromAntiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York:Dover Books, 1990.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1987.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE)Aristotle was the greatest scientist of the an-cient world.A student of Plato,Aristotle wasthe teacher of Alexander the Great and thefounder of the Peripatetic school of thought.Aristotle mastered all objects of inquiry, in-cluding metaphysics, physics, logic, politics,ethics, poetry, zoology, biology, astronomy,geography, natural history, psychology, andmagic and astrology. His vast writings in-clude Metaphysics, Physics, Nichomachean Ethics,Politics, and Poetics. Aristotle was one of thefirst empirical thinkers, although he gener-ally relied on tried-and-true methods of sci-ence: observation, collection, and catego-rization of specimens, analysis of data,induction, and deduction. Aristotle’s mas-tery of the subjects he studied gained him the

reputation in subsequent centuries as an in-fallible guide to natural phenomena and phi-losophy. After 1500 CE, in light of new dis-coveries by Copernicus, Galileo, Newton,and others, many of Aristotle’s theories wererejected, although his influence on modernscience is undeniable.

Aristotle was born in the small town ofStagira in Thrace, a primitive outpost ofGreek culture east of Macedonia. His fatherwas a wealthy court physician to the kings ofMacedonia. Thus Aristotle spent his earlyyears at Pella, the capital of King Amyntas andhis successor King Philip II.Aristotle, seekingto follow in his father’s footsteps as a scientistand physician, journeyed south to Athens in366. He became a student at the Academy,Plato’s school in Athens.Aristotle became thephilosopher’s most famous student. At theAcademy, Aristotle fit in as a wealthy aristo-crat, but his Thracian/Macedonian back-ground plagued him among condescendingAthenians. In the end, Aristotle’s superior in-tellect silenced all criticism.

From Plato, Aristotle learned of the uni-versal truth, which Socrates termed “theGood.” Plato and his teacher Socrates be-lieved that the Good and other transcendentideals such as Justice and Beauty cannot beknown or seen but rather are beyond humanconception—what we call the good, justice,and beauty are mere shadows of the truth.Aristotle, however, questioned whether suchtruths are beyond human comprehension—perhaps they are every bit a part of humanexperience. Plato taught his students at theAcademy that the best means to approach anunderstanding of truth was through reason,the study of mathematics and music, intu-ition, and intense and deep contemplation.Aristotle, less the mystical and more thepragmatic thinker, broke from his teacher byadopting the scientific approach to human be-havior, natural philosophy, natural science,ethics, and metaphysics. Aristotle alsolearned from Plato of being (ousia), the divineessence, from which all things derive. Aris-totle did not abandon this religious interpre-

20 Aristotle

tation of the ultimate reality but brought sci-ence to bear to discover and to understand it.For Aristotle, then, science is a pious act todiscover the nature of goodness, justice,virtue, and being. Human experience is an es-sential matter for study, since the better sortof human beings echo being itself.

Upon Plato’s death,Aristotle left what wasno doubt a hostile and competitive situationamong Plato’s students, each jockeying totake the place of the master. Aristotle jour-neyed to a small kingdom in Asia Minor(present-day Turkey) where he became courtphilosopher to King Hermias. Aristotle mar-ried the king’s daughter but soon fled (withhis wife) upon the tragic assassination of theking.Aristotle ended up back in Macedonia in343, this time as tutor to the royal princeAlexander. Legend has it that Philip enticedAristotle to return to Pella, an intellectualand cultural backwater compared to Athens,with a tempting salary and a promise: Stagirahaving been destroyed and its population en-slaved in one of Philip’s campaigns, Philipproposed that in return for Aristotle’s ser-vices the king would rebuild the town andbring the inhabitants out of slavery. Aristotleagreed to the terms.

Alexander eventually became king ofMacedonia in 336 upon his father’s assassina-tion and then spent the next thirteen years ofhis life conquering Greece, Asia Minor, Pales-tine, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan—all ofwhich made up the Persian Empire. Alexan-der was a warrior, conqueror, and megaloma-niac who thought himself to be the heroic sonof the king of the gods, Zeus. And yet,strangely, Aristotle, who eschewed the life ofa warrior, had been his teacher for three yearsduring the impressionable years from thirteento sixteen. Indeed, below the surface ofAlexander’s actions one can see hints thatAlexander had adopted the life of a philoso-pher, that he thought of himself as a scientist,even a physician. Alexander, for example,composed letters to Aristotle that includedsamples of plant and animal life that the kinghad gathered for his teacher’s collection.

In the meantime Aristotle had left Macedo-nia for Athens, where he opened his school,the Lyceum.The philosopher eventually brokewith Alexander over the death of Aristotle’sgrandnephew Callisthenes, a philosopher andhistorian who accompanied Alexander’s expe-dition. Callisthenes was implicated in a plot toassassinate the king and was executed. Evenso, the Athenians associated Aristotle withAlexander, who was very unpopular inAthens. Upon Alexander’s death in 323, theAthenians felt free enough to throw off theshackles imposed on them by Alexander—and one shackle was represented by Alexan-der’s former teacher. Aristotle was eventuallyforced to flee the city and abandon his school.He died soon after, in 322 BCE.

LogicAristotle is perhaps best known today as a lo-gician. He created a system of thought based

Aristotle 21

Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Greek philosopher and scientist,student of Plato, and teacher of Alexander the Great. Statuein the village of Stayira, Halkidiki, Greece. (CorelCorporation)

on fundamental assumptions that one cannotdoubt—the famous a priori truths. WhereasPlato believed that one must accomplishknowledge of truth by means of reason andintuition, Aristotle believed that the philoso-pher must observe particular phenomena toarrive at an understanding of reality, a scien-tific technique known as induction. Oncetruth is known through induction from theparticular to the universal, the philosophercan engage in the process of deduction fromthe basis of the universal to arrive at otherparticular truths.Aristotle’s system of logic isknown as syllogism. For example, assume thefollowing:

Each human can know things, eachhuman is a knower (A).

What humans collectively know (A) wecall knowledge (B).

Knowledge (B) is synonymous to reality,the truth (C).

Therefore, each individual human canknow what is the truth. If A=B andB=C, then A=C.

MetaphysicsMetaphysics is the study of reality that tran-scends the physical world. Once again a prioritruths are the basis for metaphysical studies.Aristotle assumed that there is a First Cause,an “unmoved mover,” that he defined as actu-ality, in contrast to potency, the potential,which represents movement. Aristotle ar-gued that all reality can be explained accord-ing to cause and effect, act and potential. Forexample, time is an actual phenomenon—ithas existence as a form or essence (ousia).Time acts upon human movement, providinga temporal context in which humans areborn, live, and die, all the while measuringtheir lives according to the standard of time.Aristotle further argued in Metaphysics thatone must distinguish between art and experi-ence. Art as essence is based on abstractthought—what the Greeks termed thelogos—whereas experience is based on a se-ries of particular events occurring in time. In

Poetics, Aristotle argued that poetry (art) ex-plores universals, how things ought to be,while history (historia) explains the particu-lars of human existence, how things are. Wis-dom represents the unification of art and ex-perience.

Natural ScienceAristotle’s treatise on natural science wasPhysics. Natural science, he wrote, is con-cerned with physical movement from thefirst principles of nature. Aristotle associatednature with the first cause. His unmovedmover was an amorphous divine force of cre-ation, which establishes the laws throughwhich movement—plant, animal, human ex-istence—occurs. The four causal determi-nants expressed in nature are:

The material substance that forms aphysical object.

The type or class of phenomenon (genos)to which an object belongs.

The cause of change in or movement ofan object.

The goal or purpose (telos) of movement.

Aristotle’s categorizations had a profoundimpact on the formation of a vocabulary ofscience. His notion of type or class is the basisfor our notion that a species in nature com-prises a set genus. Aristotle’s idea of goal orpurpose forms the philosophical concept ofteleology, the study of the end of natural phe-nomena, the future pole or stopping point oftime itself.

PsychologyAristotle was one of the first students of thehuman psyche. He wrote treatises on dreams,memory, the senses, prophecy, sleep, and thesoul. Aristotle believed that the soul is the ac-tuality within the potency of the body. It is theunmoved mover within each individualhuman.The mind (nous) is an expression of thesoul. Aristotle argued that each human soul ispart of a universal whole, a world soul, the ul-timate actuality, the first cause. The idea of a

22 Aristotle

soul, of course, seems to be outside the realmof scientific study. But Aristotle believed thatphilosophy and science are completelyunited—that one cannot understand naturewithout understanding thought or understandmovement without understanding being. ForGreek philosophers, the principle of truth,the meaning of any phenomenon, is the logos,which literally means word. The human soul,the world soul, is therefore the logos.

Aristotle’s study of dreams provided a ra-tional explanation of what the ancients oftenconsidered a supernatural phenomenon.Aristotle argued that the only thing “divine”about a dream is that it is part of nature,which is itself the creation of God, hence di-vine.That events turn out according to one’sdream is either coincidence or the result ofthe subtle impact of a dream on an individ-ual’s actions. No matter if a person is asleepor awake, he argued, the same quality ofsense-perception is active in acquiring infor-mation and making sense of the world.

Along with dreams, Aristotle was inter-ested in magic as an object of inquiry. Hewrote about the Asian magi, claiming thatthey were even more ancient than Egyptianastrologers and magicians.

ZoologyAristotle’s contributions to zoological studyincluded several treatises, Description of Ani-mals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals.In Parts of Animals, Aristotle noted that al-though animals are a less profound area ofstudy than the metaphysical, nevertheless it isan inquiry accessible to anyone willing to ex-plore natural history. Consistent with his Pla-tonic background, Aristotle studied animalsfor the sake of understanding the whole ofnatural history. He assumed that the source ofall good and beauty is the same source of an-imal and biological phenomena. Hence evenanimals mirror the divine. Aristotle’s Descrip-tion of Animals assigns to animals human char-acteristics of behavior such as treachery andcourage, although humans are superior to an-imals because of their deliberative capacity of

thought, especially the ability of humans torecall and analyze past experience. Aristotlediscussed the bone structure of vertebrates asbeing linked into a whole system, which in-cludes cartilage and muscles; likewise themovement of blood throughout the body ispart of a unified whole. The male animal’srole in reproduction, according to Aristotle,is an active, creative role that is not perma-nently linked to the resulting product, just asGod creates material things but is not Him-self present in His creation. In Generation ofAnimals, as in other works, Aristotle main-tained a sense of humility in respect to someof the mysteries of animal generation, charac-teristics, and behavior. He confessed in De-scription of Animals that notwithstanding hisdesire to form a clear system of classification,he found the object of inquiry too daunting totruly master.

EthicsHow, one might ask, can ethics, the ultimatebasis of behavior, the set of rules that estab-lishes the good, be understood according toscience? Aristotle believed that the tools ofscience—observation, categorization, logic,induction—could be brought to bear on thestudy of human behavior. The scientist stud-ies human behavior in its incredible varietyof contexts to arrive at general laws of howhumans act and how they should act. Howhumans act is the realm of the scientist; howhumans should act is the realm of thephilosopher. Once again, Aristotle combinedscience and philosophy into one organizedstudy. Aristotle believed that the ultimateend of human existence is happiness, whichoccurs when humans conform to “the good.”The good is accomplished when humans ex-ercise reason in accordance with virtue. Butwhat is virtue? Aristotle studied human be-havior to arrive at a definition: virtue is anaction performed for its own sake, that is, anaction performed for the sake of the good, anaction performed out of principle. Vice, theopposite of virtue, derives from actionscommitted for selfish reasons, for personal

Aristotle 23

motives. Actions that occur not because ofthe search for power, wealth, fame, and se-curity are virtuous actions.

PoliticsThe Greek philosophers before and duringAristotle’s time were the first political scien-tists. Aristotle’s contribution, The Politics, ap-plied his philosophical methods and assump-tions to the understanding of statecraft. Heargued that the state is, as it were, the actual,while the citizens are the potential.The latterare the parts (the particulars) that made upthe whole, the universal body politic. Aris-totle conceived of a pluralistic society operat-ing according to natural laws based in part onreason and necessity, a social compact amongpeople to promote security and serve theneeds of survival. Within this concept of thestate (which represents virtue) people move,act, and struggle for power and wealth. Na-ture has created a hierarchical state ofbeing—in society this is realized through un-equal ranks of people according to intelli-gence, property, gender, and personal free-dom. Aristotle argued, based on hisexperience at Athens, that slavery was justi-fied because of the inferior intellect of slaves.Likewise, he assumed that women lacked thecognitive abilities of males and thereforeshould not participate in democracy. In TheAthenian Constitution, Aristotle provided a de-tailed analysis of Athenian democracy, provid-ing details into the life and political science ofthe great Athenian lawgiver Solon.

In short, the overall goal of the state is thegood of the whole, the achievement of gen-eral happiness for all people.To Aristotle, thestate is the agency through which the citizenexercises virtue, which is how the individualattains the good, that is, happiness.

AstronomyAristotle explored his ideas on astronomy inOn the Heavens and Meteorology. Based on ob-servation, Aristotle established the sphericalnature of the earth. Viewing a lunar eclipse,Aristotle detected a slight curvature of the

shadow of the earth on the moon’s surface.He also observed that the altitude of starschanges according to changes in latitude. Healso believed, following Plato, that the spherewas the most perfect surface, hence the logi-cal shape of the earth. In On the Heavens, Aris-totle concluded that the earth’s circumfer-ence is 400,000 stadia (40,000–50,000miles, which was an overestimate of 45 per-cent). He advocated the view that there ismore water than land on the earth’s surface.The study of meteors, or falling objects fromheaven, was the focus of Meteorology. Aristotlecovered falling objects such as rain, hail,snow, and sleet, as well as cloud formations,wind patterns, and storms.

Much of Aristotle’s thought on astronomy,however, was erroneous. Observation withthe naked eye was insufficient for the study ofthe nature of the stars and planets. His theo-ries, though logical, were not empiricallybased and hence were suspect. Observationtells us that the sun rises and sets, movingacross the sky of an earth that appears per-fectly still. If the earth were moving, wouldwe not feel the motion? Further support forthe theory that the earth is at rest, the stablecenter of the solar system (the universe), wasthe direction of falling objects.Would a rockfall to the ground in a straight line if the earthwere moving? Aristotle assumed that theearth must be the center of things towardwhich terrestrial objects move. Extraterres-trial, planetary objects have form yet are nev-ertheless perfect spheres, perhaps heavenlybeings, that move in perfect spherical orbitsaround the stable earth.The universe is finite,the extreme edge being the starry vault, thefixed stars that move in an unchanging pat-tern around the planetary solar system.

The Peripatetic SchoolAristotle’s ideas, such as the model of thegeocentric universe described above, wereadvocated and defended for centuries afterthe philosopher’s death. Theophrastus tookover the helm of the Lyceum, Aristotle’sschool at Athens. He organized Aristotle’s pa-

24 Aristotle

pers and writings and pursued Aristotle’s the-ories and investigations in the physical andmetaphysical worlds. After Theophrastus’sdeath in 287 BCE, Strato assumed leadershipof the Lyceum and the Peripatetic philoso-phers. A peripatetic is one who moves aboutor walks while engaged in discussion or dis-putation. Aristotle enjoyed teaching in such away at the Lyceum. For centuries Aristotle’sdisciples were known by the master’s teach-ing style.

Aristotle’s LegacyAristotle’s teaching and writings, along withPlato’s, dominated philosophic and scientificthought for over two thousand years. Duringthe Hellenistic Age (323–31 BCE) and duringthe period of Imperial Rome (31 BCE-476CE), ancient philosophers, orators, botanists,physicians, astronomers, astrologers, andteachers, both pagan and Christian, begantheir studies with one of the many survivingtexts of Aristotle’s works. The greatest as-tronomer of the centuries after the birth ofChrist, Claudius Ptolemy, relied heavily onAristotle’s conceptions of the earth and heav-ens. Aristotle’s theories of motion and his re-liance upon deductive reasoning attracteddisciples during the European Middle Ages,not only in the primitive feudal environmentof Western Europe but in Eastern Europe aswell, especially at the great capital of theByzantine Empire, Constantinople. Indeed,Muslim scientists came into contact withAristotle’s writings, had the Greek translatedinto Arabic, and circulated them throughoutthe Muslim world, from Iran to Egypt to Mo-rocco to southern Spain. Muslim scholarssuch as Averroes became Aristotelians. Even-tually, after 1100 CE, Western European in-tellectuals translated Aristotle’s works intoLatin, which attracted the attention of the-ologians such as Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’smassive treatises on philosophy, theology, andscience, in particular Summa Theologica, wereheavily dependent on Aristotle, whomAquinas referred to simply as The Philoso-pher. During subsequent centuries of the Re-

naissance, intellectuals divided themselvesinto competing camps, the Platonists andAristotelians. Aristotle’s theories on astron-omy and motion became the starting pointfor Renaissance scientists such as Galileo,who disproved, but still owed much to, Aris-totle’s theories. Even up to 1700 in Europeand America, intellectuals and college curric-ula relied heavily on Aristotle’s teachings.Today’s courses in logic still go back to thefourth-century BCE teachings of Aristotle.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Astronomy;Hellenism; Life Sciences; Meteorology;Peripatetic School; Plato; Psychology; SocialSciences;Theophrastus

ReferencesBambrough, Renford, ed. and trans. The Philosophy

of Aristotle. New York: New American Library,1963.

Barnes, Jonathan. Aristotle. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1982.

Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renaissance.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Turner,William. “Aristotle.” Catholic Encyclopedia.New York:The Encyclopedia Press, 1913.

Wheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle. NewYork: Odyssey Press, 1951.

Arrian (89–180 CE)Flavius Arrianus Xenophon,Arrian, is impor-tant to the history of science as a compilerand commentator on the works of others.Ar-rian wrote the Anabasis, one of the most im-portant sources for the study of the reign ofAlexander the Great, in which Alexander’sscientific interests are discussed at length.Ar-rian’s Indica, a literary and scientific ap-pendage to the Anabasis, is the account ofNearchus’s voyage from the Indus River tothe Tigris River in 325 BCE. In both of theseworks Arrian discussed Greek exploration,the geography and anthropology of Asia, andthe scientific inclinations of these violent,warring Macedonians. Arrian’s third majorcontribution to the literature of ancient sci-ence was his compilation of the writings ofthe Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

Arrian was a Greek, a native of Nicomediain western Turkey, who rose to prominence

Arrian 25

among the Romans in the second centuryCE. He was a student of the philosopherEpictetus in the Epiran town of Nicopolis.Subsequently Arrian served as a soldier, be-came a consul of Rome, was a priest in his na-tive Bithynia, and crowned his career as gov-ernor of Cappadocia in Turkey. Cappadociawas one of Rome’s frontier provinces; Arrianwas involved in many battles against outsideaggressors. For a Greek to become governorof an important province was at this time ex-ceptional. Reasons for his success include hiswealth and his father’s Roman citizenship;Ar-rian became a citizen of Rome at birth. Stoicphilosophy, learned from Epictetus, gave Ar-rian the training and mind-set of successfulRoman men of action.Also,Arrian was a stu-dent of the fourth-century BCE historian,philosopher, and adventurer Xenophon,whose interest in military affairs, horseman-ship, and the hunt became passions for Arrianas well. Xenophon wrote an account, the An-abasis, of the Greek incursion into Persia thatinspired Alexander’s own expedition into thePersian Empire.Arrian modeled himself afterXenophon and named his account of Alexan-der’s journey Anabasis.

One would hardly call Arrian a scientist,but in his interests and writings he was clearlyone of a growing number of historians of sci-ence of the Pax Romana and Later RomanEmpire. In his Anabasis Arrian described thescientific interests of Alexander and the activ-ities of the numerous philosophers and scien-tists that the conqueror brought with him.Arrian’s Indica is an account of the voyage ofexploration and science of Alexander’s lieu-tenant Nearchus.Arrian also wrote a fascinat-ing treatise of geographic exploration, theCircumnavigation of the Black Sea, in which hedescribed a journey taken in the early 130sCE to explore the entire coastal reaches ofthe Black (Euxine) Sea.

Arrian’s writings are typically modeled onAttic and Ionic Greek of centuries past. Anexception is his compilation of the works ofthe Stoic philosopher Epictetus. As a youngman Arrian attended the lectures of this ex-

slave and formidable teacher. Epictetus didnot record his lectures or write anything atall, and the student Arrian decided to recordthe teachings of the master. He did so in thespoken Greek of the period, the koine. Arrianclaimed, in an opening letter to a friend thatintroduces the Discourses of Epictetus, that hetook notes of the lectures, not intendingthem to be published.

In the Anabasis, Arrian relied on the extantsources of his time, many of which were byscientists or written in a scientific style. Ofthe latter type is Nearchus’s Indica, an accountof the coastal wastelands from the Indus to theEuphrates rivers. Arrian also used the incom-plete account of Alexander’s conquests byCallisthenes, who was a grandnephew of Aris-totle and a scientist and philosopher. Also ofimportance was the account of Alexanderwritten by Aristobulus, a scientist who ac-companied the expedition and who wrote ofhis experiences with Alexander.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Epictetus;Geography/Geodesy; Nearchus of Crete;Stoicism

ReferencesArrian. Anabasis and Indica. Translated by P. A.

Brunt and E. Iliff Robson. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1933, 1976.

_____. The Campaigns of Alexander. Translated byAubrey de Selincourt. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Book, 1971.

Epictetus. The Discourses. Edited by ChristopherGill. Everyman’s Library. Rutland,Vt.:TuttlePublishing, 2001.

Hamilton, J. R. Alexander the Great. Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974.

Asclepiades (floruit firstcentury BCE)Asclepiades was a Greek from Bithynia whoembraced the doctrines of the atomists andmaterialists, such as Democritus and Epicu-rus. Asclepiades adapted Greek medicine toRoman society and thought.As an Epicurean,Asclepiades was a thoroughgoing materialistin science and medicine, believing that therewas nothing spiritual or holistic in healing.Neither was he concerned with the impact of

26 Asclepiades

the environment and the particulars of the in-dividual case. There was no “art” in Asclepi-ades’ healing. Breaking, then, from the Hip-pocratic school, Asclepiades and other such“Methodists” argued that disease was the re-sult of constriction or dilation of tissues bywhich fluids flowed with ease or not. TheMethodists believed that treatment mustabide by opposites, that is, either a reversal ofthe constriction or dilation.

According to the Elder Pliny, Asclepiadescorresponded with King Mithridates of Pon-tus, advising him on the king’s materia med-ica, especially his obsession with antidotes.Mithridates reputedly took small amounts ofpoison to inure his body to it and to test var-ious antidotes. Pliny claimed that afterGnaeus Pompey defeated Mithridates in 63BCE he discovered a corpus of medical notes

taken and kept by the king. Asclepiades ad-vised medicated wine to treat various ill-nesses and believed that onion juice was animportant remedy for digestive complaintsand illness of the eyes. He also used “hy-drotherapy” in various ways—baths of vary-ing temperature and the plentiful use of coldwater applied to the body and, in copiousamounts, as a remedy for various ailments.

See also Galen; Hellenism; Hippocrates;Medicine; Pliny the Elder

ReferencesGalen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J.

Brock. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1916.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Asclepius/Asclepiads Asclepius was the god of healing worshippedby the Greeks as well as the Romans.Homer’s Iliad first identifies Asclepius, not asa god but rather as a human, a contemporaryof Heracles, Theseus, and Jason. Chiron theCentaur, the teacher of Achilles the warriorand Jason the sailor and adventurer, impartedhis knowledge of medicine and surgery to As-clepius. Asclepius in turn taught his sonsMachaon and Podalirios the art of healing andthey their sons, so that as time passed theGreeks believed that the progeny of Asclepiusexisted among them, teaching medicine andhealing the sick. Asclepius himself was even-tually given the patrimony of the original godof healing, Apollo. The story goes thatApollo’s mortal lover, Coronis, pregnantwith his child, was killed by the angry god forloving another. Upon her death, the babe As-clepius, taken from her womb, was given toChiron to raise. As the son of Apollo, he wasdeified by the Greeks to become the god ofmedicine. The Homeric Hymns, composed atsome point around 1000 BCE, include ahymn to the god Asclepius. The story of themortal Asclepius becoming the deified patronof medicine was perhaps a Greek borrowingof the Egyptian story of the early hero

Asclepius/Asclepiads 27

Engraving of the Roman physician Asclepiades (floruit firstcentury BCE). (Courtesy of the National Library ofMedicine)

Imhotep, who was deified to become theEgyptian god of healing and magic.

Temples hosting cults of Asclepius werefound throughout the Greek world. Epidau-rus on the east coast of the Peloponnesianpeninsula and Cos in the Aegean Sea werecenters of the worship of Asclepius. The cultat Cos featured priests and physicians whoconsidered themselves descendants of Ascle-pius—the Asclepiads. The most famous As-clepiad of Cos was Hippocrates, the fifth-cen-tury physician and writer. The HippocraticOath begins with an oath to Asclepius and hisdaughters Hygeia (health) and Panacea (all-heal). Statues of Asclepius typically show thegod holding a staff around which the “ascle-pian snake” is coiled. Priests, to honor thegod, allowed the small, brown, nonpoisonoussnake to inhabit the temples of Asclepius.Snakes symbolized regeneration, the hope ofmany worshippers of Asclepius. Asclepiadswere known to use the mistletoe and bark ofthe willow tree in cures of physical ailments.The Elder Pliny recorded an inscriptionfound at the temple of Cos that described anantidote for snake venom being comprised ofthyme, vetch, various seeds, and parsleyformed into something like pills that weredropped into a cup of wine and ingested.

The cult of Asclepius grew during the Hel-lenistic Age and after, as Romans adopted theworship of the healing god (known as Aescu-lapius). As early as the third century BCE, atemple of Asclepius existed at an island in theTiber River in Rome, the Tiberine, where thesick went for medical and spiritual aid.The his-torian Cassius Dio (in his History) recordedthat, after the Battle of Actium, Octavian Cae-sar, at Cos, had executed one of the assassins ofJulius Caesar,Turullius, who had added to hiscrime by cutting down trees in the sacredgrove of the Asclepian shrine at Cos, using thewood to help construct Mark Antony’s navy.The writings of Aelius Aristides during the sec-ond century CE gives a detailed description ofAristides’ personal relationship with Ascle-pius. In his Sacred Teachings, Aristides recordedhis dreams in which the god advised him on

medical concerns. Aristides believed that heand Asclepius experienced a healing union ini-tiated by the god himself. Aristides had nu-merous health problems—real or imagined—that drove him to the worship of Asclepius.Thegod prescribed in dreams ritual acts of healingand atonement.Aristides was to go barefoot inwinter, take mud baths, and bathe in coldwater during all seasons. Aristides apparentlysought to expiate guilt by such extraordinarymeasures. His gastrointestinal and nervous ill-nesses demanded the healing of his mind andsoul more than anything else.

The cult of Asclepius thrived during thePrincipate into the Later Roman Empire.Thepagan writer Celsus wrote matter-of-factly ofthe numerous people who relied on their per-sonal relationship with Asclepius. Marcus Au-relius, perhaps encouraged by his physicianGalen, benefited from the counsel of Ascle-pius. During the third century, however, thecult of Asclepius declined. Devotees to Ascle-pius, such as the pagan Neoplatonist Por-phyry, in Against the Christians, claimed thatChristian opposition, in particular the counterclaims of the healing presence of Christ, led toa decline in the worship of Asclepius and in-creased sickness in the empire. Christiansfound in their dreams the answers to physical,mental, and emotional complaints. And theexpiation of guilt and illness required nothingso harsh as a mud bath in winter.

See also Hippocrates; Homer; Later RomanEmpire; Medicine; Myth; Porphyry

ReferencesDodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Vol. 1.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1960.

Hesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica.Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Jones,W. H. S., trans. Hippocrates. Vol. 1.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923.

Pliny the Elder:A Selection. Translated by John F.Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Radice, Betty. Who’s Who in the Ancient World.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1973.

28 Asclepius/Asclepiads

Asia, East and South China Science in ancient China, from the beginningsof the Yellow River Civilization to the HanDynasty, emerged in relative isolation fromthe more dynamic scientific cultures of west-ern Asia, Europe, and northern Africa. Thefirst Chinese civilization developed along theYellow River in the second millennium BCE.This was the Shang culture of cities based onsurplus agriculture that resulted in a sophisti-cated society that included the invention ofwriting as well as bronze.The Yellow River isprone to flooding because it is on a higherplane than the surrounding countryside;dwellers of the Yellow Valley developed themeans to control the river with dikes andcanals.This required, of course, techniques ofirrigation, which the Shang people devised.One type involved workers trudging on ro-tating paddles that were attached to an axleand then to a gear that would bring water upfrom a stream on multiple pallets.Another ir-rigation technique was the use of the wind-lass—a manual crank tied to a basket that wasdrawn up and emptied into a canal leading tothe fields.

The Chinese developed theories based onspeculation and observation to explainhuman and natural history. One of the mostimportant ideas developed in ancient Chinawas the cosmic dialectic of yin-yang. Theprimal forces of the feminine (yin) weresymbolized by the moon, cold, water, earth,nourishment, autumn, and winter; those ofthe masculine (yang) were symbolized bythe sun, fire, heat, spring, and summer.Yin-yang was initially introduced in the I Ching,the Book of Changes. The I Ching presents aworldview that is an organic, eternal whole.The cosmic process is cyclical, with no be-ginning or end. Confucius (K’ung-Fu-tzu)advocated such a universe, in which the ju orwise man discovers through knowledge ofself and nature the harmony within andwithout. Han Dynasty documents revealthat yin-yang was applied to medicine in thesame way as Hippocratic humors.When yin-

yang is out of balance in the human body,such as cold overwhelming hot, illness canresult—one must reestablish the balancethrough proper living and thinking to regainhealth.

One of the great accomplishments of an-cient Chinese thought was in the field of his-tory. Traditionally, Confucius was the firstChinese historian, the author of the Springand Autumn Annals. Another early historianwas Liu Chih-Chi, who wrote Generalities ofHistory (Shih-T’ung) in the seventh centuryBCE, which was didactic history written toinform the reader about political systems.Liu was noteworthy for practicing internalsource criticism. The most famous ancienthistorian was Ssu-Ma Ch’ien (145–90 BCE),author of Records of the Historian (Shih Chi),who, like his Greek and Roman counter-parts, wrote didactic history based on acyclical perception of time and the cosmos.Ssu and other early Chinese historians weresemi-religious moralists, even though theywrote realistic, rational history. Tso Chuan,for example, a third-century BCE text, pro-vides a rational view toward humans, seeingman as a free moral agent choosing betweena clear division of right and wrong.The Con-fucian ju was a shaman, a keeper of records,including heavenly records, that is, astro-nomical data. Ssu-Ma Ch’ien, in Shih Chi,discussed astronomy for astrological pur-poses. Chinese intellectuals such as Ssu be-lieved that time and history match the move-ment of the stars, which are the “heavenlygovernors” of the universe. This astrologicalview also included the idea of the “mandateof heaven” in human and natural affairs,which was the core belief that all life is acycle of growth and decay. The world con-sists of five elements: earth, fire, water,metal, and wood. These interact with othersets of five and can be understood throughastrology and numerology.

Important Chinese astronomers includedGan De, who in the fourth century BCEwrote Treatise on Jupiter. Chinese astronomersat the end of the first millennium BCE wrote

Asia, East and South 29

astronomical treatises, using the gnomon topinpoint the position of stars, planets, and thesun. Luoxia Hong in the first century BCEmade a calendar that combined lunar andsolar elements with months of twenty-nineor thirty days and a Metonic cycle of nineteenyears.The Chinese mandate of heaven duringthe Han Dynasty required a new calendar foreach new emperor. Ancient Chinese as-tronomers also developed precise star charts.Like the Greeks, the Chinese universe wasgeocentric.

IndiaCivilization appeared in the Indus Valleyabout 2500 BCE. These early Harappan peo-ples of the upper Indus Valley had the typicalcharacteristics of civilization, agriculturalsurplus, trade, writing and numbers torecord trade, and urban centers.They used adecimal system for weights and measures, en-gaged in astronomical observations, and de-veloped simple geometric constructs. Byabout 1000 BCE, certain cultural groups inIndia, notably the Jains, worked with num-bers and geometry and speculated on infinity.The Indians, like most ancient peoples, devel-oped a lunar calendar. Contact with Greco-Roman and Mesopotamian civilization at thebeginning of the Common Era led to sophis-ticated lunar and solar calendars that includedthe nineteen-year Metonic cycle. Hindu as-tronomical writings included computationsdescribing eclipses, charts of astronomicalobservations, and ephemerides. By the sev-enth century, the use of zero as an actualnumber was known in India.

See also Astronomy; History; Mathematics;Medicine

ReferencesBeasley,W. G., and E. G. Pulleyblank, eds.

Historians of China and Japan. London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1961.

Fairbank, John K., Edwin O. Reischauer, andAlbert M. Craig. East Asia:Tradition andTransformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1978.

Mote, Frederick W. Intellectual Foundations ofChina. New York: Knopf, 1971.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History ofMathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html (website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’s Scotland).

Watson, Burton. Early Chinese Literature. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1962.

_____. Ssu-Ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China.New York: Columbia University Press, 1958.

AstronomyAstronomy developed during the fourth,third, and second millennia BCE in Europe,Africa,Asia, and America, with the erection ofmegaliths to track astronomical phenomena,the development of lunar and solar calendarsand star catalogs and charts, the recording ofastronomical observations, the creation ofsundials, and the creation of the pseudo-sci-ence astrology. The earliest Chinese calendardates to 1300 BCE—an extremely accuratesolar calendar with 3651/4 days in the year.Chinese astronomers observed comets,sunspots, novas, and meteors, although accu-rate explanations eluded them. Chinesescholar Shih Shen in the fourth century BCEdeveloped a catalog of eight hundred stars.Meanwhile in the Middle East, Babylonianscholars developed a lunar calendar of thir-teen months, and Egyptian scientists formed acalendar based on the rising of the Dog Star,Sirius, in the eastern horizon, which con-formed to the rising of the Nile River.AncientMayans of Central America developed calen-dars, while ancient Polynesians sailed the Pa-cific Ocean using nautical astronomy. Ancientastronomy was mostly employed for religiousand magical purposes, but sometimes to cre-ate calendars for society and agriculture.

ArchaeoastronomyStonehenge is the most famous of the hun-dreds of megalithic sites throughout theworld. Megaliths are huge stone structures setup by Neolithic peoples for religious and sci-entific purposes. Stonehenge, a series of mega-lithic structures conceived and built over the

30 Astronomy

space of thirteen hundred years (2800–1500BCE), served as the means for these ancientpeoples to identify and predict solar and lunarphenomena. The debate about exactly whatthe purpose of Stonehenge was and how pre-cise and intentional were its astronomical ob-servations continues to rage among scholarswho call themselves archaeoastronomers. Itappears that the ancient astronomers at Stone-henge aligned the massive stones with moon-rise and sunrise at various times of the year.Possibly, these Neolithic astronomers also pre-dicted or at least traced eclipses using thearrangement of the monoliths.

Ancient peoples assigned special qualitiesto the planets, stars, moon, and sun.The sunas the source of warmth and light early on

gained more significance than the other bod-ies. Ancient humans were naturally sun wor-shippers, whether it was Ra and Amen of theEgyptians, Helios and Apollo of the Greeks,or the One of the Neoplatonists. The moon,imitating the female reproductive cycle of291/2 days, appeared to be involved in fertil-ity and feminine matters. Likewise the morn-ing star was seen by many ancient cultures asrepresenting a feminine, reproductivepower—Ishtar, Aphrodite, and Venus person-ified the morning star. The other morningstar, Mercury, was the herald of day—Her-mes, the messenger.The red planet Mars her-alded conflict and war. Planets representedmetals, too: Mars was iron, Mercury, tin, andVenus, copper.The sun, of course, was gold.

Astronomy 31

Chart comparing the planetary systems of the ancient Egyptians, the Greek astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy,and the Renaissance astronomers Tycho Brahe and Copernicus. In Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature,and Art, Johann G. Heck (New York: Rudolph Garrigue, 1851, vol. 1, division 1, vol. 2, pl. 7). (Library of Congress)

Babylonian AstronomySumerian astronomy was vague and inconclu-sive, except for the examination of stars andplanets as representing deities. Babylonian as-tronomy was theoretical rather than empiri-cal; many Babylonian astronomical observa-tions were anecdotal and not based on actualevents. Chaldean wisdom was proverbial butnot based on actual observations. After theeighth century BCE, Babylonian astronomersrecorded lunar and solar eclipses, but theywere not able to predict them, and the storythat Thales learned how to predict eclipses(such as the one of 585 BCE) from the Baby-lonians is a fable. The Greek astronomerPtolemy used Babylonian records of eclipsesin his astronomy.The Babylonians discoveredthat solar eclipses occur at the beginning ofthe lunar month, at the new moon, whereaslunar eclipses occur during the middle of thelunar month at full moon.The universe com-prised separate spheres for planets and stars.They also knew of the ecliptic, the path inwhich the sun makes its daily progress acrossthe heavens. Babylonians kept ephemeridesfor planet positions. They also had a geocen-tric planetary theory that was remarkably likethat of Ptolemy—Ptolemy must have bor-rowed from it.The Babylonians conceived ofthe sun orbiting the earth and the planets or-biting the sun. Their observations were par-ticularly directed toward trying to determinethe position of planets relative to fixed stars,and especially the rise of the star Sirius.

Egyptian AstronomyEgyptian astronomy relied very little on so-phisticated mathematics and was rather prac-tical, used to develop agricultural solar calen-dars. Egyptian astronomers kept track of theheliacal rising of Sirius, the appearance ofwhich indicates the rising of the Nile River.Hence Egyptian priests, the astronomers inancient Egypt, could always accurately pre-dict the rising of the Nile by means of astro-nomical observations. Egyptians used a 360-day solar calendar. Diogenes Laertiusreported that Egyptian astronomers kept

track of lunar and solar eclipses, recording373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses. They be-lieved that the gods manifested themselves inthe heavenly bodies. Hence the sun was, atvarious times in Egypt’s long history, the godsRa, Amun, Aten, and Osiris.The goddess Isismanifests herself as the moon. In addition,the Egyptians conceived of a spherical uni-verse.The stars, flames in the heavens, deter-mine human destiny. Herodotus the Greektraveler claimed that the Egyptians were thefirst astrologers.

Greek AstronomyThe greatest astronomers of antiquity werethe Greeks. Early Greek scientists developedthe idea of the heavens as a great sphere arch-ing over the earth.Astronomers observed thecontinually changing horizon and tracked theappearance of stars in the direction of theearth’s rotation. Greek astronomers recog-nized the eastward rotation of the earth; theecliptic, which is the path of the sun acrossthe horizon over the course of a year; the zo-diac, the path of the sun and planets on theecliptic; and scores of constellations, whichthey named according to their own myths andlegends.

Greek astronomy began during the eighthcentury BCE.The earliest surviving sundial ofantiquity dates from that century. The Greekpoet Hesiod, in Works and Days, wrote that thewise husbandman knows when to engage inagricultural tasks according to the appearanceand movements of the Pleiades, Sirius, andOrion. Homer’s poems identified similar ce-lestial phenomena as well. The Greeks, likethe Babylonians and Egyptians, brought theirmythology to the heavens, naming groups ofstars according to great heroes, legendary fig-ures, and animals.The fixed stars formed thebackground for the wandering heavenly bod-ies, the planets, which move on the sameplane in the band of the zodiac.

Ionian Greeks such as Thales and Pythago-ras formed the first sophisticated school ofGreek astronomy. Pythagoras reputedly de-veloped the idea of separate perfect spheres

32 Astronomy

that define the orbits of the planets, moon,and earth. Planets rubbing against each othercause a sound, the harmony of the spheres.Pythagoras or his followers realized that themoon reflects the light of the sun, and thatthe varying shapes of the moon prove itssphericity, which led to the deduction of theearth’s similarity in this regard. Lunareclipses as well reveal the curved earth sur-face. Philolaus, a follower of Pythagoras, hy-pothesized the moving earth. He conceivedthat the earth cannot be the center of the uni-verse, but rather there must be a central firearound which all the celestial bodies orbit.The sun, moon, and seven planets make ninespheres orbiting around the central fire. Nineis not such a significant number, however,compared to ten (the sum of 1, 2, 3, and 4).There must be a tenth sphere, which Philo-laus imagined to be the antichthon, the“counter earth,” which always stays hiddenfrom humans—being precisely on the otherside of the sun, it is never seen.

The Pythagorean concept of the centralfire was a heliocentric theory based uponphilosophy rather than observations andmathematics. Aristotle, the leading scientistof his age, rejected such a scheme for thegeocentric universe. Besides the obvious ex-perience of the sun passing daily from east towest, which according to common sense re-veals that it moves while the earth is still,Aristotle argued that for the earth to be or-biting the sun the stars would pass, rise, andset like the sun and moon, which is not thecase. Aristotle was too much the practicalobserver to realize that the distance of thestars from the earth prevents any significantmovement in the night sky. In other words,there is very little parallax, stellar movementrespective to the earth, a phenomenon thatescaped Aristotle.

Hellenistic AstronomyAn understanding of parallax did not, how-ever, escape Aristarchus of Samos, the first as-tronomer to argue for the heliocentric uni-verse. Aristarchus assumed that the stars are

at such a distance from the earth that theirmovements respective to the earth arescarcely noticed. He used geometry to try todiscover the relative distances and sizes of thesun and moon to each other and to the earth.His estimates were erroneous yet still revolu-tionary in the attempt.

Hipparchus of Nicaea was a greater as-tronomer than Aristarchus, even though Hip-parchus advocated the geocentric universe.Hipparchus worked at Alexandria andRhodes—at the latter city creating some-thing like an astronomical research center inwhich he cataloged the stars according tobrightness, which indicated to him relativedistance from the earth and location. Heended up with a star chart of about 850 stars.Hipparchus made more accurate measure-ments than Aristarchus did of the distance ofthe moon and sun from the earth. He discov-ered that the earth’s axis changes over time.And to try to account for the orbit of the sunaround the earth he developed the idea of theeccentric, which Ptolemy of Alexandriawould expand upon.

Other Hellenistic astronomers includedCallippus of Cyzicus, a student of Eudoxusand Aristotle, who studied the theory of con-centric spheres of heavens, theorizing one foreach planet. He charted and wrote on the ris-ing and the setting of stars. Callippus is re-membered for his On the System of the Planets.His contemporary, Heraclides of Pontus, de-veloped a system combining geocentric andheliocentric systems, in which the sun andmoon and outer planets orbit earth, but Mer-cury and Venus orbit the sun. Heraclides be-lieved that the earth rotates on its axis everytwenty-four hours. Autolycus of Pitane (ca.300 BCE) wrote treatises on the heavenlyspheres and the movement of the stars. Ara-tus of Soli (315–240 BCE) penned Phaenom-ena, a treatise in verse on constellations andstars. Alexandrian astronomers includedMenelaus working in the late first centuryCE, who used trigonometry and the geome-try of the sphere; Hypsicles, a second-cen-tury CE mathematician and astronomer who

Astronomy 33

calculated the length of each day at Alexan-dria and the extent of the zodiac; andClaudius Ptolemaeus, Ptolemy, the greatestastronomer of the Roman Principate.

PtolemyPtolemy’s accomplishment was a reasonableexplanation for the problem of the wander-ing planets, retrograde motion, which oc-curs when a planet farther from the sun thanearth is “passed” by earth in their respectiveorbits.The position of the planet in the nightsky alters—seemingly reverses and then re-sumes its previous course. Retrograde mo-tion of outer planets was confusing to the an-cients until Ptolemy came up with hisexplanation of epicycles, equants, ec-centrics, and deferents. Ptolemy’s schemewas, of course, based on an earth-centereduniverse. He imagined that as planets orbitthe earth they also orbit about a point intheir earth-orbit called the epicycle.The def-erent is the orbital pattern around the earth.The eccentric is the center point of the or-bital scheme. Earth is not directly in the cen-ter of the orbiting planet’s deferent. Theequant is the true point about which theplanet orbits. If this sounds confusing, it was,and it did not reflect reality in the least—butPtolemy was not concerned about reality, hewas concerned about a mathematical schemethat could predict the motions of the planets.In this goal he succeeded brilliantly.

The RomansThe Elder Pliny’s Natural History provides agood summary of how Roman scientists ab-sorbed Greek astronomy. Pliny assumed thatthe universe is godlike, possibly infinite, yetunknowable.The spherical earth, revolving ata tremendous rate of speed, is at the center ofthe universe. For Pliny, the universe is har-monious and regular, the product of a divinemind utterly beyond human understanding.Perhaps the harmony of the planets producesa beautiful sound, although we earthlingscannot hear it. The planets are distant to theearth in the sense of their respective elevation

approaching the starry vault. Each revolvesaround the earth in a set period; each has acertain character that gives a particular iden-tity.Venus and Mercury, unlike Mars, Jupiter,and Saturn, rarely extend much above thehorizon, in morning or in evening. Venus’slight is third only to the sun and moon—andthus like those two bodies has a clear impacton human events.The moon is easily as largeas the earth, though the sun dwarfs themboth. Pliny discussed the phases of the moon,the solstices and equinoxes of the sun, and thevaried forms of eclipse. He discussed cometsand their influence on earth events. Indeed,Pliny discussed meteorology in light of as-tronomy, believing that storms, thunderbolts,climatic change, and the like are influencedby the sun, moon, planets, and stars. He waswilling to believe in astronomical portents ofchanges in human affairs, yet such credulitywas countered by some interesting discus-sions, such as his account of rainbows as beingthe contact of sunlight with clouds, which isa close approximation to the modern viewthat molecules of light are refracted by watervapor.

Other astronomers of the Roman Empireincluded Theodosius of Tripolis, an astrologerand astronomer of first century CE; Posido-nius of Rhodes, who influenced Geminus ofRhodes, the latter of whom wrote the treatiseIntroduction of Astronomy; Heliodorus ofAlexandria, late fourth century CE, whowrote a commentary on Ptolemy; and Manil-ius, first century CE, who wrote a poem, theAstronomica.

AstrologyFor most periods in the history of science, as-trology and astronomy were scarcely distinctstudies. In the ancient world, for example, as-trology provided a big impetus to the devel-opment of astronomy, as astrologers wantedto know the positions of planets, the moon,and the sun at various times. Astrologers be-lieved that the movement and position of theplanets had a determining effect on the fu-ture. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, and

34 Astronomy

Roman astronomers practiced astrology.Theophrastus the Peripatetic scientist thoughtthe Chaldeans (Babylonians) and Herodotusthought the Egyptians could predict the futurethrough astrology. Ptolemy wrote a treatiseon astrology, the Tetrabiblos. Astrology becamepersonalized during the Greek Classical andHellenistic periods. Each individual had a par-ticular destiny according to the position of theheavenly bodies at his or her birth. A horo-scope, determining the position of the planetsand stars at one’s birth, indicated the future.The earliest recorded horoscope is from 410BCE. The astrologer determines the positionof the planets on the day of an individual’sbirth to see what zodiacal sign the individualwas born under. Each of the twelve signs ofthe zodiac determines a person’s characterand destiny. The zodiac is made up of twelvethirty-degree planetary regions set within theecliptic, the thirty-degree path of the fixedstars. Babylonian astrologers conceived of thezodiac in the fourth century BCE.

Astrology without the nonsense is based onastronomical principles and examines the im-pact of heavenly bodies on each other and theearth, which is exactly what modern sciencedoes.The difference, of course, is that ancientastrologers gave the heavenly bodies a signifi-cance that modern astronomers do not accept.The ancient universe was one of mysteriousdivine forces; the planets were conceived of asbeing perfect spherical bodies associated withthe divine. Modern astronomers have deter-mined that the planets are made of particlesthat have no spiritual basis or connection.Dead planets of gas and rock can hardly havean impact on human destiny.

See also Aristarchus of Samos; Aristotle;Constellations; Egypt; Hipparchus;Mathematics; Mesopotamia; Physical Sciences;Pliny the Elder; Ptolemaeus, Claudius;Pythagoras

ReferencesAbell, George O. Exploration of the Universe. 3d ed.

New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston, 1975.Crowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from

Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York:Dover Books, 1990.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:Dover Books, 1913.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Astrology See Astronomy

Athenaeus (floruit early thirdcentury CE)Athenaeus, who lived at Naucratis, Egypt,was a commentator and satirist on Sophistsand scientists. Author of Deipnosophists, an ac-count of Sophists or philosophers conversingat a dinner party,Athenaeus was connected tothe court of Julia Domna in the early thirdcentury.The precise translation of his book is“Sophists at dinner” discussing science andphilosophy.

The Deipnosophists records interesting tid-bits from the early history of Greek scienceand philosophy. Athenaeus preserved, for ex-ample, fragments from the writings of Ionianscientists such as Anaxagoras and some of thetheories of the Pythagoreans. Some of hiscomments reveal wit and mirth, especiallywhen writing about the ridiculous habits ofPythagorean vegetarians in their attempt toavoid all flesh.

See also Later Roman Empire; PythagorasReferencesAthenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Translated by C. B.

Gulick. 7 vols. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1963.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.London: Penguin Books, 1987.

AthensThe center of science in the Archaic and Clas-sical periods of ancient Greece was the city ofAthens, located in eastern Greece on theAttic peninsula. Athens harked back to theMycenaean period of the second millennium

Athens 35

BCE. It withstood the Dorian invasions of thetwelfth and eleventh centuries sufficiently toemerge as the center of culture on the main-land in the ninth and eighth centuries. TheAthenians at the beginning of the ArchaicAge, ca. 800 BCE, identified with the Greeksof the Aegean islands and western Turkey, theIonians, and not with the Dorians to thesouth and west. Athens prided itself on its in-tellectual and cultural stature, a preeminencerarely matched for over a thousand years.

The foundations of Athenian intellectualgreatness were built during the Archaic Agefrom 800–500 BCE. During this time Athenswent through dramatic changes in govern-ment, society, economy, and thought. In-creasing agricultural production and surplusallowed for the growth of population andtrade, so much so that Athens, like otherGreek city-states (poleis), sent citizens abroadto found new colonies. Wealth and trade ledto the rise of the middle class, which de-manded more input into local government,which resulted in the world’s first rule of thepeople, democracy, as well as a greater role inmilitary affairs.The development of the heav-ily armed infantry of Athens, the hoplite sol-dier, signified the social and economic fer-ment of Archaic Age Athens.

Social, economic, and political change al-ways accompanies intellectual change. At thesame time that Athenian hoplites were lead-ing Greeks in the defense of Hellas from Per-sian invasion, and as the Athenian empiregrew and its political and economic domi-nance carried forth into the Aegean islandsand Ionia, there were dramatic changes inphilosophy and science. Around the time thatPericles came to power in Athens, an Ionianphilosopher arrived from Asia Minor,Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Anaxagorasbrought with him the general beliefs of Ionianphilosophers—a confidence in humanthought, a questioning attitude, a search forthe causes of natural phenomena, an attemptto explain the nature of man and the uni-verse—as well as his own specific ideas, thechief of which was his belief that Mind (nous)

governs all things. This notion that a tran-scendent, spiritual force, an idea, is the ulti-mate reality of which all being partakes wasrevolutionary for its time. Many Atheniansdistrusted Anaxagoras’s ideas and thought hewas impious, atheistic, and dangerous. Butnot Pericles, the great Athenian who becameAnaxagoras’s pupil, who took the philoso-pher’s truths to heart, according to ancientwriters such as Plutarch, and who developedinto a genuinely good man who couldweather the storms of human existence.

DemocracyAt the beginning of the Peloponnesian War,Pericles, the Athenian general, gave a funeraloration, as recorded by the historian Thucy-dides. In the speech Pericles praised Athens asa democracy, where the people rule andequality among citizens exists. Athens is anopen society, he said, where goods are freelyexchanged in the agora, or marketplace, andideas are freely exchanged in the open air andbright light of free speech and movement.Athens, said Pericles, is the center of thoughtand culture in Greece insofar as the politicaland intellectual freedom brought about bydemocracy leads to dramatic advances in cul-ture, art, literature, philosophy, and science.

That scholars debate whether or notAthens, an imperialistic state that deniedrights to women and slaves, should be calleda democracy should not prevent us from rec-ognizing the incredible intellectual accom-plishments of Periclean Athens. Fifth-centuryAthenians made a study of the science of gov-ernment. Ancient political and social scien-tists such as Solon, Thucydides, Pericles,Socrates, and Plato studied the nature of gov-ernment and society not according to therandom acts of gods and men but accordingto the actions and movements of people, thedemos, over time. These thinkers and othersexplained the role of virtue (arete) and re-straint (sophrosyne) in the functioning of thestate, that the mind and the will and not brutepassions govern a people. The arrogant pur-suit of power in the individual is overcome by

36 Athens

the common needs of the whole as acted outin the Council of 500, the Assembly of freecitizens, the court system and trial by jury,and the institution of ostracism, meant tocurtail the power of demagogues.The key tosuch political and social success was simplyfreedom.Writers such as Herodotus,Aeschy-lus, and Demosthenes commented on theAthenians’ great fear of slavery to foreignpowers and despots.

Notwithstanding its manifold limitations,Athenian freedom allowed a commoner suchas Socrates to become one of the greatthinkers of all time, to develop sophisticatedideas on government, society, and philosophy,and to influence scores of Athenians—so in-fluential was he that those jealous of his intel-lect sought to and succeeded in getting rid ofhim. Socrates, according to his student Plato,elevated the workings of the state and varied

roles of the people into an abstract conceptualframework wherein the practical aspects ofrights and wrongs, of justice and injustice,were understandable according to the idea ofjustice itself. How, Socrates asked, can weknow whether or not justice is accomplishedat the Athenian courts if we are ignorant ofwhat true justice is regardless of time andplace? With Socrates we find the beginnings ofa rigorous examination of thought and prac-tice that formed the basis for the social andpolitical theories of today’s social sciences.

The Socratic SchoolThe shadow of Anaxagoras and the Ionianphilosophers and scientists hung over Athensduring the fifth century. This was in part be-cause the aggressive militaristic and imperial-istic actions of the Athenians contradictedtheir professed beliefs in democracy and

Athens 37

The Athenian acropolis, from a nineteenth-century illustration, in Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris: Rittner et Goupil,1842, plate 21). Print based on daguerreotype by N. P. Lerebours. (Library of Congress)

equality. Perhaps more important, Anaxago-ras’s pupil Archelaus was the teacher ofSocrates who was the teacher of Plato.Hence, the great thinkers throughout Hellasof the fifth century were centered at Athens.Socrates had a reputation as a Sophist, al-though his disciple Plato vehemently dis-agreed with the assertion, pointing out thatSocrates did not take money for his teachings,unlike true Sophists such as Protagoras. In thedialogue Protagoras, Plato imagined or recre-ated a debate between Protagoras andSocrates, in which Socrates’ dialectic methodof interrogatives and logical deduction over-whelms Protagoras’s reliance upon rhetoric.Protagoras signifies the use of the spokenword to persuade, to create as it were a mo-mentary truth, whereas Socrates advocatesthe view, which Anaxagoras would havefound acceptable, that truth is everlasting forall times and places and only the thinker whotrains his mind to seek the truth will be ableto find it.

Besides philosophers, Athens was home tomany other thinkers.The architect Callicratesdesigned and oversaw construction of the ma-jestic Parthenon during the 440s. Herodotus,originally from Halicarnassus in westernTurkey, spent time in Athens promoting hisHistories—for the first time Athenians heardof the geography, history, and peoples of theeastern Mediterranean. One thinker was notimpressed: Thucydides composed his Historyof the Peloponnesian War using an exact,chronological style, in contrast to Herodotus’smore rambling account.Thucydides used his-tory as a route to uncover general patterns inhuman behavior. Playwrights such as Aeschy-lus, Sophocles, and Euripides likewise usedthe stage to develop themes of human behav-ior and its consequences, the relation of hu-mans to the divine, and the conflict betweengood and evil.Aspasia, the consort of Pericles,was a well-known thinker and philosopher.Antisthenes and Diogenes, founders of theCynic school of thought, preached philosophyand poverty at Athens.

The Academy and the LyceumThe best-known figures of science andthought in fifth and fourth century AthensBCE were Plato and Aristotle. Plato was apolymath and student of Socrates, an aristo-crat who despised democracy, aPythagorean who opened a school at Athenscalled the Academy. Plato’s students weremostly the rich and included some women.They studied mathematics, harmony, as-tronomy, history, ethics, dialectic, and poli-tics. One of his students was Aristotle, a na-tive from the Thracian town of Stagira.Aristotle founded the Lyceum at Athens,teaching the same subjects as Plato but withless of an intuitive, mystical sense, and moreof a concrete, scientific focus. Before Aris-totle founded his school he was tutor forthree years to the teenage Alexander ofMacedonia. After Alexander succeeded hisfather Philip and inaugurated a campaign toliberate Ionia and conquer the Persians,Aristotle at Athens received periodic com-munications from his student, which in-cluded specimens from distant lands. Aris-totle’s followers the Peripatetics includedTheophrastus, who wrote a fundamentaltreatise on plants and their healing proper-ties.While the Lyceum focused on scientificstudies, Plato’s Academy, under the leader-ship of Speusippus and Xenocrates duringthe fourth century BCE, continued the mas-ter’s concern with philosophy. For the nextfew centuries, Athens continued to hostsome of the great philosophers and scien-tists in the Mediterranean world: Chrysip-pus, Carneades, Arcesilaus, Zeno, and Epi-curus. The last, during the third century,used Athens as his philosophical retreat ashe developed the theories that became thephilosophy of Epicureanism. Only Zeno ri-valed Epicurus. Zeno taught among the stoaof Athens, and thus his followers calledthemselves Stoics. Like the Epicureans, theStoics rejected Platonic idealism for a mate-rialist philosophy that explained the uni-verse according to atoms.

38 Athens

The Legacy of AthensThe impact of classical Athens upon subse-quent science and philosophy is profound.Plato and Aristotle, Epicurus and Zeno, theAcademy and the Lyceum, have provided thechief philosophical and scientific divisions dur-ing the Later Roman Empire, Medieval Eu-rope, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, andtoday. One can see, over the course of Westernthought, a dichotomy between two greatphilosophical systems: the Platonic with itsfocus on subjective thought, intuition, andpure reason, and the Aristotelian with its focuson empiricism, observation and the use of thesenses, and finding truth in nature. Solon,Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno,and Epicurus sought answers to the most pen-etrating questions:What is the nature of being?Is there a soul, and of what is it made? What isthe role of the divine in our lives? What is thegood, and is there a contrasting presence ofevil? What is the duty of man? Is there a uni-versal code of ethics upon which to mold be-havior? Is the state necessary, and if so what isits purpose? What is virtue, and is it possible toobtain? Is there an objective truth? What roledoes the self have in the acquisition of knowl-edge? These questions and so many more,asked by the Athenians of the ancient world,are Athen’s greatest legacy.

See also Academy; Anaxagoras of Clazomenae;Aristotle; Epicureanism; Epicurus; GreekClassical Age; Hellenism; Lyceum; PeripateticSchool; Plato; Social Sciences; Socrates; Solon;Stoicism;Theophrastus

ReferencesDurant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1939.Jowett, Benjamin, trans. The Portable Plato.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1976.

Robinson, Charles A., Jr. Athens in the Age ofPericles. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1959.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Wheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle. NewYork: Odyssey Press, 1951.

AtomsIn a remarkable and stunning insight that an-ticipated modern science by two thousandyears, Greek philosophers hypothesized theexistence of atoms. The countless mysteriesof life and nature could not be adequately ex-plained by reference to the gods, or to ob-scure, ephemeral, metaphysical forces such asmind, logos, number, and the infinite. Specu-lation on the spiritual world can be unendingand unsubstantiated by the senses and experi-ence. The atomist demanded that explana-tions of existence be reduced to commonsense and the evidence of the senses.This rad-ical empiricism required a disbelief in any-thing that could not be seen, heard, smelled,touched, and tasted. Everything else must bethe product of overactive imaginations. Theatomist allowed himself one general supposi-tion: There must be a force that causes themovement in things detected by humans.Thisforce must be the basis of cause, of the natureof things, and hence the fundamental force ofbeing and matter in the universe. But thisforce of being, cause, and matter must resultfrom a thing—something material, com-posed of matter—not an idea.

Two ancient schools of thought, the Epi-curean and the Stoic, embraced the science ofthe atom. The most famous atomists wereLeucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Zeno, andLucretius. The forerunners of the atomists,such as Empedocles, had hypothesized theexistence of material elements, four in num-ber, which the atomists embraced as the basicatomic phenomena: earth, air, fire, and water.Democritus argued that only two things re-ally exist, atoms and void, but the formercombines into various other forms, initiallythe four elements and eventually everythingelse in existence. Atoms have no quality,whether color, odor, temperature, or taste,though they form into things of color andtaste. Lucretius, in On the Nature of Things,went further, giving to atoms specific shapesthat allow them to combine and recombine toform all things. Some are more dense, some

Atoms 39

of a distinctive texture, some with hook-likefeatures that are highly resistant to change.The Epicureans believed that atoms swerve attimes without warning, being totally randomin their movement. The randomness ofatomic movement (of electrons) forms thebasis of the modern Uncertainty Principleadvanced by the German physicist WernerHeisenberg. Random movement and collisionis the essence of causation and, because un-predictable, free will. Lucretius anticipatedGalileo in arguing that atoms constantly moveat a uniform rate through a void of no resist-ance that does not alter the rate of move-ment. Like the corpuscular theorists of theScientific Revolution, such as Boyle andDescartes, the ancient atomists believed thatatoms are completely material, without mindor soul, and of infinite number, producing in-finite and recurrent possibilities.

See also Aurelius, Marcus; Democritus;Elements; Epicureanism; Epicurus; Lucretius;Stoicism

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Lucretius. The Nature of the Universe. Translated by

R. E. Latham. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1951.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Aurelius, Marcus (121–180 CE) One of the great exponents of Zeno’s philos-ophy of Stoicism was the Roman emperorMarcus Aurelius, the author of Meditations. Bythe time of his reign in the mid- to late sec-ond century CE, Stoicism was firmly en-trenched as the most popular philosophyamong Romans. Marcus Aurelius had trainedhimself as a philosopher even before he wasadopted by the emperor Antoninus Pius.TheStoics believed that fate directs all human af-fairs. In 161, fate thrust the Stoic Marcus intoa position of great responsibility as leader oftens of millions of people in an empire suf-fering from military disasters and plague.Theemperor usually found himself not at Rome,

where one could pursue philosophical study,but encamped on the Danube in a coldwilderness facing Germanic invaders. ThatStoicism taught human equality and thebrotherhood of all mankind was not lost onAurelius, who resented his military dutiesand ruminated about the nature and meaningof life. He based his ideas on the brevity andinsignificance of life, the irrelevance of fameand glory, and the ignorance and depravity ofhumanity. He considered his own thoughtsand experiences in light of the thoughts andexperiences of other past humans, especiallyStoic philosophers such as Epictetus. Aure-lius’s Meditations is a diary meant only forhimself and written sporadically in consola-tion, expression, rumination, joy, and sorrow.And yet Meditations is also an account of thescientific worldview of the ancient Stoicphilosopher.

The study of physics, that is, the naturalworld, its causes and effects, was one of thechief topics of Stoic inquiry. Aurelius studiedhuman behavior and natural phenomena toarrive at the notion that there is a universallaw of nature that governs and orders allthings. Believing that this law was not theproduct of chance in a universe completelyoriented around fate,Aurelius, like other Sto-ics, assumed the existence of a universalmind, the holy spirit, the logos.The logos wasa creative yet impersonal force of reason thaterects, controls, and destroys successive uni-verses in infinite time. Aurelius believed thatthe logos is a thrifty creator that allows onlysuch beings as are necessary in an economicaluniverse.A materialist,Aurelius believed thatall things, even being, the soul, the logos, arephysical phenomena. He confided to himselfin Meditations that his own soul, having de-rived from the material of the universe,would upon death return to its original state.

Marcus Aurelius was also an importantphilosopher on the nature of time. He clearlyperceived existence in terms of the present asa “moment” in time. But this awareness wasbased not on a restricted perception of timeand existence, but rather on a broad perspec-

40 Aurelius, Marcus

tive, to the degree that Aurelius could con-ceive of one’s life as a solitary moment amidthe many moments that make up existence asa whole.Time, like the universe, like being, isinterconnected, a unity embraced in its total-ity by the logos.

The Meditations is hardly the work of aman content with himself, his life, his des-tiny, and the cosmos. Stoicism in theorytaught the acceptance, hence the conquest,of death. Aurelius repeatedly tried to con-vince himself that death is nothing to fear—

Aurelius, Marcus 41

Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. (Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis)

and yet the fear crept in daily, weekly, yearly,recurrently.The Stoic promise, based on ma-terialism, that one’s destiny lies in the returnof one’s atoms to the universe, never toknow or to love again, led to despair ratherthan happiness in the life and writings ofMarcus Aurelius.

See also Epictetus; Logos; Roman Principate;Stoicism;Time

ReferencesAurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Translated by

Maxwell Staniforth. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1964.

Birley, Anthony. Marcus Aurelius. Boston: Little,Brown, and Co., 1966.

Lawson, Russell. “The Lost Promise of History.”Journal of Unconventional History. Volume 7,1996.

Aurelius Augustine (354–430 CE)Aurelius Augustine was a theologian andphilosopher and one of the great thinkers ofall time in the fields of psychology, the theoryof knowledge, and the nature of time. Augus-tine was a prolific writer best known for hisConfessions and City of God. The former is anautobiographical portrait of his struggle withsin and redemption through conversion andfaith in God.The City of God is a massive trea-tise on history and the human relationshipwith God. Both works became fundamentalsources of Christian theology, spirituality, andfaith. Ironically they are also sophisticatedanalyses of human nature. Augustine’s worksalso allow us to see the intellectual percep-tions of the Later Roman Empire. Augustinewas at various times in his life a student ofStoicism, Neoplatonism, Manicheism, and, ofcourse, Christianity.

Augustine was born and raised in theNorth African city of Thagaste. By his own ac-count, he was intellectually precocious andthus arrogant and vain; he rejected the Chris-tian teachings of his mother, Monica, to pur-sue success and fame as a scholar and orator.Sin drove him to unhappiness even as hesought happiness through philosophy. Ciceroand Roman Stoicism had an early influence

on Augustine, who found the Stoic notions ofhumanitas appealing: a common humanity,equality, and the dignity of humankind. TheStoics emphasized human experience as thekey to happiness, but all of Augustine’s at-tempts to unlock the door failed. Duringthese years of his late teens and twenties Au-gustine was a materialist who, when Stoicismcould not provide sufficient answers, soughtthem elsewhere. The words of Confessionsexude the pain of recollection that he hadstrayed so far as to embrace an eastern mate-rialistic philosophy, Manicheism. Augustinesought from the Manicheists an explanationof the pain and sorrow he felt and the evilwithin him.The Manicheist solution was sim-ple: evil has a material presence within one-self; likewise the material of good can be in-creased or decreased depending upon one’sbodily habits. It did not take Augustine longto discover how ludicrous were the teachingsof the Manicheists.

In pursuit of success and elusive happi-ness, Augustine migrated to Rome and thento Milan, Italy, where he taught rhetoric. AtMilan he came under the influence of theChristian bishop, Ambrose. Augustine ad-mired Ambrose, who influenced Augustineto begin a reassessment of Christian scrip-ture, which Augustine had long consideredwith disdain as filled with fantastic storiesthat did not even make eloquent reading.Ambrose suggested and Augustine consid-ered that the stories of the Old Testamentand New Testament were allegories of moreprofound spiritual phenomena. MeanwhileAugustine read Neoplatonist philosopherssuch as Plotinus, who helped to convince Au-gustine that truth is spiritual, not material,and that sin is not a substance but willfulerror in behavior.

At this point, living in Milan, wealthy, suc-cessful, and famous, understanding the con-tributions to human understanding of theStoics, Neoplatonists, and Manicheists, anddeeply influenced by Ambrose and hismother, Monica, Augustine converted toChristianity. Ambrose baptized the convert,

42 Aurelius Augustine

who, after his mother’s death, returned toNorth Africa where he lived the remainingdecades of his life with other religiousbrethren.When he was about forty years old,Augustine penned the Confessions.

The Confessions recounts Augustine’s lifefrom childhood to middle age, tells the storyof his conversion, and then, seeking to explainits significance, provides a detailed discussionof memory and time. Concerned to explainthe origins of personal and human sin, he por-trayed in detail his birth, infancy, and youth,some of which he recalled, but most of whichhe recreated by observing the behavior ofother children. He argued that from birth, hu-mans have unfulfilled material needs that im-pose on their spiritual development. Augus-tine assumed that from the beginning humanssin, which draws them away from God andleads them to misery. Happiness comes bydenying their own wills and accepting God’swill.The human journey through life is takenin stages of sin, resistance, self-deception,awareness, denial, acceptance, happiness. Toprove his assertion he called upon his theoriesof knowledge and time.

Augustine conceived of knowledge as theuniversal transcendent phenomenon repre-sented at particular times and places by theindividual knower. Augustine knew this rela-tionship between himself, the knower, andGod (knowledge) because of an internalvoice. This personal, temporal realization ofGod is the logos, long recognized in Greekthought as the transcendent creative force ofthought and knowledge.

Time fascinated Augustine even as ayouth. As he traced his own passing, he be-came aware that neither the past nor the fu-ture exist, only the fleeting present of noduration. Augustine discovered the humanquandary of how to achieve knowledge inthe passing moments of fluid experience.Augustine concluded that time is the experi-ence of each individual’s mind as it recallsthe past by memory, awaits the future by ex-pectation, and gauges the present by mo-mentary awareness.

Augustine believed that even the mosthumble example taken from any randommoment of a person’s experience can pro-vide an explanation for human history itself,since all humans share the same pattern ofexperiencing time and relying on memory,present awareness, and anticipation of thefuture to make sense of life and self. Time,the movement from future to present topast, hence history, is completely personal,in the mind, an individual’s fleeting recol-lection of events experienced either vicari-ously or actually.

The Confessions portrays Augustine’s expe-rience of time as the human experience oftime. Birth and death, creation and judg-ment, were the beginning and the end of Au-gustine’s life span of seventy-six years. Hislife was one of infancy and childhood, ratherlike the creation of Adam and Eve and the ageof the Patriarchs. His teen years were similarto the Hebrew sufferings in Egypt and thewanderings in the wilderness. His twentieswere like the years of the kings of Israel andJudah and the captivity in Babylon. The firstmillennium BCE was centuries of expecta-tion of the Messiah, and likewise Augustine’syoung adult years were in expectation of thetruth. Then truth came in an Incarnation, amoment in time when God became known toman. Subsequent years were filled withmemories of the grand event—Christians re-called the life and death of Jesus and tried touse memory to confront their own individualpresents and futures as they approached, col-lectively, the end. Augustine used memory torecall the single most important event of hislife, which irrevocably altered him and pre-pared him for death.

Augustine represents the transition fromthe ancient to the medieval worlds. He usedthe best of ancient philosophy and advanced itfurther under the umbrella of Christianity.He was the last great thinker of antiquity andthe first great thinker of Medieval Europe.His ideas on human psychology and time havenever really been surpassed, and they set thestage for later philosophers and scientists—

Aurelius Augustine 43

René Descartes, Francesco Petrarca, MartinLuther, Michel de Montaigne, Jonathan Ed-wards, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud,William James, and Albert Einstein.

See also Later Roman Empire; Neoplatonism;Psychology; Stoicism;Time

ReferencesBrown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1967.Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1986.

Meagher, Robert. Augustine:An Introduction. NewYork: Harper and Row, 1978.

St. Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1961.

Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past: Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1987.

Wippel, John, and Allan Wolter, eds. MedievalPhilosophy. New York: Free Press, 1969.

44 Aurelius Augustine

BabylonBabylon was for thousands of years the sym-bol of worldliness, grandeur, magic, and as-trology. An old Mesopotamian city, itemerged to political and cultural prominenceat the beginning of the second millenniumBCE.The city, situated at the lower EuphratesRiver, reputedly had walls sixty miles in cir-cumference, two hundred feet high, and fiftyfeet wide. Babylon, which the Elder Plinycalled the headquarters of the Chaldeans, theinfamous astrologers of the ancient world,was the capital of the First Dynasty, whichbegan in 1894.The most famous king of earlyBabylon was Hammurapi (1792–1750 BCE).Indeed, the Code of Hammurapi, one of thefirst law codes in the history of humankind,records a society where law has overcomebrute force and blood vengeance in the set-tling of disputes. Under Hammurapi, lawswere codified to deal with agriculture; waterrights; the use of metal as a means of ex-change; relations among master and slave andamong equals; builders who built weakhouses or leaky boats; and thieves of theshaduf and water wheel (used in irrigation).

The Code of Hammurapi reveals thatBabylon had a dynamic medical community.Indeed, Mesopotamians were the first greatpractitioners of medical science. As early asthe third millennium BCE, extensive materia

medica existed indicating what medicineswere useful for individual illnesses. Many ofthe laws of the Code deal with payments tophysicians and penalties for malpractice.Physicians performed surgery, drained tu-mors, and set bones; veterinarians performedsurgery on draft animals. Physicians, onegathers, were jack-of-all-trades scientists andastrologers. Of course magic and omens tem-pered the scientific efficacy of Babylonianmedicine. Early documents indicate that themagician (ashipu) was often the same as thephysician (asu). Nevertheless, medical obser-vations gave the Babylonians a keen awarenessof many diseases and suggestions for how totreat them.

Astrology and AstronomyThe Babylonians of the second and first mil-lennia BCE observed the heavens with the as-sumption that the movements of planets andstars and the phases of the moon had an im-pact on earthly events. The appearance of anew moon was greeted with wonder andgladness, as foreshadowing good things. Thegradual appearance of the moon and its hornsinformed the prognosticator of the course ofevents. The moon lasting to the thirtieth dayforeshadowed evil. Likewise other phenom-ena indicated good and evil according to theprognosticator’s interpretation: eclipses;

B

45

halos; the simultaneous appearance of moonand sun; the conjunction of Jupiter and themoon; the appearance or disappearance andplace on the horizon of Venus, Mercury, andMars; the appearance of thunderstorms dur-ing certain celestial events; and earthquakes.

Beginning in the eighth century BCE, Baby-lonian astronomers kept ephemerides of lunar,planetary, and stellar phenomena. This in-cluded accurate lunar and solar eclipse chartsfrom 450 BCE on. Pliny the Elder claimed thatthe Babylonian day began between sunrisesand that earthquakes resulted when threeplanets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) were alignedwith the sun. According to Epigenes, Babylo-nians recorded astronomical observations onclay tablets. The astronomer Ptolemy clearlyknew of Babylonian mathematics and astron-omy as well. Indeed Ptolemy’s geocentric sys-tem relying on the inner planets Mercury andVenus orbiting the sun on epicycles as the sunorbited the earth was remarkably similar toBabylonian astronomical schemes. The mostfamous Babylonian astronomer was Berossus,a priest of Baal who lived at Cos in the AegeanSea in the third century BCE.

MathematicsThe Babylonians were superb mathemati-cians. Place-value notation in numbers wasdeveloped by the Babylonians, who first usedzero as a place notation toward the end of thefirst millennium BCE during the HellenisticAge. Babylonian mathematicians divided thecircle into 360 degrees. Babylonian algebraused quadratic equations, squares, cubes,square roots, coefficients, number progres-sions, and linear algebra. Babylonian mathe-matics, like Egyptian mathematics, was con-cerned largely with practical arithmeticalproblems and solutions. Cuneiform texts sur-vive that indicate solutions to problems of en-gineering and building. Geometry, more ab-stract, was not as developed in Babylon.Nevertheless, the Pythagorean theorem wasfirst used in Babylon as early as the first cen-turies of the second millennium BCE. Textsalso indicate that the Babylonian mathemati-

cians solved problems involving hexagons,triangles, trapezoids, and the radii of circles.Babylonians understood the principle that aline that extends from a right angle to the hy-potenuse of a triangle creates two equal tri-angles. Geometry was also used in surveying.One of the oldest maps in the world, surviv-ing on a clay tablet, is of the Euphrates flow-ing through the ancient city of Babylon.

See also Astronomy; Egypt; Mathematics;Mesopotamia

ReferencesNeugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. New

York: Dover Books, 1969.Oates, Joan. Babylon. London:Thames and

Hudson, 1986.O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History of

Mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html(website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’s Scotland).

Thompson, R. Campbell. Assyrian and BabylonianLiterature: Selected Transactions. With a criticalintroduction by Robert Francis Harper. NewYork: D. Appleton and Company, 1901.

Biology/Botany See Life Sciences

Bronze Age (3500–800 BCE)Scientists categorize human development ac-cording to material culture, social and politi-cal institutions, sophistication of thought andculture, and level of technology. The latter isthe traditional means by which scholars havedesignated the origins of civilization in Eu-rope, Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. Precivilizedsocieties did not practice metallurgy, and thustools and weapons were limited and veryprimitive. Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) peoplesrelied on stone, wood, bone, and ivory fortools; metals, if used at all, were for decora-tive purposes. Some aspects of precivilizedculture were anything but primitive. Art andsculpture from Paleolithic Europe, for exam-ple, shows that these people had a keen eye fornature, conceived and portrayed gods andgoddesses, and even began to execute por-

46 Bronze Age

traits of other humans. Social organization al-lowed for successful hunts, a rudimentary so-cial hierarchy, and basic rituals and taboos bywhich to set rules of proper behavior. Pale-olithic tools were often astonishingly beautifuland very effective. Some anthropologists havedefined humans as tool users, which indeedfits the skill and success at adapting to the nat-ural environment of Paleolithic peoples.

The Neolithic (New Stone Age) differedfrom previous times in that humans maderevolutionary advances in thought, social or-ganization, and adaptation to the environ-ment. One of the greatest scientific discover-ies in human history occurred at an unknowntime by unknown individuals. Some personor group of people living at or near the Tigrisand Euphrates river valleys in Asia (a placesubsequently known to the Greeks asMesopotamia) around 10,000 BCE used ob-servation and hypothesis to perform an ex-periment. Perhaps they had noticed placeswhere the land, previously barren of food, allof a sudden, during spring, produced wildbarley or wild oats, which caused them toponder how this occurred. It would havebeen obvious to such people that animals givebirth to young in the spring, that trees reju-venate and flower in the spring, that berriesbecome plentiful on vines and bushes whenthe days grow longer and sun becomes hot-ter. How does the plant emerge from the soil,the egg appear in the nest, the woman be-come pregnant with new life? These appearedto be questions linked by a common miracleof newness, of birth, of growth. Ancient fer-tility cults devoted to plentiful foodstuffs, an-imal procreation, and human fertility revealthat long before civilization humans had dis-covered the idea of fertility, that of providingan environment suitable for growth, of therelationship of male and female to concep-tion, pregnancy, and birth. Could there be aconnection between male semen being im-planted in a healthy, fertile female and a seedfrom a plant being planted in rich soil?

Agriculture, although rudimentary andhaphazard at first, nevertheless involved a sci-

entific process of planning, implementing,controlling, and producing results. As har-vests became plentiful, and surplus food wasproduced and stored, Neolithic humansgained a basic understanding and experienceda general control over their environment,which is the essence of science. Surplus al-lowed for a break from day-to-day survival; itallowed for a conception of the future basedon planning the necessary foodstuffs for acoming winter or period of drought. Withmore food, there was no longer the need foryearly migrations in search of food. Neolithicpeoples were no longer nomads, like theirforebears. Neolithic towns emerged in par-ticularly productive areas. The earliest werein an area that scholars call the Fertile Cres-cent.These small towns, such as Jericho, sup-ported a population of well over one thou-sand people, who lived in sun-dried-mudbrick homes that looked out upon narrow av-enues that crisscrossed at right angles. Mudbrick walls surrounded the town.Townspeo-ple developed a sense of commonality, a senseof community, which also implied a sense ofthe foreign. Restrictions, exclusiveness, con-trol over property, struggle for more terri-tory, and the beginnings of trade all charac-terized Neolithic society.

BronzeMesopotamians were the first to use bronzetools and weapons. Ancient Sumerian crafts-men had sufficient skill in metallurgy tocombine the native copper of Mesopotamiawith tin from the mountains of Turkey inforges that could reach sufficient tempera-tures to heat the metals, pour the moltenmetal into casts, and produce bronze, whichwas far superior to copper, stone, bone,ivory, or wood tools and weapons. Workwith copper without heating it had occurredmillennia earlier in Mesopotamia. Technol-ogy had advanced sufficiently by 6000 BCEthat lead and copper were heated and com-bined. The advance of the Mesopotamianeconomy, the accumulation of surplus, andthe demand for better tools and weapons

Bronze Age 47

over the course of centuries resulted in thediscovery that one part tin to seven partscopper yielded bronze. The bronze industryhelped stimulate a growing tool and weaponindustry for agriculture and warfare. InEgypt, meanwhile, advances in metallurgyincluded the use of stone crucibles to hostfire heated by air blown through reeds. Be-sides bronze, Egyptian metallurgists usedcopper and copper alloys for a variety of pur-poses, one example being materials forplumbing. A variety of different types of bel-lows and pipes to force air into the forgeheating the fire were developed inMesopotamia as well as in Egypt. Also by theend of the second millennium BCE, BronzeAge technology was emerging in Iran,China, and along the Indus River valley.Shang bronze workers produced strikinglybeautiful and sophisticated objects.

Minoan AgeThe ancient Mediterranean afforded manyexamples of Bronze Age society and culture.One of the most fascinating and least knownwas centered on the island of Crete duringthe third and second millennia BCE. SirArthur Evans, who performed the firstarcheological digs at Knossos and other Cre-tan cities, named the forgotten civilizationMinoan, after Minos, the mythical king ofCrete and son of Zeus. Minoan culture wassophisticated for its time, partly derivative ofNear Eastern civilizations. There was a dis-tinct social structure that included a royalhouse, aristocratic priests, middle classcraftsmen, merchants, sailors, and profes-sionals, farmers, and slaves. The remains ofthe palace at Knossos shows an intricate,well-decorated structure with enough roomsand halls to make it seem like a labyrinth tolater generations. The Minoans had a thalas-socracy, an empire built on the sea, on trade,and on a fleet of wooden triremes imposingthe will of King Minos and his successors onsurrounding subject states. They were de-voted to the worship of the mother goddess,and the bull was sacred. Sculpture, art, met-

allurgy, and pottery were well developed atCrete. The highpoint of Minoan civilizationwas the development of a written script,which scholars call Linear A.

Archeologists have discovered a similarculture at Santorini, a small island sixty milesnorth of Crete. A massive volcanic eruptionin the fifteenth century BCE partially de-stroyed the island, called Thera in antiquity,and ended a beautiful culture of sophisticatedstone work, metallurgy, multistoried build-ings, trade, and art.The ancient Therans builta town (Akrotiri) that included colonnadedhomes decorated with bright colors andbeautiful murals of sea creatures and simplepleasures. Lead pipes brought water to somehomes and served as part of an elaboratesewage system that included drains belowslabs of stone that made up roads and alleys.

Mycenaean AgeGreece and the islands of the Aegean wereinitially subject to the empire of Crete beforegaining independence by the mid-second mil-lennium BCE. This civilization, centered atthe Greek Peloponnesus, was unknown untilits discovery by Heinrich Schliemann in thenineteenth century. Schliemann had alreadydiscovered the ancient site of Troy in north-west Turkey. He claimed to have discoveredthe homeland of King Priam and Prince Hec-tor of Troy and the kingdoms of Menelaus andAgamemnon, brothers and kings of Spartaand Mycenae and Argos. Schliemann referredto the Bronze Age cultures of the Aegean andGreece as the Mycenaean civilization,whereas modern scholars often refer to it asHelladic.

The Mycenaeans were similar to the Mi-noans in their sophisticated metallurgy, ship-building, trade, military, and fortresses.Theypossessed a form of writing, perhaps derivedfrom the Minoan civilization, which scholarscall Linear B. Kings and aristocrats ruled, andmost people were farmers and herders, butthere was also a middle class of craftsmen,scribes, physicians, and merchants. TheMycenaean civilization was patriarchal, as re-

48 Bronze Age

flected in their deities, dominated by themale god Zeus. The people of Greece, likethose of Crete, tried to explain the workingsof nature but could do no better than toimagine supernatural forces at work behindthe immensity of the sky, the depths of thesea, the thunderbolt, the fertility of soil andhumans, human emotions, and illness anddeath. The Greek gods, ruling from MountOlympus, personified the forces of nature forthese Bronze Age people.

Dorian InvasionsAt the beginning of the twelfth century BCE,a cataclysmic event occurred that forever al-tered the civilizations of the eastern Mediter-ranean. Invaders from northern Europewielding iron weapons migrated into theBalkans and Asia Minor and south to Palestineand Egypt. Nomadic and primitive, illiterateand violent, but somehow discovering the se-cret to smelting iron, they were largely un-stoppable. The Greeks called the invadersDorians; they destroyed the Mycenaean civi-lization and took control especially of west-ern Greece and the Peloponnesus. Perhapsthey had a role in the fall of Troy.These sameinvaders conquered the Hittite Empire ofAsia Minor, threatened (as the Philistines) theHebrews in Palestine, and attacked the Egyp-tians.Though repulsed from Egypt, the Egyp-tians were nevertheless terrified of these peo-ple from the sea.The invaders are sometimesreferred to as the “sea peoples.”

The IoniansThe inhabitants of Mycenaean towns andcities fled at the Dorian approach, migratingeast to the extreme peninsulas of the main-land, the islands of the Aegean, and the west-

ern coast of Turkey. These people, subse-quently called the Ionians, founded Ioniancity-states such as Athens, Miletus, Chios,Samos, Halicarnassus, Cos, Colophon, andEphesus. The Ionians and Dorians in comingcenturies always considered themselves dif-ferent. They had similar traditions and lan-guage and worshipped similar gods and god-desses, but the level and sophistication oftheir respective cultures differed. The Dori-ans were more militaristic, and their citiesfocused on war and defense rather than art,poetry, and science.The Ionians, on the otherhand, were devoted to thought, culture, in-vestigating nature, and expressing their ideas.The Ionians in time became the leaders ofGreek science during the Archaic, Classical,and Hellenistic ages of Greece. The cities ofAthens, Miletus, Cos, and Chios became cen-ters of philosophy and science. Homer,Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximander, Hip-pocrates, Socrates, and Plato were represen-tative of Ionian philosophers, scientists, andphysicians.

See also Agriculture; Ionians; IrrigationTechniques; Mesopotamia

ReferencesBotsford, George, and Charles A. Robinson.

Hellenic History. Revised by Donald Kagan.New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1969.

Doumas, Christos G. Thera: Pompeii of the AncientAegean. London:Thames and Hudson, 1983.

Finley, M. I. The World of Odysseus. Harmonds-worth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1972.

Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Sandars, N. K. The Sea Peoples. London:Thamesand Hudson, 1985.

Bronze Age 49

Caesar, Julius (100–44 BCE)Julius Caesar, best known for his militaryconquest of Gaul and civil war against theRoman Senate and its champion GnaeusPompey, was not only a man of action and po-litical affairs but a superb writer who pro-vided excellent descriptions of the lands inwhich he fought, in particular Gaul andBritain. Caesar reputedly wrote treatises onlanguage and astronomy, but these have notsurvived. His Civil War and Gallic War do,however, survive, and provide us with in-sights into the lands and people of ancientnorthern Europe.

Gallic War allowed Caesar to write as ananthropologist, describing objectively andtersely his opponents the Gauls. Modernscholars rely heavily on Caesar’s observationsof the customs and groupings of these earlyCeltic and Germanic peoples. Caesar’s ac-count, for example, of Britain is revealing.Part of his discussion, especially of the extentof the island and Ireland as well, was based onhearsay.Yet he recorded information that thenative Celts provided him.They claimed thatduring the winter solstice there were severaldays of complete darkness. Caesar, who wasin Britain during warmer months, used theRoman water clock to measure the extent ofdarkness and found nights to be shorter thanin Gaul and Italy, thereby contradicting the

report. The Britons were warlike, primitivetoward women, and very superstitious. War-riors dyed their bodies blue with woad to ap-pear more fierce. Women had few rights,were shared by men, and had the reputationamong Romans as being almost as courageousand warlike as the men. Caesar described theCelts of Britain and Gaul as having a primitiveform of government, based on tribal and fam-ily loyalties. The masses were subject to thepowerful few, led by the Druids, a religiouscaste of priests who maintained an oral tradi-tion and teachings by word of mouth to retainsecrecy and hence power. Caesar wrote thatthe Druids officiated at human sacrifice.Warcaptives were offered to the gods as substi-tutes (in death) for the Celts. Celtic deitiesand the powers and actions they symbolizedwere very similar to the Greeks and Romans.They worshipped Mercury (Hermes), the pa-tron of trade and inventions; Minerva(Athena), the patroness of crafts; Jupiter(Zeus), the king; Mars (Ares), the war god;and Apollo, the god of healing. The Druids,according to Caesar, attempted to understandthe heavens, and conversed on astronomy,meteorology, geodesy, and geography. TheDruids measured time according to nightsrather than days.

Time was, indeed, an object of inquiry thatfascinated Caesar. After becoming dictator in

C

51

45 BCE, he instituted a reform of the calen-dar. The old Roman calendar was based on a355-day year, which over the years had madethe months out of sync with the seasons. Cae-sar introduced a 365-day year, and added oneday every fourth year. He added an initial twomonths to match the seasons with the calen-dar. According to the biographer Suetonius,Caesar revealed his scientific ability in otherways as well. He granted citizenship to physi-cians, scientists, and other intellectuals tokeep them in Rome. He proposed a massivepublic works agenda that included the build-ing of canals and draining of marshes. He sup-ported the building of libraries and the or-dering of Greek and Latin manuscripts. But,as Suetonius noted, many of his plans came tonaught because of his assassination on the Idesof March, 44 BCE.

See also Calendars and Dating Systems;Geography/Geodesy; Military Science

ReferencesCaesar. The Civil War. Translated by Jane F.

Gardner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1976.

_____. The Conquest of Gaul. Translated by S. A.Handford. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1951.

Chadwick, Nora. The Celts. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970.

Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by RobertGraves. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1957.

Calendars and Dating SystemsThe daily movement of the sun and nightlyphases of the moon gave early humans asense of passing, of human affairs beingsomehow linked to celestial phenomena.The female reproductive cycle was remark-ably similar to the period from new moon tonew moon, and thus ancient societies be-lieved that the moon must have femininecharacteristics. Religious festivals in honorof the moon goddess came to be as impor-tant as festivals tracing the solar year and thepassing seasons. As agriculture developed,calendars became extremely important fortracking the time for planting and harvest-ing. Festivals built around the equinoxes andsolstices were a natural consequence of co-ordinating humans affairs with solar andlunar movements. The Mesopotamians andEgyptians, the first two civilizations to de-velop agriculture and a sophisticated societybased on the repetitive phenomena of theseasons, created the first calendars. TheBabylonians had lunar calendars in whichthe month began on the evening of the ap-pearance of the crescent moon. The Baby-lonian calendar required thirteen months ina year. Egyptians had lunar calendars onlyfor festivals but otherwise relied on solarcalendars. Egyptian solar calendars werebased on 360 days, with five days added onat year’s end.The Egyptian calendar coordi-nated the three farm seasons in four-monthsegments. The Egyptian new year began inJuly with the rising of the Nile River and the

52 Calendars and Dating Systems

The Roman conqueror, Julius Caesar, author of Gallic War.Sculpted by Maradan, between 1850 and 1900. Rightprofile. (Library of Congress)

appearance of Sirius, the Dog Star. Chineseastronomers developed a solar calendaralso, as early as 1300 BCE.

The Greeks made the greatest advances inmeasuring the lunar and solar years. Plutarchwrote that Solon introduced to the Atheniansa lunar calendar. According to this calendar,on the one day per month when the moonand sun conjoin, the day would be called “theold and the new.” Solon began on this daycounting days to twenty. The last ten dayswere counted in descending order, conform-ing to the waning moon. That the lunar cal-endar was short of the solar calendar by 111/2

days over the course of the year resulted inmuch confusion for the religious andthoughtful Greeks, which led mathematiciansand astronomers to develop a variety ofunique calculating techniques.

Octaëteris and Metonic CycleThe remarkable lack of coordination of thesolar and lunar years occupied the minds ofancient thinkers.What could be done to de-vise a calendar that would at the same timekeep accurate track of the moon’s phasesand the sun’s daily path? How could reli-gious festivals based on the moon and thosebased on the sun not become completelyconfusing? The ancients developed the tech-nique of inserting intercalary days to peri-odically keep the solar calendar reflectingthe observed phenomena. The adding of aday every four years, the leap year, is amodern intercalary method. Greek as-tronomers and mathematicians were verycreative in their attempts to use intercalaryyears with the least inconvenience and mostefficiency.

Geminus, the Roman Stoic and as-tronomer of the first century CE, wrote inhis Introduction to Astronomy that the Greeks ofthe Archaic Age developed the octaëteris: aneight-year cycle in which intercalary monthscould be added in the least confusing way.Since the lunar year lags behind the solar yearby 111/2 days, the Greeks discovered that thefirst point at which we find a reasonable

method to calculate intercalary months is ateight years (111/2 times 8 equals roughly 90days), when three months can be added to thelunar calendar to make it conform to thesolar calendar. Geminus said that the Greeksdecided to break this up in the octaëteris by in-serting one month at intervals during theeight-year period. The octaëteris was still offby 11/2 days, which led to the calculation of16- and 160-year cycles, but most signifi-cantly, to the development of the MetonicCycle of 19 years.

The Metonic Cycle was the creation ofMeton of Athens, who lived in the fifth cen-tury BCE. He devised a calendar for use atAthens that showed the months, years, festi-vals, and ephemerides. Meton realized that19 solar years equaled exactly 235 lunarmonths. Greeks knew, therefore, that every19 years the cycle would begin again of themoon repeating the same phases on the samedays of the solar calendar. With Meton’sscheme, which still relied on intercalarymonths, mathematicians could coordinatelunar and solar calendar systems. TheMetonic Cycle would in time be used to cal-culate the annual date of Easter.This was ad-vocated by Anatolius, an Aristotelian philoso-pher, in the third century CE.

A contemporary of Meton, Oenopides ofChios, discovered the Great Year recurringevery 59 years, which is the same as 730complete lunar months. Oenopides calcu-lated the year to a very accurate 365 days and9 hours. The fourth-century mathematicianCallippus of Cyzicus extended the MetonicCycle to four periods, 76 years (the reasonbeing that no matter what the Greeks tried todo, the cycles of solar and lunar years wouldalways be a few minutes or hours off).The as-tronomer Hipparchus used an extended cycleof 304 years (four of Callippus’s cycles) anddeveloped a system that was highly accuratewith respect to solar and lunar years, the lat-ter being off only by one second per month.Hipparchus’s estimate for the year was 365days, five hours, fifty-five minutes, and fif-teen seconds.

Calendars and Dating Systems 53

RomeThe calendar of early Rome, according to tra-dition and Plutarch, contained ten months,December being the tenth.The months wereof varying numbers of days but totaled 360days. The Romans had adopted this calendarfrom another source, perhaps the Etruscans,but did not understand its use, at least ac-cording to Plutarch. Then Numa Pompiliusbecame king, succeeding Romulus. Plutarch,who had a balanced approach to history andlegend, reported that Numa was aPythagorean and scientist who reformed thecalendar, adding two months, January andFebruary, and making the Roman year beginnot in March but in January. He was the firstto show the Romans that the cycles of themoon and sun are different by eleven days peryear, and that an intercalary month, calledMercedinus, must be occasionally added.Thissame calendar continued during the Republicuntil the time of Julius Caesar. Upon assum-ing dictatorial powers he embarked upon aseries of reforms, one of which was the cal-endar.The Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenesinfluenced Caesar’s calendar reform, whichintroduced the solar year of 365 days ratherthan the old lunar year of 355 days. Caesar in-troduced the 365-day year and a leap dayevery fourth year. He added an initial twomonths to bring the seasons and calendar to-gether.

TimekeepingThe Babylonians developed the sexagesimalsystem of base 60, so that hours, minutes, andseconds could be determined as a fraction of60 or its multiples. The Greeks used theBabylonian hexadecimal system combinedwith the Egyptian twenty-four-hour day.Time was kept in the Greco-Roman world bymeans of the sundial or gnomon and thewater clock.The Greeks borrowed the idea ofthe gnomon from Egyptian and Babylonianscientists. Meton of Athens, the developer ofthe Metonic Cycle, erected a solar clock infifth-century Athens. Aristarchus of Samoscreated a sundial that had “a concave hemi-

spherical surface, with a pointer erected ver-tically in the middle throwing shadows and soenabling the direction of the height of the sunto be read off by means of lines marked onthe surface of the hemisphere” (Heath 1913).The Hellenistic engineer Andronicus ofCyrrhus created a marble sundial on the is-land of Tinos and a water clock in Athens in alarge octagonal structure with a bronze windgauge at the top. Both Pliny the Younger andJulius Caesar described water clocks thatmarked the passing of time. Caesar remarkedin the Gallic War that he determined thelength of the British day using a water clock.

Dating SystemsEratosthenes and Apollodorus dated eventsaccording to Spartan kings, the ephors;Thucydides dated events in his PeloponnesianWar according to Sparton ephors but alsoAthenian archons. The historian Polybiusused the Olympic games, occurring everyfour years beginning in 776 BCE, as his guideto constructing a regular chronology of his-torical events. Polybius relied on the work ofEratosthenes, who created a systematic ren-dering of the Olympiads, which was the basisfor his Chronography. This system used theOlympiads as the means to measure time inthe distant past, before 776, as well as formore contemporary events.According to his-torian Donald Wilcox (1987), Eratosthenesconceived of chronology in abstract terms,measuring events that are no longer felt orseen, events that have no existence except inthe minds of those who recall them and thescratchings on parchment and stone that pur-port to record them. Plutarch, for one,thought that dating according to Olympiadswas uncertain. Perhaps this explains why his-torians such as Polybius used other dating sys-tems as well, such as the annual term of officeof the Roman consul. Nevertheless Polybiusshowed the benefits of using one standarddating system to try to order the occurrenceof all human events over time. Roman writ-ers, such as the historians Livy and Tacitus,relied on the tried and true Olympiads and

54 Calendars and Dating Systems

consulships but also dated events according tothe hypothetical date of the founding ofRome (753 BCE). Hence Julius Caesar’s as-sassination occurred in 709 (meaning 709years since the founding of the city).

Christian ChronologyChristian scholars, of course, had to rely onthe chronologies produced by their fore-bears. Hence Eusebius of Caesarea (260–339CE), in Ecclesiastical History, dated the birth ofChrist according to the year of Augustus’srule, the years since the Battle of Actium, andthe reign of the governor of Syria, Quirinius.Eusebius published the Chronological Canons,in which he dated Christian, especially Apos-tolic, events of the first four centuries CE.Eusebius provided chronological tables ofpagan and sacred events to provide compar-isons with the past. He relied on some of thechronological estimates of the Hebrew histo-rian Josephus. Eusebius dated Hebrew eventsfrom the birth of Abraham. Some Christianwriters, such as Gregory of Tours and PaulusOrosius, used the creation of Adam as thelogical starting point for chronicling humanaffairs. Even so, Orosius found it more con-venient to rely for practical purposes on theyears since the founding of Rome. St. Augus-tine, the greatest classical thinker on the sub-ject of time, dated the passing of events inpersonal terms, according to the significanceof one’s life in relation to the coming ofChrist, the Incarnation. Victorius ofAquitaine, meanwhile, devised a table withwhich to calculate the proper date of Easter,the Christian celebration of Christ’s Resur-rection. Victorius decided to date his Eastertable beginning with the first Easter. Such achronology, however, was not useful in theRoman world, where the year began not inthe spring but after the winter solstice.Dionysius Exiguus in 525 CE drew up anEaster table that began with Christ’s birth(December 25), traditionally celebrated byearly Christians just a few days after the win-ter solstice at a time when the Romans hadfor centuries celebrated the Saturnalia.

Dionysius’s Easter table eventually becamethe basis for dating events in yearly sequencefrom the birth of Christ, each year markinghow many had passed since “the year of ourLord,” anno domini, AD.

See also Astronomy; Aurelius Augustine; Easter;Hipparchus; Polybius;Time

ReferencesAbell, George O. Exploration of the Universe. 3d ed.

New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston, 1975.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint ed., New York: Dover Books, 1982.Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. New

York: Dover Books, 1969.O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History of

Mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html(website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’s Scotland).

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by RobertGraves. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1957.

Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past: Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1987.

Cato, Marcus Porcius (Elder)(234–149 BCE)The Elder Cato was a philosopher, statesman,historian, and agricultural writer. His OnAgriculture was written in Latin, Cato beingvery opposed to the growing Greek intellec-tual influence in Roman republican society.Cato’s audience was the large landowner whowas creating latifundia, the infamous planta-tions dedicated to wine and olive production,rather than the small freeholder who was, bythe second century BCE, becoming a thing ofthe past.

Cato influenced many subsequent writerson agricultural topics, such as Columella,Varro, Palladius, and the Elder Pliny.The lat-ter praised Cato for his expertise in viticul-ture—in olive growing and production of oil;in the purchase of farm property and decid-ing for what the land is best suited; and in

Cato, Marcus Porcius 55

particular crops and their medical efficacy.Cato, for example, praised cabbage as impor-tant in combating hypochondria, sleepless-ness, and nightmares. Eating hare was also asure remedy for insomnia. Pliny also reliedon Cato for his comments on materia medicaand veterinary medicine.

Cato believed that the Roman moralstrength could be sapped by too heavy re-liance upon other cultures. In an extant letterto his son he warned him to avoid Greeksophists and physicians; Greek learning canbe useful, but not at the expense of Romandignity, piety, courage, and honor.

See also Agriculture; Columella; Palladius; Plinythe Elder;Varro

ReferencesOgilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

Celsus (floruit 25 CE)Aurelius Cornelius Celsus was a Romanphysician from Spain who lived and worked atthe beginning of the Roman Principate. Cel-sus was a polymath who wrote a variety ofworks on topics such as agriculture, oratory,warfare, and medical science. His greatestwork was On Medicine, written in Latin, ineight books. Celsus relied on his predecessorsHippocrates, Erasistratus, and Asclepiades.He was particularly indebted to Greek med-ical science. His was an encyclopedic workthat encompassed all aspects of medicine,ranging from surgery to materia medica, tohearsay and superstition, to concrete discov-eries in medicine and practical advice ongood diet and health. Book One, for exam-ple, of On Medicine, discusses in detail thedaily regimen of diet, exercise, purging thesystem, and so on to arrive at good health.Book Two discusses in Hippocratic fashion theimpact of the environment upon good health.

Book Three includes an interesting assess-ment of mental illness.

Scholars disagree on whether or not Cel-sus was an interested observer or a practicingphysician. He did refer to actual patients andseems to have practiced much of what hepreached. His On Medicine, on the other hand,is a descriptive work focusing on observation,symptoms, diagnosis, and prevention ratherthan direct intervention to cure disease. Cel-sus’s comments on medical practice reliedchiefly on the traditional methods of purgingthe system and blood-letting. Even so, exam-ining Celsus’s achievements, one realizes thatRoman medical science in the Augustan Agewas sophisticated. Roman physicians and sur-geons knew about dentistry, urology, obstet-rics, ophthalmology, anesthesia, plastic sur-gery, and diseases of the ears and throat.

See also Agriculture; Asclepiades; Erasistratus;Galen; Hippocrates; Medicine; RomanPrincipate

ReferencesCelsus, A. Cornelius. On Medicine. Translated by

W. G. Spencer. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1938.

Durant,Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1944.

56 Celsus

The Roman physician Celsus. G. Engelmann Vigneron.(Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine)

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Chemistry See Physical Sciences

ChinaSee Asia, East and South

Cicero (106–43 BCE)Marcus Tullius Cicero was one of the mostwell known of the Roman Stoic philosophers.He lived during the time of internal discordthat destroyed the Roman Republic. Cicerotranslated his uncertainty about the state andcorporeal matters into uncertainty about thenature and end of life. He was not quite surewhat to make of religion, but he certainlydoubted the traditional Roman pantheon ofgods and goddesses. Cicero was a theoristabout government and morality, though hisown politics and ethics were sometimes ques-tionable. He wrote a variety of dialogues andorations, most notably On The Republic, On theLaws, Divination, On the Nature of the Gods, andOn the Character of the Orator.

Greek philosophy had a profound impacton Cicero.Two leaders of the Academy, Philoand Antiochus, were among his teachers.TheStoics Posidonius and Diodotus were hisfriends and mentors. Philodemus and Phae-drus were his Epicurean mentors. Indeed Onthe Nature of the Gods is an imaginary dialoguebetween an Epicurean, a Stoic, and an Acade-mician. This dialogue provides an interestinganalysis of the scientific and religious argu-ments for belief or disbelief in the divine.

Cicero’s On the Character of the Orator pre-sents the view that the successful orator musthave broad knowledge, including of naturalhistory and philosophy and political science,but especially knowledge of humans.The or-ator understands the individual and groupfeelings and expectations of his listeners. Cic-ero’s psychology introduces the idea that em-

pathy is required from the orator if he is toreach and influence his audience.

His imaginative essay “Scipio’s Dream,”found in Book 6 of Cicero’s Republic, presents acosmic, geographical, and psychologicalworldview. Cicero, like many geographers ofhis time, conceived of continents in differenthemispheres of the earth separated by theoceans. For example, at the opposite side of theworld from Italy were people whose feet im-printed the ground opposite to the Romans—these were the antipodes. Cicero agreed withmost ancient geographers that there were fivezones on the earth, two polar, two temperate,and a zone of fire at the equator.

Cicero is best remembered for his role intrying to halt the disintegration of the RomanRepublic at the hands of military tyrants suchas Catiline, Caesar, and Octavian. Cicerolooked to an earlier time when the Senateruled benevolently over a people contentwith public service and dedication to the Sen-ate and people of Rome.

Cicero 57

First-century BCE bust of the Roman Stoic and oratorCicero (106–43 BCE). (Araldo de Luca/Corbis)

See also Academy; Epicureanism; Psychology;Social Sciences; Stoicism

ReferencesCicero. Basic Works. Edited by Moses Hadas. New

York: Modern Library, 1951.Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Columella (5 BCE–60 CE)Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, a nativeof Cadiz, Spain, was a Roman agriculturalwriter, the author of On Agriculture, On Trees,and the lost Against the Astrologers. His booksreveal the Roman concern for practical tech-niques of applied science. Columella wrote onaviculture (raising birds) and viticulture (cul-tivation of grapes, making of wine), so impor-tant to the Roman economy. He particularlyemphasized viticulture as the best means tomake land profitable. Columella’s practicaladvice included that wheat does well in a fieldthat has lain fallow for a year and that birdsbathe in dust and ash and hence that the poul-try man should line henhouses with such mat-ter. Columella also advised crop rotation.Columella’s writings had a significant impacton the work of later Latin scientists and agri-culturalists, such as Pliny and Palladius.

See also Agriculture; Cato, Marcus Porcius;Palladius; Roman Principate;Varro

ReferencesColumella. On Agriculture. Translated by Edward

H. Heffner. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1989.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

CommentatorsDuring late antiquity the Roman Empire wasdisintegrating, the barbarian kingdoms ofWestern Europe were being created, and theByzantine Empire was emerging from theEastern Roman Empire. There were feworiginal thinkers and scientists during thesecenturies—most surviving works of scienceand philosophy were by commentators who

examined the thinking of the greats of thepast, such as Aristotle, and wrote extensivecommentaries to preserve their teachings.Much of what we know about early Greekscientists comes from the work of the com-mentators of late antiquity.The most impor-tant of these commentators includedClement of Alexandria (150–215 CE), Hip-polytus (180–235 CE), Pappas (floruit latethird century CE), Macrobius (floruit fifthcentury CE), Proclus (412–485 CE), andSimplicius (500–540 CE).

Clement of Alexandria was a Christian andauthor of Miscellanies, in which he providedcommentary on ancient Greek and Romanphilosophers and scientists. Clement’s pur-pose was the support of Christianity. He wasone of the ancient sources for information onthe Seven Sages of antiquity.

Hippolytus, a Christian theologian, wroteRefutation of All Heresies, in which he con-demned pagan philosophy and science whileoffering commentary and excerpts. As a re-sult, Hippolytus’s Refutation becomes an im-portant source for the writings and thoughtof Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles,Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Archelaus.

Pappas, who lived at the end of the thirdcentury CE and who was the author of Math-ematical Collection, was a Late Roman com-mentator on the works of Archimedes, Eu-clid, and Ptolemy and also a geographer. HisCollection included discussions of plane geom-etry, solid geometry, squaring the circle, thePythagorean Theorem, volume, astronomy,conics (commenting on Apollonius of Perga),analytical geometry, and mechanics. Pappuspreserved a discussion of the thirteen solidsdiscovered by Archimedes.

Macrobius was a Late Roman author of theSaturnalia, in which he provided informationand commentary on ancient science and phi-losophy. Macrobius’s geography told of fourcontinents in the four sections of a sphericalearth—northern and southern latitudes wereseparated by an equatorial sea. The variedseas separating the continents flowed intoeach other, causing the tides.

58 Columella

Proclus of Lydia was a Late Roman mathe-matician and Neoplatonist philosopher whowrote the Commentary on Euclid. He studied atAthens and Alexandria. He attempted tomeasure the sun’s diameter using a waterclock. Proclus wrote commentaries on Aris-totle and on astronomers such as Hipparchus.He studied eclipses, spheres of planets, andthe distances between planets.

A Late Roman Neoplatonist, Simpliciuswrote Commentary on the Physics and Commen-tary on the Heavens, two works that providemuch information on otherwise unknownworks by scientists and philosophers such asHippo, Hippasus, Diogenes of Apollonia,Zeno of Elea, Parmenides, Melissus, Xeno-phanes, and Thales.

See also Aristotle; Diogenes Laertius; LaterRoman Empire; Neoplatonism, Porphyry

ReferenceBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.

ConstantinopleThe Greek city of Byzantion was founded asa colony in the eighth century BCE by Do-rian settlers. Byzantion possessed a wonder-ful site situated on a peninsula jutting intodeep water overlooking the Bosphorus andthe Sea of Marmara.The city of Byzantion layastride sea lanes passing from the Black (Eu-xine) to the Aegean seas and land traderoutes from western Asia to Eastern Europe.Byzantion thrived as a Greek polis, and then,after the birth of Christ, as the Greco-Roman city of Byzantium. The city, as acrossroads of trade, became a cosmopolitanplace of cultures, institutions, and ideas. Inthe fourth century CE the emperor Constan-tine (who ruled from 306 to 337 CE) trans-formed the city into the capital of the Chris-tian Roman Empire. Constantinople becamethe leading center of thought and culture forcenturies to come.

The historical record is scant regarding theprogress of science and philosophy in GreekByzantion and Roman Byzantium. One reads

of the Platonic philosopher Leon leading thedefense of the city against Philip of Macedonin the mid-fourth century BCE. Perhaps Leonwas leader because so few of his type residedin the city, which became a well-known cen-ter for astrologers, seers, and prognostica-tors. One of the most famous was Apolloniusof Tyana, who practiced his miraculous arts atByzantium in the second century CE, asrecorded by the philosopher Philostratus inhis biography of the wonder-worker. Shortlybefore Philostratus wrote his biography ofApollonius, Byzantium had been severelypunished by the Roman emperor SeptimiusSeverus for supporting a rival to the imperialpurple.This was followed by years of stagnanttrade and civil conflict. By the time that Con-stantine became emperor, Byzantium was aninsignificant city in the Eastern Roman Em-pire.

The Emperor ConstantineConstantine was not a great intellect but in-stead a soldier who could see the strategicvalue of Byzantium. Seeking a new capital toglorify himself and his new devotion toChrist, Constantine decided in 324 to createa new city on the site of Byzantium.The Cityof Constantine was dedicated in 330, andquickly became the focus of the empire. Herewas the palace of the emperor, the forum, theHippodrome (where games were held), andthe church of the holy wisdom, Hagia Sophia.Other churches, buildings, and statues sur-rounded the city’s monumental core, whichwas located at the eastern end of the city,overlooking the Sea of Marmara. High cliffsand walls guarded the city on three sides;south was the Sea of Marmara, east was theBosphorus, and north was the Golden Horn,a secure, deep harbor that was the basis forthe city’s extensive trade. The city could beaccessed by land only to the European west,which Constantine fortified by a massivewall; his successors Theodosius and Justinianbuilt walls, too.

Initially Constantinople was a military, ad-ministrative, and trade center rather than an

Constantinople 59

intellectual center. Athens, Antioch, andAlexandria continued to take the lead in sci-entific and philosophical matters. Constan-tine, however, set the precedent for the em-peror being the head of the church, whichmeant that he was the focal point of the on-going theological debates centering upon theChristian Trinity, leadership in the church,and the accepted dogmas and canons of ec-clesiastical rule. Christian philosophers andtheologians therefore made Constantinopletheir home so that they could be near the em-peror and, if possible, influence his decisions.

Constantine’s successor Constantius IIconsidered himself an enlightened Romanprince of an extensive, centralized republic.This facade of the old Roman princeps wasbelieved by very few, except for the excep-tionally credulous. Such men did not includethe likes of Themistius, a pagan orator andphilosopher whom Constantine accepted atthe Christian court. Themistius played thegame of pretending that the Rome of Con-stantius was akin to the Rome of Augustus.He was also a respected student of GreekHellenism and a commentator of note onAristotle. Other pagan philosophers, particu-larly Neoplatonists, were, like Themistius,tolerated at the imperial court. Notwith-standing the introduction and expansion ofChristianity by Constantine and Constantius,the empire, especially in the eastern Mediter-ranean, was imbued with the centuries-oldinfluence of Greek thought, literature, reli-gion, and science.

The undercurrent of all things Greek inthe Eastern Roman Empire was never moreclearly seen at Constantinople than when Ju-lian, the nephew of Constantine, came to thethrone after the death of Constantius in 361.Julian considered himself a philosopher-king;he thought that the best and most trustwor-thy men were those who spent their lives incontemplation of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, andPlotinus. He eulogized the NeoplatonistIamblichus and supported his students, suchas Maximus, and teachings, such as theurgy.His court at Constantinople was staffed with

Greeks who believed that the emperor wasleading the empire to a new Hellenistic Age.Julian sought to spread his Hellenism to theParthians, imitating Alexander’s spread ofGreek culture to Persia seven hundred yearsearlier. Julian was, however, not Alexander—he died in battle. So too did the dreams of theHellenist philosophers and scientists.

JustinianThe glory days of Constantinople as the cen-ter of the Christian, Greek, and scientific cul-ture of late antiquity occurred during thereign of the emperor Justinian (527–565CE). Scholars today refer to Justinian as anemperor of the Byzantine Empire. Justinianconsidered himself a Roman emperor; thegoal of his reign was to make concrete thisperception by conquering the old Romanwest, then in the hands of Germanic kings,and by resurrecting all things Roman, includ-ing thought, culture, and science. Justinian,like Constantine, was not an intellectual.Yethe patronized a host of thinkers—Aris-totelian commentators, Christian theolo-gians, Platonic thinkers, and some of thegreatest legal minds of all time. It was underJustinian that the Digest of Roman Law andthe Code of Justinian were compiled underthe leadership of Tribonian, who, along withother legal scholars, such as Theophilus andDorotheus, were scientists of law and gov-ernment, forerunners of today’s political sci-entists.They analyzed laws, hypothesized pastsituations, and deduced and induced themeaning and intention of past laws and theirpromulgators to gather the most significantlaws and legal decisions and to create newstandards of the Roman legal system thatwould last for centuries.

During Justinian’s long reign, many publicbuildings and churches were built, the mostnotable being a new church dedicated toHoly Wisdom. Constantine’s Hagia Sophiahad burned early in Justinian’s reign, and theemperor decided to build a new one on amuch grander scale. He employed two of themost famous scientists of the day, Anthemius

60 Constantinople

of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. These twomathematicians served as architects for thechurch. They planned and created a massivechurch with a central nave (for worship ser-vices) over which was a giant dome that Pro-copius, the historian of Justinian’s reign,thought hung suspended from heaven. Indeedthe natural forces weighing upon the domeseemed insignificant compared to the immac-ulate rising stone formed into countlessarches, hemicycles, and smaller domes thatcountered the constant downward thrust.Isidorus and Anthemius were also the archi-tects of the Church of the Holy Apostles inConstantinople.

Justinian sponsored the work of other LateRoman Byzantine scholars and scientists.Theemperor threw his support behind the workof scholars at the University of Constantino-ple (originally founded during the reign ofthe emperor Theodosius II). Notable scien-tists included Cosmas Indicopleustes and Hi-

erocles. The former was a traveler and per-ceptive geographer, author of The ChristianTopography, in which he described many of thelands he had visited, such as Abyssinia andIndia. Strangely, Cosmas also believed thatthe earth (indeed, even the entire universe)was like a massive tabernacle, square ratherthan round. Hierocles’ A Fellow-Traveler of Hi-erocles is a less ambitious, yet more descrip-tive and concrete analysis of the ByzantineEmpire.

Justinian envisioned Constantinople as apromulgator of Greek culture in a thrivingRoman Empire. If the latter goal was not en-tirely successful, the former goal was tri-umphantly accomplished. For almost a millen-nium after Justinian’s death Constantinopleserved as a beacon of Greek culture and arepository of ancient documents, unsur-passed anywhere else in the world. Byzan-tines and Muslims alike shared an interestin the writings of such greats as Aristotle.

Constantinople 61

Renaissance map of Constantinople, the city of Constantine, which became an important intellectual center of the LaterRoman Empire. Simon Pinargenti, "Isole che son da Venetia nella Dalmatia,” 1573. (The Historic Cities Project, HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem and the Jewish National and University Libraries)

It was through Arab translations of manyof Aristotle’s works that Western Europeansin the thirteenth century became reac-quainted with Aristotle, leading to an Aris-totelian, scientific revival that culminated inthe scientific achievements of the EuropeanRenaissance.

See also Aristotle; Julian; Later Roman Empire;Themistius

ReferencesCimok, Fatih. Istanbul. Istanbul: A Turizm Yayinlari

Ltd., 1989.Downey, Glanville. Constantinople in the Age of

Justinian. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1960.

Freeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. New York:W.W. Norton, 1950.

Justinian. The Digest of Roman Law. Translated byC. F. Kolbert. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1979.

Vasiliev, A. A. History of the Byzantine Empire. 2vols. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,1958.

ConstellationsThe distant, ancient past is seen on every clearnight by the person who peers into the starlitsky.The light of stars hundreds and thousandsof light years away has arrived at the very mo-ment one sees it.The position of the stars hashardly changed in the last several millennia;hence the patterns we see today are verymuch like those that Homer or Archimedes orPtolemy saw.The wandering planets in the an-cient night sky twinkled to the backdrop ofthe starry vault, the realm of fixed stars thatchanged slightly month by month but not withthe dramatic movement of the sun, moon, andplanets. A few astronomers, such as Hip-parchus, understood the tremendous distanceof the stars from our solar system; and Hip-parchus seems also to have realized that, dueto parallax, this distance meant that any move-ment of the stars would go generally unde-tected by humans on earth.

The seemingly unchanging fixed stars pro-vided a stable, familiar phenomenon that a

person could count on, like sunrise and thefull moon, during the course of a long life. Sofamiliar were the stars that early civilizationssought to identify them according to someapparent pattern or in honor of a particulardeity or hero. Hence the ancients developedconstellations, names for star patterns thatwere recognizable to young and old alike.Our constellations today are the same as theywere two and three thousand years ago.Thenas now, constellations provided bearings forsailors at sea, helped astronomers track themovement of planets and peculiar eventssuch as comets and meteors, and helped sto-rytellers along as they spun yarns for listenersover the centuries. Some constellations couldbe seen night after night throughout the yearby ancient Mediterranean observers. UrsaMajor and Ursa Minor, the tail of whichforms the North Star, Polaris, were seenyear-round in the northern horizon. Otherscame and went with the seasons. Orion thehunter, for example, appeared in late autumnand departed in the spring, spending his en-tire stay in the southern horizon. Followingthe same pattern were the twins Castor andPollux, Gemini.The signs of the zodiac are, ofcourse, twelve famous constellations that staywithin the narrow path of the sun, the eclip-tic. Other star formations or single stars werewell known among the ancients. Sirius, theDog Star, arrived after the winter solstice anddeparted after the spring equinox. ThePleiades, a cluster of stars almost directlyabove the Mediterranean observer, appearedafter the autumn equinox and traveled slowlyacross the sky for the next six months, de-parting in the spring. The movement of theconstellations, like that of the sun, moon, andplanets, was east to west, matching theearth’s eastward rotation.

See also Astronomy; HipparchusReferenceAbell, George O. Exploration of the Universe. 3d ed.

New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston, 1975.

62 Constellations

Democritus (460–370 BCE)Ancient writers believed that Democrituswas the student of Leucippus. They are asso-ciated together as the first philosophers tohypothesize that invisible material objects—atoms—make up the universe.Although, likeLeucippus, little survives of Democritus’swritings, the theory of atoms was widely dis-cussed by ancient authors; hence much wasknown about Democritus and his theorieseven if only fragments of his writings sur-vived.The breadth of his interests is astonish-ing. Diogenes Laertius in his brief biographylists Democritus’s writings covering workson science such as The Great World Ordering, Onthe Planets, On Nature, On Mind, On the Senses,On Images, as well as works on meteorology,causation, zoology, botany, and mathematics,such as On Different Shapes, On ChangingShapes, and other works on angles, circles,spheres, numbers. Democritus’s writings onmedicine include On the Nature of Man, On theSenses, and other works on diet and fever. Forgeography there are such works as On the Cir-cumnavigation of the Ocean. Democritus partic-ularly made his mark in the application of histheories of the universe to everyday moralityand the simple goal of living a good life.

Democritus, according to tradition, wasborn in northern Greece and later relocatedto Athens. Like most philosophers of the

time, he is said to have journeyed to Egypt.He was a contemporary of Socrates, whichgives rise to some interesting speculations onwhat the discussions of these two men, hold-ing such opposite beliefs, might have been.Socrates represented the school of thoughtthat reality is immaterial, that thought is theessence of all things, and Democritus repre-sented the school of thought that being is ma-terial, that invisible, irreducible particlescompose existence, even what is normallyconsidered the transcendent and ephemeralsuch as thoughts, the soul, and the divine. Hislost works include Pythagoras, Mind, Causes,Geometry, and Numbers, which took issue withthe Pythagorean hypotheses that abstractionsrepresent reality, which can only be knownby means of mathematical reasoning. If num-ber dominates the universe, what is the roleand significance of flesh and blood humans,or of a world composed of rock, dirt, plants,and animals? The Pythagoreans, argued De-mocritus, seek to reduce the universe to one,a singularity from which all else derives. Butwhat does the universe really reveal to us?Multiplicity. There are infinite things, un-countable phenomena, multitudes of causesand effects leading to more causes and ef-fects. How can an invisible, ephemeral num-ber, a single being, be the sum of all things,the cause from which all else springs?

D

63

Democritus and his associate or teacherLeucippus argued that if being exists, it is ma-terial. All ideas, spirits, numbers, divinities,and souls, as well as the phenomena of na-ture, are formed by atoms (Greek atomos), ir-reducible substances of the four elements,earth, air, fire, and water, that are invisible yetuniversally present, in constant motion, un-dergoing continual change, combining andrecombining into infinite forms. Atoms aredistinct particles detached from an emptinessor void in which they move, combine, disin-tegrate, and recombine. How are atoms at-tached to each other? Rather like puzzlepieces, atoms have distinct and uniqueshapes, even “hooks” that allow an attach-ment, if not merging, of one to another.Aris-totle, in Metaphysics, understandably con-demned the atomist belief in the varieddistinctions in types of atoms that form thebases of all reality.

The possibilities of “shape, order, and posi-tions” are infinite, and thus infinity is the sine

qua non of all things. Democritus thoughtthat Creation and Destruction, if they exist,occur within the overall enduring pattern ofinfinite creations and destructions. Time ismeaningless, if by time we mean the registerof events in chronological, linear order frombeginning to end. Neither beginning nor endhave meaning in an infinite universe. Theremust then be infinite worlds, suns, stars,moons, men, cities, and so on. The implica-tions are profound for a point of view thatmakes our solar system part of a vast wholeand not alone and singular. If the heavenlybodies are not unique, they can potentiallyhold a lesser status, be brought down fromthe realm of the divine. Thus, for Democri-tus, the planets, stars, and sun are material,differing in heat and size. AnticipatingGalileo’s discoveries, Democritus argued (asdid Anaxagoras before him) that the moonhad mountains and valleys and was not a shin-ing deity.And the geocentric view of the solarsystem is absurd in an infinite universe.

One wonders,What does have meaning ina material universe of constant motion andapparently random circumstances? Democri-tus’s response was that one must find one’sparticular place in the universe: this is themeans of individual contentment. He coun-seled acceptance of the contrariness and suf-fering of life—and acceptance of the joys andpleasures of life as well. Extremes in behav-ior, thought, and feelings lead to discontent-ment. One must discover the middle, whereresides the greatest chance of peace.The uni-verse is amoral, which requires humans tofashion their own moral system, which is per-sonal and limited to one’s time on earth.Death, and the release of one’s atoms intooblivion, will come soon enough.

Democritus was a geographer as well. Hewrote on the size and shape of the earth, thepossibility of circumnavigating continents,the causes of terrestrial phenomena, history,and meteorology.

Democritus had a profound impact onsubsequent thinkers. The ancient world hadenough strife, pain, and bitterness to encour-

64 Democritus

Democritus (460–370 BCE), polymath and scientificvisionary. Nineteenth-century portrait. (ArchivoIconografico, S.A./Corbis)

age a withdrawal to self and the circumscrip-tion of truth and morality to one’s own life,thoughts, and feelings.The philosophy of Epi-curus and his disciples, such as Lucretius, andZeno and his fellow Stoics owed much toDemocritus.

See also Astronomy; Atoms; Epicureanism; GreekClassical Age; Leucippus; Physical Sciences;Stoicism

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Diogenes Laertius (floruit thirdcentury CE) Diogenes Laertius is an important source forthe study of the history of ancient science.His Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers inTen Books examines the lives of ancientthinkers, beginning with the Ionian Thalesand ending with the skeptic Saturninus. Diog-enes divided Greek philosophy into the Ion-ian and Italian schools; the former was high-lighted by Anaximander, Socrates, Plato,Aristotle, and Zeno, the founders of theAcademy, Peripatetics, and Stoics; the latterfeatured Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Par-menides, and Epicurus, the founders of thePythagorean and Epicurean schools.

Little is known of Diogenes’ life. Besidesthe Lives, he wrote Epigrams in Various Metres,known today only in fragments.The selectionof his topics in the Lives indicates he wroteafter 200 CE. Diogenes was a Greek philoso-pher interested in the development of Hel-lenic thought as it expanded throughout theMediterranean world. It is possible that hewas one of the many philosophers (such asPhilostratus) who were sponsored by the em-press Julia Domna in the early third century.

Greek thought by 200 CE lacked creativityand dynamism—Diogenes’ Lives reflects this

malaise. Diogenes was a storyteller who de-lighted in the well-placed anecdote. He wasnot usually critical of his sources and per-ceived his role as an antiquarian collector ofthe relics of thought. Diogenes provided littlehistorical, political, and geographic informa-tion in which to place the lives of his heroes.His are temporally disjointed lives (bios) in thesame style as other biographers, such asPlutarch. He was rarely skeptical, being gen-erally credulous about gods, prophecy, andmagic. Diogenes was also not too particularabout whom he classified as a philosopher. Inhis Lives we find a wide range of thinkers, nat-ural scientists, mathematicians, metaphysi-cians, and biologists, all collectively consid-ered lovers of wisdom (sophia), seekers ofknowledge (episteme), and thus scientists.

Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophersis valuable in several ways. His is one of thefew relatively complete collections of ancientthinkers written by an ancient, if mediocre,thinker. Many of his “facts,” anecdotes, con-versations, and letters are unique to his book,not found elsewhere in surviving sources.Diogenes, moreover, provided an undiscrim-inating collection of authors and commenta-tors that are otherwise unknown, or whoseworks are lost except for the bits and piecesliterary collectors such as Diogenes Laertiushave passed down to modern times.

See also Later Roman Empire; Philosophy; SevenSages;Theophrastus

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Diogenes of Apollonia (floruit latefifth century BCE)Diogenes of Apollonia is a shadowy figure inthe history of science, in part because noth-ing is known about his life, but also becausehis philosophy and science are obscure. Weonly know of his ideas from later commen-tators. His most well-known book, now

Diogenes of Apollonia 65

lost, was On Nature. Diogenes argued that airis the fundamental element upon which allelse depends. He believed that to under-stand the role of air in nature is to under-stand the distinct characteristics of animals,plants, and humans.

Diogenes accepted in principle the exis-tence of the four elements—earth, air, fire,and water—but so tied are they one to an-other that a single element must be the sourceand essence of the other three.This single el-ement is air, which Diogenes believed was theroot of life and thought (for without air onedies and does not think). Air forms the soul(psyche) of each animal, particularly man. Butthe anatomies of humans, animals, and plantsdiffer, and thus their respective use of air dif-fers, as does their intelligence and souls.

Aristotle and his student Theophrastusdiscussed Diogenes’ anatomical and psycho-logical ideas at length.The keys to human in-telligence, Diogenes argued, are the bloodvessels that are the conduits for the move-ment of air throughout the human body.Diogenes had a clear if superficial knowl-edge about the extent and location of vessels(veins and arteries). The origins of the twocentral vessels are in the spleen and liver.The physician, seeking to correct an imbal-ance of the body’s humors, will typicallylance the spleen or liver vessel to bleed thepatient. According to Theophrastus, Diog-enes argued that the quantity and movementof air determines pain and pleasure, intelli-gence and dullness, courage and fear. An in-telligent person, as opposed to a brute ani-mal, dumb plant, stupid louse, or ignorantinfant, has great quantities of light, fresh,dry air circulating throughout the body, in-habiting the mind, generating quickthoughts and clear judgments.

Diogenes was clearly a man of his times,echoing the materialist theories of Leucippusand Democritus and the developing notion ofthe four humors of the Hippocratic school.His influence on subsequent thought was lim-ited, however, because of questionable theo-ries described in confusing prose.

See also Democritus; Leucippus; Medicine;Psychology

ReferenceBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Dissection See Medicine

DreamsUntil the work of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung,and their successors, scientists gave scant at-tention to dreams as a proper object of in-quiry. Dreams were stuff for the mystic, per-haps, but not for the scientist. The ancients,of course, did not analyze dreams as theworking out of daily experience and as a nec-essary and healthy activity during sleep.Theydid not see dreams, as does the modern psy-choanalyst, as reflections of the unconsciousmind. Ancient thinkers did, however, recog-nize the significance of dreams, even if un-derstanding was elusive.

The cultures of ancient Mesopotamia,Egypt, and the Mediterranean gave full creditto the soothsayer, prognosticator, fortune-teller, and astrologist who claimed to use nat-ural phenomena to predict the future. Onesuch phenomenon was the dream.Ancient hu-mans could not conceive of dreams as any-thing other than a divine message hinting ofwhat will be.There came to be a class of pseu-doscientists who made their living predictingthe future by means of the interpretation ofdreams. Ancient literature is filled with suchstories. In the Old Testament, in the Book ofGenesis, Joseph interprets the dreams of thepharaoh and so gains a preeminent position inthe kingdom. In the Book of Daniel, the He-brew prophet Daniel interprets the dreams ofthe Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar.Homer’s poems are filled with accounts ofdreams sent by the gods to inform humans offuture possibilities. Typically, the Homeric

66 Dreams

world personified a natural occurrence by de-ifying it; hence Oneiros was the god ofdreams. Common to all of these peoples ofthe ancient Mediterranean was the belief thatdreams reflect natural or supernatural phe-nomena and that it takes reason and the ana-lytical mind to correctly interpret them.

The Greek scientist Aristotle was suffi-ciently skeptical of dreams to wonder abouttheir cause and significance. In his treatise OnProphesying by Dreams, he provided a balancedview of dreams, wondering why God wouldspeak to humans through dreams, yet realiz-ing that at times dreams do seem to reflectreality. One possibility he explored was that,since dreams often recall some of the detailsof the previous waking hours, likewisedreams might foretell actions of the next dayinsofar as the dreamer might (unconsciously)perform certain actions he had dreamedabout the preceding night—hence the dreamcomes true. Carl Jung, the great modern stu-dent of dreams, clearly had the same under-standing and lived his life in accordance withwhat his dreams predicted for the comingday.Aristotle recognized also that, among thehost of dreams, a few might by coincidenceend up occurring, which lacks a supernaturalor scientific significance. Animals dream, asdo slaves and other inferior (in Aristotle’smind) humans, and thus are more a productof nature rather than being sent by a god. Butnature is itself divine,Aristotle argued: in thissense dreams are divine as well. AlthoughAristotle did not agree with the interpreta-tion of dreams of materialists such as Democ-ritus, that dreams are caused by the emana-tion of atoms that present images upon thebrain, he did agree with their point of view

that such an atomic rendering of dreamscould in no way be prophetic of the future.

There were several important students ofdreams during the Later Roman Empire.Themost famous was the physician Galen, whobelieved that dreams helped direct him in di-agnosis and healing in general. Galen, whowas physician to the emperor Marcus Aure-lius, imparted this respect for the teachingsignificance of dreams to the Stoic Aurelius.Afourth-century CE physician, Gennadius,learned of the soul’s immortality by means ofa dream. The most significant students ofdreams were Artemidorus of Daldis andAelius Aristides, both of the second centuryCE. Artemidorus wrote Oneirocritica, a bookon dreams and their meanings. He took a sci-entific approach to dream prognostication.He assiduously recorded every aspect ofdreams, compiling a precise record of thispeculiar human activity. Similar was AeliusAristides, a priest of Asclepius, the Greek godof healing. Aristides kept a full account of hismany dreams over the space of severaldecades. He believed that Asclepius healed orgave advice on healing through dreams.

See also Aristotle; Asclepius/Asclepiads; Egypt;Medicine; Old Testament; Psychology

ReferencesAristotle. On Sleep and Sleeplessness; On Prophesying

by Dreams; On Memory and Reminiscence.Translated by J. I. Beare. In The Parva Naturalia.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.

Bowersock, G.W. Fiction as History: Nero to Julian.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.

Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. New York:Doubleday, 1964.

Dreams 67

EasterEaster, the day of the celebration of Christ’sResurrection, occurs every year on the firstSunday after a full moon from March 21 toApril 21. The holiday is a holdover frompagan festivals, is named for the ancientMesopotamian goddess Astarte, and is basedon the lunar as well as the solar calendar.Thedebate over the yearly date of Easter has beenlongstanding and frequently acrimonious.The Council of Nicaea, a meeting of Chris-tian bishops during the reign of the emperorConstantine, agreed in 325 CE on the for-mula for determining the date of Easter. Itwas decided that Easter would always fall ona Sunday in the spring after the vernal(spring) equinox (March 21). It was left tochurch mathematicians and astronomers tofigure the dates of Easter for coming cen-turies according to the cycles of the phases ofthe moon. One of these scientists was Diony-sius Exiguus, who during the sixth centuryCE, while working out his table, devised adating system based on the Incarnation, thesupposed date of Christ’s birth. AlthoughDionysius made an error in his choice for theyear of the birth, he established the datingsystem of years proceeding from Christ’sbirth. This is the modern chronological sys-tem of BC, Before Christ, and AD, Anno Do-mini (in the year of our Lord).The solar Julian

calendar was slightly irregular, which overthe centuries altered the calendar date for thevernal equinox; the Gregorian calendar,adopted in Europe in the sixteenth centuryand in the American colonies two hundredyears later, corrected the irregularity, makingEaster once again during the month after thevernal equinox.

See also Calendars and Dating Systems;TimeReferencesBoorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers. New York:

Random House, 1983.Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past: Pre-

Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1987.

EclipsesSee Astronomy

EgyptSun worship and the concern for understand-ing the environment were natural in a landwherein the people were dependent upon na-ture and its natural rhythms for their sur-vival. The archaic and classical Greeks hailedEgyptian civilization as a prime source forGreek cultural and scientific achievements.Founders of Greek thought such as Thales andPythagoras were thought to have visited

E

69

Egypt. Plutarch wrote that Solon learned ofAtlantis from Pseuophis of Heliopolis andSonchis of Sais. Others such as Herodotusand Plato later made the same pilgrimage todiscover the secrets of Egypt. Even after itsrepeated conquest by the Assyrians, Persians,Greeks, and Romans, Egypt remained an im-portant center of thought and culture. Inlater years the city of Alexandria was the pre-mier center of science in the Mediterraneanworld.

PyramidsImhotep was the legendary builder of the firstEgyptian step-pyramid (ziggurat), as well as aphysician who was so honored by the Egyp-tians that he became the deity of learning andgiver of science, rather like the GreekPrometheus.The Egyptians credited Imhotepwith the development of mathematics, thecalendar, architecture, and medicine. In time,Imhotep’s shrine became a place where thesick went to be healed. Historically,Imhotep’s pyramid, built around 2700 BCE atSaqqara in the third dynasty, was a series ofmastabas (six in all) built up to form a hierar-chical pyramid. Imhotep’s ziggurat became amodel for the building of more sophisticatedpyramids as time passed.

The historian and geographer Herodotus,who visited Egypt in the mid fifth centuryBCE, provided in Book 2 of his Histories aconcise account of the building of the GreatPyramid during the reign of Cheops (alsoknown as Khufu) in the twenty-sixth centuryBCE. The pharaoh used one hundred thou-sand men to drag limestone blocks from dis-tant quarries; for part of the way, the blockswere transported by barge on the Nile. In-deed Cheops had a canal dug that floodedwith the rising Nile, allowing the barges tobring the limestone blocks right to the build-ing site. The Great Pyramid took twentyyears to build. It was built in stages by layers,like a step pyramid, the laborers using com-plicated levers to raise the blocks up eachlevel.The massive limestone blocks were fit-ted exactly, then polished. The height of the

pyramid is equal to each of its four sides atthe base. According to Herodotus, the labor-ers of this astonishing work lived on a simplevegetarian diet.

MedicineThe Egyptians developed an extensive mate-ria medica. Even in Homer’s time they wereknown for their drugs and medicines.Herodotus claimed they were a race of doc-tors, there being a physician for every type ofillness. Their knowledge of medicine wasbased on folklore more than empirical obser-vation.The Egyptian practice of medicine re-lied on healthy doses of magic. Here, in med-icine as well as in other branches of science,the Egyptians believed in a clear connectionbetween the natural and the supernatural.Ac-cording to Herodotus, Egyptians believedthat good health required a monthly purging,using strong emetics.

Papyrus of Ani (Egyptian Book of theDead)The Egyptians had a deep belief in the powerof amulets and magical sayings to help themachieve a blessed afterlife. A priest of theNew Kingdom of the second millenniumBCE, one Ani, recorded hymns and prayersand his beliefs about life and death in the Bookof the Dead. Ani assumed that deities such asOsiris, Isis, and Ra personified natural phe-nomena. In a paean to Osiris, for example,Ani defined the god as he who is lord of thestars that never change. In the Book of theDead, Osiris is the sun and Isis is the moon;the world is created and will perish.The uni-verse is spherical, and the stars are on fire.The bright lights of the heavens determinehuman destiny.

EmbalmingHerodotus observed on his visit to Egypt thedifferent practices of mummification. Themost extensive, done for the wealthy, in-volved removing the brain through the nos-trils and clearing out the intestines throughan incision made in the abdomen. The body

70 Egypt

was filled then with spices, particularlymyrrh, and then soaked or “pickled” in natron(an embalming fluid made of sodium carbon-ate) for seventy days, after which the bodywas wrapped in white linen, with gum usedas the adhesive. The less wealthy had “oil ofcedar” injected through the anus into the in-testinal cavity, after which they were soakedin natron as well. The very poor had the in-testines cleaned with a strong emetic, afterwhich they too were kept in natron for sev-enty days.The practice of mummification in-dicated the Egyptian belief in the afterlife.Herodotus heard from Egyptian priests thatthey believed in a cycle of reincarnation thatlasted for three millennia, during which thesoul migrated from one animal to another, upthe chain of being, before returning to inhabitthe human body again.

Astronomy and MathematicsThe Egyptians, living in a land of the distanthorizon, the black night of countless stars,

the hot summer days with the sun high over-head, made a host of astronomical observa-tions, though most of them were done forsimplistic purposes. They were particularlyconcerned with tracing the rising of Sirius,the Dog Star, which indicated the rise of theNile—in July, when the Egyptians begantheir new year. Indeed Egyptian astronomersdevised an accurate 360-day solar calendar,which was later adapted by the Greeks.Herodotus heard directly from priests, whowere the astronomers, about their calendarand astronomical observations. Herodotusdeclared that the Egyptian technique ofadding five intercalary days every year wasthe most efficient technique. The motions ofother stars and planets indicated other mete-orological events. According to DiogenesLaertius, Egyptian astronomers understoodlunar and solar eclipses, counting 373 solarand 832 lunar eclipses. Herodotus claimedthat the Egyptians were the first people to de-velop the pseudoscience of astrology.

Egypt 71

The Egyptian god of mummification Anubis, overseeing the final preparations of the dead. Wall relief from the nineteenthdynasty (thirteenth century BCE). (Corel Corporation)

Egyptian mathematics concentrated onarithmetic and fractions, although the Egyp-tians were not as sophisticated as the Babylo-nians. Egyptian mathematics was very practi-cal. They conceived of numbers as concreteamounts, not as conceptual symbols. Ingeometry, the Egyptians engaged in simplecalculations and measurements of shapes suchas isosceles triangles, the circle, and variedrectangular shapes such as the trapezoid.Scholars are unsure whether Egyptian mathe-maticians calculated the value of pi (π). Onewonders how the massive exactness of thepyramids could have been made without theknowledge that comes from a clear under-standing of geometry.

See also Astronomy; Engineering and Technology;Herodotus of Halicarnassus; IrrigationTechniques; Mathematics; Mesopotamia

ReferencesBudge, E. A.Wallis, trans. Papyrus of Ani: Egyptian

Book of the Dead. New York: Dover Books,1967.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History ofMathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html(website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’s Scotland).

Riefstahl, Elizabeth. Thebes in the Time of AmunhotepIII. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1964.

Scholz, Piotr O. Ancient Egypt:An IllustratedHistorical Overview. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron’sEducation Press, 1997.

White, Jon Manchip. Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt.New York: Capricorn Press, 1967.

Eleatic SchoolThe Eleatic school of philosophy featuredthree great philosophers of the fifth centuryBCE: Parmenides and Zeno of Elea andMelissus of Samos. Parmenides, the founderof this style of thought, was from Elea inMagna Graecia. He was a student of Xenoph-anes, according to Diogenes Laertius, as wellas an associate of the Pythagorean school. His

sole work, Poem, survives only in fragments.In it Parmenides vaguely subscribes to theview of a universe directed by Being, which isthe totality of all things, not created, eternaland infinite. Zeno, also from Elea, was a fol-lower of Parmenides and was chiefly knownfor his paradoxes. For example, he tried toshow that even emptiness has being, and mo-tion is at rest. This is true only if one realizesthat at each singular moment (the many partsof which make up the whole of movement),time, hence motion, are indeed still, as in stillphotography. Melissus of Samos (fifth centuryBCE) was a man of affairs, a statesman andgeneral, who was also a philosopher. A fol-lower of Parmenides, Melissus wrote On Na-ture or On What Exists, which survives only infragments preserved by the Late Romancommentator Simplicius. Like Parmenides,Melissus concerned himself with argumentsto prove that being is without cause, not cre-ated, infinite and eternal.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Magna Graecia;Plato; Physical Sciences; Pythagorus;Xenophanes of Colophon

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

ElementsKnowledge of who first proposed the idea offundamental material elements making up allexistence is lost in time. One tradition has itthat the Egyptians conceived of four elementsas the basis of all things, which inspiredGreek thinkers to enlarge on the theory.Theearliest Greek scientists conceived of earth,air, fire, and water as being the fundamentalelements of the universe. Thales argued forwater being the primal element; Anaximenesthought it was air. Empedocles thought thatlove and strife defined and moved the four el-ements.

Aristotle conceived of a ranking of the el-ements in the universe: earth has a downward

72 Eleatic School

movement because it is heaviest; water isnext in weight; air is third, being muchlighter; fire is fourth, having an inherent up-ward movement. Aristotle argued for a fifthelement, ether (aether) to provide the quin-tessence (fifth essence). Ether did not partakeof the material nature of the other four, nordid it experience condensation and rarefac-tion. Since ether was the epitome of perfec-tion, it had a circular motion and was thestuff through which the heavenly bodiesroamed.

Later scientists, such as Leucippus, De-mocritus, and Epicurus, conceived of a morefundamental source of the material four ele-ments: atoms. Each element, they thought, iscomposed of atoms, invisible, constantlymoving, material foundations of all things.

See also Aristotle; Atoms; Physical SciencesReferencesHeath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background of

Chemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Embalming See Egypt

Empedocles (495–435 BCE)Empedocles was one of the greatest pre-So-cratic Greek scientists.A native of Acragas onthe isle of Sicily, he was a philosopher, physi-cian, mystic, and materialist. His work sur-vives only in fragments, and his life is not wellknown.The best source for Empedocles’ life,notwithstanding the plentiful anecdotes, isDiogenes Laertius.

A proponent of the four elements—earth,air, water, fire—Empedocles believed thatfrom these are things generated and to thesethings are destroyed through the two affectiveforces, love and strife: the former attracts,the latter repulses. Empedocles, anticipatingAurelius Augustine’s dualism of the City ofGod and City of Man, conceived of a tran-scendent realm dominated by love and aphysical realm dominated by strife. Every-

thing, even the truth, is in a process of be-coming that never ends. He hypothesized amaterialist foundation to the universe thatwas built upon by Leucippus and Democri-tus. His books, in particular On Nature and Pu-rifications, were written in obscure verse thattended to hide rather than reveal. In theseworks he dealt with the divine; the origins ofhumans; a basic astronomy of the relation ofsun, earth, and moon; the nature of the earth;biology and zoology; the means of sensoryperception; and medicine. His astronomy wasprimitive, advocating the notion that the uni-verse is a crystal sphere within which is a darkhemisphere of air and a light hemisphere offire, which gives us the phenomenon of dayand night. Aristotle (according to Heath1913) attributed to Empedocles the originaltheory that light travels from one point to thenext over a certain period of time. He alsostudied the attraction and repulsion of mag-nets and the nature of sound and vision. As aphysician, Empedocles established a medical

Empedocles 73

Engraving of the Greek philosopher and scientist Empedocles(495–435 BCE). (Courtesy of the National Library ofMedicine)

school at Magna Graecia that was the coun-terpart to the more famous Hippocraticschool at Cos in the Aegean.

See also Astronomy; Atoms; Elements; GreekArchaic Age; Medicine

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1931, 1938.

Engineering and TechnologyMesopotamiaThe first great advances in human technologywere in the use of stone, bone, ivory, andwood that occurred in the Paleolithic Age.Thedevelopment of fire and of human communi-cation were two other fundamental techno-logical developments whose origins are ob-scured by the distant past. The NeolithicRevolution after 10,000 BCE led to signal de-velopments in agriculture and early attemptsto construct shelters of mud brick. The firedrill, a means of creating fire artificially byfriction, was developed perhaps initially in an-cient India. The Mesopotamians, discoveringthat clay is vastly more workable than stone,developed pottery as early as 6000 BCE. Thekind of pottery produced required kilns host-ing temperatures up to 1,000 degrees centi-grade. In the same area of Mesopotamia, thepotter’s wheel was invented by unknowncraftsmen about 4000 BCE. Mesopotamia wasthe region where two other technological andengineering discoveries were made. Remainsof buildings dating back to 2100 BCE show apitched-brick vault of sun-dried bricks nar-rowing in to form a conical enclosure. TheMesopotamians were perhaps also responsiblefor the first monumental architecture: the zig-gurat at Ur, dedicated to the moon god Sin,which had four stories or huge platforms builtone upon another leading to a pinnacle and arectangular enclosure.

WritingAt some point in the distant past, early hu-mans developed the means by which theycommunicated concepts, ideas, facts, and sim-ple observations by spoken words. Scholarsthink that the development of language was aninvention of a form of technology, a tool thatcould be used to generate ideas, reflect uponthe past, and anticipate the future. Languagewas the means to conquer isolation of timeand place. Names of things—natural, human,physical—allowed for systematization andcategorization of ideas. Cuneiform symbolsmade with a stylus in wet clay developed inthird millennium Mesopotamia in response tothe need to record agricultural surplus. InEgypt, pictograph and ideogram hieroglyphicssimilarly allowed for human communication,an analysis of the divine, and stories of menand gods to be not just told but also recorded.Toward the end of the second millenniumBCE, the Phoenicians of the eastern Mediter-ranean developed a simple twenty-two-letteralphabet that became the basis for the Greekand Latin alphabets. The Phoenician alphabetallowed Greek philosophers and scientists tobegin to develop their conceptions of exis-tence and analyses of reality.

PyramidsSome scholars believe that the Sumerians ofMesopotamia learned from the Egyptianshow to make their step pyramids.The Egyp-tians most certainly were the master pyra-mid builders. Pyramids were constructed inseveral stages using ramps on which thelarge limestone blocks would be dragged upto the level of building activity. The higherthe pyramid got, the wider the ramp had tobe and the greater the number of rampsneeded to accommodate the increasingstructural pressure. Ramps would doubtlesshave been built along the sides of the pyra-mid. A step pyramid structure would haveformed the inside of the outer pyramid tobolster it. Pyramids like the Great Pyramidof Cheops were built in the summer withthe rising of the Nile so that water would

74 Engineering and Technology

bring barges close to the construction sight.Some scholars hypothesize that the Egyp-tians developed a working knowledge of pi(π) in building the pyramids.

Greco-Roman DevelopmentsThe Greeks were responsible for some aston-ishing inventions, for example, the massivelighthouse on the island of Pharos at Alexan-dria, steam power, and the still astonishingGreek temple, in particular, the Parthenon.The Parthenon, named for the maiden or vir-gin (parthenos) goddess Athena, was designedby Callicrates and built from 447 to 438 BCEunder the authority of Pericles. Phidias was incharge of the artistic rendering of theParthenon as well as other temples on theAthenian Acropolis.

Roman building accomplishments were noless significant. The Romans developed ce-ment from volcanic ash combined with lime,sand or gravel, and water. Cement upheld thestructural integrity of some of the most as-tonishing Roman works, such as the aque-ducts. Roman engineers did not use cementin building the long-lasting roads of the em-pire. Rather basalt or limestone laid into abed built using gravel and heated sand formedthe road. Roman surveyors used the groma, asurveying instrument that relied on plumblines, to build the road with a slight inclinefrom the center to allow for good drainage.Roman engineers were able to solve some ofthe structural difficulties inherent in bridgebuilding. Some Roman bridges and aqueductsused cement; others were built with hugeblocks of stones rigorously and carefully fit-ted together. One of the great Roman bridgebuilders was Apollodorus of Damascus, whobridged the Danube and built the Alcántara inSpain and Trajan’s column in Rome. Romanroads and bridges lasted for centuries; someare still in use. During the reign of the em-peror Valens, when the empire was in theprocess of a slow disintegration, a huge aque-duct was built covering 150 miles across theBalkans to Constantinople; it lasted 800years.

Other Roman building successes includedthe Pantheon and the Coliseum, both ofwhich relied on the Roman technique offashioning a vault or an arch by building abrick structural frame into which concretewas poured. The thrust of huge structureswas balanced so that no buttresses wereneeded on walls. A case in point is the Pan-theon, begun during the reign of the em-peror Hadrian (117–138 CE) to honor allthe world’s deities. The diameter and heightof the Pantheon are precisely the same,forming a perfect circle. The cupola at theextreme height of the ceiling is the onlysource of light.The dome relies on panels ofconcrete and other materials, built lighter atthe top, heavier in descent. The panels ofconcrete on the dome also grow larger in de-scent, each supporting the one above. TheColiseum, begun during the reign of Nero(54–68 CE), was built of stone without theuse of cement. Upon completion it couldseat as many as fifty thousand spectators,who watched gladiatorial contests, mockbattles, and wild animal hunts. Of particularnote was the velarium, a partial covering tokeep the audience protected from sun andthe elements. The velarium was vastly com-plicated, requiring hundreds of seamen tooperate the miles of rope, pulleys, andwinches.

See also Egypt; Greek Classical Age;Mesopotamia; Roman Principate; RomanRoads and Bridges

ReferencesBarrow, R. H. The Romans. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1949.Childe, Gordon. What Happened in History.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1946.

Dal Maso, Leonard B. Rome of the Caesars.Translated by Michael Hollingsworth.Florence: Bonechi-Edizioni, 1974.

Hawkes, Jacquetta. Prehistory: History of Mankind:Cultural and Scientific Developments, vol. 1, pt. 1.New York: Mentor Books, 1965.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Von Hagen,Victor W. Roman Roads. London:Werdenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.

Engineering and Technology 75

Epictetus (55–135 CE)Epictetus was a Greek slave who became aleading voice of Stoicism during the RomanPrincipate. He was a student of MusoniusRufus, a Roman Stoic philosopher. Afterbeing freed by his master Epaphroditus andthen banished from Rome by the emperorDomitian, Epictetus set up a school in west-ern Greece on the Adriatic, at Nicopolis.There he had great influence on Greek andRoman Stoics, his most famous student beingthe historian and biographer of Alexander theGreat, Flavius Arrianus,Arrian (89–180 CE).Arrian recorded Epictetus’s teachings in theDiscourses, which he claimed were his ownnotes taken during the philosopher’s lectures.Arrian also published the Enchiridion, a hand-book of Epictetus’s Stoic teachings.

Epictetus contributed to the developmentof the science of psychology in antiquity.Much of his moral philosophy dealt with thesearch for happiness and contentment; thepath to coming to know oneself; and theways to cope with anxiety. Epictetus’s an-swer to all of these issues was to accept one-self, one’s situation in life, one’s surround-ings, and the workings of time. He believedcorrect thinking about life and self couldhelp in the healing process of body and mind.His focus on reason led him to discount thetypical Roman reliance upon soothsayers anddiviners; one should divine one’s futurebased on awareness of self, Epictetus argued.He counseled acceptance of sickness, ratherthan resistance and the endless search fordoctors and cures. Ultimately the individualhas free choice to respond appropriately ornot to the contingencies of life. Always one’s“moral purpose” (prohairesis) must guide theresponse to peculiar situations and the mani-fold events of life.

Epictetus’s Discourses were so curt and di-rect that his readers, particularly those of asimilar mind-set, could scarcely disagreewith his approach to life and thought. Hedeeply influenced Marcus Aurelius, andmuch later, Michel de Montaigne, who saw

in Epictetus a philosopher who could addressman’s most essential limitations: fear of thefuture and fear of death.

See also Arrian; Aurelius, Marcus; RomanPrincipate; Stoicism

ReferencesEpictetus. The Discourses. Edited by Christopher

Gill. Everyman’s Library. Rutland,Vt.:TuttlePublishing, 2001.

Sandbach, F. H. The Stoics. New York:W.W.Norton, 1975.

Epicureanism The Epicurean philosophy was a largelymoral system of thought that influencedGreece and Rome particularly in the last sev-eral centuries BCE. Epicurus (371–271 BCE)gave his name to a philosophy built upon sev-eral assumptions that were radical at thetime. Epicureans adopted the theories ofLeucippus and Democritus that atoms—in-destructible, irreducible, infinitely movingmaterial particles—composed all things.Mind, soul, gods, love—anything emotionaland spiritual—had an atomic basis. Atomswere, however, insentient, and thus imper-sonal and amoral. Assuming such a universewithout apparent purpose, first Democritusand then Epicurus developed a moral philos-ophy in response. There was no need to fearanything if the phenomenon causing the mostfear, death, was irrelevant. One died withoutknowing the result, as the body, mind, andsoul disintegrated into multitudinous atomsthat would eventually go to form some othermaterial item.Why fear the retribution of thegods when the gods were impotent (if theydid exist) and could not reward or punish?

Epicurus taught that one must focus exclu-sively on the self and the ability of the self tofind meaning, purpose, and happiness. He ar-gued that it was easier to find happiness with-out death and retribution hanging over a per-son. Time became, in a sense, irrelevant, asthe duration of life hardly mattered when dis-integration and nonexistence awaited the cul-

76 Epictetus

mination of human life and endeavor. Epicu-rus sought peace of mind (Greek ataraxia), astable, passive, almost emotionless state oflack of pain. Pleasure, the key to happiness, issimply the lack of pain, when emotionlesspeace becomes the sum of life.

Epicurus and many of his followers did notstray from philosophy to science, exceptwhen, under the influence of Rome, the phi-losophy acquired the scientific perspective ofa materialistic universe. Epicurean philosophymade its way to Rome by means of Philode-mus of Gadara, a writer and philosopher whoinfluenced many first century Romans—Julius Caesar, Horace, Virgil, and Lucretius.Titus Lucretius Carus became the greatest ex-ponent of Epicurean philosophy. Lucretiusembraced the philosophy’s potential to pro-vide scientific explanations. Lucretius’s On theNature of Things is a detailed verse portrait ofthe universe and natural phenomena. Lu-cretius provided a complete description ofatoms: constantly moving, infinite, indestruc-tible, of varying shapes but otherwise indistin-guishable—and invisible to humans. But thescientist is able to observe their effects. Lu-cretius explained the senses according to themovement of atoms; he described the atomictheory of the mind and soul; he developed atheory of human development and relationsover time according to the absence of purposeand sentience in the universe; and he wrote afascinating discussion of the meteorology of amaterialistic universe and of how diseasespreads through the agency of atoms.

See also Atoms; Democritus; Epicurus; GreekClassical Age; Hellenism; Leucippus; Lucretius

ReferencesGrant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:The

Hellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Lucretius. The Nature of the Universe. Translated byR. E. Latham. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1951.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Epicurus (341–271 BCE)Epicurus gave his name to Epicureanism, aGreek philosophy that gained tremendouspopularity in Rome. Epicurus was an IonianGreek who lived part of his life in Athens. Histeachers, according to Diogenes Laertius,were Nausiphanes and Naucydes. Epicurusgained his own followers upon developing asystem of thought based on the atomism ofLeucippus and Democritus. Epicurus taughtthat the universe was materialistic, formedexclusively by indestructible, irreducible par-ticles (atoms) that are infinite and in constantmotion. Since all is dominated by an imper-sonal anonymous force of matter, humansmust respond with the search for individualpeace of mind (Greek ataraxia).

Diogenes Laertius, in his extensive biog-raphy of Epicurus in Lives of Eminent Philoso-phers, claimed that Epicurus pursued his ownpath of learning when his teachers could notexplain to him the concept of chaos. Not thatthe idea of chaos necessarily bothered him—what did bother him was being unpreparedto meet the varied contingencies of life witha calm and disinterested passivity. Epicurustaught that the pursuit of pleasure—meaningthe absence of pain—was what mattered inlife. Death was inevitable, but since therewas no sentience after life, only disintegra-tion into atoms, death should cause no fear.The gods existed, but they were impotent ina materialistic universe; humans need haveno fear of retribution for offending the pow-ers of the universe—an atom simply couldnot be offended.

Epicurus was not a scientist, but rather aphilosopher who formed a pattern of life inresponse to a particular scientific paradigmpopular in Greece toward the end of theClassical Age and the beginning of the Hel-lenistic Age. Such were the conflicts and un-certainty of these last few centuries, BCE,that Epicurus’s teachings continued to influ-ence other thoughtful individuals lookingfor a way out of the conundrum of trying toexplain self in what appeared to be an

Epicurus 77

increasingly cold and impersonal universe.His most famous disciple was the Romanpoet Lucretius.

See also Atoms; Democritus; Epicureanism;Greek Classical Age; Hellenism; Leucippus;Lucretius; Philosophy

ReferencesGrant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:The

Hellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Erasistratus (275–194 BCE)A Greek physician and physiologist and stu-dent of Herophilus of Chalcedon, Erasistratusworked in Alexandria (as did his teacher),performing observations, experiments, andeven dissections to uncover some of the se-crets of the workings of the human body. Hestudied the heart and hypothesized about theveins and arteries. As a practicing physician,Erasistratus believed that holistic living wasthe means to prevent illness. He discardedthe four humors of the Hippocratic school infavor of relying upon the pulse to make diag-noses—his was a methodical approach tomedicine, as was the Roman Asclepiades sev-eral centuries later. Influenced by Aristotleand his followers of the Peripatetic school,Erasistratus tried to find cause and effect re-lationships in medicine.

Erasistratus was unique in his ability toconnect mind and body. He studied the brainand nervous system, identifying the cere-brum and cerebellum and discovering thatthe nerves are not airy tunnels. He exploredillnesses of the mind (psyche) and nervous sys-tem, thereby beginning the field of study thattoday we call psychiatry.

See also Alexandria; Hellenism; Herophilus ofChalcedon; Hippocrates; Medicine

References“Antiqua Medicina: Aspects in Ancient Medicine.”

http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/antiqua/anthome.html.

Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and OswynMurray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Durant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1939.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Eratosthenes (276–195 BCE)Eratosthenes of Cyrene was the Librarian atAlexandria and a geographer of note. Authorof the Geographica, Eratosthenes mapped theworld and estimated the earth’s circumfer-

78 Erasistratus

Epicurus (341–271 BCE), the Greek atomist and founder ofEpicurean philosophy. Roman copy of Greek original (ca.270 BCE). (Kathleen Cohen/Pergamom Museum, Berlin)

ence, providing one of the most accurate as-sessments of the ancient world. He flourishedat a time when Alexandria was becoming thepremier center of science in the ancientworld. He influenced many other thinkers,such as Polybius, Strabo, Hipparchus, andPtolemy of Alexandria.

Eratosthenes provided some of the mostaccurate estimates of land surface measure-ments of his time. The geographer Strabopraised him for being more realistic thanother geographers, such as Polybius, who al-lowed fancy to take hold of reason. Eratos-thenes divided the earth into climaticzones—the poles, arctic, temperate, tropics(Cancer, Capricorn), equator. He believedthat the tropics, where the solstices occur,have more extreme heat than the equator,which is higher in elevation and has morerain. He doubted Homer’s geographic knowl-edge, even if others, such as Strabo, weremore credulous.

Eratosthenes was the first scientist to mapthe earth according to latitude and longitude,profoundly influencing Hipparchus andPtolemy. He devised the idea of the meridian,the abstract focal point from which all geo-graphic measurements can proceed. In hisChronography, Eratosthenes devised a systemof abstract chronology as well, basing themeasure of passing years according to theOlympic games occurring every four yearsbeginning in 776 BCE.

Eratosthenes’ most famous experimentwas his measurement of the shadow atAlexandria on the same date and time of dayas when the rays of the sun were (he believed)directly overhead at Syrene, Egypt. Accord-ing to the story (preserved by the first-cen-tury CE scientist Cleomedes), he determinedthis phenomenon at Syrene by observing therays of the sun shining directly on the bottomof a well. Using a gnomon he determined theangle of the noon shadow at Alexandria to be7.2 degrees, one-fiftieth of a circle, thespherical earth. The distance from Syrene toAlexandria was 5,000 stadia (about 2.5 mil-lion feet), which if multiplied by 50 gives the

result of the circumference of the earth,250,000 stadia, or 23,300 miles, an estimatethat was off by only 2,000 miles. (The way toaccurately determine the earth’s circumfer-ence is to multiply the diameter by pi. Part ofthe significance of Eratosthenes’ experimentwas his realization that the rays of the sunstrike the varied places of the earth in paral-lel (not divergent) lines.

Eratosthenes, who believed that the land-mass of Europe, Asia, and Africa was exclu-sive to the northern hemisphere, estimatedthe extent of Europe, Asia, and Africa to be77,000 stadia. The unknown southern hemi-sphere must be inhabited, though by whomEratosthenes was uncertain. It is possible thatEratosthenes, who advocated the theory of agreater ratio of water to land, believed that awestern voyage across the Atlantic would re-turn the voyager to Asia.

See also Alexandria; Geography/Geodesy;Polybius; Pytheas of Massilia; Strabo

ReferencesHeath,Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos:The Ancient

Copernicus. New York: Dover Books, 1981.Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.

6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Tillinghast,William H. “The GeographicalKnowledge of the Ancients Considered inRelation to the Discovery of America.” InNarrative and Critical History of America, vol. 1,ed. Justin Winsor. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,1889.

Ether (Aether)See Elements

Euclid (floruit 300 BCE)Euclid was arguably the ancient world’s mostimportant mathematician. His Elements ofGeometry has influenced students of philoso-phy, science, and mathematics even to thepresent.The chief source for the scant detailsof the life of Euclid was the Late Romanwriter Proclus (412–485 CE), who claimedthat Euclid was a student of Plato’s academy.

Euclid 79

Besides this and the strong literary traditionthat he was an Alexandrian mathematician,little else is known about Euclid. He was rec-ognized as the authority on mathematics,

even more than Apollonius of Perga andArchimedes, so that teachers warnedprospective students, such as at the Academy,that one must know Euclid above all else. Be-

80 Euclid

Copper engraving of the Alexandrian mathematician Euclid (floruit 300 BCE), author of Elements. (Bettmann/Corbis)

sides The Elements, Euclid wrote The Pseudaria,a book on geometry that distinguished truefrom false theorems; The Data, another basicgeometrical text that covered various propo-sitions (if . . . , then . . . ); On Divisions, ex-amining geometric figures and derivatives;Surface-loci, covering geometric shapes suchas cones and spheres; Conics, in four books, towhich his disciple Apollonius added fourmore; Phaenomena, a work of astronomy; andOptics, Porisms, and Elements of Music.

The Elements is a mathematical treatise inthirteen books. Elements are initial, a prioriprinciples that must be accepted as true be-fore further analysis in the form of postulates,axioms, and hypotheses can be suggested.An el-ement is an undoubted first principle of real-ity.Thus, Euclid began his book with the firstprinciples of geometry dealing with the na-ture of lines and points on a line. From initialprinciples he derived postulates and axiomsthat provided for the student basic rules ofgeometry and measurement.

For the ancients of Euclid’s time, beforeand after, who like Euclid were under thespell of Plato and Aristotle, the deduction ofpostulates and axioms from initial first prin-ciples was the means by which thinkers coulddeduce the reality of the universe from theinitial causes and state of things. Euclid’sstatements in Book 1 of the Elements were notmere statements of geometry and mathemat-ics but were statements of the basic truths ofthe universe.

See also Apollonius of Perga; Archimedes;Commentators; Hellenism; Mathematics

ReferenceEuclid. The Thirteen Books of The Elements. Translated

by Sir Thomas Heath. New York: Dover Books,1925.

Eudoxus of Cnidus (408–352 BCE)Eudoxus, Pythagorean and student of Plato,was an astronomer, mathematician, andphysicist. He wrote Phaenomena, one of theseminal statements from the ancient worldon astronomy. Although the book was filled

with erroneous information, arguing for thegeocentric universe composed of twenty-seven spheres, Eudoxus believed in a com-pletely rational approach devoid of supersti-tion and mysticism. He had his own school atAthens, where he taught his students his geo-metric ideas on proportion, volume, the cir-cle, pyramids, and cones. According to Diog-enes Laertius, he wrote Voyage round the World.A mathematician of note, he anticipated someof Euclid’s ideas in geometry, in particularthe theory of proportion. He anticipatedArchimedes in his development of themethod of exhaustion.

According to Strabo, Eudoxus establishedan astronomical observatory at Heliopolis,Egypt; he also built one at his hometown ofCnidus. From these observatories he trackedstellar phenomena and was particularly in-trigued by the star Canopus. His observationsand theories were recorded in two books,Mirror and Phaenomena; the latter book waspartially preserved in verse in Aratus’sPhaenomena.

Eudoxus developed the theory of concen-tric spheres to attempt to fit together his as-sumptions of the spherical nature of the earthand the planets, sun and moon, and heavens,as well as his own observations on the move-ments of the night sky.The theory postulatesa series of spheres of different sizes, all per-fect circles, moving about the earth. Thefixed stars have a sphere by which they move.The sun and moon each require threespheres; each planet has a sphere, but also alarger sphere centered at its poles. Eudoxuseven required two more spheres for eachplanet in order to exactly replicate what heobserved in the night sky. In all, there weretwenty-seven spheres of varying sizes andmovements in Eudoxus’s complicated uni-verse. He did not worry about the composi-tion of the spheres, nor even their reality. Hiswas a theoretical construct only, intended topredict astronomical phenomena, and noth-ing more.

Eudoxus’s theories were carried forth byhis students Menaechmus, Polemarchus, and

Eudoxus of Cnidus 81

particularly Callippus of Cyzicus. Aristotlerelied on the work of Eudoxus and Callippusin creating his own scheme of the heavenlyspheres. Eventually Ptolemy would take upthe cause of Eudoxus’s concentric spheresand try to correct some of its errors whilestill attempting to preserve the conceptualwhole.

See also Aristotle; Astronomy; Euclid; GreekClassical Age; Mathematics

ReferencesDurant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1939.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Eunapius (floruit fifth century CE)Eunapius was the pagan author of Lives of theSophists, an important source of informationon the lives of Late Roman philosophers andscientists of the third and fourth centuriesCE. Eunapius’s Lives is not a critical source, asmuch of his work deals with Neoplatonismand its fourth-century expression dominatedby theurgists such as Iamblichus and Maximus

of Ephesus. Theurgy was the work of charla-tans who used magic to play upon the super-stitions of their followers, even those withapparently incredulous minds such as the em-peror Julian.This period of the Later RomanEmpire was one of confusion and anxiety, thedecline of paganism and rise of Christianity.Christians were uncertain as they sought toexplain their basic doctrines, such as of theTrinity. Pagans were similarly unsure aboutwhat role ancient beliefs played in a changingsociety. Pythagorean and Platonic philoso-phers tried to bring back the Hellenic past.Eunapius was a faithful follower of these ef-forts, though they were ultimately doomed tofailure.

See also Julian; Later Roman Empire; Plotinus;Porphyry; Maximus of Ephesus; Neoplatonism;Pythagoras

ReferencesBrown, Peter. The Making of Late Antiquity.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

82 Eunapius

Frontinus, Sextus Julius (floruitlate first century and early secondcentury CE)Frontinus was the water commissioner incharge of the upkeep of the aqueducts thatbrought fresh water to the city of Rome dur-ing the reigns of Nerva (96–98 CE) and Trajan(98–117 CE). His treatise On the Water-Man-agement of the City of Rome provides a detaileddescription of the origins, number, place-ment, upkeep, and utility of the Roman aque-ducts. Rome’s first aqueduct was the Aqua Ap-pian, named for Appius Claudius Crassus, anold senator who was also responsible for theconstruction of the Appian Way. Frontinus sys-tematically described such aqueducts as theOld Anio, Marcia, Tepula, Julia, Virgo, Au-gusta, Claudia, and New Anio. He laid outtheir extent in paces and distinguished thoseparts that were subterranean or abovegroundupon a series of arches. Frontinus carefullydescribed the bases of measurements (in dig-its and inches) of the varied pipes used to con-vey water. He estimated the amount of water

delivered by each aqueduct in quinaria, a unitof measure developed by the Romans that was5/4 of a digit (which was 1/16 of a foot). Thequinaria measured not only length but volumeas well. Frontinus proclaimed that the aque-ducts brought health to the city: fresh purewater for drinking and bathing and water tocleanse the city streets and sewers. Workgangs of slaves maintained the aqueducts.Frontinus thought that the Roman aqueductswere Rome’s great symbol, like the Egyptianpyramids were to Egypt; yet the pyramids ac-complished nothing, while the Roman aque-ducts were not only awesome and beautifulbut pragmatic as well.

See also Engineering and Technology; Hydraulics;Roman Principate; Roman Roads and Bridges

ReferenceFrontinus. On the Water-Management of the City of

Rome. Translated by R. H. Rodgers. 2003.http://www.uvm.edu/~rrodgers/Frontinus.html.

F

83

Galen (130–200 CE)Galen was a Greek physician from Asia Minorwho was a master of medical science andphysician to the Roman emperor Marcus Au-relius. Galen’s first love was philosophy—theongoing influence of Aristotle is clear in hiswritings.While still in his teens he began thestudy of medicine, traveling to many of themajor centers of learning, particularlyAlexandria, where he came to know the writ-ings of Asclepiades, Erasistratus, Herophilus,and Hippocrates. Accepting the latter as hisliterary and scientific mentor, Galen was aphysician to gladiators and then had a suc-cessful medical practice at Rome. There wasmuch vitriol in Galen’s writings, and appar-ently in his lectures and conversation as well.He was unafraid of offending others by chal-lenging their beliefs and advocating his ownas the only true way. He was forced to fleeRome for a time but returned to be physicianand tutor to Commodus, the son of MarcusAurelius and future emperor. His literaryoutput was immense. In his works we find aphysician and scientist who studied the brainand nervous system, the digestive and circu-latory systems, anatomy, skeletal structure,the function of the organs, and materia med-ica. Although a rationalist, Galen still some-times relied on the workings of the divine tounderstand the intricate ways of the human

body. Nature, he believed, was the wise cre-ator of the human body, which was an imageof the rational and good rather than a mereorganism or machinelike substance. He be-lieved dreams could be used in prognosis andthat the moon could affect the human body.Generally, however, Galen believed in exper-iment and observation by which to arrive atmedical theories and diagnoses. He was a me-thodical, logical thinker, who, like Aristotle,could overpower his readers and encouragebelief by the relentless force and sophistica-tion of his arguments.

Influenced by Hippocrates, the great med-ical thinker of the fifth century BCE, Galenargued that the human body is made up offour humors: black bile, yellow bile, phlegm,and blood. Health depends on maintaining abalance of the humors by means of properfood, regular exercise, adequate sleep—inshort, a temperate lifestyle. An overabun-dance of black bile, for example, can lead tocancer. Galen accepted the Hippocratic viewthat one must treat illness with opposites toreestablish the humoral balance. Hence wet-ness must act upon dryness; what is hot mustbe cooled. Blood is warm and moist, which iscountered by black bile, which is cold anddry. Phlegm, which is cold and moist, iscountered by yellow bile, which is warm anddry. Galen argued that drugs and foods influ-

G

85

ence the humoral balance in the body: toomuch food can produce sickness, followed bydisease. Galen’s writings on food and nutri-tion include On the Powers of Foods, in which heexperimented with the impact of fruit, suchas apples and pears, on bowel movements, OnBarley Soup, and On the Causes of Disease.

In the five centuries that separated thework of Hippocrates and the work of Galen,medicine had been heavily influenced by thematerialist strain of Epicurean writers whobelieved that the mechanistic movement ofatoms in the body has the greatest impactupon health. Galen was particularly incensed

at Asclepiades, a Greek physician of the firstcentury BCE who refused to believe that aholistic approach to medicine was important,but rather that most illness was due to theconstriction of tissues and vessels. One ofGalen’s extant works, On the Natural Faculties,is a sustained attack against the teachings ofhis predecessors except Hippocrates. Galenthought it absurd to assume that the humanbody has no living, spiritual component—that the body is but atoms in motion in variedcombinations. How can one diagnose illnesswithout considering the will and vitality ofthe human being?

86 Galen

Engraving of the Roman physician Galen (130–200 CE), by Vigneron. (Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine)

The power of Galen’s thought and hismany writings influenced medical thoughtand practice during subsequent centuries.Galen was read by Christians and Muslimsalike, who saw in him an Aristotelian thinkerwho also believed in the “vital spirit” presentin each individual. The pagan Galen couldtherefore be adopted by monotheists lookingfor a physician who accepted the will andpresence of the divine in human existence.Galen also argued that the human body actslike a system in which all parts work towardthe functioning of the whole. Each part is in-tertwined, attracting and expelling like posi-tive and negative forces—not in isolation, butin unison.

See also Asclepiades; Aurelius, Marcus; Celsus;Erasistratus; Hippocrates; Medicine; Oribasius;Roman Principate

ReferencesDurant,Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1944.Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J.

Brock. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1916.

Grant, Mark, ed. and trans. Galen on Food and Diet.New York: Routledge, 2000.

GazaGaza was the ancient Philistine city at thesouthern edge of Palestine on the roads toPhoenicia, Petra, Egypt, and Alexandria. ASemitic city for most of its past, Gaza wasnominally Phoenician in the fourth centuryBCE when Alexander the Great laid siege toit. At that time the city was forbidding, builton a hill surrounded by high walls and deepsand.

Hellenistic and Roman influence madeGaza during the Later Roman Empire a Se-mitic city with a predominant Greek culture;the inhabitants spoke Greek and Aramaic.During the fifth century CE, Gaza became aChristian city. Like any Greek city, Gaza had ahippodrome and amphitheater, temples andchurches.The city, with streets in a grid dom-inated by right angles, was patterned after theideas of the Milesian city designer Hippo-

damus. In the centuries after the foundation ofConstantinople, Gaza increased in importanceas one of the intellectual centers of the East-ern Roman (Byzantine) Empire along withthe imperial city, Athens, and Alexandria.

Sixth-century Gaza looked less to Con-stantinople than to the Greek city of Alexan-dria in Egypt for scientific and intellectualleadership. Procopius of Gaza, for example,one of the well-known intellectuals of sixth-century Gaza, studied at Alexandria—he wasfamous for his panegyrics and literary de-scriptions. One, of a complicated clock, stillsurvives. Another sixth-century writer, Johnof Gaza, produced a literary account of theuniverse based on a painting on display at thecity. Aeneas of Gaza at the same time wrotean imaginary account of the Peripateticschool and its leader Theophrastus. In goodAristotelian fashion,Timothy of Gaza penneda scientific description of the animal king-dom.The schools of Gaza were considered ofthe same rank as those of Alexandria andConstantinople. Students at Gaza received atraditional Greek education (paideia) alongwith a sufficient grounding in Christian the-ology.The two approaches combined to pro-duce Christian humanistic thinkers.

Choricius, one of the leading intellectualsof sixth-century Gaza, is a good example ofthe Christian scholar. He combined Christiantheology with allusions to classical mythologyin his writings, the most famous of whichwere detailed portrayals of Gaza churches.His description of the Basilica of St. Stephencombined myth, faith, and mathematics inone literary tour de force.

Science at the end of the ancient world, inthe sixth century CE, was elementary com-pared to the great accomplishments of thepast during the time of Aristotle and Ptolemy.Yet cities such as Gaza, by relating the con-cepts and writings of past thinkers, were ableto bring this thought forward to later ages, tothe Renaissance, and to the present.

See also Alexandria; Constantinople; LaterRoman Empire

Gaza 87

ReferencesArrian. The Campaigns of Alexander. Translated by

Aubrey de Selincourt. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971.

Downey, Glanville. Gaza in the Early Sixth Century.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

Geminus (floruit first century CE)Geminus was an astronomer and mathemati-cian of the first century CE known for Intro-duction to Astronomy (Isagoge) and Theory ofMathematics. A Stoic influenced by Posidoniusof Rhodes, Geminus possibly lived in Rhodesas well, an important center of science duringthe Hellenistic Age. Geminus focused onsolar and lunar events and phases; the coordi-nation of solar and lunar calendars; eclipses;the distances of the stars from the earth; con-stellations; and the zodiac. In Introduction toAstronomy, as well as in Theory of Mathematics,Geminus provided an interesting historicalperspective, telling his readers that mathe-matics had changed over time: Pythagoras’sconcern for theory, and mathematics as an ab-stract source of truth, gave way to a morepractical application of mathematics, repre-sented by Geminus himself.

Geminus continues to be an importantsource for understanding the development ofancient calendars and dating systems. His In-troduction to Astronomy tells us of the octaëteris,an eight-year cycle at the end of which threeintercalary months were added in the ancientGreek lunar calendar to make months anddates conform to the phenomena of the sea-sons.

See also Astronomy; Calendars and DatingSystems; Mathematics; Posidonius of Rhodes

ReferencesHeath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History of

Mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html(website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’sScotland).

Geocentric Universe See Astronomy

Geography/GeodesyThe ancient Greeks invented the sciences ofgeography and geodesy. The search to makesense of space and one’s place in it is clearlyan essential human activity. Earlier civiliza-tions had, it is true, engaged in geographic ac-tivities. For example, from ancient Babyloncomes the earliest map of the world, with theEuphrates River at the center on a clay tabletwith a legend inscribed in cuneiform. But theGreeks were the first to systematize thesearch to understand the nature of the world.The Greeks were wanderers who exploredthe entire Mediterranean region, the Black(Euxine) Sea, Asia from the Aegean to theIndus, the Arabian Sea, North Africa,WesternEurope, the North Atlantic, and the Atlanticcoasts of Europe and Africa. Although cer-tainly naïve, especially regarding traditionalmyths and legends, the Greeks were the firstto develop critical thought based on experi-ence, observation, and logic respecting theextent and shape of the earth and its land-scapes and cultures. The Greeks were igno-rant of much: they maintained the limitedview of three continents and two oceans; andthey never knew of the Pacific or the Ameri-cas. Yet their great accomplishment was thedevelopment of an idea and a spirit of scien-tific exploration that later Europeans andAmericans used as the basis for their own ex-plorations of distant lands and peoples.

The First ExplorersGreek geography begins with Homer. TheOdyssey records the peregrinations ofOdysseus, who, driven by the gods, fate, andhis own will to survive, wandered theMediterranean for years seeking the wayhome to Ithaca, his kingdom, and his faithfulwife, Penelope. According to Homer,Odysseus’s travels took him from the AegeanSea to the northern coasts of Africa, on to

88 Geminus

Sicily and the Strait of Messina, and as far asthe “Ocean stream,” the Atlantic.

Homer, of course, was a poet rather than ageographer.Yet the Homeric worldview wasformed by myth and legend, which usuallycontain a kernel of truth. Odysseus’s journeywas one many Phoenician mariners madeduring the early centuries of the first millen-nium BCE. The Phoenicians left behind fewrecords of their voyages to North Africa,Sicily, southern Spain, and beyond the Straitof Gibraltar to the Atlantic Ocean. Tales ofPhoenician adventures became part of theepic cycle of Mediterranean bards, which ex-

plained how Homer borrowed so much fromthe Phoenician experience to mold the char-acter and exploits of Odysseus. Odysseus’sjourney was longer, more daring, and morefantastic than that of his earlier counterpart,Jason, who with his Argonauts explored theBlack Sea to its eastern limit at Colchis inquest of the golden fleece.That Greeks wereby 800 BCE making voyages from the AegeanSea to the Black Sea by way of the Hellespontand Bosphorus made the story of Jason,which featured mythological rendering ofreal places and peoples, all the more believ-able.Writings (graphia) about the world (geo)

Geography/Geodesy 89

Renaissance map portraying the geographic conceptions of Herodotus, Strabo, and Ptolemy and the wind charts of Aristotleand Vitruvius. In Johann G. Heck, Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature, and Art (New York: RudolphGarrigue, 1851, vol. 1, division 3, pl. 8). (Library of Congress)

were initially based on tales of historical voy-ages made by anonymous explorers, whonevertheless acquired knowledge of theMediterranean world and passed it on, how-ever fancifully.

Homer and His SuccessorsHomer’s Iliad and Odyssey, written during theeighth century BCE, provide plentiful if oftenerroneous information about the world. Thepoems describe a round disk, the earth, com-posed of three ambiguous continents, Eu-rope, Asia, and Africa (Libya), surrounded bythe river Ocean. The world-encircling oceanstretches from the waters west of the Pillarsof Heracles to the Euxine (Black) Sea in theeast. Homer’s knowledge of the extent of theMediterranean, from Gibraltar to the Dard-anelles and beyond to the Atlantic and BlackSea, derived from the sailors of Egypt,Phoenicia, Carthage, Crete, and Greece.Homer’s contemporary Hesiod wrote of sim-ilar mythic places, such as the Elysian Fields,an island in the Ocean west of the Pillars ofHeracles. Homer and Hesiod both conceivedof the land of the dead far to the west, on theverge of Ocean.

The Iliad and Odyssey as well as otherpoems of the Homeric Cycle inspired laterwriters to attempt recreations of possibleGreek voyages of discovery. Notable in thisregard was Apollonius of Rhodes, the authorof the third century BCE poem Argonautica.The Argonautica recounts the Greek heroicquest for the Golden Fleece. Apollonius usedmyths going back millennia to tell the storyof the voyage of Argo. The Argonauts sailedacross the Aegean Sea to the Hellespont,north through the Bosphorus to the Black(Euxine) Sea, east to Colchis, then backacross the Black Sea to the Danube River.They ascended the Danube to its source, de-scended the Rhone River to the Mediter-ranean Sea, and paralleled western Italy toSicily. Near western Greece they were drivenoff course to North Africa. They finally re-turned to Greece by way of Crete and the is-lands of the Aegean Sea. It was a fantastic

journey retold many times over the cen-turies. Apollonius provided the third-centuryBCE Greek version.

The Greeks gained greater knowledge andexperienced new cultures when, in the eighthand seventh centuries, city-states sent colo-nizing expeditions to Anatolia, North Africa,Spain, southern France, Italy, and the shoresof the Black Sea. By the seventh century BCE,the Greeks had explored and colonized theAtlantic and Mediterranean shores of theIberian peninsula. Herodotus of Halicarnas-sus reported that colonists from Thera colo-nized Cyrene in North Africa. Herodotus,along with Hecataeus of Miletus and Hellani-cus of Lesbos, made the first attempts to pro-vide factual information divorced from mythof the lands and peoples, geography, and his-tory of the Mediterranean. These historiansand geographers based their accounts ontheir own travels, as well as on travelers’ talesof distant lands provided by Phoenician, Cy-renian, Egyptian, Byzantion, and Massiliantraders and sailors.

Pytheas of Massilia (floruit 300 BCE)The seafaring colony of Massilia (Marseilles),for example, located at the mouth of theRhone River, produced many adventurersand explorers. One was Euthymenes, whosailed south along the west African coast inabout 500 BCE. He claimed to have reachedthe Senegal River, about 15 degrees north lat-itude. The most famous Massilian discovererwas Pytheas, whose account of his voyage islost.The geographer Eratosthenes used Pyth-eas’s account, which was condemned by thegeographer Strabo as full of lies.The voyage,if it took place, occurred about 300 BCE andcovered perhaps seven thousand miles. Pyth-eas circumnavigated the British Isles. His im-mediate object was tin, but he appears tohave broadened his quest into a full-scale ex-ploring expedition. Subsequent explorersjourneyed to the “tin islands” visited by Pyth-eas. There are also anecdotal reports in theancient literature that Ionian Greeks fromCaria, in southwestern Turkey, made impor-

90 Geography/Geodesy

tant voyages of discovery. The travel writerPausanius described the voyage of Euphemusthe Carian, who was caught in a storm, or thetrade winds, off the coast of North Africa andblown west to an island in the Atlantic withunique inhabitants he had never before seen.Another Carian, Scylax, explored the route,from the Indus to the Tigris rivers, thatNearchus was to take in 325 BCE.

The Shape of the EarthThe Greeks speculated on the shape of theearth, the science of geodesy. The IonianGreeks of western Anatolia (Turkey) were thefirst to hypothesize that the earth was not aflat disk: Anaximander of Miletus during thesixth century BCE, who reputedly drew thefirst map of the world, believed that the earthwas a cylinder. Parmenides, a century later,speculated that the earth must have zones ofheat and cold: torrid, frigid, and temperatezones. The Athenian Plato, in his dialoguePhaedo, followed the Pythagoreans in arguingthat since the sphere is the most perfectform, this must be the earth’s shape. Plato’sstudent, the greatest scientist of classicalGreece, Aristotle, provided empirical proofof the earth’s sphericity by observing theearth’s shadow cast upon the surface of themoon during a lunar eclipse. However, Aris-totle still had a limited view of earth, under-estimating the extent of Asia, believing thatthe Caspian Sea flows into the outer Ocean,and conceiving that India marks the easternextreme of the continent.Aristotle had the ge-nius to conceive of a hemispheric world, northand south, perhaps basing his ideas on the re-ports of Phoenician and Carthaginian sailors.

The speculative Greeks, and later the Ro-mans, wondered what lay to the west, acrossthe Atlantic. The fifth-century historianHerodotus’s report that the Phoenicians cir-cumnavigated Africa in about 600 BCE, sail-ing from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans,was believed by few, who were beholden tothe myth of the ring of fire encircling earth’sequator.There circulated other vague reportsthat the Carthaginians explored the North

Atlantic to the British Isles, the Azores in theNorth Atlantic, and the west African coastlinealmost to the equator. Diodorus Siculus, theGreek historian of the first century BCE andauthor of Universal History, reported that theCarthaginians discovered a vast, fruitful, andtemperate island with large rivers in the At-lantic Ocean. So wonderful were these islesthat upon returning to Carthage all whoknew of them were murdered so as to keepthe islands secret and prevent a mass migra-tion from Carthage.

The Greek biographer and scientistPlutarch, ever on the lookout to substantiatemyth with fact, studied the nature and originof stories about the Isles of the Blessed andCalypso’s island of Ogygia.This island is fea-tured in Homer’s Odyssey. Homer placed theisland, where Calypso held Odysseus againsthis will for seven years, somewhere in thewest, which made sense since Calypso wasthe daughter of Atlas. Later legends placedOgygia in the Atlantic, where Cronos, a godof Phoenician origin, held sway. In his dia-logue “Concerning the Face Which Appears inthe Orb of the Moon,” Plutarch discussed indetail the myth, trying to put the best face onwhat might be true about it. He hypothesizedthat Ogygia lies to the west of Britain; theroute is difficult going, in part because the seais of a cold thickness and it is a land of themidnight sun. Pytheas discovered such condi-tions on his voyage, and it is possible thatPlutarch used Pytheas’s account as evidencefor his discussion of Ogygia. Pytheas claimedto have visited Thule, which the Stoic Senecaalso briefly mentioned in his play Medea.Likewise Ferdinando Columbus, in his biog-raphy of his father Christopher, claimed thatthe young Columbus in the 1470s sailed tothe North Atlantic and visited Thule.

Plutarch, in his Life of Sertorius, also re-ported the legend of the Isles of the Blessed.Sertorius, a Roman general who was in Spainaround 80 BCE, met with mariners whoclaimed to have just returned from islandstwelve hundred miles off the coast of Spain.Why they left such a wonderful place of

Geography/Geodesy 91

abundant fruits and continuous mild breezesis a mystery, but they convinced Sertorius(and Plutarch) of their reality, and made theRoman long to sail there to live his life in per-fect repose.

The Elder Pliny also provided detailed de-scriptions of these isles in a failed attempt tomake fiction fact.The daughters of the settingsun, he wrote, inhabited the Hesperides. Healso discussed uncritically the island of At-lantis. Plato wrote of Atlantis in the Timaeus.The Athenian lawgiver Solon on his travelsheard from the Egyptians about Atlantis, alarge island hosting an advanced civilizationthat was destroyed by a tidal wave. FromPlato’s account it is not clear whether At-lantis, a vast island civilization that mysteri-ously vanished, was an actual place, the leg-ends of which Plato had read, or merely theproduct of his (or another’s) fertile imagina-tion.

Hellenistic GeographyAristotle’s student Alexander the Great setoff in 334 BCE to conquer and explore thePersian Empire, in part because of Aristotle’steachings that made the young king yearn(pothos) to know more.The student sent spec-imens to the teacher, penetrated the remote-ness of Bactria (Afghanistan) and theGedrosian Desert (Pakistan), descended theIndus River to its mouth, sent his admiralNearchus to explore the Arabian Sea and Per-sian Gulf, and planned future journeys southand west before his death in 323.

Alexander opened up a whole new worldfor Greek scientists. The scientific center ofAlexandria in Egypt, founded by Alexanderin 331, sponsored a host of geographers dur-ing the ensuing Hellenistic Age. Eratosthenes,for example, the author of Geographica, devel-oped the science of geodesy by hypothesizingearth’s circumference to be 31,300 miles,which was remarkably accurate. He inspiredmany other geographers, such as Strabo,Posidonius of Rhodes, and Marinus of Tyre, toperform similar measurements. Working

from the library at Alexandria, Eratosthenesfirst used latitude and longitude to chart theglobe. Inspired by the voyages of Nearchus,he believed in the possibilities of sailing westacross the Atlantic to India. Hipparchus, ascientist from Nicaea in northwestern Turkey,created a grid pattern on maps that measuredearth at precise arcs on a 360-degree scale.The geographer Strabo, a Greek who flour-ished during the reign of Augustus, wrote amultivolume Geography that encompassed the“known” world from the Atlantic Ocean toArabia to India. Strabo relied heavily on otherliterary sources to create his encyclopedic ac-count. Likewise, the Elder Pliny relied exten-sively on previous writers to pen his vast Nat-ural History, which included much on worldgeography from a narrow Roman perspec-tive. Pliny and Strabo both, for example,wrote at length about India, relying heavilyon the works of Nearchus of Crete, Onesicri-tus of Astypalaea, and Aristobulus of Cassan-drea, all of whom accompanied Alexander onhis expedition and journey to India. On theother hand Julius Caesar, in the Gallic War, de-scribed the peoples, landscapes, and rivers ofGaul and Britain based in part on firsthandobservations. Pomponius Mela, a Spaniardwho authored the Latin Chorographia, pro-vided a general overview of the geography ofthe Roman Empire during the first centuryCE. His contemporary, Theodosius of Tripo-lis, developed mathematical geography, inwhich he calculated the amount of time interms of daylight and darkness for variousplaces at different seasons at particular lati-tudes. He was thought by Vitruvius, the ar-chitect, to have invented a forerunner of thesextant to determine latitude.

Continents, Zones, and SeasGreek geographers developed various theo-ries to explain the relation of continents tooceans and different climatic zones. The firstGreek scientists, such as Pythagoras, upondetermining that the earth is spherical, hy-pothesized the existence of five climatic

92 Geography/Geodesy

zones on the earth’s surface: the two poles,two temperate zones, and the equator, whichlegend and imagination told them was an im-passable zone of fire. Time and experiencetaught scientists like Polybius that such a zoneof fire was absurd. Greek geographers haddifferent conceptions about the relation ofocean and land on the earth. Aristotle andothers, such as Strabo, Pliny, Crates, andPomponius Mela, argued that there was aworld-encircling ocean surrounding the threejoined continents Europe, Asia, and Africa.Herodotus, Plato, Hipparchus, and Ptolemybelieved the opposite, that land dominatedseas on the earth’s surface. Ptolemy, inspiredby Marinus of Tyre, argued that the IndianOcean was an inland sea and that Asia ex-tended south and then west to join withAfrica. Crates of Mallus, whom the ancientsclaimed invented a working globe, hypothe-sized four continents in four sections of theearth. Indeed many geographers argued forthe presence of geographic sections; Pythago-ras believed that an opposite realm, the an-tipodes, existed far to the south, mirroringthe north. Others, such as Pomponius Mela,author of the Chorographica, conceived of theexistence of a southern hemisphere that wasimpassable because of the ring of fire. Hecalled such a land the other world, “Ora Aus-tralis.” Cicero’s imaginative “Scipio’s Dream,”in the Republic, presented a similar idea. Stillothers argued that the earth’s landmass andpeoples lived only in the northern hemi-sphere, the hypothetical south being uninhab-itable. Obscure geographers such as Gemi-nus, Cleomedes, and Achilles Tatius spentmuch time and thought on these theories.Another, Macrobius, in the fifth century CE,called the four continents “terra quadrifiga”;the north and south were separated by anequatorial sea, he believed, agreeing withCrates.

PtolemyThe greatest geographer of the Roman Em-pire was Claudius Ptolemy, who lived during

the second century CE at Alexandria.Ptolemy was an astronomer as well as a geog-rapher. He developed standard directions(north, south, east, west) but made big er-rors, overestimating the size of Asia, underes-timating the circumference of earth, and hy-pothesizing a landmass, the terra incognita,connecting Africa to Asia, making the IndianOcean a landlocked sea.

Ptolemy’s Geography became the standardduring the Later Roman Empire and through-out the European Middle Ages. The Renais-sance explorer Christopher Columbus reliedon Ptolemy’s geographical scheme to plan his“Enterprise of the Indies.” Ptolemy’s errorshelped Columbus convince himself that avoyage from Spain west across the Atlantic toChina was possible. He did not realize thatAmerica, unknown to the ancients, lay in be-tween.

The journeys of ancient humans into thespatial unknown yielded more questions thananswers. What is the earth’s circumference,shape, limits? Can Africa be circumnavigated?How vast is the Ocean? Although ancient ge-ographers did not find exact answers, they setthe stage for those who would.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Aristotle; Caesar,Julius; Cicero; Eratosthenes; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; Hipparchus; Homer; Nearchusof Crete; Phoenicians; Plato; Pliny the Elder;Ptolemaeus, Claudius; Pytheas of Massilia

ReferencesApollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo. Translated

by E.V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1971.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Boorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers. New York:Random House, 1983.

Cary, M. The Geographical Background of Greek andRoman History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History:A Selection.Translated by John F. Healy. London: PenguinBooks, 1991.

Plutarch. Moralia. 15 vols. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1968–1976.

Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Geography/Geodesy 93

Tillinghast,William H. “The GeographicalKnowledge of the Ancients Considered inRelation to the Discovery of America.” InNarrative and Critical History of America, vol. 1,ed. Justin Winsor. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,1889.

Warmington, E. H. Greek Geography. London: J. M.Dent, 1934.

Greek Archaic Age (800–500 BCE)The history of ancient Greece is typically di-vided into three chronological divisions: Ar-chaic (800–500 BCE), Classical (500–323BCE), and Hellenistic (323–31 BCE). TheArchaic Age was a time of new beginnings.Hitherto Greece had a violent and primitivepast. At the beginning of the Archaic Age,Greece was emerging from a period of cul-tural, social, and economic darkness.The so-called Dark Ages occurred after centuries ofMycenaean domination of the Balkan penin-sula and Peloponnesus. Mycenaean kings suchas Agamemnon, Menelaus, Nestor, andOdysseus (as identified in Homer’s Iliad andOdyssey) dominated society by means of thesword.The Mycenaean Age was a time of un-ending war. Invasions of Greece by an evenmore warlike people, the Dorians, destroyedMycenaean dominance and forced the van-quished to strongholds in eastern Greece, theAegean islands, and the Aegean shores of AsiaMinor.These people of the Aegean region, asopposed to the mainland Greeks of the westand south, were the Ionians. The interveningcenturies were dark—literate, urban culturedisappeared. Few records survive from theDark Ages, and those that do, like the Iliadand the Odyssey, were initially composedorally and not recorded in written script untilcenturies later.

The Greek Dark Ages ended at the begin-ning of the eighth century BCE when the his-torical record reveals that literacy, cities,trade, and sophisticated institutions returnedto Greece. Such civilized attributes includedscientific thought. By the eighth century, theGreek polis (the city-state) spread through-out Greece, the Aegean, and elsewhere.

Greek poleis were independent regionalurban powers that dotted Greece and fiercelypromoted and defended their respective in-terests. The city of Athens controlled the re-gion of Attica, for example, and competedwith other city-states, Ionian and Dorian,such as Thebes, Corinth, and Sparta. TheGreek polis was dynamic and wealthy, ac-tively engaged in trade and in developing vi-brant new institutions, and sought to extendits economic and political power throughoutthe Mediterranean. At the dawn of the Ar-chaic Age, the Greek poleis were sufficientlypopulated that they sent groups of citizens onexpeditions to discover and settle regions inother lands where a healthy trade could beguaranteed.This phenomenon of Greek colo-nization resulted in Greek poleis being spreadwest to Spain, France, Sicily, and Italy, southto North Africa, southeast to Egypt, east toAnatolia and Palestine, and northeast to theBlack Sea region. Greek colonization led tothe spread of Greek culture and ideas intoAsia, Africa, and Eastern and Western Eu-rope. Most important, the Greeks gained agreater awareness of geography and otherpeoples—new experiences and new ideasstimulated thought and led to the first scien-tific revolution in human history.

Historians of science refer to the ArchaicAge philosophers and scientists of the seventhand sixth centuries BCE as the Pre-Socratics,that is, those who preceded the great Athen-ian philosopher Socrates.The number of Pre-Socratic philosophers and scientists is aston-ishing. Many were Ionians who came fromwestern Asia Minor on the eastern shores ofthe Aegean Sea.Thales of Miletus, his studentAnaximander, Anaximenes of Miletus, andXenophanes of Colophon were the first Ioni-an thinkers. They sought to explain the uni-verse by imposing the structure of the humanmind upon it, to conceptualize it so as to un-derstand it. They broke from the primitiveanthropomorphism of their forebears to con-ceive of a universe of cause and effect rela-tionships, of infinite existence and move-ment, of a primary universal cause. At the

94 Greek Archaic Age

same time they sought the essence of allthings in water, air, fire, or mind.Anaxagoras,who moved to Athens and influenced Peri-cles, advocated the latter idea, that mind(nous) is the infinite and universal, the causeof all that exists. Melissus of Samos, an islandoff the coast of Turkey near Miletus, arguedthat the universe is ungenerated, that “noth-ing” cannot exist.

Melissus adopted the theories of severalphilosophers who, in response to Persian ag-gression in Asia Minor, fled to the southerncoasts of Italy, to what the colonists of the re-gion called “Greater Greece” (Magna Grae-cia). The most famous of these philosopher-scientists were Parmenides and Pythagoras.Parmenides of Elea wrote in verse; in onepoem, On Nature, he presented his views onthe ungenerated being, the cause and essenceof all things. Diogenes Laertius, in Lives of thePhilosophers, claimed that Parmenides was thefirst to hypothesize the spherical nature of theearth. Parmenides possibly got the idea fromPythagoras, who was born in Samos but mi-grated to southern Italy, where he collectedmany disciples who influenced the develop-ment of philosophy, mathematics, and sciencefor centuries to come. Pythagoras believed inthe transmigration of souls and that numberforms the basis of the universe.This theory ofthe mathematical foundations of reality wouldinfluence such important Greek philosophersas Plato and the mathematician Euclid.

Other Pre-Socratic philosophers devel-oped theories about the material basis of ex-istence. Heraclitus of Ephesus believed thatfire forms all things, that opposites composethe universe, and that motion and change ex-plain natural phenomena. Empedocles, oneof the giants of the fifth century, advocatedtheories on the plurality of being. Four pri-mary elements form all things: earth, air, fire,and water. Likewise Leucippus, who had con-nections to the philosophers of Ionia andMagna Graecia, hypothesized that substancerather than ideas forms existence: he devel-oped the theory of invisible atoms combiningand recombining to form all matter.

Alcmaeon, one of Pythagoras’s associates,is the best example of the development ofmedicine during the Archaic Age. Hailingfrom Croton in southern Italy, Alcmaeon waspossibly the first Greek to conceive of the in-divisible eternity (rather than transmigration)of the human soul. He studied the humansenses and argued that all existence is ex-plained by opposites—in so doing he antici-pated the physics of Heraclitus and Empedo-cles and the medical theories of Hippocrates,the contemporary of Socrates.

During the Archaic Age the Greeks alsoapproached the mastery of the arts, crafts,and sciences of historical writing, verse, ar-chitecture, sculpture, pottery, metallurgy,and shipbuilding. It was left to the subsequentClassical Age to see these developments cometogether to form one of the most dynamicand creative times in human history.

See also Alcmaeon; Anaximander of Miletus;Anaximenes of Miletus; Astronomy; EleaticSchool; Empedocles; Heraclitus of Ephesus;Hippocrates; Leucippus; Medicine; Miletus;Thales; Xenophanes of Colophon

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn

Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Burn, A. R. The Pelican History of Greece.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1974.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Greek Classical Age (500–323 BCE)The Greek Classical Age was a period ofsupreme intellectual achievement that oc-curred over the space of two hundred yearsduring the fifth and fourth centuries BCE.The Classical Age was epitomized by thecity-state of Athens and by the three mostsignificant philosophers and scientists of theancient world, Socrates (469–399), Plato(425–346), and Aristotle (384–322). Inde-pendent poleis (city-states) characterized

Greek Classical Age 95

Greek civilization. They were competitiveand aggressive, and thus war was commonamong the Greeks. Yet this competitivenesswas expressed not only in war but in tradeand thought as well. Herodotus, in the Histo-ries, described the Greeks as a free peoplewho showed what freedom can accomplishamong humans if given the chance. Athenswas the most democratic of the Greek city-states, which might explain why the Atheni-ans produced such outstanding work in sci-ence and philosophy.

SophistsSocrates, like his predecessor Pythagoras, ei-ther did not write anything or it has not sur-vived time.What we know of Socrates comesfrom his students Plato and Xenophon. Platowrote in dialogue form featuring the highlysophisticated conversations of Socrates andhis students and sometimes his opponents,particularly the Sophists. The Sophists werepaid teachers of wisdom who often focusedless on the pursuit of truth and more on waysto contrive a good argument. Many, such asProtagoras, were humanists, that is, restrict-ing knowledge to human experience, whichwas the opposite of what Socrates and Platobelieved. Nor did Socrates and his studentsagree with the theories of the atomists, suchas Leucippus and Democritus, who tried toexplain nature according to physical sub-stances rather than ideas.

PlatoIn today’s terms, Socrates and Plato werephilosophers more than scientists. They builta philosophy around a conception of the di-vine attributes of the universe, what Socratescalled ideal forms. These ideas, such as justice,beauty, and the good, resembled the Pre-So-cratic notions of the mind, being, and logos.Truth is hidden from humans, who see onlythe shadows of what is real.The search for re-ality is therefore worthwhile, though it re-quires intense contemplation and intuition,years of study, and mastery of the theories of

music, logic, mathematics, justice, and epis-temology. Socrates and Plato speculated onthe nature of the universe, the shape of theworld, the soul and its immortality, humanthought, psychology, and politics, but theylacked the empirical focus that usually definesscience. Nevertheless Platonic thinking influ-enced the philosophers and scientists of theancient world, particularly the Neoplato-nists, and scores of others in Europe andAmerica for centuries.

AristotleUnlike Plato, his pupil Aristotle was a scien-tist interested in experimentation, observa-tion, collection and categorization of data,and inductive and deductive reasoning. Heused these tools of reason and analysis tomaster the topics of metaphysics, physics,logic, statecraft, biology, botany, and astron-omy. Aristotle was a prolific writer. HisMetaphysics, Politics, Poetics, Physics, andNichomachean Ethics were and have remainedclassic treatises on those subjects. His school,the Lyceum, and his followers, the Peripatet-ics, beginning with Theophrastus, continuedto influence Greek and European science foryears to come. First the Romans, then theByzantines, the Arabs, and Medieval Euro-pean churchmen found inspiration andknowledge in Aristotle’s writings.

HistoriaOther, less metaphysical thinkers of fifth-cen-tury Greece included historians, physicians,architects, and engineers. Herodotus of Hali-carnassus wrote Histories (Historia), a highlydescriptive and entertaining account of theeastern Mediterranean. Herodotus was notterribly discriminating in his information.Yethe was an explorer who collected the infor-mation himself on long journeys in which theindefatigable inquirer asked numerous ques-tions and took countless side trips, observingand recording as he went. During the latterhalf of the fifth century Thucydides theAthenian wrote The Peloponnesian War, a sys-

96 Greek Classical Age

tematic chronological account of the war be-tween the Ionians and the Dorians. Historianshave long lauded Thucydides for using objec-tive, seemingly scientific techniques of gath-ering and recording his information.Xenophon, the student of Socrates, wrotephilosophical dialogues, history, and Anabasis,the story of ten thousand Greek mercenarieswho fought for Cyrus, a Persian seeking toestablish himself as Great King of Persia.Upon failing in this attempt and upon thedeath of Cyrus, the Greeks were forced tojourney back to Greece through unknownterritory. Xenophon became the leader, andthe chronicler of their journey as well, pro-viding a fascinating geographical account ofAsia Minor and the southern coast of theBlack Sea.

Age of PericlesDuring the Classical Age, the Ionian Greeksof Asia Minor, the Aegean, and Attica contin-ued to have a leading role in science and med-icine. A native of the island of Cos, Hip-pocrates, dominated medical thinking.Hippocrates tried to understand how the en-vironment—climate, weather, dietaryhabits—affected health. He studied thesymptoms of disease without really under-standing the cure. His was a holistic approachof general good health. Anaxagoras, a nativeof Clazomenae on the eastern shores of theAegean, was one of the most accomplishedscientists of the fifth century. He believed thatmind (nous) is the infinite, creative force ofthe universe. His Physics, since lost, outlinedhis ideas. Anaxagoras crossed the Aegean toAthens and became friends with Pericles, theAthenian general and leader of Athens duringthe mid-fifth century. Pericles and his mis-tress Aspasia, herself a philosopher, gatheredaround them the leading minds of Athens andIonia to create one of the most dynamic ex-pressions of civilization ever seen in humanhistory. It was Pericles who executed the planto rebuild the Athenian Acropolis, which wasthe religious center of the city. The Persian

invasions of the early fifth century had de-stroyed many of the buildings. After theGreek defeat of the king of Persia, Xerxes,and the establishment of Greek freedom,Athens took the lead in forming the DelianLeague, designed to be an alliance of IonianGreek city-states to protect western Turkeyand the Aegean from Persian attack. UnderPericles’ leadership, Athens took the lead inthe Delian League and demanded tributefrom subject Greek city-states in return forAthenian military and naval protection.Thesefunds, acquired by means of the AthenianEmpire, were used to rebuild the Acropolis.

Even so, the architectural, engineering,and artistic genius that went into the con-struction of the temples of the AthenianAcropolis continue to inspire and generate

Greek Classical Age 97

Eighteenth-century engraving of a bust of the AthenianPericles (490–429 BCE) at the British Museum. (Library ofCongress)

awe. The grandest, of course, is theParthenon, named for Athena the virgin(parthenos) goddess and patroness of Athens.Even after twenty-four hundred years, theParthenon continues to dominate the Acrop-olis. The architects were Ictinus and Calli-crates, and Phidias oversaw the whole. TheParthenon is a monument to grace andbeauty. One hardly thinks of the tons of mar-ble sculpted, molded, and set in just the rightway.The design is sophisticated and intricate;the quality of its construction and engineer-ing is a marvel.

See also Aristotle; Athens; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; Hippocrates; History;Peripatetic School; Plato; Socrates;Theophrastus;Women and Science; Xenophon

ReferencesBotsford, George, and Charles A. Robinson.

Hellenic History. Revised by Donald Kagan.New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1969.

Durant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1939.

Robinson, Charles A., Jr. Athens in the Age ofPericles. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1959.

Greek Hellenistic Age (323–31BCE)Alexander the GreatThe Hellenistic Age began with the conquestsof Alexander the Great. From 334–324 BCE,Alexander, son of Philip, King of Macedonia,led a coalition of Greek and Macedonianforces into Asia. During a ten-year period,Alexander conquered Asia Minor, Phoenicia,Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Bactria and Sog-diana (Afghanistan), and the Indus River val-ley (Pakistan). Greek culture and ideas, in-cluding Greek religious beliefs andinstitutions, met and merged with Africanand Asian culture and religious traditions. Al-though Alexander died shortly after the con-clusion of his military campaign, Greek gen-erals and kings continued to control andinfluence the vast region spreading fromMacedonia to Egypt to the Indus River.Three

Greek kingdoms emerged in the wake ofAlexander’s death: the Macedonian, Ptole-maic, and Seleucid. The resulting interactionof Hellenism—Greek culture, institutions,and government—with the traditions of Per-sia, Egypt, India, Palestine, Mesopotamia,and Anatolia created a volatile, dynamic, cre-ative period of three centuries that historianshave labeled the Hellenistic Age. The Hel-lenistic Age came to an end with the fall ofthe three Hellenistic Kingdoms to the Ro-mans during the second and first centuriesBCE.

Alexander, student of Aristotle, broughtwith him on his journey to Asia a number ofsophists, seers, writers, and scientists. No-table in this group was Callisthenes ofOlynth, the grandnephew of Aristotle. Asknowledgeable as Aristotle and his followerswere, they nevertheless retained the narrowGreek views toward non-Greeks—“barbar-ians.” Callisthenes agreed with his great-uncle that the Persians were barbarians—and that they were fit to be conquered by theGreeks. But when Alexander surprisedeveryone with his epiphany that the Persiansand Greeks were one people, Callistheneswas too stubborn to go along with the kingand was open and arrogant in his disagree-ment. Alexander grew impatient with thephilosopher and was all too ready to believeaccusations leveled at Callisthenes that heconspired against the king. After his death,the connection between Alexander and Aris-totle ended.

ZenoThis idea of Alexander’s that peoples of theworld (other than Alexander) were inher-ently equal was his most important legacy.Philosophers of varying backgrounds at theleading Hellenistic capitals celebrated the di-versity that Alexander’s conquests had in-spired: the mixture of peoples, ideas, beliefs,customs, and ways of life. A Semite fromCyprus, Zeno, who arrived at Athens in 311,started a school of philosophy based on

98 Greek Hellenistic Age

Alexander’s concept of universal brother-hood. The Stoics studied natural history andhuman behavior to discover the presence of auniversal reason, the logos, that ordered allthings.The goal of the thoughtful human wasto imitate the reason and order of the cosmosso as to find contentment within himself orherself. Similar to Zeno’s Stoicism were theideas of another teacher at Athens, Epicurus,who taught that the universe is completelymaterial, formed of atoms in varying formsand combinations. Athens also hosted skep-tics and cynics, as well as followers of Plato,the Academicians, and followers of Aristotle,the Peripatetics, notably Theophrastus andStrato.

AlexandriaAlexandria, the city that Alexander foundedin 331, quickly eclipsed Athens and otherHellenistic cities such as Antioch and Perga-mon as the premier center of science duringthe Hellenistic Age and after. Greco-Egyptianscientists and philosophers under the spon-sorship of the Ptolemaic pharaohs workingwith Greeks throughout the Hellenisticworld made significant advances in the studyof mathematics, astronomy, and geography.The five-hundred-thousand-volume library atAlexandria, in conjunction with the Alexan-drian museum, was a multicultural researchcenter. Some of the greatest scientists of alltime were at Alexandria, such as Euclid, au-thor of The Elements, which remained thestandard work of mathematics for centuries.Euclid’s approach owed much to the Platoniceffort to discover the hidden reality of theuniverse by means of mathematics. A mathe-matician who turned his attention to geogra-phy, in particular the measurement of theearth’s circumference, was Eratosthenes ofAlexandria. Eratosthenes was the second li-brarian at Alexandria, Callimachus being thefirst. Other noteworthy Alexandrian scien-tists included Ctesibius, an inventor and engi-neer, who made advances in understandingair pressure and hydraulics, and Philo of

Byzantium, his student, who identified andwrote Seven Wonders of the World. Alexandriabecame the center of medical discoveries aswell in anatomy and physiology. Herophilusof Chalcedon researched the brain and ner-vous system, and Erasistratus studied the di-gestive and vascular systems.

Hellenistic CreativityThe leading minds of the Hellenistic Age,however, worked in other cities throughoutthe Mediterranean. Archimedes, although hestudied at Alexandria, moved to Syracuse inSicily, where he was an inventor, engineer,and mathematician of note. Much of his engi-neering talent went to devising means of de-fense against Roman attacks during the Sec-ond Punic War. Archimedes discovered pi,invented the “Archimedes’ screw,” researchedthe nature of volume, and made advance-ments in geometry. Posidonius of Apameaworked as an astronomer and geographer onthe Aegean island of Rhodes. He measuredthe circumference of the earth and tried togauge the distance to the sun; he was very in-terested in the study of meteorology.Aristarchus of Samos, also an astronomer andmathematician, discovered the heliocentric(sun-centered) universe, although he wasalone in this knowledge since the idea contra-dicted sensory experience. Hipparchus ofNicaea, for example, could not doubt whathis senses told him, that the sun circled theearth. Nevertheless Hipparchus cataloged thestars and discovered the precession of theequinoxes. The Hellenistic philosopher Ara-tus preserved (in Phaenomena) the theory ofEudoxus of Cnidus that the earth is sphericalbecause the altitude of the stars changes asthe latitude of the observer changes.

The Hellenistic Age set the stage for sub-sequent centuries of scientific inquiry. TheRoman conquest of the Hellenistic worldduring the last two centuries BCE involvedpolitical unification under Roman govern-ment and the Roman legions. Yet the Hel-lenistic Greeks conquered the Romans in

Greek Hellenistic Age 99

terms of science, philosophy, art, culture, andreligion. The great thinkers and scientists ofthe later Roman Republic and Roman Princi-pate were heavily dependent upon their pre-decessors, particularly the scientists, as-tronomers, mathematicians, and geographersof the Greek Hellenistic Age.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Alexandria;Archimedes; Aristarchus of Samos; Aristotle;Astronomy; Erasistratus; Eratosthenes; Euclid;Hipparchus; Peripatetic School; Posidonius ofRhodes; Roman Principate

ReferencesBoorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers. New York:

Random House, 1983.Botsford, George, and Charles A. Robinson.

Hellenic History. Revised by Donald Kagan.New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1969.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:Dover Books, 1913.

100 Greek Hellenistic Age

Hebrews See Old Testament

Hecataeus of Miletus (floruit 500BCE) Hecataeus of Miletus, the son of Hegesander,was an Ionian Greek and a contemporary ofXenophanes who, like Xenophanes, wroteone of the first works critical of traditionalGreek mythology. This was his Genealogies, inwhich Hecataeus tried to provide a rationalaccount of myth and legend, including an ac-count of his own supposed descent (after six-teen generations) from a god. The gods arenot eternal, but created, he argued. Hecataeusalso wrote a book that he titled Periegesis, jour-neys. The Periegesis was an account of theworld, which Hecataeus divided into two con-tinents, Europe and Asia (Africa being an ex-tension of the latter). It was a historical andgeographical account of Europe and Asiabased loosely on the map of the world drawnby Anaximander around 550 BCE.

Hecataeus’s works do not survive.Herodotus, who wrote his Histories aboutfifty years after Hecataeus, paraphrased a fewpassages from Hecataeus and clearly relied onhim for information on history and geogra-phy. Herodotus related that Hecataeus wentto Egypt and talked to the priests of Amen at

Thebes about their land, its people, and his-tory. Like Herodotus, Hecataeus, lackingdocuments and the convenience of libraries,had to travel about interviewing people to ar-rive at the bases of his knowledge with whichto write an account of the human journey(Periegesis) based on his own journeys. Ac-cording to Diogenes Laertius, Hecataeus alsowrote a treatise, On the Egyptian Philosophy.

See also Geography/Geodesy; Greek ArchaicAge; Herodotus of Halicarnassus; History

ReferencesBoardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn

Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Grant, Michael. Readings in the Classical Historians.New York: Scribner’s, 1992.

Heliocentric Universe See Astronomy

Hellanicus of Lesbos (floruit fifthcentury BCE)Little is known of Hellanicus’s life. He camefrom the city of Mytilene on the island ofLesbos in the Aegean Sea. He was an IonianGreek. His many works have not survived.Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a historian ofthe first century BCE, paraphrased a few of

H

101

Hellanicus’s comments from his books on theEtruscans and Italy.Thucydides, in Book 1 ofthe Peloponnesian War, commented on Hellani-cus’s Attic History, deriding it as inaccurateand incomplete. Hellanicus was apparently ascholar of note, penning dozens of books,mostly chronologies of earlier times. He wasone of the first historians to try to make senseof human events according to a temporalprocess.Yet he was still bound to a mytholog-ical past, assuming that the likes of Heraclesfounded some of the first cities throughoutthe Mediterranean region.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; History;Thucydides;Time

ReferencesBoardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn

Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Grant, Michael. Readings in the Classical Historians.New York: Scribner’s, 1992.

Hellenism Ideas drive science. The initial hypothesis,which leads to investigation, experiment, andan attempt to answer, derives from a questionthat is formed through a thoughtful responseto nature and experience. Questions and hy-potheses are generated by a society’s world-view, the collection of fundamental assump-tions about existence. Answers, scientificknowledge, likewise generate the worldview.The single most important idea that drovescience in the ancient world was Hellenism.

Homer, in the Iliad and Odyssey, typicallyreferred to the Greeks as the Achaeans, Ar-gives, and Danaans.Yet in a few instances hereferred to the whole of Greece as Hellas, andto the Greeks as a people, Hellenes. The ideaof a common people and land had roots inmythology.The hero Hellen, the son of Deu-calion, the Noah of the Greeks and son ofPrometheus and Pyrrha, the daughter of Pan-dora, was the first Greek, the founder of theHellenes.

Homer’s poems describe the characteris-tics and beliefs that made the Hellenes

unique. The poems portray a single worldculture of Achaeans (Europeans) and Trojans(Asians).They speak the same language, wor-ship the same deities, have the same customs,live and die by the same code of honor. Theheroes of the two poems are “godlike”; thegods are humanlike. The anthropomorphismof Homer’s poems does not so much deni-grate the divine as elevate what is human.Human struggles, wars, life, and death arebeautiful, universal, divine. Scholars refer toHomer’s brilliant portrayal of the commonhumanness of the Achaeans,Trojans, even thegods, as humanism. But Homer’s humanismderived from a more fundamental idea—Hellenism.

The idea of Hellenism was fully developedin fifth-century Athens. Classical Athens was aunique moment in human history.The Greekmind, its creativity, wonder, pursuit ofknowledge, and expression of truth, soaredto a pinnacle of human achievement. Phidiasand Praxiteles designed and built theParthenon on the Athenian acropolis. Theplaywrights Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sopho-cles wrote masterpieces of tragedy. Thucyd-ides wrote one of the great histories of alltime. Socrates questioned and taught andpursued wisdom. Pericles molded Athenianpolitics into the first and perhaps greatestdemocracy. Pericles referred to Athens as“the school of Hellas,” a comment that gavepraise not only to the Athenians but to theHellenes as a whole. Protagoras, an Athenianphilosopher, described Athenian society, aswell as the fundamental assumptions of Hel-lenism, when he proclaimed that man is theultimate concern of man.

During the fourth century BCE, Alexan-der the Great epitomized the ideals and be-havior of a Hellenistic thinker.Alexander wasborn and raised in Macedon, north ofGreece, a land that the Hellenes considered acultural backwater. Alexander, when he be-came king of Macedon, ruler of Greece, andleader of the Hellenes against the PersianEmpire, embraced Hellenic thought and cul-ture. Alexander conquered Persia not only

102 Hellenism

politically but culturally as well. He purpose-fully established Greek cities, such as Alexan-dria in Egypt, and encouraged a mix of Greekculture and ideas with those of the Egyptians,Persians, and Indians. Historians refer to theperiod after Alexander’s conquests and thesubsequent three centuries (323–31 BCE) asthe Hellenistic Age, designating these threecenturies in the Mediterranean and Asia asone of dynamic growth, cultural accomplish-ment, and scientific achievement.

Hellenism was the inspiration of the Hel-lenistic Age. Greek questioning, the pursuitof answers using the mind, the focus onhuman reason and expression, the emphasison individual accomplishment, and the stresson a common human culture defined Hel-lenism. The Greeks spoke of this time as theecumene, the common world culture, with acommon Greek language, koine, spokenGreek. The ecumene encouraged and hostednot only a common lingua franca but alsocommon beliefs, institutions, and culture.Peripatetic philosophy and science, modeledon Aristotle, was widespread throughout theMediterranean. Stoicism, a philosophy of rea-son and human universality, became the dom-inant philosophy of the Hellenistic Age andafter, when Greek culture was embraced bythe Romans.The Roman Empire made the ec-umene, the basic ideas of Hellenism, a con-crete reality. During the Pax Romana from31 BCE to 180 CE, this common Greco-Roman culture encompassed parts of threecontinents and included up to one hundredmillion people. Scientists such as Pliny theElder and Strabo wrote massive compendiaof knowledge, befitting an ecumenical soci-ety. The Roman orator Cicero proclaimedhimself a “citizen of the world”; the theolo-gian Augustine spoke of a universal “city ofman” countered by a transcendent “city ofGod.” The emperor Julian, when he came topower in 361, after fifty years of imperialsupport for Christianity, blamed Rome’s in-creasing troubles on the rejection of Hel-lenism. Julian believed that a society devotedto the traditional gods and the traditional val-

ues of virtue, honor, human experience, andindividual greatness would rectify Rome’sdownward trend.

Julian enjoyed only a brief reign of lessthan two years. But his was a lasting legacy.Julian and other Hellenists, particularlyGreek philosophers, scientists, artists, andwriters, spoke to future generations search-ing for similar ecumenical, secular, humanis-tic ideals. Thinkers of the European Renais-sance called themselves humanists, by whichthey meant an approach to life based on thethought of the Greeks—on Hellenism.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Athens; GreekClassical Age; Homer; Julian

ReferencesFinley, M. I. The World of Odysseus.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1972.

Hadas, Moses. Humanism:The Greek Ideal and ItsSurvival. New York: Mentor Books, 1972.

Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the EmperorJulian. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1962, 1969.

Zimmerman, J. E. Dictionary of Classical Mythology.New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

Heraclides of Pontus (floruit fourthcentury BCE)Heraclides was an astronomer of note and thefirst known to speculate that at least someplanets orbit the sun. He was a student of theAcademy and was influenced by both Platoand Aristotle. A polymath, he wrote on a va-riety of subjects. Ancient commentatorsclaimed that Heraclides wrote books on his-tory, playwrights, ethics, the mind, music,poetry, grammar, and nature. He made hismark in astronomy with two startling theo-ries. First, Heraclides argued that the earthspins on its own axis. Second, analyzing thephenomena of Mercury and Venus never tra-versing the zodiac like the other planets butrather remaining near the horizon as morningand evening planets, Heraclides argued thatMercury and Venus orbit the sun rather thanthe earth. He combined, therefore, the geo-centric and heliocentric theories of the solar

Heraclides of Pontus 103

system, anticipating the theory of TychoBrahe some eighteen hundred years later.

Heraclides also believed that the heavenlybodies are deities, that comets are on fire, andthat each star is its own universe with planetsand moons.

See also Astronomy; HellenismReferenceHeath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (540–480BCE)Heraclitus had the reputation among ancientsof being one of the most difficult philoso-phers to comprehend, either because of bril-liant or muddled thinking. He was perhapsmore than any other thinker almost modernin his emphasis on the contradictions and ab-surdities of existence out of which emerges asort of truth. Sextus Empiricus, the skeptic,could respect such vagaries and inconsisten-cies, and approved of some of Heraclitus’scomments in On Nature. Aristotle, however,was not as approving, and condemned Hera-clitus’s “childish” astronomy, which includedthe view that the sun is as we see it, onlyabout a foot in diameter (Heath 1913). Hip-polytus, the Late Roman commentator,quoted long excerpts from Heraclitus’s writ-ings, in which we find ideas of an eternal firethat is the ultimate reality. Fire is the creatorand destroyer, and through it all change oc-curs. Fire condenses into water and then intoearth and vice versa. Fire is the source for thelights of the sky—the sun, moon, planets,and stars being concave repositories of thisdivine fire. The repository in which lies thesun’s fire is extinguished every evening andkindled again in the morning; how the repos-itory moves from west to east unseen overthe course of the night to begin a new day isunclear.

Heraclitus put an emphasis on change, onthings becoming one thing then another.There was a lot of the Stoic and the skepticin Heraclitus, who inspired a host of

philosophers and scientists to question, todoubt, to search, to seek answers in natureand in self.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Philosophy; StoicismReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.

Hero (62–152 CE)The Alexandrian inventor, physicist, andmathematician Hero was a creative mind ofthe second century CE. Hero lived, worked,and taught at Alexandria. Influenced by Aris-totle and the atomists, he also built on thework of the mechanical engineer Ctesibius.Hero wrote Pneumatica and Automatapoeica,which described his ideas on physical forcesand mechanisms to displace weight, water,and air. He was interested in land measure-ment, wrote on surveying, and invented a

104 Heraclitus of Ephesus

Engraving of a bust of the ancient scientist and philosopherHeraclitus (540–480 BCE). (Courtesy of the NationalLibrary of Medicine)

forerunner of the theodolite, a surveyor’s in-strument for measuring angles.

Hero was fascinated by actions upon airand water. He argued that air is a materialsubstance that exists within an apparentlyempty container. He analyzed the displace-ment of air by pouring water into a jar. Heexperimented with compression and arguedfor the presence of vacuums in nature. Hewas one of the founders of theories of kineticenergy. He explained the action of fire onsubstances according to the Aristotelian the-ory that heavy objects fall toward the centerwhile lighter objects ascend toward the heav-ens. Hero invented a steam mechanism thatfeatured a cauldron of boiling water that re-leased steam through a small tube entering asphere with two pipes at right angles. As thesteam was forced through the pipes thesphere rotated.Another device heated air thatfilled a container of oil; the oil was forced bythe air into tubes held within statues; the oildripped from the stone hands holding cupsfor libations. Hero also experimented withpistons, valves, pneumatics, and hydraulics.Most of his inventions were, however, used astoys or for tricks to amuse the rich. For ex-ample, Hero contrived a device that, by forc-ing air through small valves, would producethe appearance and sound of bird’s singing.Another device used principles of heat and airpressure: it was a device made of an iron caul-dron filled with water that was heated by afire. Steam was forced through a small open-ing at the top of the device, which providedsufficient force to cause a small ball to hangand dance just above the opening.

Hero’s devices were built at a time of slav-ery when there was no demand for suchlabor-saving machines. Hero, like most an-cient engineers, also turned his skills to mili-tary science, working on siege engines,slings, missiles and other ballistics. He alsoinvented an odometer and designed “An AltarOrgan blown by the agency of a Wind-mill.”

See also Alexandria; Archimedes; Philo ofByzantium; Physical Sciences; Ptolemaeus,Claudius

ReferencesBoardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn

Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Hero of Alexandria. The Pneumatics. Translated byBennet Woodcroft. London: C.Whittingham,1851.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

Herodotus of Halicarnassus(490–430 BCE)Herodotus is often called the father of his-tory, but he could as well be given the epi-taphs father of geography and father of an-thropology. Herodotus sought to write acomplete history of the world in which he in-tertwined natural history and human history.The result was The Histories, one of the firstprofessed factual accounts of human experi-ence.

Herodotus was a boy living in his nativeHalicarnassus when the Greeks defeated theinvading Persians at Salamis and Plataea in480 and 479 BCE.The war began in part be-cause the Greek cities of western Turkey—Ionian Greek city-states such as Halicarnas-sus—revolted from Persian control. Darius I,king of Persia, put down the rebellion and de-cided to punish Greece as a whole. After hefailed, his successor Xerxes tried and failed aswell. Herodotus set himself the task of ex-plaining the improbable Greek success. ThePersians had a massive empire stretchingfrom the Aegean Sea to the Indus River, fromthe Caspian Sea to Egypt. They vastly out-numbered the Greeks, perhaps ten to one.And yet the Greeks defeated the Persians onseveral occasions. How? Herodotus spentyears searching for an answer, travelingthroughout the Persian Empire, going toPhrygia (in central Turkey), the Black Sea, theTigris and Euphrates river valleys, the PersianGulf, Palestine, and Egypt. He studied thePersians, Phrygians, Phoenicians, Egyptians,Arabians, Indians, and Scythians. Lacking

Herodotus of Halicarnassus 105

many literary sources, he acquired informa-tion by personal observation and oral inter-views. He called his work “histories” (Greek,historia), meaning “researches, inquiries.”Herodotus’s Histories involves past kings, pol-itics, and war. But more, Herodotus de-scribed the culture, society, institutions, be-liefs, and legends of the peoples of Europe,Asia, and Africa—the world as he knew it.He portrayed human experience in light ofnatural history, in particular geography: land-scape, climate, flora, fauna, rivers, deserts,mountains. In the course of The Histories,Herodotus had much to say about science.

Herodotus related information about theorigins, extent, and characteristics of the NileRiver in Africa. The Nile rose year after yearat the summer solstice, when the rays of thesun are directly over the Tropic of Cancer. Atthe solstice, the Nile inundates lower Egypt,leaving behind rich soil upon receding and

constantly altering the landscape of the delta,the silt mouth of the river. Herodotus, fasci-nated by the Nile delta, theorized that Egyptnorth of Memphis was comparatively new.The Nile was in a sense annually creating analtogether different Egypt.

Herodotus’s experience was that mostrivers rise in the spring. It was perplexing todiscover that the Nile rises at the summer sol-stice, the beginning of summer. What causesthis unusual summer flood? Herodotus dis-agreed with the three most prevalent theo-ries. The first was that north winds blowagainst the northern flowing waters, backingup the current and causing the river to spillover its banks. The second theory, advocatedby Hecataeus, a geographer and historian,was that the Nile’s source is the “river Ocean”encircling the earth, south of Africa; theNile’s behavior is therefore dependent on theocean.The third theory, that the Nile’s rise iscaused by melting snow, seemed absurd toHerodotus—for the further south one goestoward the source of the Nile the hotter itgets. Where, then is the snow? Herodotus’sown view reflected the limitations of his as-tronomy. He believed that strong winds drivethe sun before them, moving it away from theNile’s source and depriving the river of itsheat, therefore limiting evaporation and re-sulting in a rising river.

Herodotus described the geography of allthree (known) continents: Europe, Asia, andAfrica. He argued that those countries at theearth’s extremes, India, Arabia, Ethiopia, andthe Tin Islands (Britain), produce the biggest,most fragrant, richest items; animals arelarger, men are gigantic, gold is profuse, andspices cause a general fragrance in the air. Atthe western extreme of the earth, Libya, aland of sun and sand, Mount Atlas rises fromthe parched earth. Locals reported that Atlaswas so high that its summit was never seen.Yet Atlas was not as high as the Caucasus ofthe east. The Caucasus bounds the westernshores of the Caspian Sea. Unlike theMediterranean, which flows into the outerocean of the world, the Caspian is an inland

106 Herodotus of Halicarnassus

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (490–430 BCE), the “father ofhistory” and author of Histories, a political, cultural, andgeographical portrait of the ancient Mediterranean. (Libraryof Congress)

sea—self-contained. The world-encirclingocean marks the circumference of a disk-shaped earth that is dominated more by landthan by water.

The Histories is encyclopedic in its descrip-tion of the peoples that made up Herodotus’simmediate past, the fifth century BCE. Per-haps because he was a traveler, a tourist infaraway countries, his reports of distant peo-ples and their strange customs have the toneof fascination, not condescension. ManyGreeks of Herodotus’s time, and after, re-ferred to any non-Greek as a barbarian. Butone does not find such bigotry in Herodotus.He was credulous, to be sure, but objective inhis way, too. An anthropologist (student ofanthropos, man), Herodotus observed withoutpreconception and recorded what he heard,saw, and felt. He did not purposefully mis-lead, even if his information was fanciful andoften inaccurate. He sought to understandthe Egyptians, Persians, Scythians, and otherson their terms, not his own.

Herodotus provided fascinating informa-tion on Egyptian astronomy and medicine; onthe exotic creatures, such as the crocodileand hippopotamus, of Africa; on the remoteScythians of northern Asia; and on the floraand fauna of the diverse regions of the world.In the history of science, Herodotus made hismark in the study of the earth (geography), inthe study of human culture (anthropology),and in inquiries into the human experience(history).

See also Egypt; Geography/Geodesy; GreekArchaic Age; Hecataeus of Miletus; History

ReferencesBoardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn

Murray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Herophilus of Chalcedon (floruitthird century BCE)Herophilus, a native of Chalcedon, spent hisprofessional life as a physician and anatomist

at Alexandria. A student of Praxagoras, whoidentified the pulse as an important diagnostictool, Herophilus discovered that the pulse wasnot inherent to the arteries, but instead de-rived from the pumping of the heart. He triedto describe the pulse according to the theoryof music. Herophilus’s understanding ofhuman physiology was informed by experi-ments, dissections, and autopsies (of executedcriminals). He explored the nervous systemand the circulation of the blood. Herophilusdiscovered the duodenum, which is a part ofthe small intestine. He defended the Hippo-cratic method, seeing the physician as anartist. Health is the foundation for all individ-ual accomplishments, he thought. The envi-ronment is especially important in causes ofdisease, and diet, rest, and exercise are im-portant in its prevention. Herophilus was nev-ertheless often skeptical of the human pre-sumption of knowledge. Herophilus’s mostfamous student was Erasistratus.

See also Alexandria; Erasistratus; Hellenism;Hippocrates; Medicine

References“Antiqua Medicina: Aspects in Ancient Medicine.”

http://www.med.virginia.edu/hs-library/historical/antiqua/anthome.html.

Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and OswynMurray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Durant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1939.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Hesiod (floruit late eighth centuryBCE) Hesiod was a theogonist. In his attempt tounderstand the origins of the divine, he ex-plored as well the beginnings of humankind.Hesiod’s Works and Days, an account of thepastoral life, and Theogony, an account of thegods, are poetry rather than science. Attimes, however, poetry and science mix.Often it takes the poet to imagine the possi-bilities inherent in life and nature.

Hesiod 107

Hesiod claimed legitimacy from the inspi-ration coming to him as he tended sheep atthe foot of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, in east-ern Greece. The daughters of Zeus, theMuses, particularly Calliope, the muse of po-etry, paid a visit to the shepherd, inspiring inhim divine song of the purposes and ways ofhumankind. Hesiod sought the origins ofhuman crafts such as metallurgy and agricul-ture and found an answer in the story ofPrometheus, the titan who rebelled againstZeus and gave civilizing fire to humankind.Hesiod explained suffering and evil with thestory of Pandora, the wife of Prometheus’sbrother Epimetheus. Pandora, and women ingeneral, unleashed troubles on man, accord-ing to Hesiod.

Hesiod’s Theogony provided an account ofthe origins and powers of the divine. Uranos,the sky, and Gaia, the earth, bore the titans,including Cronos (time), Prometheus (fore-sight), and Epimetheus (hindsight). Cronosrebelled against his father, Uranos, to estab-lish his own rule, only to lose it to the wielderof the thunderbolt, Zeus. Zeus thereafterruled gods and humans from his throne atopMount Olympus. Stories of Cronos andPrometheus probably derived from thePhoenicians. Greek legends of Cronos livingon an island in the Atlantic were similarly in-spired by voyages beyond the Strait of Gibral-tar. Hesiod’s poem also revealed a geodesicview of a disk-like earth: “The plane earth cutthe cosmos sphere like a diaphragm shuttingthe light from Tartarus” (Tillinghast 1889).

Hesiod revealed the farmer’s reliance uponastronomical sightings and natural signs forwhen to plant and harvest. The agriculturalyear began two months after the winter sol-stice with the rising of the star Arcturus, aswell as the setting of the Pleiades and the ap-pearance of the swallow and the snail and thecries of the crane. The winnowing of wintergrain occurred with the appearance of Orionin the night sky.

Hesiod’s works illustrate how the ancientmind anthropomorphized the divine and per-sonified natural phenomena. Human behavior

was understandable if the gods themselvesengaged in slander, theft, rape, murder, adul-tery, violence, jealousy, and so on. The godspersonified human emotions such as love andanger, propensities such as rumor and indo-lence, and behavior such as war and creativ-ity. If such anthropomorphism lessenedhuman responsibility for one’s own actions, itnevertheless did not avoid or whitewash theissues of human psychology, but instead in-troduced them for debate, as it were, amongcontemporaries and later thinkers.

The gods personified, as well, natural phe-nomena. The myth of Persephone’s captureby Hades, the god of the underworld, ex-plained the changing seasons. Human andnatural fertility were explained by the exis-tence of Artemis, the goddess of childbirthand the fecundity of nature; Demeter, thegoddess of the harvest and of grain; and Se-lene, the goddess of the monthly cycle of themoon. Parents explained thunderstorms totheir children by noting Zeus’s frequentanger. Plague occurred when sent by the godof rats, Apollo.

The Greeks were not alone among ancientpeoples in wrestling with the mysteries andcomplexities of nature and human behavior.Nor were they unique in using what appear tobe childish stories to explain things. Hesiodwas among the best at providing such expla-nations. He had the curiosity and propensityof a scientist during a time, the eighth cen-tury BCE, of poets, centaurs, nymphs, he-roes, and gods.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Homer; Myth;Prometheus

ReferencesBurkert,Walter. Structure and History in Greek

Mythology and Ritual. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1979.

Burn, A. R. The World of Hesiod. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1936.

Griffin, Jaspar. “Greek Myth and Hesiod.” InOxford History of the Classical World. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1986.

Hesiod. Theogony and Works and Days. Translated byRichard Lattimore. Ann Arbor: University ofMichigan Press, 1959.

108 Hesiod

Tillinghast,William H. “The GeographicalKnowledge of the Ancients Considered inRelation to the Discovery of America.” InNarrative and Critical History of America, vol. 1,ed. Justin Winsor. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,1889.

Hipparchus (190–120 BCE)Hipparchus was the most important as-tronomer of the Hellenistic Age afterAristarchus of Samos. Unlike Aristarchus,Hipparchus believed in the spherical, geocen-tric universe of Aristotle.A noted mathemati-cian, Hipparchus relied on the work of hispredecessor Apollonius of Perga. Hip-parchus, for example, gauged the movementof the sun and the moon using a deferent-epicycle system devised by Apollonius. In hisgeographical work, Hipparchus was influ-enced by Eratosthenes.

Hipparchus, who was from Nicaea innorthwest Asia Minor, lived and worked atRhodes and Alexandria. At Rhodes he set upan observatory, identifying 850 stars andcharting their movements and relative bright-ness. Hipparchus studied the precession ofthe equinoxes, the circuit that the earthmakes over thousands of years as it rotates onits axis (a length of time known as the GreatYear). Following Eratosthenes, Hipparchusknew that measurements could be made bycalculating the angle of the rays of the sun atAlexandria at the summer solstice. Using ob-servations of a solar eclipse taken fromAlexandria, where the eclipse was partial,and the northern Aegean, where it was total,Hipparchus worked out an estimate of thedistance of the moon from the earth.

As a geodesist, Hipparchus used latitudeand longitude in a grid pattern at precise in-tervals to measure the surface of the earth.He also established a set of coordinates basedon a 360-degree spherical globe. Hipparchuswas influenced by what he could learn fromBabylonian astronomers, particularly Baby-lonian ephemerides.

In his use of the deferent-epicycle systemof the geocentric universe and cartographical

coordinates to measure the earth, Hip-parchus had a profound influence on other as-tronomers and geographers—notablyClaudius Ptolemaeus.

See also Apollonius of Perga; Aristarchus ofSamos; Astronomy; Greek Hellenistic Age;Ptolemaeus, Claudius; Eratosthenes

ReferencesCrowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from

Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York:Dover Books, 1990.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:Dover Books, 1913.

Hippo of Croton (floruit late fifthcentury BCE)A Pythagorean philosopher who wrote onhuman health and the essential elements innature, Hippo of Croton believed that mois-ture was the most important phenomenon,the excess or insufficiency of which caused illhealth. A well person or animal has a goodbalance of moisture in the body. Animals ac-quire water from ponds, rivers, streams, andwells, all of which derive ultimately from thesea. The depth of the sea is greater than allelse, and thus it is the source of all water.

Hippo was a contemporary of Socrates,though he was considered a mediocre thinkernext to the great Athenian philosopher. Onesimilarity he had with Socrates was that, rightor wrong, he was accused of being an atheist.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Medicine;Pythagoras

ReferenceBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Hippocrates (460–377 BCE)Hippocrates is generally recognized as thegreatest physician in the history of the ancientworld. An Asclepiad who lived on the Aegeanisland of Cos, Hippocrates brought medicinefrom its reliance upon superstition and faith-healing to a more empirical approach towardthe study of the human body and illness. Hip-pocrates and his followers believed that dis-

Hippocrates 109

ease resulted from an imbalance of nature, adisruption of the normal balance of the fourhumors. In the natural conflict betweenhealth and disease, the illness would typicallyreach a crisis point at which nature deter-mined the future course of the illness—slow

recovery or a critical phase usually resultingin death. Much of the Hippocratic writingsthat survive deal with observations of illness,the crisis point, and the resolution. In somesense Hippocrates was more of a medical ob-server and scientist than a healer. A good

110 Hippocrates

Bust of Hippocrates of Cos (460–377 BCE), ancient Ionian Greek physician. (Courtesy of the NationalLibrary of Medicine)

many of his patients died. Nevertheless it washis attempt to explain rationally what diseaseis, how it is caused, and what course it takes,that made Hippocrates the most significantphysician of all time.

The Ionian Approach to MedicineCos was an island community that, like itsAegean neighbors Miletus, Halicarnassus,and Chios, was a center of Ionian culture dur-ing the Classical Age of Greek history. Thescientific community at Cos featured a clanor guild of physicians that claimed descent ei-ther physically or symbolically from themythical healer and god Asclepius.The Ascle-piads of Cos developed the theory of the fourhumors that regulate health in the humanbody. If any of the four, phlegm, blood, yel-low bile, and black bile, became more or lessdominant than normal, compared to the oth-ers, illness was the result. The healthy bodymaintained this balance and thus avoided dis-ease. Diet, rest, exercise, and climate helpedto prevent imbalance and to correct the im-balance in case of illness.

Ionian medicine at Cos was similar to Ioni-an science in general during the sixth andfifth centuries BCE. Ionian scientists such asThales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, andAnaxagoras were interested in explainingnatural phenomena through physical or natu-ral causes; they observed the effects of natureto help explain its causes and processes; theytried to understand by thought and observa-tion the essence and patterns of nature. Like-wise, Hippocrates and his fellow Asclepiadswere interested in explaining disease accord-ing to cause and effect relationships, naturalrather than supernatural forces.

Hippocratic CorpusThe Hippocratic Corpus is a collection of writ-ings generally oriented around fifth-centuryCos and is thought to reflect Hippocrates’thought and teachings, even if it is not exactlyknown whether Hippocrates actually wroteany of the treatises and case studies.A generaltheme of the writings, such as that argued in

Ancient Science, is that medicine is an art form,not part of the repertoire of the philosopher.Art and science frequently complement theother. Moreover, the Hippocratic Corpus em-phasized the ability of the human body to healitself.This holistic approach to medicine, andhence the Hippocratic approach to medicine,has seen a resurgence in the Western world inrecent decades.

The Hippocratic Corpus emphasized the ra-tional, scientific mind in the detection andanalysis of illness. The Prenotions of Cos andFirst Prorrhetic reveal a scientific concern forprognosis. Regime in Acute Diseases discussespossible remedies for illness such as purga-tives, emetics, baths, and potions of barleywater, wine, honey water, or honey vinegar.The treatise Ancient Medicine describes thefour humors as forces or powers inherent inthe human body and not actual physical sub-stances. Nevertheless, the humors representthe contrasts of hot and cold, moist and dry,aridity, fluidity, clarity, and dimness.The dis-eases cataloged in the Hippocratic Corpus in-clude malaria and its consequences fever,ague, and delirium; consumption, asthma,and other pulmonary complaints; and diar-rhea, dysentery, and other intestinal prob-lems. Airs,Waters, and Places analyzes the im-pact of climate and meteorological conditionsof heat, cold, wind, sun, moisture, and droughton disease. The change of seasons, particu-larly at the solstice and equinox, can have animpact on health. Asia, which has fewer cli-matic challenges, produces people who areless aggressive and warlike than the Euro-peans with their harsh and varied climate.Thelatter are hard men, contrasted with the soft,effeminate types of Asia.The environment ofvarious regions, Hippocrates argued, helps todetermine the varied physical, mental, andracial characteristics of different people.

On EpidemicsA large part of the Hippocratic Corpus is a de-tailed account of various epidemics at ob-scure times and places. In case after case, thephysician observes disease in generally anony-

Hippocrates 111

mous people.Typically the disease worsens toa crisis.Then either a slow recovery ensues orthere is degeneration to death. Observationsof the patient include bodily heat and mois-ture, lethargy, thirst, appetite, the color andsmell of the urine and feces, and the consis-tency of the latter. At one point Hippocrateswas very explicit as to what he looked for inmaking a diagnosis. He relied on observationand experience, trying to judge a particularillness according to general physical phenom-ena. Diagnosis was based on a long list ofitems to observe and record: the patient’shabits and lifestyle, physical attributes, diet,frequency and description of urination, defe-cation, hiccups, and the like.

Sometimes the patient, after strugglingthrough a painful illness, quickly reached acrisis and turned the corner toward health.Meton, for example, suffered from fever andheadache, red, loose feces, and black urine.After several days he began to have nose-bleeds, perspired profusely, and sufferedfrom insomnia. Once the “crisis” wasreached, the patient had come to a turningpoint at which he would decline, usuallydying, or recover, even if slowly. Hippocratesrecorded the experiences of a new motherwho experienced intense pain and fever aftergiving birth. The pain spread throughout herbody. She experienced abnormal bowelmovements and insomnia. It took eighty daysfor her to reach a crisis; shortly thereafter sherecovered.

The case of Crito, however, was different.He had a terrible throbbing in his toe and ex-perienced fever and vomiting. Delirium tookover shortly.The foot grew worse, as did theswelling, fever, and pain. After only two dayshe died after a short, brutal illness.

LegacyHippocrates’ reach forward in time was ex-tensive. The Hippocratic method of seekingphysical causes for illness, making observa-tion of symptoms, formulating prognoses,and prescribing medicine, rest, and healthyliving continued to be practiced by physi-

cians for centuries. No less a physician thanthe Roman Galen practiced the Hippocraticapproach to medicine. More than anything,however, Hippocrates influenced later med-ical practice by means of the HippocraticOath.The Oath is a fascinating testament tomedical practice and concern for the pa-tient. Hippocrates prayed to Asclepius andto the goddesses Hygeia and Panacea, andfor help in his scientific observations and forgood judgment to help those needing heal-ing. He thought of his medical practice as anart that he wished to transmit to his sons andsuccessors. He called upon his followers torefrain from deceiving and hurting patients;to not practice abortions; to not prescribedangerous medications or force patients toundergo unnecessary surgery; and to re-spect the privacy of patients and keep pa-tient information confidential. These arestill the goals and guidelines of modernmedical practice today.

See also Asclepiades; Asclepius/Asclepiads;Celsus; Galen; Greek Classical Age; Medicine

ReferencesGalen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J.

Brock. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1916.

Jones,W. H. S., trans. Hippocrates. Vol. 1.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923.

HistoryHistory was science in the ancient world.Aristotle, in Poetics, contrasted the concern ofpoetry for the subjective and intuitive withthe objective and factual account of pastevents found in the written discourse of his-tory. Homer and Hesiod were poets, Aris-totle argued, and hence described the generaltruth of human experience. Historians suchas Thucydides described the factual basis ofparticular human events.

Historical study as much as scientificanalysis is an attribute of civilization. TheSumerians and Egyptians, upon inventingcuneiform and hieroglyphic writing, usedtheir invention to record crops and livestock,

112 History

thus preserving a written record of past ex-perience. The Hebrews of Israel and Judahearly in the first millennium BCE wrote nar-ratives of creation, the first humans, the mi-gration of the Hebrews, the first prophetsand lawgivers, the chronologies of kings andwars. Some of these narratives verge onmyth; others are quite concrete and accurate.The Hebrew sense of history, as revealed inthe Old Testament, derived from their in-credible sense of consciousness as a chosenpeople, which required an understanding ofthe path of the chosen through time. Know-ing from the Pentateuch and the first prophetMoses what God (Yahweh) intended forthem, they looked to the known past forguidance—indeed the past was the future ina sense.

HerodotusIf the Hebrews were certain of their past andfuture, the Greeks of the first millenniumBCE were not. Questioning all things, espe-cially the past, characterized Greeks such asHerodotus, who referred to historical studyas historia, which meant “arbiter” to Homerand “researches” or “inquiries” into humanexperience to Herodotus. Herodotus’s in-quiries were not exactly what Aristotle hadin mind when he defined history in Poetics.Herodotus’s Histories are wandering and an-ecdotal, recording stories of varying worthand historical accuracy based on hissources. Herodotus wandered the easternMediterranean during the mid-fifth centuryBCE, searching for answers to explain whythe Persians under Darius I in 490 andXerxes in 480 attacked the city-states ofGreece and why against all apparent reasonthe Greeks won these two contests of thePersian Wars. Herodotus included rumina-tions on human nature, discussions of Asianand African culture, and detailed descrip-tions of natural phenomena, such as theflooding of the Nile and that odd creature,the hippopotamus. He sought informationon the extent of continents and seas, theorigins of rivers, and the differences in

human customs. Herodotus was not a pre-cise recorder of events but he was an inquis-itive wanderer, a first-class geographer, anda tireless researcher.

ThucydidesHerodotus hardly fit the ideal of the objectiveinquirer, but the Athenian historian Thucyd-ides, who lived a generation later, did.Thucydides (460–400 BCE) was an Athenianwho served in the Peloponnesian War(431–404), the great war between the Dori-ans of southern and western Greece and thewestern Mediterranean, led by Sparta, andthe Ionians of eastern Greece, the Aegean,and western Turkey, led by Athens. Thucyd-ides wrote The Peloponnesian War based on theassumption that it would be one of the great-est conflicts in history. He used the pathosand drama of war to portray constant humanemotions and characteristics.Thucydides wasa precursor to modern social and behavioralscientists and their search for laws of humanbehavior. Thucydides, therefore, had an ob-jective ideal. He criticized poets and story-tellers for their proclivity to accept fancy andto indulge in subjective reporting of pastevents. Like Herodotus,Thucydides filled hisaccount with numerous digressions. UnlikeHerodotus, these digressions were not to en-tertain the reader with fascinating stories andlegends. Rather,Thucydides digressed to cor-rect false assumptions and incorrect accountsof past events. He was in other respects verymuch like the modern scientific scholar.Thucydides followed a strict chronologicalnarrative. He rarely allowed himself to spec-ulate on the events of the war. He did, to besure, put speculative speeches into themouths of the Dorian and Ionian statesmen.Clearly based on reports and rumors, thesespeeches nevertheless had the look and feel ofauthenticity. Thucydides knew the preciseform—the thesis, arguments, exhortations,and conclusion—of these speeches and usedthis familiar pattern to recreate the essentialcharacteristic of Greek political culture,namely rhetoric.

History 113

PolybiusSeveral centuries passed, and Greek powerwas eclipsed first by the Macedonians in thefourth century and then by the Romans in thesecond century. Polybius was a Greek histo-rian captured by the Romans. Living in Italy,he took an interest in Rome’s rise to power,and he traced Roman history in his multivol-ume Historia. Polybius merged the apparentlycompeting techniques of Herodotus’s story-telling and Thucydides’ infatuation with astrict chronological narrative. Polybius wrotea precise account of history following achronological pattern of Olympiads; yet hedigressed and theorized, related fascinatingstories, and described the geography, culture,customs, flora, and fauna of the regions, suchas North Africa, conquered by the Romans.Polybius journeyed to the Alps, the great bar-rier to Italy that the Carthaginian generalHannibal crossed. Polybius believed that his-tory was an expression of the truth of humanexperience. As in Book 12 of his Histories, heconstantly raised the banner of an objectiveaccount of the past using a clear analysis ofdocuments and firsthand knowledge of peo-ples and places.

LivyRome eventually came to rule up to one hun-dred million people from England toMesopotamia to Morocco. The drama andgrandeur of Rome’s rise to power encour-aged the thoughtful, the analytical, and thedidactic to record Rome’s history. Because ofthe historical writings of Sallust, Caesar, Livy,Appian, Tacitus, Suetonius, Plutarch, DioCassius, and Ammianus Marcellinus, thegreat Roman contribution to the history ofthought was through the writing of history. Apervasive historical perspective and sense oftime pervaded Rome’s politics, customs, andbeliefs. The spirit of Rome united past andpresent by means of the deep awareness ofthe individual Roman for his or her ancestorsand descendants. The Roman worldview wasmolded by a state that was completely tem-poral: the account of conquest and con-

querors over time fascinated Romans. Thegreatest Roman narrator of historical eventswas the historian Titus Livius—Livy—whoseaccount of the origins and rise to power ofthe city on the Tiber towered above othertowering historical writers.Yet Livy claimedthat his history had less to do with temporalaffairs and more to do with transcendentmorals. History has a didactic function, hewrote, teaching us right from wrong, behav-ior in others to imitate or avoid. Livy’s didac-tic history was a narrative of past events toprepare those of the future for similar events.Livy was a masterly storyteller who sacrificeda strict accounting of detailed fact for a some-times heavy reliance on legend and anecdote.

TacitusIf Livy was not inclined toward a scientificviewpoint in his historical writing, the samecannot be said about Cornelius Tacitus, thebest historian of the centuries after the birthof Christ. Tacitus authored the Histories, An-nals, Germania, and Agricola. Even more thanThucydides, Tacitus sought legitimacy in histerse historical writing.To write Rome’s his-tory, Tacitus used whatever valid historicaldocuments he could find, including mem-oirs, senate records, eyewitness accounts,letters from observant friends (such as Plinythe Younger), contemporary letters andspeeches, historical narratives, and officialjournals. His accounts also included percep-tive assessments of the natural environment.And if this were not enough,Tacitus was thefirst historian to write from what historianstoday would call a behavioral science ap-proach. Tacitus sought to recreate the per-sonalities, motives, emotional distresses, andbouts of insanity of the objects of his inquiry,particularly the emperors Tiberius, Caligula,and Nero.

Tacitus’s Germania was an interestingethnographic study of Rome’s enemies—theGerman peoples of the Rhine River valley.Tacitus described the geography of the re-gion, the customs and beliefs of the people,their form of government, and their varied

114 History

disputes and wars. Although the Germanswere the enemies of the Roman people,Taci-tus employed empathy to try to understandthese strange people. He found much to de-spise and condemn, yet much to admire aswell.

Ammianus MarcellinusCenturies passed, the Roman Empire wentthrough political, social, economic, andmoral crises, and the scope of history becameconfusing, not at all like the five centuriesBCE, of Rome’s rise to power. Neverthelessin the fourth century CE, one man attemptedto write the history of the Roman people,taking up where Tacitus had left off. Ammi-anus Marcellinus’s History was a multivolumework that encompassed the three centuriesfrom 100 to 400 CE. Marcellinus modeledhis work on Tacitus’s style, method, and ap-proach. He recorded the political and mili-tary events of the Later Roman Empire butalso digressed to describe the customs, be-liefs, institutions, and geography of sur-rounding peoples—the Gauls, Goths, Parthi-ans, and others.

Ancient historical writing did not, ofcourse, involve experiments, lab reports, andmathematics. But science involves more thanthe manipulation of nature in a controlled en-vironment.The Greeks and Romans believedscience to be the systematic acquisition ofknowledge. The great historians among theGreeks and Romans believed historical study,along with geographical and anthropologicalstudy, was as much a science as the study ofnatural philosophy and natural history.

See also Ammianus Marcellinus; Greek ArchaicAge; Greek Classical Age; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; Hesiod; Homer; Later RomanEmpire; Old Testament; Polybius; RomanPrincipate;Tacitus

ReferencesBreisach, Ernst. Historiography:Ancient, Medieval and

Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1983.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Lawson, Russell. “Montaigne’s Dialogue with thePast.” Journal of Unconventional History. Volume6, 1994.

Livy. The Early History of Rome. Translated byAubrey de Selincourt. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971.

Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Rolfe, John C., trans. Ammianus Marcellinus. 2 vols.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950.

Starr, Chester. The Awakening of the Greek HistoricalSpirit. New York: Knopf, 1968.

Tacitus. The Agricola and the Germania. Translatedby H. Mattingly. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1970.

_____. The Histories. Translated by KennethWellesley. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Homer (floruit eighth century BCE) To Homer, an anonymous Greek poet wholived sometime during the beginning of thefirst millennium BCE, man is a journeyer.Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, composed around1000 BCE but penned during the eighth cen-tury, present the Greeks as wanderers, ex-plorers, and discoverers. Greek history wasbuilt upon the words “in search of.” Becauseof the Greek quest to know, the heritage ofWestern civilization during the past two mil-lennia is an unending search for answers toinspired questions.

Who Was Homer?One of the longstanding mysteries in ancienthistory involves Homer, who he was, whenhe lived, and whether or not his poems relatethe episodes of real events. The word Homerin Greek means “one who is led,” literally“blind.” Homer might not refer to one personbut rather to the frequent occurrence in theancient world of bards who were blind.To theancients, however, Homer was a real personwho came from several possible places. Thepeople of Smyrna, Chios, and Colophon allclaimed Homer as a favorite son.The Roman

Homer 115

emperor Hadrian decided to settle the matteronce and for all by submitting the question ofHomer’s origins to the Oracle of Apollo atDelphi. The oracle told Hadrian a nice fable,that Homer was the son of Telemachus andgrandson of Odysseus and Nestor (throughhis daughter Epicasta).

AnthroposNotwithstanding his uncertain origins,Homer’s poems have been admired for thou-sands of years.The anthropomorphic portraitof the Iliad and Odyssey make Homer’s work apious testament to the wonder and beauty ofthe universe. Homer presented a movingportrait of universal human characteristicsthat was at the same time down-to-earth andmajestically physical. The numinous, or tran-

scendent divine, in Homer is the pathos ofdeath; the beauty of the human body; the an-guish of war; the wondrous rhetoric of greatheroes; the awesome human strength, will,and stubborn refusal to bend or to surrender;the elevation of humans to equality amongnatural phenomena; the treasure of love andlife amid the unceasing roar of armies andcries of the vanquished; the endless humanstruggle against time and destiny; the elegantdignity of humankind.

The Mythological PastHomer’s Iliad and Odyssey are stories that de-scribe a precivilized, protoscientific culture.Homer’s story has no clear antecedent, no settime frame. It is an episodic, vaguely chrono-logical account of a shadowy past time. Thepoet provides no clear explanation of theevents of the past. Causation is directed byanonymous fate, an act of the faceless divine.The river Ocean surrounds the disk of theearth that is filled with mysterious forces,nymphs, satyrs, demons, and spirits of na-ture, rarely seen but present. Heaven’s vaulthosts the movement of the sun and stars,which emerge from the river Ocean in theeast and submerge below its wine-dark wa-ters in the west. Constellations associatedwith the mythological past move across thesky: the Pleiades, Hyades, the Great and Lit-tle Bear, the hunter Orion. In contrast, underthe disk of earth to an uncertain distance isthe unending gulf of Tartarus.

The Homeric poems describe a time ofwealthy warriors and impoverished peasants,with few specialized workers. Seers, soothsay-ers, and healers form the rudiments of a mid-dle class, along with bards, craftsmen whofashioned items from clay, wood, and stone,and metal workers. Homer’s world was aBronze Age world; the poet took great care todescribe the beauty of bronze shields,weapons, and cauldrons.Also portrayed in thepoems are the sleek black ships of the Greeks,powered by a single square sail, and thestrength of the warriors who at sea became

116 Homer

Homer (eighth century BCE), the blind bard from Chios inthe Aegean and author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, whichprovide an early poetic portrait of Greek life, culture, andgeography. (Library of Congress)

rowers. Greek mariners rarely crossed the seaout of sight of land, yet the poems imply thatextended sea voyages were not improbable.

IliadThe Iliad opens with an account of the godApollo, who sent plague to the disobedientGreek host. Apollo was not only the god ofplague, but also of healing and medicine, ofmusic and crafts. Apollo sired Asclepius, whowas taught the healing art by Chiron the Cen-taur. Asclepius in turn passed on his knowl-edge to his sons Podalirios and Machaon, whoin the Iliad healed Menelaus from an arrowwound, by putting balm on the wound. Later,according to the Homeric Cycle of myth, thesons of Asclepius healed Heracles’ sonPhiloctetes, considered the master of archeryamong the Greek host. The Iliad portrayshuman consciousness as the presence of thedivine. But more, Homer described distincthumans, singular characters of a certain placeand time.The Homeric heroes are individualactors forging their own destinies within thevague confines of fate. Heroes such asAchilles battle not only humans but also godsthat personify natural forces. For example,Achilles fights the river Scamander to a draw.The Iliad presents a wonderful picture of thedrama and pathos of humans and nature.

OdysseyThe Odyssey provides a narrative account ofthe adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, ashe spends years sailing the Mediterranean insearch of a way home to his wife Penelopeand son Telemachus. Odysseus reaches homebecause of fate, which plays a huge role inboth of the Homeric poems. Fate is the ulti-mate dictator of all things, human, natural,and divine. Although the Greeks gave namesto the trio of fates (Lachesis, Clotho, and At-ropos), the operation of fate was an anony-mous power not unlike the dominance ofnatural law in modern times.

Odysseus arrives home at Ithaca because offate but also because of his intelligence—

“wit,” according to Homer, the ability tothink oneself out of scrapes. Odysseus out-thinks his opponents by weighing a given sit-uation through observation and analysis, thengiving a measured, common-sense response.He engages in on-the-spot reasoning. He useshis mind to corral his passions and emotions.Not a scientist, nevertheless Odysseus servesas a patron for all subsequent Greek thinkerswho had the curiosity to go in search ofknowledge.

See also Asclepius/Asclepiads; Astronomy;Geography/Geodesy; Greek Archaic Age;Hesiod; Myth

ReferencesFinley, M. I. The World of Odysseus. Harmonds-

worth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1972.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New

York: Dover Books, 1913.Hesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica.

Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Homer. Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.New York: Doubleday, 1989.

_____. Odyssey. Translated by RobertFitzgerald. New York: Random House, 1990.

Taplin, Oliver. “Homer.” In Oxford History of theClassical World. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986.

Zimmerman, J. E. Dictionary of ClassicalMythology. New York: Harper and Row,1971.

HydraulicsHydraulics, the science of the movement andforce of water, was an important study forearly civilizations, particularly those with thedry climate of the Near East and large cities,such as Rome, demanding a huge daily watersupply. Ancient Egyptians, dependent on therising and falling of the Nile River, had to or-ganize their activities to utilize most effi-ciently the land’s water resources.The springrising of the Nile inundates the parched landof Egypt, actually swelling the soil and makingdrainage difficult but agriculture successful.During dry months the farmer used the shadufor sakia to irrigate the land.The Egyptians of

Hydraulics 117

the Old Dynasty of the third millennium BCEhad basins made of stone and lavatories andcopper pipes to eliminate water and waste.Egyptian metallurgists and craftsmen even de-vised copper pipes and pipe fittings, plugs,and drains.The city of Alexandria, planned byAlexander and immediately a booming settle-ment, yet built between the sea and lakes, re-quired canals. Crates of Olynthus designedand built them.

The greatest hydraulic engineers of antiq-uity were the Romans. Aqueducts were notunknown to other cultures—reputedly oneEupalinus built an aqueduct through a moun-tain on the island of Samos in the sixth cen-tury BCE. But the Romans made the buildingof aqueducts a science and an art. AppiusClaudius Crassus, the creator of the ViaAppia, was also the force behind the con-struction of the first aqueduct built to pro-vide fresh water for the city. Marcus Agrippa,the friend and associate of Octavian (Augus-

tus) Caesar, brought Rome’s hydraulics to itsmost efficient level, constructing and repair-ing aqueducts, cleaning sewers, and ensuringa continual flow of water for private and pub-lic use by means of public fountains, publicand private baths, and water to flush latrinesand sewers. Wealthy Romans could havewater brought to their homes by means oflead pipes.There was much illegal tapping ofwater, which the authorities attempted tostop, usually in vain. One such authority wasFrontinus, an expert on hydraulics.

By the first century CE, there were elevenaqueducts bringing water to the city. One ofthe last aqueducts built by the emperor Valensin the late fourth century lasted eight hun-dred years and extended one hundred fiftymiles across the Balkans to Constantinople,the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

See also Engineering and Technology; Frontinus,Sextus Julius; Roman Roads and Bridges;Vitruvius

118 Hydraulics

Photograph of the remains of a Roman aqueduct at Aspendos,Turkey. (Corel Corporation)

ReferencesDal Maso, Leonard B. Rome of the Caesars.

Translated by Michael Hollingsworth.Florence: Bonechi-Edizioni, 1974.

Frontinus. The Aqueducts of Rome. Translated byCharles E. Bennett. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1925.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Rowell, Henry Thompson. Rome in the AugustanAge. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1962.

Vitruvius. On Architecture. Translated by JosephGwilt. London: Priestley and Weale, 1826.

Von Hagen,Victor W. Roman Roads. London:Werdenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.

Hypatia of Alexandria (370–415CE)Hypatia is one of the few ancient female sci-entists for whom we have clear information,owing to the tragic nature of her death, heraccomplishments as a mathematician, and hermany students. Hypatia was a pagan Neopla-tonist in Christian Alexandria. She was an as-tronomer and mathematician and wrote sev-eral commentaries on her precursors, such asthe second-century CE astronomer Ptolemyof Alexandria and the third-century BCEmathematicians Diophantus of Alexandriaand Apollonius of Perga. Indeed, third- andfourth-century CE Alexandria was the mostimportant center of science in the LaterRoman Empire. Hypatia’s predecessors inAlexandria included Diophantus, who wrotethe Arithmetica; Pappas, who wrote on geom-etry; the Neoplatonist Proclus; ClaudiusPtolemaeus, the astronomer and geographer;and Hypatia’s father,Theon, who was head ofthe museum and library at Alexandria underthe emperor Theodosius.Theon was a mathe-matician who wrote commentaries onPtolemy, Euclid, and Archimedes, and a sci-entist who wrote other works on the flooding

of the Nile, the rising of the Dog Star, Sirius,and divination. Hypatia was the teacher of thefamous Christian bishop Synesius of Cyrene.

As Hypatia’s writings are lost, it is diffi-cult to reconstruct her work and its signifi-cance. She clearly was a student of Ptolemy’sAlmagest, as was her father. She also was acommentator on geometry, especiallyArchimedes’ work on the circle and Apollo-nius’s work on conic sections. She was inter-ested in dreams, like her student Synesius.Hypatia and Synesius also correspondedabout scientific apparati such as the astro-labe, used for measuring the positions of thestars in the heavens.

Alexandria was famous for its religiousconflicts, and Hypatia ultimately fell victimto one of these. Christians accused Hypatia ofpracticing magic and astrology, which wereillegal in late fourth- and early fifth-centuryRome, although widespread among the pop-ulace. Apparently this undeserved reputationas a sorceress led to her terrible death at thehands of an Alexandrian mob. The Christianhistorian Socrates Scholasticus in the Ecclesi-astical History noted that Hypatia was veryconfident in her bearing, wore the garb of aGreek philosopher, and associated with menas equals. Hypatia, reputedly a beautifulwoman, was stripped, tortured, dismem-bered, and burned at the hands of angryChristians in 415.

See also Alexandria; Apollonius of Perga;Archimedes; Later Roman Empire;Mathematics; Neoplatonism; Ptolemaeus,Claudius

ReferencesJones,Tom B. In the Twilight of Antiquity.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1978.

Socrates Scholasticus. History of the Church.London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853.

Hypatia of Alexandria 119

Iamblichus (250–325 CE)Iamblichus was the leading Neoplatonistphilosopher of the fourth century CE. A na-tive of Syria, Iamblichus was a student of Por-phyry and follower of Plotinus. Iamblichusbroke from the ascetic and deeply intuitiveand spiritual approach of his forebears to em-brace magic and theurgy. He was closer inspirit to Pythagoras, whom Iamblichus ad-mired sufficiently to write a treatise, On thePythagorean Way of Life. As a theurgist,Iamblichus used magic to call upon the powerof the gods. He could put his audience anddisciples under a spell, some of whom werecredulous enough to believe in such magic;others were incredulous, but recognized thepower that such trickery could have over thesimple-minded. Iamblichus died during thereign of Constantine, yet his teachings, writ-ings, and example continued to influencelater philosophers and theurgists such asMaximus of Ephesus and Julian, the Romanemperor, who compared Iamblichus to Platoand Pythagoras.

Iamblichus was one of quite a few holymen of the third and fourth centuries who at-tracted disciples and sycophants because oftheir unique skills at calling upon the divine.Eunapius, the biographer, recorded one in-stance in which Iamblichus was able to pro-duce two youthful deities before his aston-

ished (and credulous) followers. In On theMysteries, Iamblichus wrote in detail about thevaried techniques to call upon the gods andenjoy a mystical union. Gods might so changea person that he could withstand fire andknife wounds and other pain. Or a god mightinhabit a person’s body so as to allow eleva-tion and other such gravity-defying tricks.There was a hierarchy of divine possession.Iamblichus claimed not only to be able to givehimself to the god, or absorb the god in him,but also—the pinnacle of mystical joining—to become equal to the god and merge in adual union. Mysticism required not just thewilling mind but spells and incantations, eventhe power of numbers. He lauded Pythagorasfor giving to men the source of knowledgeand power found in the “tetrad,” which was anorder of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, that whenarranged in accumulating order added to 10.The tetrad visually appears as a pyramid,rather like a set of bowling pins. To the an-cients it was a symbol of Platonic truth.

I

121

•• •

• • •• • • •

Besides On the Mysteries and On thePythagorean Way of Life, Iamblichus wrote Onthe Soul, Theological Arithmetic, and Commen-tary to Nichomachus’ Introduction to Arithmetic.Fragments of all of these works survive.

See also Julian; Later Roman Empire; Maximus ofEphesus; Neoplatonism; Plato; Plotinus;Porphyry; Pythagoras

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Brown, Peter. The Making of Late Antiquity.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the EmperorJulian. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1962, 1969.

Imhotep See Egypt

IndiaSee Asia, East and South

IoniansThe Ionian school of thought featured thefirst great scientist-philosophers of the an-cient world, most of whom hailed from Mile-tus or other small cities of western Turkey,which the Greeks called Ionia.Thales, Anaxi-mander, and Anaximenes of Miletus andAnaxagoras of Clazomenae were the most fa-mous of the Ionian scientists. Other signifi-cant Ionian thinkers included Hippocrates,Herodotus, Pythagoras, and Homer. It wasthe Homeric influence on the Ionian refugeesfrom Greece that undoubtedly set in motionthe pattern of thought central to this regionof the Mediterranean. Homer’s works,though epic poetry, create a worldview of aninhabitable world known by men who arethinkers, doers, creators, and individualists.

Ionian thinkers embraced Homer’s subtle callto find explanations for all that is. They re-placed Homer’s explanation of natural andhuman phenomena according to fate, the willof the gods, and the human interaction withthe divine with more realistic explanations ofphysical phenomena exclusive of direct di-vine action and intervention.

The Ionians sought the First Cause.Thales,for example, rejected supernatural cause andarbitrariness in the universe for universalphysical causes. The initial element, he ar-gued, is water, from which all else springs.Plutarch lauded Thales as the first analyticalphilosopher.Thales’ student Anaximander el-evated the level of inquiry even higher withhis argument that the infinite is the essence ofall things. His student Anaximenes sought theorigins and nature of existence in air. Thalesand Anaximenes were the first Greek stu-dents of chemistry.

Anaximenes’ student Anaxagoras,Anaxagoras’s student Archelaus, andArchelaus’s student Socrates brought Ionianthought to Athens in the fifth century BCE.Anaxagoras believed that the First Cause andongoing universal providence was Mind(nous),which is incorporeal and transcendent.Socrates apparently came to these beliefs bymeans of Archelaus. The Ionian philosophersat Athens countered Sophists such as Protago-ras who advocated a completely human-cen-tered view. The more speculative Ionians be-lieved that reality is not necessarily whathumans perceive nor how they perceive it.Our individual minds allow us to peerthrough the window of the soul to Mind,though the window is often cloudy and ourobservations inexact. It takes rigorous yearsof thought and study to train the individualmind to be able to perceive qualities of Mind,or Good as Socrates and Plato called the ulti-mate reality.

Ionian thought reached fruition throughthe efforts of Plato and Aristotle.Though theformer was a speculative philosopher and thelatter was an analytical scientist, Plato and

122 Ionians

Aristotle agreed in the essential spiritual coreof the universe, that being acting through themind and soul unites humans together into agreat whole, that the First Cause is an un-known unmoved mover that transcends allhuman thoughts and actions.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Anaximanderof Miletus; Anaximenes of Miletus; Archelausof Athens; Aristotle; Athens; Greek ArchaicAge; Greek Classical Age; Miletus; Plato;Socrates;Thales

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

Iron AgeA revolution in metallurgy that led to the dis-semination of power and wealth and the riseof more widespread tools for farmers andweapons for soldiers occurred at the end ofthe second millennium BCE in Asia Minor.This was the development of the process ofdigging iron ore from the ground and heatingit to such high temperatures that finished ironcould be wrought, using the anvil and ham-mer; sufficient carburization of the iron pro-duced steel. After the millennia of bronzetools and weapons, which were difficult tomake and expensive and thus limited to aris-tocrats, iron signaled the coming power ofthe middle-class merchant and farmer of thefirst millennium BCE. The spread of literacyand coinage also helped in the movement ofthe masses toward economic and socialpower and influence compared to the oldlanded aristocracy. And then, increasingly,philosophy and science became an activitythat others besides the privileged few couldparticipate in.

The first iron users were the Hittites ofeastern Anatolia, who relied on the expertiseof iron-working Armenians.These people hadapparently discovered the means to heat ironin the same fashion as copper was heated todrive out the impurities; the metalworkercould then hammer the wrought iron intoshape. Wrought iron was not useful as aweapon and was essentially decorative. TheEgyptians—who borrowed the use of ironfrom the Hittites, at first using meteoric iron,calling it the “iron of heaven”—used wroughtiron. The process of turning iron into steelprobably occurred for the first time towardthe end of the second millennium BCE inAnatolia. It involved the use of the forge andbellows.The charcoal was heated to extremetemperatures—white hot, over 2,000 de-grees Fahrenheit—and then the iron wassmelted to a point that impurities were re-moved. This process of carburization of theiron is what produced steel.

The first peoples to use iron weapons witha steel edge—the Hittites of Turkey, the Do-rians who invaded Greece and destroyed theMycenaean civilization, and the Sea Peoplessuch as the Philistines who swept through theeastern Mediterranean ravaging and conquer-ing—were not noted for their cultural ad-vances.Yet these seemingly primitive peoplesconquered more sophisticated peoples whostill used bronze weapons. Particularly after1000 BCE in the Mediterranean region, war-riors turned to iron as the weapon of choice.During the first millennium BCE, bronzeweapons were still used, but iron was pre-ferred.

See also Bronze Age; Physical SciencesReferencesChilde, Gordon. What Happened in History.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1946.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Woolley, Leonard. The Beginnings of Civilization:History of Mankind: Cultural and ScientificDevelopments, vol. 1, pt. 2. New York: MentorBooks, 1965.

Iron Age 123

Irrigation TechniquesIrrigation of land to produce surplus cropshas been a driving force in the history of civ-ilization. The agricultural revolution thatbegan in the Fertile Crescent of western Asiabegan because early agriculturalists realizedthat dry soil did not support plants. Wherethe climate is such that the land is parched,humans must artificially water or flood theland to ensure moisture for the growingplants. Irrigation probably first took placealong the banks of the Tigris and Euphratesrivers in Mesopotamia (Iraq). The Tigris andEuphrates flood in the spring, bringing thewater from melting snow of the mountains ineastern Turkey. These rivers have low banks,and thus rising water often escapes the riverbed and floods the land. Such flooding is un-predictable. Near the mouths of the Tigrisand Euphrates rivers there was swampy landwith a high saline content; draining the mois-ture and channeling fresh water into the soil

was imperative for successful agriculture.Theearly inhabitants of Mesopotamia decided toexercise human will over the flooding watersand marshy lands, building an intricate seriesof dikes and canals to channel the water in thedirection of fields requiring extra moisture.These dikes and canals also were useful dur-ing the dry and hot seasons of the year; farm-ers would purposely channel water from therivers into their dry fields, providing themoisture necessary for crops to grow.

The Nile River of Egypt floods in thespring when the snow of the highlands ofEthiopia melts and the Nile rises, overflowingits low banks to inundate the land of upper(southern) and lower (northern) Egypt. Thisland in low-lying areas received sufficientmoisture as well as a fertile layer of silt fromthe flooding Nile. Land at higher elevationssurrounding the Nile required artificial wa-tering. The Egyptians used an irrigation toolcalled a shaduf, which was a simple machine

124 Irrigation Techniques

Irrigation canals along the Nile River have changed very little over five thousand years. (Corel Corporation)

operated by the farmer.The shaduf had a pailtied to a rotating pole, connected to a sta-tionary pole, that acted as a lever to raise thepail filled with water, rotate it to a waitingpool or channel, empty it, and then return itto the river to retrieve more water. Similarwas the sakia, a rotating water wheel fittedwith cups that would scoop up water as thewheel rotated, driven by a chain and lever.Upon reaching the pinnacle and beginningthe descent, the cups deposited the water in awaiting canal.

One of the more famous irrigation deviceswas reputedly invented by the Hellenisticmathematician and scientist Archimedes,

who was an expert in hydraulics.Archimedes’ Screw was a simple machinethat resembled a large screw enclosed by acylindrical frame.When set in the water androtated manually, the device would windabout bringing water to the top, which wasabove ground, where it would be emptiedinto a waiting pool.

See also Agriculture; Archimedes; Egypt;Mesopotamia

ReferencesErman, Adolf. Life in Ancient Egypt. Translated by

H. M.Tirard. New York: Dover Books, 1894.“Irrigation.” Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 12

(1962).

Irrigation Techniques 125

Julian (331–363 CE)Julian, the emperor of the Roman Empirefrom 361 to 363 CE, was a self-perceivedphilosopher-king and student of ancient sci-ence who sought to promote Hellenism—Greek thought and learning—during a timedominated by Christianity. Julian was thenephew of the emperor Constantine. WhenConstantine’s son Constantius came topower upon his father’s death in 337, his sup-porters eliminated rivals to his power, in-cluding Julian’s family. Julian himself wasspared because of his youth; but he was sub-sequently kept under a sort of house arrest.He rejected the Christian teachings of his tu-tors by the time he was in his teens andsought to study under the great philosophersand scientists of the Greeks. Constantius al-lowed this, seeing nothing very harmful inJulian’s search for learning. Julian became astudious and intelligent neophyte philoso-pher hungry for knowledge of Greek philos-ophy and science. He became attracted toNeoplatonism and Stoicism and becamefriends with clear-headed thinkers such asThemistius the philosopher, Libanius the or-ator, and Oribasius the physician. Julian alsosuccumbed to the fascination of his age withmagic and superstition and became a discipleof the theurgist Maximus. Nevertheless Ju-

lian was an important patron of science andphilosophy during his brief reign.

Julian’s surviving letters reveal the scopeof his scientific interests and the network offourth-century science and philosophy. Juliansurrounded himself with Neoplatonists andAristotelians, pagans as well as Christians. Hewas a student while in Athens of the Christianphilosopher Prohaeresius and had a long-standing friendship with the AristotelianAëtius, who became a Christian bishop. Ju-lian thanked the philosopher Priscus for in-troducing him to the study of Aristotle. In-deed Julian claimed that Aristotle and Platoform the basis for all inquiry. His correspon-dence with the Aristotelian commentatorThemistius focused on the contemplative sideof Aristotle’s philosophy. But Julian wasclearly more attracted to Platonism, particu-larly the watered-down version practiced byIamblichus and his followers. Julian sacrificedreason for fantasy when he became a followerof Maximus, the theurgist and miracleworker.

Nevertheless Julian was interested in moreserious science. Music fascinated him, and heenjoyed studying the purported founder, thephilosopher Amphion, whom Julian claimedwas responsible for developing the science ofharmony. In letters to Ecdicius, an official in

J

127

Egypt, Julian requested that, since the templeto the Egyptian god Serapis was being re-stored, the “Nilometer,” a device used tomeasure the rising and lowering of the NileRiver, be activated again. Perhaps because ofthe influence of his friend Oribasius, Julianwas very interested in the study of medicine.He wrote to Zeno, an Alexandrian physician,praising the importance of physicians to soci-ety. Julian supported the study of medicineand work of physicians by imperial decree in362, proclaiming that physicians be ex-empted from otherwise compulsory militaryand civil service. Indeed, one might concludethat the most important legacy of Julian’s

reign as emperor of Rome was his encour-agement of the study of science and medi-cine, especially his support of his friendOribasius, who produced the important Syn-opsis of the work of Galen.

See also Iamblichus; Later Roman Empire;Maximus of Ephesus; Neoplatonism;Oribasius;Themistius

ReferencesBowersock, G.W. Julian the Apostate. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1978.Browning, Robert. The Emperor Julian. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1976.Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the Emperor

Julian. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1962, 1969.

128 Julian

Later Roman Empire (180–565 CE)After 200 CE there was little scientific cre-ativity in the ancient Mediterranean world.The achievements of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Eu-clid, and Galen would set the standard for theunderstanding of the universe, the world,mathematics, and medicine in the comingcenturies. Not until 1500, during the Renais-sance in Europe, would there be similar ac-complishments so fundamental to scientifictheory and practice. Scientists from the thirdto the sixth centuries, and after, tended to besynthesizers and proselytizers, pedagogues re-peating the same theories to students, com-mentators making the same comments inbooks and lectures.The fall of Rome occurredin a long process from 200 to 500 CE. EdwardGibbon, the great historian of Rome’s fall,traced the decline of ancient civilization, theloss of past greatness, the military, political,and intellectual weakness of the time. Theur-gists, magicians, and sophists dominated whatpassed for science. Neoplatonists and Aris-totelians subjected science to the realm ofphilosophy. The practice of medicine becametoo often the realm of the charlatan and as-trologer.The great debate between pagan-hu-manists and Christian intellectuals distractedthinkers from the general decline in politicalstability, economic health, artistic and literarycreativity, and scientific accomplishment. By

500, scientific thought and practice in theWestern Roman Empire was buried under thesuffering, poverty, famine, and sickness ofpetty Germanic warlords competing for con-trol of what was left of Rome. In the EasternRoman (Byzantine) Empire, it was a differentstory, not so much decline as business asusual, as students of Aristotle, Euclid,Ptolemy, and Galen carried upon their intel-lectual shoulders the scientific legacy of theancient world.

Superstition has often been a strange bed-fellow of science over the course of humanhistory. The ancient world, notwithstandingits huge accomplishments in science, hostedan amazing variety of magicians, soothsayers,prognosticators, astrologers, theurgists, andthe like. Even during the Principate of the firstand second centuries CE, when Roman cul-ture was at its height, superstition typicallydwarfed scientific inquiry. This imbalance offantasy and reality grew during the third cen-tury and after, as the empire fell victim to civilconflict and its usual consequences of moraland intellectual malaise. Hence, after 200 CEthere was very little good philosophy and evenless good science.Yet humans still yearned toobserve nature and exercise power over theirenvironment. Unwilling or unable to engagein clear observation of natural phenomena andthe systematic ordering of data, intellectuals

L

129

of the third and fourth centuries turned moreto pseudoscience, superstition, and the fabu-lous and remarkable.

The scientific centers of the Later RomanEmpire continued to be Athens, Alexandria,Pergamum, and Antioch. The city of Romewas sometimes important, too, especiallyunder the patronage of the emperors andtheir families. Julia Domna, the consort ofSeptimius Severus, patronized Philostratus,the compiler of the Lives of the Sophists. Philo-stratus was himself a sophist, a paid teacher of“wisdom”—rhetoric and philosophy. Itshould not surprise us that compilations ofpast science, books that told the story of greatphilosophers and sophists of the past, shouldbe popular and widespread during yearswhen there was little intellectual creativity.Besides Philostratus, there were Eunapius’sLives of the Sophists and Diogenes Laertius’sLives of the Philosophers. These works, typicalfor a time of intellectual malaise, tended tobe anecdotal accounts of great thinkers ofmythic quality. Whereas Philostratus wroteaccounts of philosophers of the Principate,Diogenes wrote of the great ones of the past,the early Ionian masters of science such asThales and Anaximander and the AtheniansPlato and Aristotle. Eunapius, on the otherhand, centered his efforts on the Neoplatonicheroes of the fourth century, his own time,and their champion, the emperor Julian.

Thinkers during the Later Roman Empirecontinued the tendency begun during theHellenistic Age and continuing into theRoman Principate of dividing scientific andphilosophic theories and methods into twoschools of thought: the Platonic and the Aris-totelian. The former, with its focus on themetaphysical, gained new strength with theteachings of Plotinus and his followers Por-phyry and Iamblichus. The scientific thoughtof these Neoplatonists was limited by theirdistrust of the senses and belief that reality israrely seen or experienced in human exis-tence.Yet their counterparts the Aristotelians(Peripatetic philosophers) were hardly moresuccessful at science, being so heavily de-

pendent upon the teachings of Aristotle andexpending most of their intellectual energyon the task of passing on what the Mastersaid. The leading Aristotelians wereThemistius and Boethius.

Exceptions to the dominance of the twoschools of thought included Ammianus Mar-cellinus, a retired soldier who sought to imi-tate the historian Tacitus and bring forwardhis chronicle of the Roman Empire to Ammi-anus’s own time, the late fourth century.Am-mianus’s history of Rome included somethoughtful ruminations on the manners andcustoms of various peoples and the geogra-phy of unfamiliar lands. Another exceptionalLate Roman thinker was Zosimus of Panopo-lis, a fourth-century chemist from Egypt anda student of Porphyry. Zosimus distinguishedchemistry from physics and wrote treatiseson yeasts, mercury, lime, and distillation ap-paratuses. He collected an encyclopedia of al-chemical processes and terminology.

Upon the collapse of the Roman Empire inthe West during the fifth century, most intel-lectual concerns, including science, fell sub-ject to the violence and chaos of war and theprimitive urge to survive in a time of declin-ing trade and agriculture.The Eastern RomanEmpire, subsequently called the ByzantineEmpire, continued to thrive under energeticemperors as well as thinkers trying to carrythe Aristotelian and Platonic torches forwardinto the future.The legacy of ancient sciencewas seen most dramatically during the periodof Byzantine dominance in Eastern Europeduring the Middle Ages.

See also Ammianus Marcellinus; Julian; Magic;Neoplatonism;Themistius

ReferencesDodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman

Empire. New York: Modern Library, 1932.Grant, Michael. The Climax of Rome. Boston: Little,

Brown, 1968.Philostratus. Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1921.

130 Later Roman Empire

Leucippus (floruit fifth centuryBCE) The first scientist to develop a complete the-ory for a universe based on the existence ofan infinite number of atoms, Leucippus influ-enced generations of physicists and chemistsin their search to understand the basic struc-ture, the infinitesimal particles, of the uni-verse. He did not have sophisticated equip-ment, nor did he practice empirical science.He relied on the teaching of his predecessors,made logical assumptions, and arrived at atheory to explain the structure of matter.Over two millennia later, physicists such asErnst Rutherford and Niels Bohr confirmedthe existence of atoms, which vindicatedLeucippus’s initial theoretical stab in thedark.

Leucippus was an Ionian Greek, bornsometime after 500 BCE somewhere in west-ern Turkey or the islands of the Aegean Sea.Nothing really is known about his life, exceptthat he was influenced by the materialistphilosopher Empedocles and the idealistsParmenides and Anaxagoras. Only one linesurvives from his writings. In On Mind, he ar-gued that all things happen by necessity. Tothe ongoing debate in classical Greece aboutthe nature of the universe, whether it is finiteor infinite, fundamentally material or spiri-tual, created or uncreated, Leucippus con-tributed his view that the universe is infinite,uncreated, and in constant motion andchange. In this he agreed with Empedocles.Beyond the growth and decay that one wit-nesses in nature and everyday life, Leucippusposited the existence of invisible materialbodies, atoms (Greek atomos), that are alwaysmoving, changing, combining and recombin-ing, and of varying shapes and sizes. Atomsare small enough that we cannot see them,but we feel their presence. How else, Leucip-pus wondered, can we explain matter, itschanges, its variety, unless we realize the ex-istence of atoms? What separates a tree froma stone, a fish from a human, if not the un-derlying differences in these invisible parti-cles? To speak of particles moving and chang-

ing implies some substance or arena in whichthey move and change. Leucippus argued forthe presence of a void or space devoid of par-ticles, of anything. Nevertheless, the void ex-ists. It does not represent “being,” the basicfundamental of existence, but rather “nonbe-ing,” the opposite of existence, the oppositeof anything. Nothing therefore exists, Leucip-pus argued. Being cannot exist without non-being; atoms cannot exist without the void inwhich they move and act.

He naturally used his atomic theory to ex-plain the origins and extent of the universe.According to Diogenes Laertius, Leucippusargued that atoms of like form are attractedto the center of a “vortex,” a swirling mass;unlike atoms are thrust outside the vortex.The vortex eventually forms a central spher-ical body, such as the earth; other atoms formthe stars and other planets. Leucippus be-lieved that such a process occurs infinitely,leading to a host of other worlds and stars.The planets orbit the earth, which is at thecenter of a solar system.The sun orbits at theextreme.The brightness of the sun, stars, andmoon derives from their movement, the fric-tion of which, one gathers, induces fire. Leu-cippus hypothesized that the earth is broad inthe middle, like a drum or, as Thomas Heath(1913) says, tambourine. The earth swirlsaround at the center on an axis that tilts to-ward the south. The northern regions of theearth are damp and frozen; the southern re-gions hot and on fire.

Leucippus initiated a school of thought thatwould have a major impact on subsequent sci-ence and philosophy, not only in the ancientworld, but through all centuries to the pres-ent. His most famous disciples were Democ-ritus, Epicurus, and Zeno. From Leucippus’sbasic supposition, the philosophies of Epicure-anism and Stoicism would spring. His wouldbe a philosophy in constant opposition to theidealism of Plato and Christian philosophers.Leucippus’s atomic theory would be resur-rected two thousand years later by scientistssuch as Robert Boyle, who called atoms “cor-puscles.” Boyle’s corpuscular theories went a

Leucippus 131

long way toward sustaining the scientific rev-olution of the sixteenth, seventeenth, andeighteenth centuries. Ironically, over thesepast two millennia, knowledge of Leucippushas dwindled to almost nothing, while knowl-edge of his theory has come to dominate theworld of science.

See also Astronomy; Atoms; Democritus;Epicureanism; Greek Classical Age; PhysicalSciences

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Life SciencesThe beginnings of life sciences in the ancientworld were associated with interest in magicand the belief that the divine often used natu-ral phenomena such as animals to prophesyand fulfill what has been fated to occur. Thefirst botanists were scientists interested increating a materia medica of plants and herbsthat could be used in healing, especially in as-sociation with incantations and spells. Thefirst biologists studied life in relation to thedivine, seeing in the natural the supernatural,assuming that humans have a direct link withthe gods. The first zoologists were soothsay-ers who examined sacrificial animals to de-termine the future and priests who conceivedof deities with animal characteristics. In timethe supernatural and magic became dissoci-ated from the natural and real, and a true lifescience was born.

According to Plutarch (Natural Questions),some of the first Greek scientists, such asAnaxagoras, Plato, and Democritus, believedthat plants were but animals riveted to thesoil. Anaxagoras claimed that humans are su-perior to animals because of their use of ana-lytical and conceptual thought. Herodotus,

during the fifth century BCE, reported aftera trip to Egypt that the Egyptians had a com-plete materia medica and were knowledge-able about many plants. The Egyptians haddiscovered the qualities of the lotus plant:they harvested it, ate the root, which was asweet like a fruit, and dried the head, apoppy, and made bread out of it. They alsocollected a plant called kiki, which producedsomething like castor oil, which they usedlike olive oil, though Herodotus found thesmell annoying. The papyrus plant was har-vested to make paper and used in construct-ing reed boats but was also good for eatingwhen baked. Herodotus also observed orheard about crocodiles, the ibis, hip-popotami, and elephants. He correctly re-ported on the characteristics of the crocodile,pointing out how its lower jaw is stationarywhile the upper jaw opens wide to gorge it-self on food. Always in search of the remark-able, Herodotus claimed that the crocodile al-lowed the sandpiper to pick leeches out of itsopen mouth. Herodotus was fascinated byfowl and provided an interesting descriptionof the ibis. He was also credulous enough toreport on the phoenix, though confessingthat he had never seen one himself. He re-ported on the reproductive cycle of fish.Bolos of Mende, a contemporary ofHerodotus, wrote On Sympathies and An-tipathies, in which he classified flora and faunabased on the four elements. He also pennedOn Natural Drugs.

Aristotle was very interested in plant andanimal life and relied on his student Alexan-der for specimens of the flora and fauna ofAsia. Aristotle was a collector and catalogerof flora and fauna. Aristotle’s Description ofAnimals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of An-imals compared humans with animals, assum-ing that the latter, like the former, partici-pated in Being and had similar behavior andphysical attributes. Aristotle, like his teacherPlato, conceived of a chain of being that al-lowed for the categorization of animals ac-cording to their physical and spiritual charac-teristics. Aristotle’s student Theophrastus,

132 Life Sciences

the Greek Peripatetic and master of theLyceum, produced an encyclopedic Enquiryinto Plants in which he provided a system ofclassifying plants according to type, func-tion, usefulness, and healing qualities. An-other important Hellenistic life scientist wasNicander of Colophon, a physician, who,during the second century BCE, wrote onagriculture, beekeeping, and poisonousplants and reptiles.

Roman thinkers continued to speculate onthe distinctions between animals and humans.Pliny, a typical Roman thinker, echoed Aris-totle’s comments comparing beasts and hu-mans. Humans are at the pinnacle of the ani-mal scale of being and the only creature toexhibit consistent rational thought and behav-

ior. Pliny did, however, conceive of animalsshowing remarkable humanlike characteris-tics, such as pity, logical (if rudimentary)thought, piety, empathy, a sense of duty. Thehoneybee had social and behavioral character-istics similar to Rome under the Republic.Pliny was naïve in many respects abouthuman and animal life, assuming that in thefar reaches of Asia and Africa strange crea-tures and humans with odd characteristicsexisted. Many Roman biologists were poly-maths like Pliny. Another was Plutarch,whose vast corpus of writings included theNatural Questions, in which he explored re-markable phenomena, such as the ability ofthe octopus to change color to deceive preyand predators.

Life Sciences 133

Ancient peoples relied on herbal medicine, including concoctions made from squeezing animal skins filled with herbs. In thisimage from Egypt, two women skilled in materia medica produce liquid medicine from herbs. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Pliny’s contemporaries Crateus andDioscorides were herbalists and botanistswho created an extensive pharmacology.Dioscorides traveled with Roman armies as aphysician—he collected specimens of floraand fauna, and he published a complete mate-ria medica. In some respects Dioscorides wasthe first real Roman pharmacist—he wrote apharmacology that listed hundreds of floralremedies. One of the last famous Roman lifescientists was Aelian, who penned On theCharacteristics of Animals at the beginning ofthe third century. Aelian was a credulousrather than a critical observer and filled hisCharacteristics of Animals with anecdotes andthe miraculous.

See also Aelian, Claudius; Aristotle; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; Pliny the Elder;Theophrastus

ReferencesAelian. On the Characteristics of Animals. 3 vols.

Translated by A. F. Scholfield. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1971.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

Logic See Aristotle

LogosLogos is one of the few Greek ideas that con-tinues to be argued among intellectuals andscientists as the third millennium CE begins.The great debate among Greek scientists dur-ing the first millennium BCE involved thequestion, What is the creative force, the un-derlying reality, of the universe? Philosophersby the time of Thales and his successors hadabandoned the simplistic belief in the Greekgods—but what was to replace Zeus, theFates, Hades, the nymphs, the great mothergoddess Cybele, and Athena? What else, butthe “logos.” Logos, the word, represented to

ancient thinkers the universal transcendence,the creative expression of the universal mind.

Logos derives from the Greek verb legein,meaning “to say, tell, count.” It had a varietyof different meanings in the ancient world.The first poets and historians, such asHerodotus, referred to the spirit of truthguiding their work as the logos. Aristotle re-ferred to the logos as a principle of scientificor philosophic language or a principle of ex-istence, of being.This latter view was adoptedby the philosopher Zeno of Alexandria, wholived at the beginning of the third centuryBCE. Zeno argued that logos is the eternalidea or word, the source of all being. Humansderive from the logos and return to the logos.Human behavior and society that imitates theharmony of the universal logos will achievehappiness.This happiness, however, is limitedto the duration of human existence. Zenotried to bridge the gap between the idealistphilosophers such as Plato and Parmenides,who believed being was a force of mind, ofspirit, and the materialists Heraclitus andDemocritus, who believed that being wasmaterial rather than spiritual—being is a sub-stance. Zeno’s theory was that logos is mate-rial and spiritual, a substance and an idea.

Zeno founded the philosophy of Stoicism,which along with Epicureanism was the routethat the logos generally took from 300 BCEto 200 CE. Stoic and Epicurean philosopherswere attracted to a concept that combines inone phenomenon thought and action, bodyand soul, time and eternity, creation and de-struction. Marcus Aurelius, the most famousStoic philosopher, interpreted the logos asthe holy spirit, the divine fire. Logos createdand destroyed—gave life, then took it. Logosmade up all existence, each and every thing,each individual.The Stoics put a new twist onthe dualism of body and soul, matter andspirit, arguing that the soul is invisible, spiri-tual, yet also material. All ideas, all truth, arematerial. One’s soul consists of atoms, whichwill be rearranged upon one’s death.The soullasts only as long as the body does.The logosis in each human even as it transcends each

134 Logos

human. Philo, a Jewish writer who lived inAlexandria at the end of the first centuryBCE and the beginning of the first centuryCE, adapted Platonic and Stoic thinkingabout the logos to Hebrew thought. Philo ar-gued that the logos is something like the mindof the eternal, unknowable God; the logos isknowable since it is knowledge itself.

The Epicurean and Stoic logos was an im-personal, anonymous force of creation anddestruction. Other thinkers of the ancientworld sought a more personal force of cre-ation, a being who encompassed and tran-scended each individual, who brought aboutlife and then embraced us at death. John, thedisciple of Jesus of Nazareth, conceived ofJesus as the logos, the timeless word, theeternal transcendence that encompassedbody and soul, life and death, truth, God. “Inthe beginning was the word,” wrote John,“the word was with God, and the word wasGod.” According to the Gospel of John, “theword was made flesh, and dwelt among us” asJesus, the Christ. “All things were made by”the word. He is the being that unites andtranscends all being. (King James Version)

The concept of logos, and the debate sur-rounding it, is not only ancient, but verymodern, very real. Scientists still wonderabout the origins of life, of the universe, ofbeing. Philosophers still wonder whetherbeing is material or spiritual. Christians stillargue that Christ was and is the logos, the“defining principle” of Aristotle, the “word” ofZeno, the “holy spirit” of Marcus Aurelius.

See also Aurelius, Marcus; Epicureanism;Epicurus; Hellenism; New Testament;Stoicism

ReferencesAurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Translated by

Maxwell Staniforth. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1964.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and OswynMurray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Lucretius (floruit first century BCE) Titus Lucretius Carus was the most famousdisciple, as well as the greatest exponent, ofthe teachings of the Greek philosopher Epi-curus. Lucretius’s poem, On the Nature ofThings, is an account of the structure of theuniverse, written in verse according to Epi-curean philosophy. On the Nature of Things isthe work of a polymath who used the Epi-curean philosophy of materialism to describeand explain matter, motion, mind, soul,body, society, and natural phenomena. Theessence of all things, he argued, is found inconstantly moving, indestructible yet invisi-ble objects: atoms.

Lucretius lived during the first half of thefirst century BCE. Romans of the second andfirst centuries actively embraced Greek cul-ture and philosophy in the wake of theRoman political conquest of the Greek worldin the decades after 200 BCE. Scientists,philosophers, physicians, and teachers weretypically Greeks writing in Greek. Lucretius,like his contemporary Cicero, was an excep-tion: Lucretius was a Latin poet and a Romanwriting Greek philosophy. His philosophywas formed by the fourth-century BCEGreek atomist Epicurus who, along with hisforebears Leucippus and Democritus, advo-cated a materialist philosophy that shunnedthe spiritual and metaphysical, branding assuperstitions such beliefs.

Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus, theatomists, hypothesized that atoms were thefundamental structures of existence. All life,spiritual as well as material, as well as theworld, planets, the stars and sun, were madeof invisible particles constantly in motion.Gods may or may not exist—in any case, theyare irrelevant. Perhaps mind, beauty, thegood, the word, being exist; if so atoms arethe components of what other philosophersconsidered to be grand metaphysical, spiri-tual forces. Nothing could be further fromthe thought of Parmenides, Socrates, andPlato than atoms. The atomists believed thatspeculation on the spiritual world can be un-ending and unsubstantiated by the senses and

Lucretius 135

experience. They demanded that explana-tions of existence be reduced to commonsense and the evidence of the senses.This rad-ical empiricism required a disbelief in any-thing that could not be seen, heard, smelled,touched, or tasted. Everything else must bethe products of overactive imaginations. Theatomists allowed themselves one general sup-position. There must be a force that causesthe movement in things detected by humans.This force must be the basis of cause, of thenature of things, hence the fundamentalcausative force in the universe. But cause, likeall of existence, must result from a thing—something material, composed of matter—not an idea.

Lucretius, in support of the empirical ar-guments of the atomists, used the example ofwind.The senses allow humans to detect thepresence of the hot winds of summer and thecool breezes of winter. The phenomenon it-self is invisible to the eye, but humans cantrace it in blowing leaves, the dust beinghurled about in a storm, the waves beingwhipped up, and the billowing sails of a shipat sea. Something that is invisible yet sensedby taste, smell, touch, and hearing clearly ex-ists, and clearly has a material basis. But it isso small that the sense of sight cannot detectit. It is so small it cannot be made smaller,cannot be cut (Greek, atomos). The irre-ducible form of matter that makes up theessence of all things is the atom.

In On the Nature of Things, Lucretius tookmany pains to hypothesize the qualities andcharacteristics of the atom. Since nothingcannot exist, the atom must be indestructi-ble, eternal, and infinite. Atoms clearly moveand cause motion and thus cannot be packedtogether without space in between. Theremust be vacuity, a vacuum, in which atomsmove. Atoms make up all that is.They are ofdifferent sizes, colors, combinations, and pat-terns. One thing differs from another becauseof atomic structure. Lucretius and the atom-ists did not hypothesize the presence of theelectron, proton, and neutron.That discoveryawaited the atomists of the twentieth century.

Rather, Lucretius realized that there must beat least a part that is irreducible—that thisatom must be infinite in number and compo-sition because otherwise there must exist alimit on things, and he could not envisionsuch a limit. Limitless atoms meant a limitlessuniverse.

This notion of the limitless universe,which had its origins with Greek philoso-phers such as Parmenides and was later em-braced by the atomists, was a true revolutionin thought. The limitless universe frees hu-mans from impositions on their power andfree will. It frees creation from limits posedon its extent, quantity, and reproductivity. Alimitless universe can host limitless time, lim-itless motion, limitless types of living beings,limitless stars and planets, limitless universes.

Limitless was the anonymous power andimpersonal will exercised by atoms in theircapacity as building blocks of the four ele-ments. Like Democritus and before himEmpedocles, Lucretius assumed that earth,air, fire, and water made up all things—andmaking up the four elements were atoms.Without mind, or will, or fate, atoms deter-mined the universe, even if the particularswere never clear. But one knew that fromatoms one was born, and to the atoms onewould go upon death.There was no escape.

Lucretius believed humans had a limitedpower in their ability to grasp the infinitenessin scope, power, and duration of atoms. Onceone knew the simple truth, everything couldbe understood.This was clearly the goal of Onthe Nature of Things, which was unfinished atLucretius’s early and untimely death. He wasprepared to take on all topics that had occu-pied the minds of past philosophers. Hisatomic theory allowed an explanation of real-ity, of birth and death, of the mind and soul,of the senses, of emotions, of thought andimagination, of sex and conception. Lucretiusconceived of the universe evolving over timefrom a massive disjointed mixture of atoms atthe beginning of time to their subsequent co-agulation into distinct forms—the stars,planets, sun, moon, and earth. The earth it-

136 Lucretius

self was initially water, but the deep washeated by the fire of the sun and slowly driedto reveal earth. Above and surrounding theearth is the air, and beyond that, ether. Theheavenly bodies are buoyed by the air in theether and rotate around the solid earth, themost substantial, heaviest, and central un-moved body. The sun, a ball of fire, dailycrosses from horizon to horizon, only to sinkbelow the earth and then be regeneratedagain in the morning. For regeneration fromthe countless atoms is the nature of things.More convincing was Lucretius’s argumentthat the moon reflects the light of the sun andbecomes full or wanes according to its posi-tion respecting the sun’s rays.

When considering the origins of humans,Lucretius found himself in a dilemma. TheGreeks and Romans, like most peoples, as-sumed a divine role in the astonishing cre-ation of man. Lucretius, however, was obligedby his atomic theory to conclude that humansand animals simply emerged from the atomicmix. Earth, like a young mother, bore herchildren, but not consciously, not purpose-fully. In an attempt to reconcile myth and sci-ence, Lucretius hypothesized that the earthalso generated monsters of every sort. Antic-ipating Darwin, Lucretius proposed that suchmonsters became extinct because they wereunable to find sufficient food and adapt to theenvironment. Lucretius stuck to the old as-sumption of Homer and Hesiod that the firsthumans were strong and heroic, yet primitiveand savage. His portrait of early man had aninteresting evolutionary tint to it. The firsthumans were primitive, without laws ormorals, living according to the naked laws ofnature. In time, mutual survival brought hu-mans together into society. Fire tamed theirsavagery. Civilization emerged—social struc-ture, laws, cities, trade, metallurgy, and or-ganized religion.This latter development Lu-cretius blamed on human ignorance. Thehuman mind assigns to mysterious phenom-ena the agency of the divine. Lucretius, inshort, composed an anthropology of humansstruggling to survive, lifting themselves from

the simple struggle of life, developing agri-culture to sustain a growing population andto generate wealth, and creating the arts andsciences to make life comfortable, to expressjoy in song, and to recover the past in verseand prose. It was not Prometheus who gavefire and civilizing arts and sciences to hu-mans. Rather, the generations of men strug-gling against time and nature developed aunique, sophisticated society.

Lucretius concluded On the Nature of Thingswith a fascinating scientific potpourri. Hebegan with meteorology.Thunder, he argued,occurs because of the clash of clouds, windblowing through them, and the rupture ofclouds, like the burst of a bladder filled withair. Thunder, of course, follows close on theheels of lightning, which is produced withatoms of fire, inherent in clouds, which areforced to emerge from clouds by the wind.Mountaintops are often cloudy due to theforce of the wind driving condensed“cloudlets” up craggy slopes to the summits.

The wind, the agent of causation in Lu-cretius’s meteorology, skims the surfaces ofrivers and seas, collecting atoms of moisture,which form eventually in clouds. Moisture-swollen clouds release rain. Sunlight reflectson raindrops to produce the rainbow. Thewind is also responsible for earthquakes.Thelargely hollow earth serves as a pathway forviolent winds that, along with raging seas andmassive caverns, sometimes topple moun-tains and collapse caves—an earthquake onthe surface of the earth is the result. Windssoar through hollow mountains, collectingatoms of fire and producing volcanic erup-tions.

Last, Lucretius considered magnets andepidemics. The strange power of attractionand repulsion exhibited by magnetic stoneswas due, once again, to the unusual behaviorof atoms. Air is found among atoms in allthings.When the atoms from a magnet stoneemerge outward toward a piece of iron, theair is scattered, creating a vacuum, whichforces the iron to move toward the magnet.Lucretius concluded On the Nature of Things

Lucretius 137

with a description of plague. Some atoms aredestructive to humans and animals.The qual-ity of air varies from place to place; the air ofone country that is healthy to its inhabitants isdangerous to the foreigner. Unfortunately,one does not have to travel to a foreign coun-try to be infected by the plague-ridden atomsof dangerous air. Air masses move about theworld; some arrive in neighborhoods fromdistant places carrying their dangerousatomic cargo.Thus epidemics and plagues re-sult.

The concluding pages of Lucretius’s On theNature of Things provides a brutally real de-scription of plague—the suffering, torture,horror, fear, and death. Strangely, this was afit conclusion to the book.The Epicurean phi-losophy had little room for happiness, salva-tion, grace, and redemption. Life is slowdeath. Pain is ubiquitous. The universe ismorally and emotionally dead, an anonymousand unfeeling force. One must have low ex-pectations, seek the path of least resistance,avoid pain, accept the few and simple plea-sures life has to offer. Death cannot beavoided, nor must it be feared. Death bringsannihilation—a lack of knowing, an end offeeling, which, in Lucretius’s world, is not al-together bad.

See also Atoms; Epicureanism; Epicurus; RomanPrincipate; Stoicism

ReferencesLucretius. The Nature of the Universe. Translated by

R. E. Latham. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1951.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

LyceumThe Lyceum was founded by Aristotle afterhis return to Athens in 334 BCE. UponPlato’s death in 347, Speusippus, rather thanAristotle, took over as head of Plato’s school,

the Academy; Aristotle left Athens and wentto the small kingdom in the Troad ruled byHermias, a former student at the Academy.There the philosopher stayed, marrying theking’s niece, until King Philip of Macedon, anold acquaintance, invited the philosopher tobe tutor to the prince Alexander. AfterAlexander’s accession to power and invasionof the Persian Empire, Aristotle returned toAthens, where he established his own school,the Lyceum, its curricula and methodologycontrasting to the Academy.The Lyceum wasnamed for a grove in Athens sacred to Apollo.

The Lyceum was famous for its Peripateticapproach to teaching: Aristotle enjoyedstrolling about the groves of the park, dis-coursing to his students—rather like Socratesdid a century before, and Aristotle himselfdid with Alexander and other select studentsat Macedon ten years before. Aristotle alsogave public lectures of his philosophy and sci-ence, which were taken down by students andeventually published in a similar format.

Upon the death of Alexander in 323, Aris-totle retired from the Lyceum, and his stu-dent Theophrastus took over leadership of theschool.Theophrastus was a polymath like histeacher and the organizer (perhaps) of Aris-totle’s papers.Theophrastus himself taught inthe Peripatetic fashion, and his students tookdown his lectures and had them published.The garden of the Lyceum was not onlywhere Theophrastus experimented with hisfloral studies, but also where he was buried,just as his teacher Aristotle had been.

See also Academy; Aristotle; Athens; GreekClassical Age; Peripatetic School;Theophrastus

ReferenceWheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle. New

York: Odyssey Press, 1951.

138 Lyceum

MagiThe Magi were the wise men, identified inthe New Testament book of Matthew, whofollowed an eastern star from Anatolia to Ju-daea where they found the Christ child lyingin a manger beneath it. Mediterranean writ-ers who wrote extensively on the magi, suchas Hermippus, Eudemius, Xanthus, andTheopompus, typically identified them asfollowers of Zoroaster, the Persian mysticwho explained the world according to aneternal battle between Good (Ahura Mazda)and Evil (Ahriman). For Zoroastrians, aswell as for the magi, astrology was ex-tremely important, for by identifying thestars and knowing their movements, evenpredicting their movements, one mightknow, predict, the future. According to Di-ogenes Laertius, the magi believed that theyhad the ability to pull shapes from the air,hence to see what others cannot. The histo-rian Dinon claimed that Zoroaster meansliterally “star worshipper,” which fits theworldview of the astrologer and the magi-cian. Matthew 2:10–11 describes how theMagi followed the star until it stopped overa house in Bethlehem, wherein was the new-born Jesus—the Magi brought gifts andworshipped him whom they associated withthe star. Some Asian goddesses, such as As-

tarte and Ishtar, were identified with astralphenomena—one wonders whether or notthe Magi stopped to worship the VirginMary as well. Other Mediterranean writersassociated magi with Chaldeans, who wereastrologers and soothsayers of Babylon, andgymnosophists, who were the wise men ofIndia. Clearchus of Soli, according to Diog-enes Laertius, claimed that gymnosophistswere latter-day magi.

Pliny the Elder, who could be very super-stitious, nevertheless condemned the magifor ridiculous magical tricks and fantasies.He believed that the magi, and their leaderZoroaster, originated the use of magic inAsia, from which it spread to Greece. Themagi employed their dark arts in reputedhealings, poisonings, and fortune-telling.Pliny recalled a magus he had once known,who claimed that a certain herb (cyno-cephalia) was useful to prevent black magicfrom being employed against oneself, but ifone pulled it from the ground, roots and all,it was lethal. Pliny, nevertheless, did notdoubt that the magi knew the use of magic.To block their spells he advised the use ofasbestos.

The magi most likely were religious lead-ers under the Achaeminian dynasty of Persiankings initiated by Cyrus in the sixth century

M

139

BCE. Zoroaster himself might date from thistime. Some scholars believe that Zoroasterwas a Mede, and that the magi as a wholewere derived from a Median caste of religiousleaders.

See also Babylon; Diogenes Laertius; Magic;Mesopotamia; New Testament

ReferencesGhirshman, R. Iran: From the Earliest Times to the

Islamic Conquest. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1954.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1993.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and NewTestaments. New York: American Bible Society,1865.

MagicMagic was widely used in the ancient worldas a means of manipulating or bringing aboutforces of nature. Magic involved astrology,soothsaying, the reliance upon omens, sacri-fice, spells, and incantations. Magic is a wordderived by the Greeks from the class of holyand wise men of Persia and the East, themagi, and their founder Zoroaster. DiogenesLaertius, the author of Lives of the Philosophers,claimed that Zoroaster was the first magi-cian. The Roman scientist Pliny likewiseblamed magic on the magi, specificallyZoroaster. Pliny condemned magic (and themagi) not because it was false, but because itwas wrong and sometimes led people to be-lieve in nonsensical potions and spells. Plinyindicated that a Persian who accompaniedXerxes on his expedition against the Greeksin 480 BCE, Othanes, wrote a book on magicthat had a profound impact on the Greeks.

Magic, of course, developed in Paleolithicand Neolithic times when ancient humanssought to feel the spiritual forces inherent innature and to encourage their presence andtheir benevolence. The shaman in primitivesocieties is the religious leader who practiceshis magical arts to bring about the good har-vest, the successful hunt, the safety of thetribe, and the healing of the sick. Theshaman’s work is protoscientific, as is magicitself. Hence, in ancient civilized societies,such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, soothsayersand diviners had the important role of divin-ing what fate had in store for a person or thecommunity at large. There was much empa-thy in this science—feeling what naturemight bring, hoping to see a sign, observingnature, and practicing sacrifice to discoverwhat the predetermined future held.

Magic was often associated with influenc-ing the divine in respect to the afterlife.Egypt, the first society to develop a clearsense of a blessed afterlife, often relied onmagical incantations (as prescribed in theEgyptian Book of the Dead) to influence thejudge Osiris by altering the weight of theheart, making it lighter and not weighed

140 Magic

Portrait of the Magi worshipping the Christ child bysixteenth-century Renaissance artist Quentin Massys. NewYork Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Kathleen Cohen)

down with sin. Soothsayers and diviners wereespecially prevalent throughout the ancientworld and in ancient literature. The Iliad be-gins with the advice of the diviner skilled inreading the hidden message of fate inherentin the flight of birds. According to Plutarch,Roman diviners used a staff called a lituus tomark the sky conceptually for ease in watch-ing the flight of birds.The gods spoke as wellthrough the organs of sacrificial animals, par-ticularly the livers of goats or bulls. Thesoothsayer was an expert at reading what theliver had to tell a people. Many ancient lead-ers, warriors, and kings had their mindschanged and their actions altered by the shapeof a liver.

The Chaldeans, the wise men of ancientBabylon, were infamous practitioners ofmagic who grew legendary among ancienthistorians and commentators. They wereknown to be experts at foretelling the futurebecause of their expertise in astrology. Theywere practitioners of medicine and wereoften identified as physicians in early lawcodes. The Chaldeans and magi are good ex-amples of the close association of magic andscience in the ancient world.

See also Astronomy; Babylon; Magi; PaganismReferencesCassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New Haven:Yale

University Press, 1944.Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. New

York: Dover Books, 1969.

Magna GraeciaMagna Graecia, “Greater Greece,” was a re-gion in southern Italy settled by Greekcolonists in the eighth and seventh centuriesBCE.This area of the foot of Italy, along withneighboring Greek states across the Strait ofMessina in Sicily, became the leading centerof scientific culture in the western Mediter-ranean during the first millennium BCE.Acragas and Syracuse in Sicily and Thourioi,Croton, Elea, and Tarentum in Italy werecities founded originally as colonies ofthe more established Greek city-states of

Corinth, Athens, and Rhodes. Magna Graeciawas the home of some of the greatest philoso-phers and scientists of the ancient world,such as Pythagoras of Croton, Empedocles ofAcragas, Parmenides of Elea, and Herodotusof Thourioi.

Diogenes Laertius, the Late Roman biog-rapher of philosophers and scientists, distin-guished between the Italian school ofPythagoras, Xenophanes, and Democritusand the Ionian school of Thales, Anaximan-der, and Anaximenes. Not everyone in theItalian school lived in Italy. Diogenes used ageographic convenience to separate thephilosophers of “becoming” from the philoso-phers of “being.” The founder of the Italianschool, Pythagoras, was more of a thinkerwho focused on “being”; yet it was from hishome in Croton that Pythagoras founded aschool of thought that would produce manyof the greatest philosophers of the ancientworld, most of whom focused on “becom-ing,” change and movement, rather than“being,” which is the stable and transcendentcounter to change.

Alcmaeon was a student of Pythagorasfrom Croton in southern Italy. He was athorough Pythagorean in thought and incli-nation, a physician, and an astronomer.Other natives of Croton who werePythagoreans included Hippo and Philolaus.Another of Pythagoras’s disciples was Em-pedocles, from Acragas in southern Sicily.Empedocles, like most Pythagoreans, was in-terested in Orphism (a mystery religion ded-icated to the cult of Orpheus). Empedocleswrote on natural phenomena, biology, andmedicine. Acragans were also devoted to theworship of Asclepius, and we can assume thesame for Empedocles.Thurii (Thourioi) wasanother important town of Magna Graecia.An Athenian colony, Thurii claimed to be atown where Pythagoras had lived at onepoint in his life. Perhaps this explains whyThurii had a school of seers. Hippodamus,the Ionian city designer from Miletus, wassaid to have designed Thurii. Thurii was alsothe place where the great historian and

Magna Graecia 141

geographer Herodotus rested after his longlife of travel.Timaeus, a philosopher of Locriin southern Italy, was a Pythagorean, mathe-matician, and astronomer and a central char-acter in Plato’s book of the same name. An-other town in Magna Graecia, Elea, becamehome to the Eleatic school of philosophers,the most famous of whom were Parmenidesand Zeno.

See also Alcmaeon; Diogenes Laertius; EleaticSchool; Empedocles; Hippo of Croton;Philolaus; Pythagoras

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Freeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. New York:

W.W. Norton, 1950.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Marine ScienceThe mysteries of seas and oceans intriguedancient humans, even as they tried to pene-trate the vastness of the earth’s waters andconquer their intuitive fear of what lay hid-den beneath the “wine dark sea.” The He-brews believed that God formed the watersof the deep stocked with sea creatures andmonsters during the first three days of cre-ation. Noah became the first shipbuilder andnavigator when called upon by God to buildan ark—one of fantastic dimensions to with-stand the forty days and nights of rain that re-sulted in the inundation of the earth and thedeath of all animals and humans except thoseon the ark. Gilgamesh found the key to age-less youth on the ocean floor after visiting theSumerian Noah, Upnashitim. Homer placedHades in the river Ocean west of the Pillarsof Heracles, the Strait of Gibraltar. Odysseuswas driven by the angry god of the sea, Po-seidon, all around the mysterious Mediter-ranean.The sea came closest to defeating themost resourceful man in Homer’s poems.TheGreeks were so certain that the ocean was aplace of mystery—like the dark forests andthe high mountains—that they populated it

with countless Nereides, maidens of the sea,as well as varied sea monsters—such asCharybdis, the whirlpool that engulfed manyof Odysseus’s men, and the clashing rocksthat met Jason’s Argo.

The modern student looks mostly in vainfor the beginnings of oceanography in the an-cient world. The mysteries of the ocean re-mained mostly mysteries, the stuff of fantasyand legend. Among the Greeks there were afew thinkers who tried to move from fantasyto fact regarding the ocean. Thales thoughtthat water was the basic element of all things.His student Anaximander went further, de-claring that humans evolved from the sea.Thethird-century CE Roman writer Censorinusdeclared that Anaximander thought that hu-mans derived from fish. Plutarch wrote thatsome Greeks revered Poseidon because theybelieved that humans originally came fromthe sea. Xenophanes argued that the oceansproduced meteorological events such as thewind and rain. He recognized fossils of seacreatures for what they were and speculatedon the inundation of the earth that had oc-curred in the past and would occur again todestroy humankind.

The science of navigation was primitive inthe ancient world. Even the best Phoenicianand Greek navigators hugged the coasts, ven-turing out into the open sea only on starlitnights and clear days when they could use Po-laris, the Pleiades, Sirius, and constellationsor the position of the sun to indicate latitude.

By and large, ancient marine science wasfocused on navigation and shipbuilding. Theearliest boats were primitive rafts and canoesmade of reeds, wood, and skin. EarlyMesopotamians fashioned coracles from skinstretched over wooden frames. Canoes weremade of dugout trunks and buoyant bark.ThePolynesians rigged canoes with sails to ex-plore the South Pacific. Ancient Incas ofSouth America, according to Thor Heyerdahl,built balsa rafts that allowed them to sail westto Easter Island, Micronesia, and Polynesia.

Larger ships were made from the acaciatree and papyrus reeds.The Ark, according to

142 Marine Science

the book of Genesis, was made of these ma-terials, as were Egyptian boats. Herodotusdescribed boats of the Nile as made of acaciawood cut into planks for the hull and decking.No ribs were used, which made the boatsuseful only for river navigation. The Egyp-tians used the papyrus plant to caulk the shipsand to make sails. Rather than building theship first by laying the keel and joining ribs toit, Mesopotamian and Egyptian shipbuildersfashioned the hull of the ship to the keel with-out ribs, using mortise-and-tenon joints tojoin planks to keel. Papyrus rope boundthrough mortises helped provide stabilityotherwise provided by the ribs of the ship.Because of this shell mode of construction,such ships were hardly seaworthy, and ancientMesopotamian and Egyptian shipbuilders de-vised a method of constructing seaworthyships from papyrus reeds. Thor Heyerdahl,the foremost archeologist and historian of theancient reed ship, has described (1980) thestrong possibility of ancient reed ships beingable to navigate the Mediterranean, Red, andArabian seas, and perhaps others as well.Shipbuilders set two massive bundles of reedsside by side, then roped them together, usingpapyrus rope as well to make a crescent de-sign by hoisting the bow and stern, fore andaft. A single wooden mast with a papyrus sailpropelled the ship. Heyerdahl discovered thatpapyrus bundles swell in seawater, becomingincredibly buoyant and airtight.

Phoenician and Greek shipbuilders ad-vanced merchant and warship constructionby basing the construction of the ship on akeel and rib design. Apollonius of Rhodes,who described the Argo, claimed that the ship-builders bound a strong rope about the sidesto provide additional holding power to theplanks to withstand being battered by theswells of the sea.The single mast was securedin a mast-box and pulled taut by ropes se-cured fore and aft. Greek and Phoenicianships relied heavily on rowers—the Phoeni-cians developed the two-row system of oars,the bireme; the Greeks added a third row, thetrireme.According to Herodotus, Phoenician

ships were sufficiently seaworthy to circum-navigate Africa, negotiating the strong windsand currents off the Cape of Good Hope andthe Horn of Africa. Roman merchant vesselswere even more seaworthy. Roman ship-builders constructed their boats with deeperdrafts, though they still were heavily relianton oars to complement the single mast andsail.

See also Anaximander of Miletus; Apollonius ofPerga; Phoenicians, Xenophanes of Colophon

ReferencesApollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo. Translated

by E.V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1971.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Bass, George F. “Sea and River Craft in theAncient Near East.”Vol. 3, in Civilizations of theAncient Near East. 4 vols., ed. Jack Sasson et al.New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995.

Casson, Lionel. Ships and Seamanship in the AncientWorld. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1971.

Marine Science 143

Phoenician trading ship of the first century CE. (GianniDagli Orti/Corbis)

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Heyerdahl,Thor. Early Man and the Ocean:A Searchfor the Beginning of Navigation and SeaborneCivilizations. New York:Vintage Books, 1980.

“Ship.” Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 20 (1962).

MathematicsMathematics as an activity of abstract sciencebegan with the early human fascination fornumber, and not only as the amount of items,but number as an abstract concept as well.The ancients conceived of one, a singularity,the whole of all things; two, a dualism, thecounterpart of one thing with another, suchas good and evil; three, the additional sub-stance or idea that includes what is not eitherthe one or the other, but in between, a third.Ancient mathematicians also arrived at theconcept of place value (of tens, hundreds,thousands, et cetera) in denoting numbers.

AsiaBabylonian mathematicians developed manyof the initial ideas and techniques that wouldcharacterize Greek mathematics of the firstcentury BCE. Babylonian mathematics,clearly meant for practical rather than merelytheoretical purposes, included algebra andsimple geometry. They developed quadraticequations and solutions to geometric prob-lems such as the Pythagorean theorem (longbefore Pythagoras).They worked with coeffi-cients, squares, cubes, and the radii of circles.They were the first to use zero (ca. 400 BCE)as a place-value notation, and the first to di-vide the circle into 360 degrees. Egyptianmathematicians were not as sophisticated astheir Babylonian counterparts. Egyptiansused basic arithmetic and fractions largely forpractical purposes. The Egyptians did, how-ever, approximate the value of pi (π), theratio of the circumference of a circle to its di-ameter. Chinese mathematicians, in the firstfew centuries of the common era (Liu Hui inthe third century CE), gained an approximate

knowledge of π. Later mathematicians suchas Archimedes, Vitruvius, and Ptolemy en-gaged in more intricate studies of π. Somescholars believe that Chinese mathematiciansdeveloped an independent knowledge of thePythagorean theorem. During the first mil-lennium BCE, the use of counting boards anda decimal system developed in China.

The Greeks Greeks journeying to Iraq in the wake ofAlexander’s conquests came into contactwith Babylonian mathematicians. Theyadopted the use of zero as a place notationfrom Babylonians, although the Greeks werethe first to use the sign 0, the Babylonianshaving only a cuneiform symbol. Hellenisticmathematicians discovered irrational num-bers and geometric algebra. Greeks com-bined Babylonian quadratic equations with ir-rational numbers to form, in OttoNeugebauer’s (1957) words, a geometry ofalgebra.

Hellenistic mathematicians made some ofthe great discoveries in mathematics. Conicsections, discovered at the beginning of theHellenistic Age, were studied using algebraby Apollonius in the third century BCE. Eu-demus of Rhodes (350–290 BCE), a studentof Aristotle who opened an Aristotelianschool at Rhodes, wrote a history of mathe-matics and treatises on arithmetic, astrology,geometry, physics, and angles. Another Rho-dian, Geminus, who was heavily influencedby Posidonius’s work at Rhodes, wrote a his-tory of mathematics and treatises on geome-try and arithmetic. Hypsicles of Alexandria,who was a mathematician and astronomer ofthe second century CE, wrote in the wake ofEuclid a book On Polyhedrons. Menelaus, alsoof Alexandria, in the late first century CE,used trigonometry and geometry in astron-omy and to make detailed studies of thesphere. According to the historian of mathe-matics Reviel Netz, Greek mathematics usedvery esoteric yet not symbolic language toexpress mathematical concepts.

144 Mathematics

See also Apollonius of Perga; Asia, East andSouth; Egypt; Euclid; Hellenism; Hypatia ofAlexandria; Mesopotamia

ReferencesHeath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Netz, Reviel. The Shaping of Deduction in Greek

Mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2003.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. History ofMathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html (website of School of Mathematics andStatistics, University of St. Andrew’sScotland).

Maximus of Ephesus (floruit fourthcentury CE)Maximus is a good example of the degenera-tion of Greco-Roman thought during thefourth century CE. He was a native of Eph-esus in western Turkey and a follower of theNeoplatonist Plotinus and his discipleIamblichus. Plotinus’s esoteric and metaphys-ical Neoplatonic thought had been watereddown a century after his death to become theprovince of magicians and astrologers. Oneof these was Maximus, who used magic anddivination and the formulaic incantations ofthe Chaldaean Oracles to convince the gullibleof his power and influence over nature andthe gods. Maximus’s most famous pupil wasthe emperor Julian the Apostate, who ruledRome from 361–363 CE.

With the decline of civilization in theRoman Empire after 200 CE, there was verylittle good philosophy and even less good sci-ence.Yet men still yearned to observe natureand exercise power over their environment.Unwilling or unable to engage in clear obser-vation of natural phenomena and engage insystematic ordering of data, intellectuals ofthe third and fourth centuries turned to pseu-doscience, superstition, and the fabulous andremarkable. Julian, the nephew of the em-peror Constantine, was a studious and intelli-

gent sort who studied Neoplatonism and Sto-icism. He became friends with clearheadedthinkers such as Themistius the philosopherand Libanius the orator. But something in Ju-lian, something about his culture, demandedmore than the simple tasks of contemplationand recording of observations.

When Constantine’s son Constantius cameto power upon his father’s death in 337, heand his supporters eliminated rivals to hispower, including Julian’s family. Julian him-self was spared because of his youth—but hewas kept under a sort of house arrest. He re-jected the Christian teachings of his tutors bythe time he was in his teens and sought tostudy under the great philosophers and scien-tists of the Greeks. Constantius allowed this,seeing nothing harmful in Julian’s search forlearning. Julian eventually attached himself toa group of Sophists who were disciples of theaged philosopher Aidesios. Julian studiedunder one of these men, Eusebius, who was amiracle-worker. One anecdote, described bythe biographer Eunapius, has Eusebius criti-cizing Maximus of Ephesus for his tricks thatastonished his observers: he could make thestatue of the goddess Hekate smile, and thetorches that she held, as well as the hair onher head, would burst into flames at the com-mands of Maximus. Julian, rather than beingincited against Maximus for his theatrics, de-clared that he wanted to become Maximus’sdisciple.

Maximus taught a corrupt form of Neo-platonism. The philosophy of Plotinus fo-cused on the unity of all reality in the One,which was too great for human observationor comprehension. Hence Neoplatonists suchas Plotinus taught that there were sometimesvisible manifestations of the One. Julian wasa worshipper of the god Helios, the sun, be-lieved to be a visible representative of the onetruth. Maximus taught that the Greek god-dess Hekate was a manifestation of the greatmother of nature, the warmth and love of theOne. Maximus was a theurgist—part theolo-gian, part philosopher, part charlatan, and

Maximus of Ephesus 145

part magician. Perhaps he believed that hismagic was the go-between between humansand the divine. Other scientists of the past andpresent have believed as much. He and histime of the fourth century CE are good ex-amples of an era when magic was consideredscience, and science was thought to be magic.

See also Julian; Later Roman Empire; Magic;Neoplatonism

ReferencesBowersock, G.W. Julian the Apostate. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1978.Browning, Robert. The Emperor Julian. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1976.Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

MedicineThe most significant figure in the history ofmedicine was Hippocrates, a Greek of thefifth century BCE who gathered about him aschool of thought that detached the study ofthe human body and disease from thephilosophers, astrologers, magicians, andpriests. The history of the Mesopotamiansand Egyptians includes little evidence that thepeoples of the ancient Near East developedthe science of medicine much beyond thepractices and precepts of their precivilized,Neolithic ancestors. The ancient Sumeriansdid have a materia medica (pharmaceuticalknowledge) of basic salves and analgesics forinjuries and pain, but they probably did notdevelop the sophisticated observation and di-agnosis of disease. The Babylonians of Ham-murapi’s time had surgeons and physicianswho could drain tumors, set broken bones,and assist in the healing of other injuries.Likewise Egyptian dentists and physicianscould pull teeth, deliver babies, set bones,and prescribe medicine for healing. Theirknowledge of anatomy and physiology wasrudimentary, though there are records ofphysicians examining patients and making di-agnoses. The Egyptians had an extensive ma-teria medica; the most able physicians wereknowledgeable about botany. In Egypt, as

elsewhere in the ancient Near East, religiousconcerns and rituals came before the practiceof medicine.

The Semitic Hebrews of the easternMediterranean were generally suspicious ofhealers who advocated cures divorced fromthe healing power of God (Yahweh).The OldTestament mentions a materia medica that in-cluded balsam for wounds and mandrake forinfertility. However, healing was entirely upto God and his prophets. For example, in thesecond book of Kings of the Old Testament,the prophet Elisha heals the Aramaean Naa-man through the agency of God, so as toshow the power of God. The Temple inJerusalem was a place where the sick couldgo for divine healing, though at the time ofJesus of Nazareth, the sick, who were consid-ered unclean by the Pharisees, were re-stricted from the Temple.The Old Testamentand the New Testament identify mental ill-nesses as caused by demons.The most preva-lent physical illness was leprosy, which wasloosely used by Hebrew and Christian writ-ers alike to mean a variety of illnesses, chieflyof the skin.The New Testament, like the OldTestament, rarely discusses physicians andmedical practice, the few exceptions being totreat them with suspicion.

Greek MedicineThe Greeks of the first millennium BCE had,like their predecessors of the Near East, a su-perstitious approach to healing.Asclepius wasthe Greek god of healing. Priests of Asclepiuspracticed his healing arts; the sick slept in thegod’s temples to be visited by Asclepius dur-ing the night so that they could greet themorning free of illness. Homer’s Iliad men-tions two sons of Asclepius who were activein healing wounded warriors. Indeed Hip-pocrates was an Asclepiad, a member of aclan or order of physicians that served thegod on the island of Cos in the Aegean Sea.The first Greek physician who put aside su-perstition to approach medicine in realistic, ifphilosophical, terms was Alcmaeon of Crotonin Italy.Alcmaeon was a Pythagorean who de-

146 Medicine

veloped theories on the nature of disease.Whether or not he was a practicing physicianis not clear. Empedocles also had a reputationas a physician, though he was more the seerthan the healer. The Asclepiads of Cos alsopreceded Hippocrates in practicing medicine.How distinct was the “father of medicine”from his fellow Asclepiads is not clear, nor isit certain what of the Hippocratic Corpus camefrom his pen as opposed to others of his asso-ciation.

Nevertheless, by 400 BCE there existed abody of medical writings that modern schol-ars consider to be by Hippocrates or from theHippocratic school of thought. These variedworks, called the Hippocratic Corpus, pro-pound the theory of the four humors, discussthe impact of the environment on disease andhealth, prescribe remedies for disease, anddescribe varied diseases using specific casestudies. The Hippocratic approach assumedthat the body had a precise balance and thatdisease reflected an imbalance. Let naturealone, Hippocrates advised, and let diseaserun its course.The physician sought evidencethat one of the four humors—blood, phlegm,black bile, yellow bile—was dominant in thesystem. The job of the physician was prima-rily to diagnose the illness and to observe theprogress of the patient as the disease took itscourse, reached a crisis, and then culminatedin death or recovery. Near contemporaries ofHippocrates had different approaches tomedicine. Petron believed that disease de-rived from improper diet. Hippon thoughtmoisture was the key to health. Philolaus de-termined that there were three rather thanfour humors—bile, blood, phlegm. Thrasy-machus focused on an excess of heat or cold.Menerates sought a balance of blood, bile,phlegm, and breath. Largely because of theinfluence of Hippocrates, the physician be-came less of an itinerant healer and more astable member of a community. Some city-states employed physicians for healing thepoor. Women physicians specializing inwomen’s health became more prevalent aswell.

During the Hellenistic Age Alexandriadominated medical studies chiefly because ofthe work of Herophilus of Chalcedon andErasistratus of Ceos, both of whom wereconcerned with discovering the precisestructure and function of the organs and cir-culatory system. They engaged in empiricalstudy and dissection, discovering muchabout the brain and nervous system, theeyes, stomach, liver, reproductive systems,blood, and heart. The kings of Egypt, thePtolemies, supported Herophilus and hisstudents by giving them the corpses of con-demned criminals to dissect and study. Un-like Herophilus, Erasistratus rejected Hippo-cratic theories and focused on diagnosisinstead of the prevention of illness. Otherimportant Hellenistic scientists were the fe-male physician Aspasia of Athens and Philis-tion of Locri, who argued that the soul is lo-cated in the heart. Theophrastus, Aristotle’ssuccessor at the Lyceum, wrote an extensivestudy of plants, including some of their me-dicinal properties.

Roman MedicineAsclepiades in the first century BCE and Cel-sus in the first century CE were the leadingRoman physicians before Galen. The Epi-curean Asclepiades believed that physicalhealth and disease were the product of themovement and combinations of invisibleatoms; his was a “mechanistic” view of medi-cine. He was nevertheless tireless in treatingmalarial patients, the mentally disturbed, andthose with arthritic complaints. Celsus, onthe other hand, was a polymath who wroteon medicine, a compendium of Hippocraticteachings and Greek medical techniques andterminology. By the beginning of the secondcentury CE, Roman medicine, based onGreek models, particularly Hippocrates, be-came specialized into varying fields of ex-pertise: gynecology, urology, ophthalmology,surgery, dentistry.Women physicians special-ized in obstetrics and herbal medicine, in-cluding a variety of herbs used in birth con-trol and abortion.

Medicine 147

Galen of Pergamum was a follower of Hip-pocrates, yet his originality and medical ex-pertise made him much more than an imita-tor. Galen was physician to gladiators as wellas to emperors over the course of his longlife. He believed in the unity of the living or-ganism, in the wonderful creativity of nature(techne) in forming the human, and in thevital principle (pneuma) that is the spiritualcenter of the human being. Galen summa-rized his thought in On the Natural Faculties, inwhich he attacked his opponents past andpresent and discussed his theories of the op-eration of the kidneys in producing urine,the role of the liver in storing food, and theaction of the veins in the flow of blood.Building on the theories of Hippocrates,Galen’s forceful approach to medicine had anoverwhelming impact on subsequent cen-turies until the dawn of modern medical sci-ence after 1500 CE. During the Later RomanEmpire, Galen’s followers, such as Oribasius,recorded the master’s teachings in books suchas the Synopsis, which allowed the continuedstudy of Galen’s theories and observations inthe Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine Em-pire, and among Arab scholars of the MiddleAges. Another Roman writer of medicinewho had a significant impact on Medieval Eu-rope was the polymath Pliny the Elder, whoseNatural History provided a compendium ofmedical tidbits, information on materia med-ica, and a discussion of magic and medicine.

See also Alexandria; Asclepiades; Celsus;Erasistratus; Galen; Greek Archaic Age; GreekClassical Age; Hellenism; Herophilus ofChalcedon; Hippocrates; Later RomanEmpire; Oribasius; Pliny the Elder; RomanPrincipate;Women and Science

ReferencesDurant,Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1944._____. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1939.Erman, Adolf. Life in Ancient Egypt. Translated by

H. M.Tirard. New York: Dover Books, 1894.Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J.

Brock. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1916.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Jones,W. H. S., trans. Hippocrates. Vol. 1.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Thatcher, Oliver J., ed. The Library of OriginalSources. Vol. 3, The Roman World, pp. 286–292.Milwaukee: University Research Extension,1907.

Melissus of SamosSee Eleatic School

Mesopotamia (3500–550 BCE) Neolithic AgeArcheologists tell us that the first towns ap-peared in the Near East perhaps ten thousandyears ago in what is known as the fertile cres-cent. Jericho, near the Dead Sea, and CatalHuyuk, in eastern Anatolia, were smallwalled communities with ordered streets,whose economy depended upon agriculture.Such Neolithic villages ensured much morestability for the inhabitants than the previoushunting and gathering way of life. Slowly,with hard work and an accommodating cli-mate, agricultural surplus led to populationincrease and a higher standard of living. Sur-plus meant wealth, some of which was avail-able for trade. Agricultural surplus and tradeyielded a nascent class system: farmers andmerchants, laborers and landowners. As thefew acquired more rights for less work andsuffering, they engaged in intellectual pur-suits: a class of priests emerged who associ-ated the success of the community with a pa-tron (or patroness) deity. As the mediators ofhumans to the gods, the priests achievedtremendous power. This, and the need foran organized system to ensure that fieldswere irrigated, led to government. The de-sire to record laws and the reigns of kings aswell as more mundane administrative andtrade data led to a primitive form of writing,

148 Mesopotamia

cuneiform, used for record-keeping and, intime, to the creation of such heroic epics asthe Epic of Gilgamesh. By the end of the fourthmillennium BCE, the people of the Tigris andEuphrates river valleys had developed thefirst civilization.

CivilizationThe English word civilization derives from theLatin root of the word, civis: “citizen.” A citi-zen implies one who resides in an urban area;hence “civilization” generally refers to a levelof society that includes cities. This is naturalbecause cities are the product of a settled ex-istence, which itself relies on the domestica-tion of agriculture and livestock and the con-sequent trade.

The SumeriansIndeed, the first sophisticated society basedon cities, surplus wealth, and trade—Sumer,in the land of Mesopotamia—is usually con-sidered the first civilization in world history.The scattered city-states of Sumer during thefourth and third millennia BCE were the firstin a great many human accomplishments.Cities such as Ur, Eridu, Kish, Lagash, andNippur had tens of thousands of people attheir peak.They were busy metropolises sur-rounded by thick walls and ramparts; the“Seven Sages” laid the foundations for thewalls of Uruk, according to the Epic of Gil-gamesh. There existed extensive trade, theproduction of crafts, specialization of labor,and a multilayered social structure. The gov-ernment was as organized as the economy;priests served as conduits for divine instruc-tions from patron deities; scribes recordedthe decisions of gods and men.Writing, cre-ated to account for surplus wealth and trade,developed into an expression of humanhopes, fears, and aspirations. Once humanshad gained the capacity to guarantee a surplusof food year after year—to gain greater con-trol over life and ensure survival—they werefree to speculate on human existence and themysteries of nature.

GilgameshWorks such as the Epic of Gilgamesh reveal thegrowing awareness of humans detached fromnature and an emerging sense of confidencethat humans can explain natural phenomena.Sumerian literature not only conceptualizesthe forces of nature with a set and identifiablepantheon of gods and goddesses but also ele-vates the stature of humans to semidivine sta-tus; hence Gilgamesh was two-thirds divineand one-third human, although fully mortalin regard to death. The gods themselves hadhuman traits, which shows that the Sumerianswere sufficiently confident to bring natureand the divine down to a human level (sincethe reverse was impossible). Rather than hu-mans being a small insignificant part of thecosmos, human concerns gauged the signifi-cance of the cosmos. Gilgamesh, who trav-eled to the ends of the earth seeking the se-cret of eternal life and to join the gods, failedbut became wise in failure. He realized that ifhe could not be like the gods, then he shouldbe gloriously human and build great citiesand accomplish great things and even spurnthe gods if need be.

Yet the Epic of Gilgamesh revealed the beliefthat an anonymous, mysterious fate spun thefabric of life. Each person had a destiny, butall that one could understand of life and na-ture came from vague, sporadic hints pro-vided by the gods or were inherent in theorder of things. Fate bound the gods them-selves, who had more knowledge than hu-mans about the fated course of existence butjust as little power to alter them. Humansmight cajole or persuade the gods to act ontheir behalf in various matters; but once anevent was fated, nothing could change it.

FateNot surprisingly, then, the Mesopotamiansand other peoples of the ancient Near Eastlooked at the divine and the universe with as-tonishment and fear—if piety was a result sotoo was curiosity and the quest to know.Clues for the inquiring Sumerians were

Mesopotamia 149

found in the apparent operation of naturalphenomena. Fate had its own inherent innerlaws that captivated and puzzled humans.There is nothing a scientist likes better than apuzzle. Fate seemed less bewildering oncethe Sumerians realized that nature providedhints of future events. The gods, too, knewthe future even if they could not change it. Agoal of religious rites was to appeal to thegods for direction as to the course of futureevents. The first scientists—soothsayers, di-viners, astrologers, prognosticators, and asHomer wrote, those “skilled in the flight ofbirds”—examined natural phenomena look-ing for clues as to the way of things.The taskof Sumerian and Babylonian astrologers wasto scan the sky, studying at night the cycles ofthe moon and the movements of planets andduring the day the constantly changing posi-tion of the sun, searching for omens to indi-cate the future of nature and man. Thunder-storms, earthquakes, floods, drought,pestilence, war, sudden death, the randomoccurrence, and the slip of the tongue all helda hidden meaning for prophets and seers.

The First ScientistsThe worldview of the astrologist and sooth-sayer, that by observing nature one can pre-pare for what is to come, is not very differentfrom the worldview of the scientist, that byobserving nature one can understand naturalphenomena, which allows one to be betterprepared for what is to come. The ancientSumerians of the Tigris and Euphrates rivervalleys were the first scientists in world his-tory because they were the first to take thisintellectual leap from the superstitious to thescientific worldview. The earliest accounts ofscience were necessarily attached to mythicalstories. One story identifies a gardenernamed Shukallituda whose crops were re-peatedly destroyed by heat and wind. Heprayed to heaven for help. Receiving help inthe form of a new idea, he determined toplant his garden under shade trees. The ideaworked—the shade helped the vegetablessurvive in the hot climate. Shukallituda iden-

tified a problem, conceived of a hypotheticalsolution, tested it, and achieved a desirableresult that could be repeated again elsewhere.Other clay cuneiform documents that survivefrom Iraq indicate that, four thousand yearsago, Sumerian farmers had an empirical ap-proach to farming and used almanacs torecord data and give advice. The BabylonianCode of Hammurapi indicates the use inMesopotamia of the shaduf for irrigation.

MedicineThe Sumerians of the third millennium BCEalso collected herbs and substances thoughtto aid in the healing of the body, and at onepoint a physician recorded this data on a claytablet.The tablet describes what medicine totake for what illness. It does not record re-sults, and is more a manual than a text of clin-ical observations.The physician used salt andsodium nitrate and the oils of plants and teasmade from boiling herbs such as myrtle andthyme. Some medicines were salves used ex-ternally. Others were taken internally,washed down with beer. This feat of prepar-ing a materia medica was notable in that nomagical spells or incantations reinforced theuse of medicine.The physician’s scientific ap-proach used various materials to achieve aphysical result, the healing of the humanbody.

SignificanceThe Mesopotamians made some notable dis-coveries in the hard sciences and mathematics.Sumerian chemists discovered a technique tosmelt copper and tin to produce bronze,which revolutionized tool use and warfare.The people of Sumeria also developed a sexa-gesimal system of arithmetic that became thebasis for the earliest mode of keeping dailytime: sixty seconds is one minute, sixty min-utes is one hour.The initial interest in astrol-ogy became a more practical interest in as-tronomy—the Mesopotamians became adeptat tracing the movement of the planets, iden-tifying the constellations of the night sky, andpredicting the phases of the moon.Astronom-

150 Mesopotamia

ical observations led the Babylonians to re-markably accurate lunar calendars.

The ancient Mesopotamians developed thefirst explanations of the origins and make-upof the earth, gods, and humans. These werenot expressed scientifically, but rather asmyths. The Sumerians were the first to buildocean-going vessels and to sail the seas.Theirideas spread to Egypt, India, the Mediter-ranean, and the Aegean. Mesopotamian sci-ence had a clear impact on the developmentof Greek science during the first millennium

BCE. The Mesopotamians anticipated themathematical theorems of Pythagoras andEuclid. Babylonian astronomy and mathemat-ics influenced Thales, the first notable Greekscientist. His notion that the primal elementis water was derived from Sumerians of anearlier millennium. Ancient cultures adoptedthe Mesopotamian system of time-keepingand figuring the yearly calendar. Meso-potamian astronomy and astrology came tobe represented by the Chaldeans and magi ofthe ancient Near East.

Mesopotamia 151

Marble relief plaque of the Babylonian king Hammurapi (1792–1750 BCE). By Thomas H. Jones, early twentieth century.(Library of Congress)

See also Agriculture; Astronomy; Bronze Age;Euclid; Irrigation Techniques; Marine Science;Mathematics; Pythagoras;Thales;Time

ReferencesHallo,William, and William Simpson. The Ancient

Near East. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1971.

Kramer, Samuel Noah. History Begins at Sumer.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,1980.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

Sandars, N. K., trans. Epic of Gilgamesh. London:Penguin Books, 1972.

Sasson, Jack, et al., eds. Civilizations of the AncientNear East. 4 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1995.

Metallurgy See Bronze Age; Iron Age

MeteorologyAncient humans as agrarian peoples wereweather-watchers, concerned about climateand rainfall, when to plant, and when to har-vest. From the beginning of writing inMesopotamia, weather forecasting was partof the creation of the almanac. Myth and su-perstition, of course, formed the bases ofearly meteorology.Ancient peoples personal-ized meteorological phenomena by means ofgods of winds, rain, and thunderstorms. Theanger of storm gods such as Enlil and Zeusseemed the only explanation for the violenceof the sudden thunderstorm.

According to Diogenes Laertius, Egyptianmeteorologists understood the cause of rainto be an atmospheric change.The geographerHerodotus’s notion of the meteorology ofEgypt, which he doubtless got from Egyptianpriests, was extremely primitive: He believedthat the strong African winds blew the sun offcourse along the upper Nile Valley, making itvery dry and affecting the level of the Niledownstream in Egypt.

The climate of the Aegean Sea influencedGreek views of the gods and nature. Boreaswas the source of the prevailing north

winds—the Etesian winds—that blew fromMay to October. The Zephyr, the west windthat blew in like a stampeding horse, was hus-band to the goddess Iris, the rainbow. TheGreek western shores of the Aegean weredrier than the Turkish eastern shores of theAegean; the north Aegean was cooler thanthe south Aegean. The first Greeks to try toexplain meteorological phenomena includedthe Ionians Anaximander, Anaximenes, andAnaxagoras. Anaximander believed that windblowing against clouds caused lightning; thewinds themselves derived from air. Rain-bows, notwithstanding that they are causedby vapor in sunlight, were considered a clearsign of a coming storm.

Anaximander’s student Anaximenes had amore advanced view: He explained hail andsnow as rainwater cooling and solidifying as itfalls to earth and rainbows as caused by sun-light hitting water vapor.Anaxagoras said thatEgyptians and Greeks planted according tothe appearance of the Dog Star, Sirius, in theearly spring.

Herodotus learned from Egyptian prieststhat the weather had a direct connection tohealth and illness. Hippocrates, the greatestGreek physician, agreed, discussing meteorol-ogy and human health in his treatise Airs,Waters,and Places.The winds and climate of a place, theprevalence of heat or cold, the season of theyear—all determined wellness or illness. Forexample, a community that received the hotwinds of the south tended to have inhabitantswith excess phlegm dripping from their si-nuses, men who were weak and fat, womenwho were subject to constant bleeding and di-arrhea, children who suffered from asthma.

Aristotle and his student Theophrastuswrote seminal accounts on meteorology inwhich they ascribed to astronomical phe-nomena the causes of meteorological phe-nomena.The rising of the Pleiades, the phasesof the moon, the appearance of the moonupon rising, and the appearance of the hori-zon upon sunrise and sunset all have an im-pact on, and give warning about, the weather.Theophrastus thought that animal behavior

152 Meteorology

indicated weather changes.The quacking of aduck, the calling of a crow, the preening of ahawk forecast the weather. Flies biting revealthat rain is nigh. High winds accompany a dogrolling about on the ground. Theophrastusagreed with Aristotle (in the Meteorologica)about the eight principle winds observed atAthens.

Plutarch, in his Natural Questions, had manycommon questions about meteorologicalevents, such as what produces thunder andlightning, which he explained according tothe combination of cold and heat. He pon-dered the causes of dew and the differencesbetween sea and fresh water and its impact onplants and animals, including humans andwellness or sickness. Following Homer,Plutarch considered the cold west wind theswifter of the winds. Lightning evaporatessweet, clear water, producing salty scumwhere it strikes the sea.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Anaximanderof Miletus; Anaximenes of Miletus; Aristotle;Herodotus of Halicarnassus; Hippocrates;Ionians; Plutarch;Theophrastus

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de

Selincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Jones,W. H. S., trans. Hippocrates. Vol. 1.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1923.

Plutarch, Moralia, trans. Lionel Pearson and F. H.Sandbach, vol. 11. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1920.

Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants and Minor Works onOdours and Weather Signs. Translated by ArthurHort.Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1916.

MiletusSixth-century BCE Miletus was one of themost dynamic centers of speculative and sci-entific thought in the history of humankind.Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophersidentifies the Ionian school of thought, whichin the sixth century was really the Milesianschool. The first great scientists and philoso-

phers of ancient Greece came from Miletus.These included Thales, Anaximander,Anaximenes, and Hecataeus. Tradition has itthat the original inhabitants of Miletus wereCarians, the natives of Anatolia or Asia Minor(present western Turkey). Invaders fromAthens, however, themselves responding toinvasions of the Dorians farther west, crossedthe Aegean Sea and attacked the Carians ofMiletus.The victorious Athenians establishedMiletus as one of twelve cities of this regioninhabited by the Greeks from eastern Greeceand the Aegean. These twelve Ionian citieswere collectively called Ionia. Ionian Greekcity-states had a reputation throughout theancient world for thought and culture, as op-posed to the Dorian states of westernGreece. Among Ionian city-states, Miletuswas the early leader.

It is perhaps not surprising that theoreticalphysics should have begun at Ionia, which wasa crossroads of east and west. The first no-table Milesian scientist, Thales, learned fromthe Chaldeans of Mesopotamia as well asEgyptian scientists; some sources say that hewas an Egyptian emigrant from Phoenicia inthe eastern Mediterranean. Ionians such asThales combined Babylonian and Egyptianknowledge of astronomy and mathematicswith the Greek speculative habit of question-ing. The Milesians Thales, Anaximander, andAnaximenes were more significant for thequestions that they asked than for the answersthey attempted. All three speculated on theultimate cause in a temporal sense and thelimitless being in the transcendent sense.Each man assumed that an ultimate realitymust exist, but they differed on its nature andsubstance. Thales thought that water formsthe essence; for Anaximander it is the infi-nite; for Anaximenes it is air. Such explana-tions appear simplistic today. But the ques-tions that produce the search for answers arefar from simple. What is the cause of allthings? Whence comes the cause? What is itsnature? Is there existence prior to the cause?Is time limited? Why is there change and howdoes an effect yield a further cause? Are we

Miletus 153

humans brought forth by the cause? If so,how? The questions were unending; so toowere the answers.

Miletus was a natural place for such ques-tioning and answering to occur. Questioningis often a product of uncertainty. Sixth-cen-tury Miletus was a city often at war againstoutsiders such as the Lydians. It was a busyport city situated on the Meander River andthe Gulf of Latmos. Milesian ships traveledabout the Aegean and beyond, particularlynorth through Hellespont and Bosphorus tothe Black (Euxine) Sea. Milesian tradingcolonies dotted the shores of the Black Sea.Miletus was also a restive place domestically,as economic classes fought for control.Tyrants ruled sixth-century Miletus.

About the time of the birth of Thales,Miletus began to mint coins made of elec-trum, which yielded efficient and increasedtrade. The Milesians got the idea from theLydian city of Sardis, located about one hun-dred miles to the northeast.The Lydians wereruled by kings, the most notable being Croe-sus. According to Herodotus, Croesus madeSardis a center of philosophy—exactly how isnot clear. It does not seem unreasonable,however, that Croesus would have employedthe services of Milesian scientists. Croesusrecruited Thales, according to Herodotus; thephilosopher diverted the Halys River so theLydian army could get across during a time ofwar. The Lydians themselves appear to haveproduced few scientists—a notable excep-tion being Xanthus—hence Croesus’s re-liance upon Milesian scientists.

Perhaps it was Miletus’s far-flung tradethat led many townspeople to dream of far-away places. One such Milesian wasHecataeus, a mapmaker, historian, and geog-rapher who traveled the Mediterranean. An-ticipating Herodotus, Hecataeus journeyed tosuch places as Egypt, transmitting his wan-derings to posterity in the Periegesis.Hecataeus was also involved in civic affairs,giving advice to the Milesians about their ex-ternal affairs with the Persian Empire, thedominant force of the region about 500 BCE.

Miletus was just north of Didyma, a shrineto the god Apollo, Apollo Didymaeus. Apollowas the god of healing, wisdom, and learning.The Milesians clearly took to heart the influ-ence of their divine neighbor. One anecdotefrom the life of Thales informs us of the spe-cial relationship of the city with Apollo. Oncefishermen brought up a golden tripod fromthe sea. Not sure what to do with the mirac-ulous treasure, they sent to the oracle at Del-phi to ask Apollo who deserved such trea-sure.Apollo replied that it should be given “tothe wisest.” The fishermen assumed Apollomeant Thales, but Thales modestly disagreed.After going the rounds to all of the SevenSages, the tripod returned to Thales, whowisely sent it to Delphi, for only god “is thewisest.” This story is remarkably similar toPlato’s Apology, in which Apollo calls Socratesthe wisest, an honor that Socrates declinessaying that he knows, on the contrary, that hedoes not know. Thales, in questioning andsearching for answers, was a precursor toSocrates, just as Miletus the sixth-centurycenter of science anticipated Athens, thedominant center of science in the fifth cen-tury BCE.

After the glory days of the sixth century,Miletus boasted few scientists. Exceptions in-cluded Hippodamus, an urban planner andearly political scientist who redesigned theAthenian port city of Piraeus as well as plan-ning the structure of the Athenian colony ofThourioi (Thurii) in southern Italy. Anotherfamous Athenian who hailed from Miletus wasAspasia, the consort of Pericles and friend ofSocrates who was exceptional among Athe-nian women in her freedom to move amongmen and express her own ideas. Later signifi-cant Milesian scientists included Isidorus ofMiletus, a mathematician and architect who,along with Anthemius of Tralles, designed andoversaw construction of the Church of HagiaSophia in Constantinople during the reign ofJustinian in the sixth century CE. In short,Miletus was an exceptional city that shapedthe foundations of science in the ancientGreek, Roman, and Byzantine worlds.

154 Miletus

See also Anaximander of Miletus; Anaximenes ofMiletus; Constantinople; Greek Archaic Age;Hecataeus of Miletus;Thales

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Burnet, John, ed. and trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Adam and C. Black, 1930.Downey, Glanville. Constantinople in the Age of

Justinian. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1960.

Freeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. New York:W.W. Norton, 1950.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Pedley, John G. Sardis in the Age of Croesus.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968.

Military ScienceAncient HoplitesGreek city-states of the Classical Age devel-oped the best fighting force of the time, cen-tered on hoplite foot soldiers. The hopliteswere heavily armed infantrymen whomarched in a phalanx formation. They werehighly maneuverable and, when they lockedshields together, appeared impregnable totheir enemies. Greek hoplite armies success-fully defeated Persian armies in the fifth andfourth centuries BCE and had some successagainst the Romans in the third century.Demetrius (337–283 BCE), son ofAntigonus I, invented siege engines such asthe turtle, a protective battering ram, and alarge drill for boring. Similar kinds of mili-tary inventions came from Diodes of Pella,who accompanied Alexander on his Asiancampaigns. Alexander’s conquests intro-duced Greek scientists to the use of petro-leum, sulphur, and arsenic in formulatingweapons and poisons in warfare.

The Romans of the first millennium BCEused military science to build a vast empirethat surrounded the Mediterranean Sea andencompassed three continents: Europe,western Asia, and North Africa. Roman sol-diers were superb engineers. They knew thebasic techniques of surveying, built stone

roads that lasted for centuries, erected wallsthat tourists still explore, and devised a sys-tem of military camps that were impregnableto enemy attack. The Roman army evolvedover centuries as the Romans constantly ob-served weaknesses in army units, learnedfrom the techniques of their opponents, andimplemented necessary changes. Comman-ders kept up with military technology as itdeveloped in the ancient world and outfittedthe Roman legions with the best siege en-gines, catapults, pikes, spears, helmets,shields, and swords. The Romans adoptedGreek hoplite techniques and improvedupon them. They also developed a superiorsystem of logistics to maintain communica-tions and ensure supplies.Yet the greatest ac-complishment of the Roman army was, iron-ically, their system of encampment anddefense.

Military DisciplineRoman military success was marked by su-perior organization, rigorous training, andattention to detail. The Roman legionformed the core of the army.The Greek his-torian Polybius reported that during histime (second century BCE) 4,200 menmade up one legion. Each legion had tenmaniples of 420 men that acted as a singleunit.The maniples were grouped on the bat-tlefield in a checkerboard fashion, to allowfor utmost maneuverability in all directionsto respond to superior enemy forces on thewings, front, or rear. Maniples were furtherdivided into cohorts and centuries, com-manded by a centurion. Centurions drillednew recruits and veteran legionnaires un-ceasingly, not just in war but in fortificationsand encampment as well. Discipline was ahigh priority. Death was often the punish-ment for faltering at one’s post. Accordingto the historian Josephus, each soldier car-ried, in addition to his weapons, his ownfood as well as tools for constructing camp.In truth, the legionnaire spent more timeshoveling and carrying dirt, building andtaking down, than he did fighting.

Military Science 155

The CastraPolybius, a Greek captured by the Romanswho recognized the military genius of hiscaptors, penned a multivolume history of theRoman rise to power that provides the bestdescription of the Roman military camp, thecastra. Whenever marching, at day’s end orunder attack requiring defense, officers andsurveyors reconnoitered a likely position forthe camp.The ground had to be level and dryand an open space with a fresh water supplyand good drainage; preferably the campwould not be surrounded by hills and thickwoods. Surveyors, led by a masterbuilder/surveyor, quickly formed the planfor the camp, measuring a 40,000-square-foot area formed as a square, everything atright angles, with fortifications, gates, androads. Flags of varying colors designatedwhere officers’ tents, the tents of foot sol-diers, the depots for supplies or booty, la-trines, pits for rubbish, and corrals for packanimals and horses would be located. Survey-ors ensured that the tents were set back twohundred feet from the fortifications. Streetswere generally one hundred feet long. Threestreets connected the four gates of the camp,and met at the central headquarters. Oneroad was perpendicular to two parallel roads.Temporary camps were made of turf and tim-ber; soldiers quickly erected skin tents thatsheltered eight men. Permanent wintercamps used stone; the soldiers’ quarters weresmall snug huts with thatched roofs. Perma-nent camps included granaries, a hospital, atraining area, and barracks. According toPolybius, the Roman legionnaires were sowell trained that the layout of the camp andtheir own duties were obvious. Polybius com-pared the camp to a small city, and each manwent to the location of his tent as he would goto the location of his home.

Josephus, who, like Polybius, was aRoman prisoner turned supporter and histo-rian who had personal acquaintance with theRoman camp, reported that on military cam-paigns when at dawn it was time to breakcamp and march each soldier had specific du-

ties in breaking camp. Heralds blowing hornswould signal tasks to accomplish in preciseorder—first, to bring all tents down; sec-ond, to load baggage on the mules; third, toset fire to the encampment to prevent its useby the enemy. If they were under attack, theherald asked three times if the men wereprepared to do battle to which the menshouted their assent three times with rightarms raised. Josephus described the urbancharacter of the camp, complete with mar-ketplace (agora). The permanent camps hesaw commanded by Vespasian and his sonTitus in about 60 CE had towers on the wallsat regular intervals and catapults positionedto hurl objects at the enemy. The Romans,unlike their enemies who built fortifiedcamps, took the time to level the ground toensure order and regularity. Josephus wasimpressed by the Roman discipline requiringthat the camp be constructed before any bat-tle was begun.This explains why the Romansexperienced few major military disasterscaused by ambush.The most famous, the de-struction of Publius Quinctilius Varus’s le-gions in 9 CE in the Teutoburg forest, wasdue to a lack of discipline and the inability ofthe commanders to organize the troops intoforming the emergency camp. Julius Caesar’sGallic War, by contrast, shows that a Romancommander exercising strict control over histroops could protect them from unexpecteddisaster, even when surrounded and over-whelmed by the enemies’ numbers. Caesar’smilitary treatise reveals that his strategy forfighting the Gauls and other Germanic tribesof central and Western Europe relied heavilyon the camp as a means of defense fromwhich aggressive actions could begin and towhich soldiers could go for aid, rest, and re-inforcement.

VegetiusThe fourth-century CE Roman military sci-entist Flavius Vegetius Renatus, author ofEpitoma Rei Militari (Of Military Matters), com-pared the Roman marching camp to a city,following Polybius.Vegetius’s rules for build-

156 Military Science

ing a camp were as follows: If there was noimmediate threat, the Romans constructed aditch that was three feet deep and four feetwide; a three foot earthen wall stood behind

the ditch. Soldiers placed sharpened woodenstakes into the wall to repel possible enemyattack. If in enemy territory, where attackseemed inevitable, the ditch was expanded to

Military Science 157

Ancient military machines for catapulting and launching boulders and giant arrows. (Library of Congress)

nine feet wide and seven feet deep. If underattack, the legionnaires would neverthelessset to their task of constructing the camp,building a ditch twelve feet wide and ninefeet deep, backed by a wall that was twelvefeet high with stakes mounted on top.

See also Caesar, Julius; Polybius; RomanPrincipate; Roman Roads and Bridges;Tacitus

ReferencesCaesar. The Conquest of Gaul. Translated by S. A.

Handford. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1951.

Josephus. The Jewish War. Translated by G. A.Williamson. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1969.

Lawson, Russell. “The Roman Marching Camp.”Calliope. Volume 8, 1997.

Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

Vegetius. Epitome of Military Science. Translated byN. P. Milner. Liverpool: Liverpool UniversityPress, 1993.

Moon See Astronomy

Motion See Physical Sciences

MountainsAmong ancient peoples, mountains wereplaces of terror, dread, and mystery, in partbecause of their forbidding distances,shrouded summits, and thunderous noises,but also because mountains were the abodesof the gods. It is rare to find in ancient litera-ture accounts of humans ascending moun-tains, except out of necessity. But mountainsso fascinated humans that they sought to ex-plain the strange phenomena associated withgrand peaks. Early attempts at explanationwere mythological and fantastic. But withtime ancient thinkers began to ask sophisti-cated questions and seek realistic answers.

Mountains and MythsMythical accounts of mountains are found inmany world cultures.Ancient Hindus were inawe of Meru, a legendary mountain north ofthe Himalaya range. Hindus and Buddhiststhroughout southern Asia built artificialmountains in imitation of Meru. Likewise,ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, andAmericans built artificial mountains—ziggu-rats and pyramids—in symbolic attempts toapproach the divine. Ancient societies of theNear East also had experiences with realmountains that are reflected in some of theworld’s oldest literature. The Epic of Gil-gamesh, composed at the end of the third mil-lennium BCE, describes the adventures of thehero Gilgamesh, who confronted the realmof the divine, mountains, and had the courageto ascend them in pursuit of glory. Mountainswere associated with some of the most im-portant gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon.Enlil, the leading deity, took control of agreat heavenly mountain that contained theearth and air. A monster protected Mashu,twin peaks where the sun descended and as-cended, and within which a hellish darknessreigned. Cedar Mountain, guarded by themonster Humbaba, was sacred to Ishtar, afertility goddess associated with love andlust. Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu as-cended the Cedar Mountain, where they sawwild grain growing, blown by the wind, andexperienced strange transcendental dreamsindicating future events.

The Hebrews also had miraculous experi-ences upon mountains. The Old Testamentbook of Exodus, composed during the secondmillennium BCE, describes the prophet Mosesreceiving from God (Yahweh) the Decalogue,the Ten Commandments, on Mount Sinai, a7,500-foot peak in the Sinai Peninsula. Sinaiwas terrifying, encompassed by “thunders andlightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount,and the voice of the trumpet was exceedingloud; so that all the people who were in thecamp trembled” (Exodus 19:16). Peals ofthunder echoing from a mountain summitcovered in dark clouds pierced by frequent

158 Mountains

strokes of lightning can sound like massiveblasts of some otherworldly trumpet.

The GreeksGreece has a landscape of undulating ter-rain—with mountains and valleys but fewplains. This rocky peninsula jutting into theMediterranean Sea, between the Ionian andAegean seas, hosted the hunter and shepherdand the poet as well. Particularly the moun-tains of Greece astonished and inspired theGreeks to attempt explanations of their sub-limity and a search by means of words to pen-etrate their mystery.

The great mountains in the neighborhoodof Greece that held the Greek imagination forcenturies were Parnassus, Nysa, Kyllene, Ida,Dindymum, and Olympus. The Greek worldwas hemmed in by two titans suffering theconsequences of disobedience to Zeus. Atlasin the west held up the heavens, his shouldersappearing like massive peaks. In the east, atthe extreme of the world were the CaucasusMountains, where Prometheus was chained toa rock, daily enduring the torture of a vulturegnawing at his liver. Closer to home, Parnas-sus, at over 8,000 feet, loomed over Delphi,the Oracle sacred to the archer god Apollo;Parnassus was also the home to the twelvemuses, the daughters of Zeus. Mount Nysa inThrace was sacred to the god of wine Diony-sus. At Nysa, mountain nymphs raised theyoung god. The ancient Hymn to Aphroditehad perhaps Mount Nysa in mind in proclaim-ing that the oaks and pines of mountains aresacred groves where the fairylike nymphsplayed. Mount Kyllene in Arcadia, the GreekPeloponnesus, was the birthplace of Hermes,the winged son of Zeus and Maia, the daugh-ter of Atlas. On Mount Kyllene, Hermes in-vented the lyre from a tortoise shell. MountIda in Crete was sacred to Zeus, the king ofthe gods and wielder of the thunderbolt.Mount Ida (another mountain of the samename in northwest Asia Minor) was famousfor hosting the rivers that watered the Troad,where stood ancient Troy and Ilios. On MountIda also,Aphrodite conceived Aeneas the great

Trojan warrior. Mount Dindymum in Cyzicuswas sacred to an early fertility goddess, Rhea,mother of Zeus and wife of Cronos.

The most famous mountain was Olympus,which, as the highest mountain in Greece at9,794 feet, was perfectly suited to be thehome of the gods. The Greeks refused toclimb the mountain because of its height andforbidding countenance and because of itsholy stature. Clouds often hid the distantsummit, a perfect cover for the gods’ secreteternal lives. The frequent storms could benone other than Zeus nodding his great thun-derous head and deities such as his daughterAthena darting to earth, lightning fast, tospread word of the father’s will. From theperspective of Olympus the gods observedhuman behavior, heard their prayers andpleas, and made judgments based upon theirawareness of the future in light of the presentand the past. The mountain symbolically wasraised above human ignorance and time, toprovide the bright rays of timeless truth.

The searfaring Greeks were more familiarwith the sea than the mountains. Both phe-nomena were astonishing and terrifying, butmountains were all the more so because theywere nearby, always in sight, yet forbiddingand ultimately unknown. Mountains servedto explain perplexing phenomena such aslightning and thunder; the mysteriousforested slopes; the quake of the earth; thefrequent meteorological changes and displayson mountain summits; the sublime sense ofthe divine apparent in the unapproachableparts of nature; and the relationship of earthand sky.

Even during subsequent centuries whenMediterranean societies became more so-phisticated and the Greek scientific mindawoke from slumber, mountains were stilldistant, daunting, and unapproachable. Poly-bius, who traveled through the Alps and sawMount Atlas at a distance, allowed his amaze-ment to take hold of his senses: he describedthe extent of the Alps as being over a millionfeet. The few recorded ascents of mountainswere for military reasons. Thus Alexander of

Mountains 159

Macedon in the fourth century BCE crossedthe Taurus Mountains of southeastern Turkeyand the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. Hannibalof Carthage attacked Rome in 218 BCE afterhaving crossed the Pyrenees and then theAlps.The Roman historian Livy recorded theascent of Mount Hebrus in Thrace at the be-ginning of the second century BCE. KingPhilip of Macedon, at war with Rome, madethe ascent to spy on Roman troop move-ments. It took three days for the moun-taineers to journey through the foothills andascend the summit. The subsequent descenttook two days.The suffering the men experi-enced was immense, particularly because ofthe cold; the third night on the summit wasawful in this regard. According to Livy, whoobviously knew little about mountain climb-ing, the thick fog that enveloped Philip andhis men at the summit was an unusual phe-nomenon.

The RomansThe Greeks, and after them the Romans,rarely attempted to explain mountain phe-nomena. Science requires not only observa-tion but analysis based on direct experienceand experiment. And the Greeks lacked thewill to ascend the lofty peaks. Also, themountains were considered sacred, associ-ated with the supernatural and transcendent.Lucretius the Epicurean, who refused to be-lieve in anything that could not be explainedaccording to matter in motion, the perpetualmovement of invisible atoms, not surpris-ingly was able to view mountain phenomenafrom an empirical point of view. Mountainsare hollow, Lucretius believed, and volcaniceruptions occur when atoms of fire areforced out of the cone. Closer to the truthwas his observation that clouds develop onmountain peaks because of warm air rushingup the slopes to the cool air at the summit.

The most famous Roman to investigatemountains was Gaius Plinius Secundus, theElder Pliny. In 79 CE, Mount Vesuviuserupted, blasting ash and fire throughout thebeautiful region of Campania. Pliny, who

could see the volcano from his house at theBay of Naples, ordered a boat in order to in-vestigate the black plume of smoke risingfrom Vesuvius. He took notes of his observa-tions as the boat reached the shores south ofPompeii and continued to observe the fallingash and pumice until his death from asphyxi-ation.

ChristiansAt the same time, in the first century CE,Christians continued the Jewish fascinationwith mountains. Jesus of Nazareth, as de-scribed in the Gospels of the New Testament,found meaning and transcendence on thesmall mountains surrounding Jerusalem. Au-relius Augustine, however, several centurieslater, decried the human fascination withmountains at the expense of self-awareness.The subsequent Medieval European attitudetoward such physical monuments to the Cre-ator was to eschew concern for the sake ofthe incorporeal and spiritual. It was left tothe Renaissance humanist and mountaineerFrancesco Petrarca in the fourteenth centuryto call attention to the possibilities of self-dis-covery in the experience of ascending the dis-tant peak.

See also Geography/Geodesy; Homer;Mesopotamia; Myth; New Testament; Pliny theElder; Polybius;Vesuvius

ReferencesAeschylus. Prometheus Bound. Translated by Rex

Warner. In Ten Greek Plays. Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1957.

Apollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo. Translatedby E.V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1971.

Boorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers. New York:Random House, 1983.

Homer. Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.New York: Random House, 1990.

Livy. Rome and the Mediterranean. Translated byHenry Bettenson. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. 2 vols.Translatedby H. Rackham. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1938, 1947.

160 Mountains

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny.Translated by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963.

Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Sandars, N. K., trans. Epic of Gilgamesh. London:Penguin Books, 1972.

MythMythology is an expression of human exis-tence, an ever-changing mirror of the per-ceptions of the human condition. Myths arebased in a real past that is imprecise in time,a reality of human behavior that transcends aparticular time and place. Science, too, hasthese attributes.The close association of mythand science is clearly seen when consideringancient science.The ancients struggled to ex-plain the natural environment and their ownhumanness in respect to the divine. Initial ex-planations involved gods and heroes, fantasticoccurrences and remarkable events. Beneaththe fantastic and remarkable of the oral tradi-tion, the poems sung by the ancient bard, wasa real attempt to understand and portray na-ture and self.

Ancient Sumerian civilization was the re-sult of the organization, labor, and engineer-ing of dikes and canals that controlled theflood-prone Tigris and Euphrates and irri-gated the parched land during the dry season.Sumerian culture owed its foundation towater and its uses.The Sumerian epic of cre-ation, Enuma Elish, describes Apsu, the deifiedpersonification of the original waters of cre-ation. Adad was the god of storms; Ea of wa-ters; Ennugi of irrigation; Ningirsu, of thefertility of irrigated soil; Ninurta, of fresh-water wells.The Sumerians clearly thought alot about water. Rain and river water led toplentiful crops, watched over by Nisaba, thegoddess of crops. Ninhursag, the mother god-dess, also oversaw all plants and animals—allfoodstuffs. Once the crops were harvested,Shulpae oversaw the happy feasting; Sidurijoined in, as the goddess of wine. The mira-cles of water, food, plenty, drink, feasts, and

full bellies had to be explained—how else,but because of the benevolence of the gods.

The Egyptians, likewise, were dependentupon the climate, particularly upon the Nileand its annual floods and the ever-presentsun.Various gods had the sun as their domainof power: Amen, Re (the sun at noon), Aten(the sun’s disk), Khepri (the sun in the east),Atum (the sun in the west). Other deitiesruled various regions of Egypt according tothe location of the Nile (upper or lowerEgypt). Fertility gods and goddesses werefrequently associated with the Nile: Hapy wasthe god of the Nile flooding during summer.Nun and Nefertem were deities of the watersof the deep that were present at the creation.Sobek was the god of the swamp. The Egyp-tians, devoted to understanding nature uponwhich they were so dependent, worshippedgods of science and learning. Imhotep, whowas reputedly a builder during the age of thepyramids in the third millennium BCE, wasin time a god of healing and magic. Selqet washis female counterpart, the goddess of heal-ing. Seshat and Thoth were deities of learning,scribes, and wisdom.

Greece is a landscape of deep valleys,massive ridges, hidden forests, and dauntingmountains. The gods of Greece were there-fore those of the mountains, forests, rivers,the rocky coast of the sea, and the isles of theAegean and Adriatic. Scholars believe thatbefore the coming to power of the Myce-naean Greeks, the early Greeks and peopleof Crete and the islands worshipped naturedeities dominated by fertility goddesses.Athena, Aphrodite, Hera, Artemis, Hestia,Demeter, and Rhea were once, in the mythi-cal past, the primary objects of worshipamong the Greeks. Then Rhea’s son Zeustook power from his father Cronos andbrought to power as well his brothers Posei-don and Hades. Zeus ruled through the ter-rible thunderbolt, which only he controlled.It cast fear into gods and humans alike. Po-seidon personified the sea; Hades ruled (be-came) the underworld. The fertility god-desses dwindled in power, or assumed

Myth 161

different guises—for example, Athena be-came a manlike virgin; Hera became a pow-erless shrew and nag of her brother and hus-band Zeus; Aphrodite was the vixenishgoddess of love always getting gods and hu-

mans into uncomfortable affairs of lust andadultery; Demeter retained her role as a fer-tility goddess of the grain.

The poems of Homer, Homeric hymns,and poems of Hesiod illustrate how the an-

162 Myth

Odysseus and the Sirens. Greek sailors confronted the mysteries of the deep with supernatural explanations.(Bettmann/Corbis)

cient bards personified natural and humanphenomena by means of the gods and god-desses. Hesiod explained the presence of evilaccording to the female Pandora and her wit-less husband Epimetheus, who exercisedhindsight but not foresight—that was therealm of his brother Prometheus. Lies andthievery are explained by the presence ofHermes, skilled at sleight of hand. Hesiod,believing in the age-old decline in culturefrom “the good old days,” argued that his timewas an Iron Age of evil and despair, unlike theprevious ages of humankind: the Golden Ageof men that were like gods; the Silver Age ofhubris, when Zeus punished human arro-gance; the Bronze Age, when humans weregiants; and the Heroic Age of heroes, de-scended from the gods but destroyed by theTrojan War.

The Homeric hymns and the Iliad andOdyssey describe a worldview that is entirelyanthropomorphic. Gods and goddesses min-gle constantly with humans, so much so thathumans never are entirely sure who is godand who is mortal. Perhaps the stranger atthe door is a god sent to test man, as the char-acters of the Iliad and Odyssey constantly won-der and worry. The gods symbolize the con-scious and the subconscious mind, so thatwhen Achilles sought to destroy Agamemnonin Book 1 of the Iliad, Athena stilled his angerand brought reason and patience to him.TheOdyssey describes the dichotomy of civiliza-tion (thought, personified by Odysseus) andsavagery (the Cyclops). Odysseus repeatedlyuses his wits, ruses, deceptions, and analyticalthought to get himself out of scrapes.Odysseus has wisdom, that is, he exercisesreason over passions, he has forethought andhindsight, he has patience when others areimpulsive. Divinities of wisdom, thought, and

wit logically aid Odysseus. Athena watchesover him, as does Hermes (Odysseus’s great-grandfather). Indeed we find in Greekmythology an emphasis on deities that per-sonify human thought in one way or another.Besides Athena,Apollo is a god of wisdom, ofthe lyre, of dreams, of prophecy, of seers.Prometheus teaches humans creativity, ana-lytical thinking, inventiveness, and healing.Asclepius, the son of Apollo, learns from Chi-ron the centaur; Asclepius becomes the prin-cipal god of healing. Some myths have Ascle-pius joining Jason and the crew of the Argo ontheir voyage to Colchis to steal the goldenfleece. Perhaps this is because, besides Ascle-pius, Chiron was supposed to have taughtJason and Heracles as well. Apollo and Ascle-pius as healers were often called Paean. Mythalso described a healer by the same name(Paeon) who cared for injured gods, like Aresand Aphrodite, who stupidly fought againstthe Achaeans at Troy.

See also Asclepius/Asclepiads; Bronze Age;Egypt; Hesiod; Homer; Magic; Mesopotamia;Prometheus

ReferencesHesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica.

Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Homer. Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.New York: Doubleday, 1989.

_____. Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald.New York: Random House, 1990.

Jacobsen,Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness:AHistory of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1976.

Sandars, N. K., trans. Epic of Gilgamesh. London:Penguin Books, 1972.

Sasson, Jack, et al., eds. Civilizations of the AncientNear East. 4 vols. New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1995.

Zimmerman, J. E. Dictionary of Classical Mythology.New York: Harper and Row, 1971.

Myth 163

Navigation See Marine Science

Nearchus of Crete(ca. 360–312 BCE)Nearchus was Alexander the Great’s admiralof an expedition that in 325 BCE exploredthe coastal waters of the Arabian Sea and Per-sian Gulf from the Indus River to the Tigrisand Euphrates.The landscape and some of thepeoples Nearchus encountered were hostile.The naval expedition paralleled a land expe-dition of Macedonian troops led by Alexan-der through the harsh Gedrosian Desert. Be-sides providing logistical support forAlexander’s journey, Alexander orderedNearchus to make observations of the land-scape and seascape, the peoples along theway, the natural productions, and remarkablephenomena. Nearchus’s observations becamethe basis for Arrian’s Indica, appended to theaccount of Alexander’s campaigns into thePersian Empire, the Anabasis. Nearchus wasan ad hoc scientist, an explorer and adven-turer who by the circumstances of time andplace was confronted with a terra incognita, aland unknown to himself and his contempo-raries. Mere survival required that he makeaccurate observations and quick judgments

about the diverse and unexpected experi-ences he encountered.

Nearchus, the son of Androtimus, hadcome to the Macedonian court at Pella fromCrete when Alexander was still a youth.Nearchus was several years older, yet the twobecame friends. He was one of Alexander’scompanions who went into exile in responseto the break between Alexander and his fa-ther King Philip in 337. During the Persiancampaign, Nearchus served as a satrap (gov-ernor) of Phrygia; later, having rejoinedAlexander, he served as admiral of the Mace-donian fleet.The ancient sources are vague onNearchus and his life, but one assumes that asa Cretan he followed the tradition of his peo-ple in learning early how to sail the Mediter-ranean. Such experience was useful whenAlexander ordered Nearchus to explore theArabian Sea.

Arrian’s Indica is wandering and inexact,the typical work of a geographer who reliedheavily on the accounts of others as well astradition and hearsay. Nearchus was theprime source for Arrian’s account of theIndus River, Arabian Sea, and Persian Gulf.Arrian supplemented his information withother less useful sources, such as Nearchus’snavigator, Onesicritus, and geographers suchas Herodotus and Eratosthenes. The Anabasis

N

165

as well as the Indica repeat the errors of ge-ography taught by Aristotle and assumedwithout compelling contradictory evidenceby Alexander and Nearchus. For example,Aristotle taught and Arrian records as fact,based on Nearchus, that the Taurus Moun-tains (of Asia Minor) extend east across Asiato India and beyond to the outer ocean thatwashes the eastern shores of India. Arrianused Nearchus’s accounts of zoology to con-firm or deny the legends promulgated bymore fanciful authors such as Megasthenes.Nearchus claimed to have seen a tiger skin,but not a tiger, so he could not substantiatethe story that they are more swift than ahorse and can fell a single elephant on theirown. Nearchus did observe a parrot, and itschattering like a human, of which Arrian wasskeptical. And he reported on the snakes ofIndia and of how the Greeks had no antidotesfor the snake bite but the Indian physiciansdid, who also were useful healers for otherphysical complaints.

Nearchus also reported on the strange andunexpected position of the stars and the sun.As they made preparations for the voyagenear the mouth of the Indus in the late sum-mer, the men were amazed to find at noonnot the slightest shadow. As they were nearthe Tropic of Cancer soon after the summersolstice, the rays of the sun at noon would ap-pear almost directly overhead.

After negotiating the shoals, tides, andmaze of channels at the mouth of the IndusRiver and waiting for favorable winds tocarry them forth, they began their journeyalong the coast, in what the Greeks called theErythraeum Sea. The forbidding coastlinechallenged the ability of the rowers aboardthe barges and triremes of the flotilla. Themen were preoccupied with finding food andfresh water and avoiding shipwreck in shoalwater. Nearchus kept a precise account ofthe voyage, noting the islands, shape of thecoast, and distances traveled in “stades” (sta-dia). Local pilots guided the Greeks andpointed out landmarks and provided histori-

cal and scientific tidbits. From such informa-tion, an accurate map could eventually bemade. At the Tomerus River, on today’s Paki-stani coast, they confronted a native hostwho were extremely primitive. They weredirty and hairy, their untrimmed nails longand thick, rather like those of a wild animal.The people used their nails for digging andcutting—in short, as tools and weapons.Their clothing was made of fish skins, andtheir huts from fish bones. The pilots calledthese neolithic people the “fish-eaters,” theIchthyophagi. Shortly thereafter they met aband of friendly fish-eaters, who offered theGreeks mutton, which tasted like fish. Even-tually coming to a harbor where fishermenused primitive boats to harvest the sea, theytook on board a pilot who knew the coast-line. His name was Hydraces. Near today’sborder of Pakistan and Iran, they raided asmall village for food, which was mostlymade from fish flour.

The fish-eaters made good use of the back-bones of whales—forming large huts.Nearchus reported that whales much largerthan those of the Mediterranean appearedaround the ships, terrifying the sailors.Nearchus inspired them by leading them intonaval combat against the whales. One of thesesea mammals was twenty-five fathoms, about150 feet. It was, perhaps, the blue whale. Lo-cals informed the Greeks about another mys-tery of the deep—an island off the coast ofIran that was holy to Helios the sun; thosewho embarked on it disappeared.

When the fleet reached Cape Sharita at theStrait of Hormuz, the entrance to the PersianGulf, Arrian claimed, based on Nearchus’sauthority, that they had a brief rendezvouswith Alexander, in the region of Carmania,before setting forth and sailing along the east-ern shore of the Persian Gulf. Nearchus’s de-scriptions of this region were not as detailedas he desired, because there were few goodharbors and beaches at which to make port.Eventually they reached the Euphrates River,up which they rowed to Babylon. Discovering

166 Nearchus of Crete

that Alexander expected a rendezvous at thecity of Susa, east of the Tigris, the fleet set sailonce again, descended the Euphrates, as-cended the Pasitigris River, and ended theirvoyage.

Nearchus’s voyage opened a completelyunknown region to Greek conquest, trade,and culture. His description of the SouthAsian coast was sufficiently accurate for othermariners to base their itineraries on. Laterwriters continued to rely on Nearchus.Other biographers of Alexander, such asDiodorus and Plutarch, relied on Nearchus.Scientists such as Strabo and Pliny the Elderdid as well. Nearchus’s fame was richly de-served. But one wonders about those name-less pilots, the local guides, who along withHydraces were the true explorers, uponwhose knowledge and experience Nearchusrelied and could not do without.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Aristotle; Arrian;Asia, East and South; Geography/Geodesy;Hellenism; Strabo

ReferencesArrian. Anabasis and Indica. Translated by P. A.

Brunt and E. Iliff Robson. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1933, 1976.

Fox, Robin Lane. The Search for Alexander. Boston:Little, Brown, 1979.

NeoplatonismThe Neoplatonic philosophy of the LaterRoman Empire explained physical reality ac-cording to transcendent universals. Neopla-tonists used reason, abstract thinking, mathe-matics, and intuitive thought to identify theintelligible world of the hidden essences of thedivine, the intellectual world of the visiblemanifestations of the divine, the human realmof soul and body, and the material world ofnature. Neoplatonism is a modern term usedto distinguish followers of the philosophy ofPlato during the Later Roman Empire fromhis earlier followers of the Academy.The lead-ing Neoplatonists were Plotinus, Porphyry,Iamblichus, Maximus of Ephesus, and theRoman emperor Julian.Their thinking was in-

spired not only by Plato but by other Greekphilosophers such as Pythagoras, Parmenides,Anaxagoras, and Aristotle.

Plotinus’s Enneads is the chief source forNeoplatonist thought. Plotinus (205–270),following Plato, argued that the intelligibleworld is a trinity of sorts: One, Intelligence,and Soul.The One is the source of all being,the unmoved mover, the Good.The One en-compasses all; it is the unity, the source of allreality, seen and unseen. Intelligence, begot-ten of the One, is the logos, the creativeword that encompasses all things. The logoshas its visible counterpart in light—thetremendous power and warmth of the sun.The soul is a world soul, for all existence isspiritual, and soul imbues all things. Theplanets and the stars have being, as do hu-mans. Notwithstanding the body, the soulmakes the man.The manifestations in the in-tellectual world of human existence thatconform to the intelligible world of idealforms are the individual sense of a unified re-ality, rational thought, and one’s feeling of anindividual unique soul.

Like Plato, Plotinus taught that thephilosopher can achieve awareness of one’sinner being, the world soul, universal intelli-gence, and ultimately the One by means ofthe study of mathematics and dialectical phi-losophy, the ability to synthesize throughlogic what appear to be contradictions (thethesis and antithesis).The Neoplatonists, likePythagoras, believed that “Number” encom-passed the universe, beginning of coursewith 1, the One. Geometry, in particular,was the route to understand the incorporealforms that make up existence. Neoplatonistpsychology involved the recognition of theduality of human existence, that the individ-ual human is at the same time good and evil,soul and body, incorporeal and corporeal.The individual must recognize that bodilyimpulses drag one down to earth, as it were,preventing one from achieving awareness ofthe Good within oneself. The goal of philos-ophy is the greater recognition of the truth

Neoplatonism 167

within oneself, which can yield to an under-standing of reality and possible union withthe One.

Plotinus’s philosophy emerged during thethird century CE when the Roman Empirewas racked by civil unrest, war, poverty, anddisease—in short, chaos and anarchy, whichbred anxiety, alienation, despair, and a loss ofhope. Philosophy was the means to riseabove the conflicts and contradictions ofearthly existence. Other philosophies and re-ligions, too, gained strength during such tur-bulent times. Christianity was growing dur-ing the third century and competed withNeoplatonism for adherents. The commen-surability of the Neoplatonist triad to theChristian concept of trinity (Godhead,Logos, Holy Spirit) is remarkable. ManyChristians, such as the Roman emperor Ju-lian (330–363), became Neoplatonists, andNeoplatonists such as Aurelius Augustine(354–430) often became Christians. Thenthere were those like the theologian Origen(184–254) who combined Neoplatonic andChristian thinking to form a belief based onreason seeking union with the logos, theword that is the expression of reason.

Fourth-century CE Neoplatonism suc-cumbed to declining leadership and theweakening of Plotinus’s original philosophicalstandards with a turn toward mysticism andfancy. After Plotinus’s death in 270, his disci-ple Porphyry wrote of the master’s life andteachings. Porphyry himself had disciples,such as Iamblichus, who became the leadingNeoplatonist of the fourth century CE.Iamblichus made the unfortunate decision tosee the Asian savior god Mithras as the mani-festation of the logos, the source of the intel-lectual world. Mithras’s followers identifiedtheir savior with the Good and the Sun.Therewas, in fact, a cult of the sun at the end of thethird and beginning of the fourth centuries.Sol Invictus, the “Unconquered Sun,” was pop-ular with Roman soldiers and emperors, suchas Aurelian and Constantine. Mithras becameidentified with the Unconquered Sun, and

with other cults as well. The ancient cult tothe mother goddess Cybele featured a saviorgod, Attis, who became associated withMithras and the sun. Out of this confusingmess emerged Helios.

The emperor Julian, at least, saw Helios,the sun, as the answer to the strange mixtureof Greek and Asian philosophy and mysticismthat went by the name of Neoplatonism. Ju-lian was a Christian who apostatized himselfto embrace the philosophy of Plotinus as itwas represented by Iamblichus and other fa-mous fourth-century Neoplatonists, such asthe wonder-working theurgist Maximus ofEphesus. Julian, who wrote a hymn to He-lios, explained that Helios is the mediator,the logos, between the Intelligible and Intel-lectual worlds. Helios is the visible manifes-tation of the One. And hence Helios is ap-proachable, can be seen and felt, prayed to,unlike the unfathomable, distant, anonymousOne.To Julian, Helios is the light, the truth,the father of men—rather like the logos,through whom all things were made. SeeingGreek myth as allegorical stories meant torepresent a deeper truth, Julian saw thistruth as Helios, who in a way encompassedthe Greek and Roman pantheon of gods andgoddesses.

Helios, hence Neoplatonism, at the handsof Julian was the means to explain what oth-erwise eluded explanation.The Neoplatonistssought the origins of nature, an explanationof the universe, an understanding of humanpersonality and behavior.Their search for an-swers took them into the realm of philosophyand mathematics, which were the foremostoutlets available to ancient scientists seekingthe ultimate truth. In time, however, reflect-ing the overall degeneration of culture in thefourth century CE, Neoplatonism became asimplistic search for easy answers, a newform of sun worship, which symbolized thedescent of science to the realm of magic dur-ing the Later Roman Empire.

Even so, there were some important if rareNeoplatonic thinkers who preserved the

168 Neoplatonism

writings of classical science. Proclus(412–485 CE), for example, a Neoplatonistand mathematician, wrote a Commentary onEuclid. Philoponus, who flourished in the 6thcentury CE, was a Neoplatonist, Christian,and commentator, the author of Commentaryon the Physics. Simplicius (500–540 CE) was aNeoplatonist and author of Commentary on thePhysics and Commentary on the Heavens. All ofthese commentators provided extensivequotes from early philosophers and scientists,many of whom are otherwise scarcely knownand their works lost.

See also Commentators; Iamblichus; Julian; LaterRoman Empire; Magic; Maximus of Ephesus;Plato; Plotinus; Porphyry

ReferencesDodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

Katz, Joseph, ed. The Philosophy of Plotinus. NewYork: Appleton Century Crofts: 1950.

Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the EmperorJulian. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1962, 1969.

New TestamentThe New Testament, the Greek writings thatmake up the second part of the ChristianBible, do not seem upon initial considerationto have anything to do with science.The NewTestament is filled with miracles, prophecy,theology, revelation, and the acts of God.Yetthe Gospels, history, epistles, and prophecyof the New Testament mirror the times inwhich they were written, during the first-century CE Roman Empire. The writers ofthe New Testament were Jews who hadadopted the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth tobecome Christians.They came from the east-ern Mediterranean, particularly the region ofPalestine, and the Roman protectorates ofGalilee and Judaea. Palestine at this time wasa culturally diverse region, with many lan-guages, customs, and religious beliefs. The

land had been Hellenized, that is, imbuedwith Greek culture, in the wake of thefourth-century BCE conquests of Alexanderthe Great.The authors of the New Testamentknew Hebrew and Aramaic, but they wrote inGreek.Thus some of their ideas inevitably in-volved Greek ideas, including the ideas of sci-ence and philosophy.

DreamsThe Gospel of Matthew sets the tone for howancient science is portrayed throughout theNew Testament. Joseph, the father of Jesusand husband of Mary, learns from a dreamthat he is to marry his betrothed, eventhough she is already pregnant. The Greekstypically thought that dreams reflected di-vine messages—the gods sometimes formedwhat appears in retrospect to have been arudimentary conception of consciousnessand the conscience. The psychoanalyst CarlJung, a student of classical mythology and ofearly Christianity, argued that dreams reflectthe psychic underpinnings of reality. Hencewhen Joseph dreamed that he must take hisyoung child and wife to Egypt, it was a realanswer to the daunting problem of the Ju-daean King Herod’s vengeance. Likewise, thethree wise men, the magi from the East,were told in a dream to depart for home,avoiding a return trip to Herod’s court.Again, the dream provided a real solution toa perplexing issue.

The magi were influenced not only bydreams but by the stars as well.The Gospel ofMatthew describes how the magi were led toBethlehem by a majestic star that appeared inthe East. Ancient magi were Mesopotamian(Chaldean) or Persian (Zoroastrian) as-trologers and magicians who believed thatthe position of stars and planets indicated thecourse of things. It required tremendous faithin the stars to make a long and hazardousjourney merely to follow a bright heavenlybody. But, indeed, the ancient world usuallyconsidered stars and planets, the sun and themoon, to have a divine, spiritual presence.

New Testament 169

Hence the names of the planets are the namesof Roman gods.

Jesus the LogosThe Greco-Roman world was one of super-stition and belief in the supernatural andmagical. Jesus of Nazareth was not the firstholy man to foretell the future, heal the sick,and command natural phenomena to suit hiswill. The ancient shaman, soothsayer, prog-nosticator, and the like claimed to know howto unlock, manipulate, and read the implicitspiritual powers contained in natural phe-nomena. That Jesus could calm the winds onthe Sea of Galilee by a verbal command orwalk on water at will was astonishing to thetypical human who did not know the ways ofmagic. Jesus prophesied the future, such asthe destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, like somany other seers of his time claimed to do.The Christian faithful believe that Jesus, asthe logos, used such tricks to reveal his com-plete power over nature. The logos was acommon idea in Greek and Roman philo-sophical and scientific circles. The logos wasthe “word,” the transcendent idea of creationthat linked the human mind to immortal,eternal truth.The Gospel of John specificallyidentifies Jesus as the logos, and hence identi-fies him with the same creative force under-stood by Plato, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans,and the Gnostics.

MedicineJesus was also a healer, and the New Testa-ment gives wonderful insights into the practi-cal medical techniques of the ancientMediterranean. Ointments of varying typeswere used to treat illnesses of the skin, to re-lieve pain, or to soothe one’s body and mind.Myrrh was not only an ointment used to pre-pare corpses for burial but was also a salveused for skin ailments or, when mixed withwine, as a general analgesic.The writer of thethird Gospel, traditionally identified as Luke,a physician from Antioch, tells the story ofthe woman who anointed Jesus with an ex-pensive ointment held in an alabaster con-

tainer. Jesus reprimands the Pharisee whoquestions her act of love, pointing out that hehad not welcomed Jesus to his home byanointing his hair with such ointment.

Besides the use of salves, oil made fromolives or other seeds or fruits, and wine, thesick had few remedies to rely upon, exceptprayer or the intervention of a holy man orother such healer. Christianity focused onGod the healer. Thus the ill must approachGod through faith, fasting, and prayer. Aphysician trained in the ways of the Greeks,for example a follower of the Hippocraticschool, would be looked upon with suspicionby the common folk who were healed byJesus. For example, the Gospel of Mark givesthe account of a woman healed of a hemor-rhage by her merely touching the garment ofJesus. According to Mark she had been ill foryears and had spent her money on the adviceof physicians, to no avail. Others, with dis-eases for which there was no apparent cure,were similarly attracted to Jesus by the hopeof instantaneous healing. Leprosy, a degener-ative disease for which there was no cure, wasa common complaint of the time. Leprosywas contagious, and lepers were pushed tothe outskirts of society. As in the Old Testa-ment, the writers of the New Testament usedthe word lepros indiscriminately to refer to aperson with a variety of different skin dis-eases. In an age when degenerative illness wasa sign of the consequences of sin, lepers wereparticularly shunned as unclean, both physi-cally and spiritually. But Jesus touched andhealed them nevertheless.

Jesus the HealerJesus of Nazareth, the son of a carpenter, wasnot the typical faith healer. The New Testa-ment Gospels introduce a subtle and sophis-ticated approach to healing that bridges thegap between practical medical techniques onthe one hand and healing magic on the other.The latter relied upon the manipulation ofnature, in this case the diseased body. At firstglance Jesus appears to be this kind of healer.On the other hand, the practical Hippocratic

170 New Testament

approach to healing involved a balanced ap-proach to living, adopting the dictum of mod-eration in all things. Rest, exercise, and mod-eration in diet and drink had long-termhealing qualities—these are called preventivemedicine today. Hippocrates taught that thehealthy person lives in harmony with nature.The Hippocratic Oath calls for the physicianto respect the rights of the patient and to feelcompassion and to sympathize with the pa-tient’s condition. In the first chapter of theGospel of Mark, a leper approaches Jesus andbegs him for healing. Jesus, “feeling sorry forhim,” heals the man. This sounds in part likethe Hippocratic relationship of physician andpatient, yet Hippocrates and his studentsnever expected a miraculous disappearanceof illness, especially such a terribly wastingdisease as leprosy.

To the Christian faithful of the past andpresent, Jesus was a completely unique healerfor his time in his method of healing throughempathy. He did not use magical arts to heal,rather he had the ability to feel completelywhat the other person felt, whether anguish,depression, fatigue, or pain. His was a full ex-pression of love and empathy revealed in thetouch of his hand and the soft words of coun-sel and command. His healing required faith

in the patient. Unless he or she could believein Jesus and thus empathize with him, thehealing would not occur.This kind of healingthrough faith, love, and empathy was new tothe ancient world. Indeed, it is new to ourworld. Yet in recent years more students ofthe body and mind are understanding the in-credible power of emotion, belief, and love inthe eradication of disease.

See also Dreams; Hippocrates; Logos; Magi;Magic; Medicine; Old Testament; Psychology

ReferencesGrant, Michael. Jesus:An Historian’s Review of the

Gospels. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1977.

Kelsey, Morton. Healing and Christianity. NewYork: Harper and Row, 1973.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and NewTestaments. New York: American Bible Society,1865.

Numerical Systems—Hexadecimal,DecimalSee Mathematics

New Testament 171

Oceanography See Marine Science

Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)During the second millenium BCE, certainMesopotamians of Semitic origin migratedwest to a land that they called Canaan. Thebook of Genesis, the initial chapter of the OldTestament, describes the transformation ofthese Semites into Hebrews by focusing uponthe story of a man, Abram, and his wife,Sarai, who embracing the God Yahweh be-came the ancestors of the people of Israel.The Hebrews were among the most creativeand dynamic of the early peoples of the NearEast. Their civilization, centered atJerusalem, was oriented around an all-pow-erful, all-knowing God—the only God, thecreator, father, protector, and judge of hischildren, the chosen people of Israel. In thesecond book of the Old Testament, Exodus,Moses discovered a God of law and deliver-ance who referred to himself as “I Am Who IAm”—YHWH (Yahweh).

Natural TheologyAlthough the Hebrews under the leadershipof Moses continued to feel the terror of theunknown, their fear was mitigated by their

realization that Yahweh cared for them, thathe was Fate himself, that he controlled allthings, and that he could circumvent the lawsof nature should he so desire.The Hebrews asa result developed a sophisticated sense ofnatural theology, that is, a pious search to un-derstand nature qua God’s creation. Theapocryphal book Wisdom of Solomon, forexample, counters the supposed wisdom ofthe credulous pagan with the understandingof the nature of the pious Hebrew.The authorof Wisdom, an Alexandrian Jew of the firstcentury BCE, was clearly knowledgeableabout Greek science—Empedocles’ theoryof the four elements, for example. The bookof Wisdom honors God for giving men theability to use science.

Diviners and PhysiciansThe focus of the Old Testament on God’schosen people can give the impression thatthe Hebrews were the only people. Genesisand Exodus do, however, describe the inter-action of the Hebrews with other peoples ofthe ancient Near East such as the Egyptiansand Mesopotamians.The culture of the NearEast during the second and first millenniaBCE was superstitious—priests andprophets being diviners of fate and the willof the gods as well as serving as healers and

O

173

interpreters of dreams. Upon explaining thepharaoh’s dreams, the prisoner and outcastJoseph grew to be the most powerful man inEgypt. Daniel was able to interpret thedreams of King Nebuchadnezzar when thehost of “magicians,” “enchanters,” “sorcerers,”and “Chaldeans” could not. In the apocryphalbook of Tobit, the angel of God tells Tobias, ayoung man seeking to wed Sarah, that he canexpel demons by using the heart and liver ofa fish and make the blind see by anointingeyes with the gall of the fish. The Hebrewsalso believed in the magical, spiritual signifi-cance of numbers, such as 1, unity; 3,heaven; 4, the corners of the earth and di-rections of the winds; 7, the sum of 3 and 4and the total number of the planets, sun, andmoon orbiting the earth.

In the Old Testament, illness is often theresult of sin, requiring spiritual cleansing aswell as physical healing. The book of Leviti-cus, originally written in the early first mil-lennium BCE, provides a detailed descriptionof skin diseases (lumped under the vague di-agnosis of leprosy). The priest inspected therash or boils as would a physician, then pro-nounced his opinion not on how to cure theillness, but rather on whether the patient wasunclean and therefore unable to enter thesanctuary of the temple in Jerusalem. Cen-turies later in the second century BCE in theapocryphal book Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), ahellenized Jew, clearly imbued with a healthyrespect for physicians, characteristic of theHellenistic Age, wrote of the honor duephysicians who were the agents of God, whoused the medicines and medical techniquesgiven to man from Heaven above. Physiciansin turn must praise God and call upon Hishelp in the healing of patients.

PsychologyThe Old Testament describes the identifica-tion of self with God.Yahweh has a direct in-terest in his people in general and each per-son in particular. This powerful sense of thedivine nature of the human psyche grew

more sophisticated with the passing cen-turies.Through the intimate interaction withGod, humans develop a more clear sense ofindividual identity and all that life as a uniquehuman entails: suffering, sin, and redemp-tion; the struggle between God’s will and in-dividual free will; love and hate; trust andmistrust. The Old Testament, in short, pro-vides a series of detailed individual andgroup psychological portraits that encom-pass the whole of human experience. Thewritings of the Psalmist David, for example,king of the united kingdom of Israel andJudah from 1000 to 961 BCE, reveals whoGod is and what his powers and interest inhumans are, particularly in respect to onehuman, David. David was at the same time awarrior, murderer, adulterer, and conqueror,as well as a poet and a singer of extraordi-nary talent and sensitivity, whose Psalms ex-press the epitome of piety and love. Psalm139 reads, for example: “O Lord, thou hastsearched me and known me! Thou knowestmy downsitting down and mine uprising,thou understandest my thought afar off.Thou compassest my path and my lyingdown, and art acquainted with all my ways.For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo,O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thouhast beset me behind and before, and laidthine hand upon me. Such knowledge is toowonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attainunto it.”

Believing that Yahweh knew the Hebrewsindividually and collectively, and that they inturn knew Yahweh and his works, the He-brews were confident in their religious be-liefs but also in their scientific observations.The opening lines of Genesis betray this cer-tainty that humans could, when inspired byGod, know the nature of things, the origin ofthe universe and human existence. Every an-cient civilization had stories of the originsand/or process of the universe. The Hebrewdescription was poetic, similar to those foundin other cultures of the Near East andMediterranean regions, and extremely so-

174 Old Testament

phisticated in its brevity, yet with a clarity indescribing what should be indescribable. “Inthe beginning God created the heavens andthe earth. And the earth was without formand void; and darkness was upon the face ofthe deep. And the Spirit of God moved uponthe face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1–2).

See also Dreams; History; Magic; Medicine; NewTestament; Psychology

ReferencesNew Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.Orlinsky, Harry M. Ancient Israel. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press, 1960.Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1993.The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New

Testaments. New York: American Bible Society,1865.

One See Neoplatonism

Oribasius (floruit fourth centuryCE) Oribasius, a Greek physician during theLater Roman Empire, was a confidant to thepagan emperor Julian and a synthesizer ofthe writings of the great Roman physicianGalen. Galen’s work had a tremendous im-pact on the European Middle Ages and Re-naissance and among Arab scholars, partlybecause of Oribasius’s Synopsis, which madethe vast output of Galen understandable toscholars and practitioners of medicine. Ori-basius was born a little over a century afterGalen’s death in Galen’s hometown in AsiaMinor. Pergamon was a center of Greeklearning, culture, and science; and because ofGalen and Oribasius, it was the leading cen-ter of medicine in late antiquity as well. Ac-cording to the ancient biographer Eunapius,Oribasius was a precocious learner whengrowing up toward the end of Constantine’sreign and the beginning of the reign of hisson and successor, Constantius. Oribasius

studied with the Sophist Zeno of Cyprus atAlexandria. At some point Oribasius wasstudying or practicing medicine at Athenswhen he met the future emperor Julian, him-self a student at Athens in the early 350s CE.The two became friends; Oribasius earnedthe right, even after Julian became Caesarand Augustus, to counsel and speak frankly tothe emperor. Eunapius claimed that Oriba-sius taught the neophyte philosopher thebearing and patience necessary in an em-peror. Julian in turn encouraged Oribasius toprepare the seventy-book Synopsis of Galen.After Julian died fighting against the Parthi-ans in 363, subsequent Christian emperorsexiled the pagan Oribasius.According to Eu-napius, Oribasius became legendary evenamong the “barbarians” because of his healingarts. Eventually he was recalled from exileand was still living when Eunapius wrote hisLives of the Philosophers at the end of thefourth and beginning of the fifth centuries.Eunapius, also a pagan, called Oribasius afriend and relied on him heavily in the prepa-ration of the Lives.

As a physician Oribasius modeled Galen’sapproach to medicine. In discussing the ill-ness and death of the aged Chrysanthius, afellow pagan Sophist, Eunapius describedhow initially physicians bled the old man,sick with a terrible stomachache; but thebleeding weakened and brought him neardeath. Oribasius finally arrived to help hisfriend Chrysanthius. Oribasius, like Galen,was devoted to the theories of Hippocrates.The Hippocratic physician believed that na-ture is a whole, as is the human organism.One must treat the whole organism ratherthan focus on isolated parts.The well personis a balanced whole, and the four humors ofthe body—blood, phlegm, black bile, yel-low bile—must be in perfect accord. Thesick person has an imbalance of the humors.The way to bring the body back into balanceis to treat an excess of a humor with its op-posite. Apply heat to cold and vice versa.Oribasius diagnosed Chrysanthius with a chill

Oribasius 175

in his stomach and joints, and an excess ofphlegm, so he applied heat to the affectedareas. Chrysanthius, an old man weakenedby the bleeding, never recovered. Oribasius,no doubt, did not despair on the loss of hispatient, because a Hippocratic physicianknew that death is part of the whole, in bal-ance with the constant generation of newlife.

See also Eunapius; Galen; Hippocrates; Julian;Later Roman Empire; Medicine

ReferencesEunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated by A. J.Brock. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1916.

176 Oribasius

PaganismAncient peoples were religious peoples.Theywere typically polytheistic, believing in manydeities. Polytheism relies on an assumptionthat nature is infused with the divine.To rec-ognize the divine in nature is to propitiate thegods, for by gaining their favor one will enjoymore happiness in this world and perhapsavoid disaster. To worship transcendentdeities, to assume that supernatural beingscause and control nature, logically requiresthe study of nature. Hence ancient peopleswere natural theologians as a result of theirreligious assumptions. The practice of reli-gion (Latin, religio) meant a reverent re-sponse, a sense of awe and piety, toward thedivine. Nature, directly controlled by the di-vine, continually reveals the character of thedivine.

The earliest people to observe and studynature with an intent to acquire knowledge ofnatural (and supernatural) phenomena weresoothsayers. Mopsus, for example, who jour-neyed with the Argonauts to Colchis, ex-celled all in interpreting the flight of birds.Gudea, a Sumerian king of the third millen-nium BCE, interpreted dreams and inspectedlivers of sacrificed animals to gain insightsinto the will of the gods.The fundamental as-sumption of the soothsayer and seer was thatthe gods spoke through natural phenomena:

animal organs, bird habits, thunderstorms,earthquakes, and so on. The gods spokethrough nature under different circumstancesof time and place.The common universal lawof nature, as it were, was that nature was ameans of communication, a way for humansto discover the intent and will of the gods,and in particular Fate. One’s fate could not bechanged, but knowledge nevertheless gavethe individual a sense of power, a slight con-trol over his destiny. Apollonius of Rhodestells the story of Idmon, the student ofApollo’s art, who joined the voyage of theArgo even though the signs of birds told himhe was fated to die soon.

Early Near East monotheists expressed amore sophisticated view of a similar idea.TheHebrews recognized that Yahweh expresseshis will through natural law, yet he is notbound to the set order of the universe. TheEgyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV,ruled 1379–1362 BCE) also conceived of asingle god, Aten, the disk of the sun. In his“Hymn to the Aten” Akhenaten sang of Aten,the all knowing, the giver of life, the sourceof wisdom.

Greek religion of the second millenniumat Crete and the Greek Peloponnesus was aprimitive form of anthropomorphism: godsand nature both were organic and sentimen-tal; life, nature, and the supernatural were

P

177

one. With the Archaic Age and the dawn ofphilosophy, some aspects of Greek religionbecame more sophisticated, as philosopherssuch as Xenophanes rejected the gods whoacted so much like spoiled humans. Increas-ingly philosophers of being such as Thales,Anaximander, Parmenides, and Plato con-ceived of the divine in metaphysical terms.Theology (literally, the study of God) forthese Greek scientists and philosophers wasan intellectual study to understand nature in-sofar as nature is an extension of self, some-thing from the collective past of humans andnature experienced in the present moment.

At the same time Greeks increasinglylooked within to find God (theos). One mightargue that the first great psychology oc-curred as the result of Greeks being initiatedinto the mysteries of the many fertility cultsof the ancient Mediterranean. The mysticalrites of the Gnostics, for example, involvedthe initiate finding the presence of god, hid-den in nature, within themselves.The divine

and supernatural lived within a person; themystery cults helped the individual to dis-cover the divine presence. In so discoveringgod within, the initiate found salvation(salus), a release from temporal cares, a guar-antee of release upon death to a spiritual andmetaphysical realm of being. Some of themore famous mysteries were the rites of Isis,the Egyptian goddess; Cybele, an Anatolianmother goddess; the savior gods Adonis andSerapis; Demeter, one of the ancientOlympians; and Mithras, an Asian import. Bythe time of the third and fourth centuriesCE, during the declining centuries of theRoman Empire, Neoplatonic philosopherswere worshipping natural phenomena, as didtheir ancestors of centuries past, but with anew twist. Julian the philosopher/emperorworshipped Helios the sun because Helioswas the most visible manifestation for theunseen, unknowable, anonymous, and dis-tant One. Studying natural phenomena wasthe means to find the truth.

178 Paganism

Osiris, the judge of the dead, and Atum, the Creator. Pagan religions conceived of multiple gods to explain the supernaturaland natural. (Corel Corporation)

See also Apollonius of Perga; Greek Archaic Age;Greek Classical Age; Hellenism; Julian; Magic;Mesopotamia; Myth; Philosophy

ReferencesApollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo. Translated

by E.V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1971.

Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.

Jacobsen,Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness:AHistory of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1976.

Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern TextsRelating to the Old Testament. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1969.

Steiner, Rudolph. Christianity as a Mystical Fact.New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1947.

Palladius (floruit mid-fourthcentury BCE)Palladius was the Latin author of the book OnHusbandrie.Very little is known about his life.He came from an important Roman family,the Aemiliani, and was a wealthy landownerin Italy. He lived sometime during the fourthcentury when the Roman economy had notyet ground to a halt in the western half of theempire but agriculture was clearly on the de-cline. Palladius appears to have been a paganrather than a Christian. His fourteen-volumeOn Husbandrie became an important resourcefor landowners during the European MiddleAges. Palladius’s sources included the earlyRoman agricultural writers Columella andCato.

On Husbandrie is divided into books basedon the seasons of the year. It reads rather likean almanac—it discusses the best times to en-gage in the various activities of husbandry.Palladius followed a lunar cycle to direct hisagricultural planning. On Husbandrie gives ad-vice on the use of manure—of different ani-mals for different crops. He discussed ways toconstruct a warm stable for farm animals. Hegave advice on beekeeping; on the propertools to use for pruning, digging, plowing,and cutting; on when to plant asparagus,wheat, beets, lettuce, and radishes; on theplanting of nuts and orchards; on the use of

prayers and the value of keeping faith inpreparing for a good harvest. Palladius wrotein prose, though he had a poetic side to him.His writing reminds one of the pastoral liter-ature of the Augustan Age.

See also Agriculture; Cato, Marcus Porcius;Celsus; Columella; Later Roman Empire

ReferencesJones, A. H. M. The Decline of the Ancient World.

London: Longman, 1966.Palladius. On Husbandrie. Translated by Barton

Lodge. London: Early English Text Society,1879.

Parmenides See Eleatic School

Peripatetic SchoolThe Peripatetics were followers of Aristotlewho got their name from the habit of theteacher at the Lyceum walking about amongdisciples as he taught them the foundations ofhis philosophy. The Peripatetic school ofthought was therefore associated with theLyceum, Aristotle’s school at Athens. Peri-patetic philosophy as Aristotelian philosophywas focused on a concrete approach to the ac-quisition of knowledge, as opposed to theAcademics, the followers of Plato, who be-lieved that such knowledge was elusive andinvolved a spiritual, intuitive approach to dis-covering what is real. For the Peripatetics,observation, collection of data, analysis, andexperimentation would provide the thinkerwith a good understanding of reality, which ispresent before us, not hidden in some ethe-real realm of being.

Some of the more famous Peripateticphilosophers included Theophrastus, Aristot-le’s successor at the Lyceum, and Theophras-tus’s successor Strato. Theophrastus was apolymath, like his teacher devoted to philos-ophy and science to the exclusion of personalambition and wealth. He is largely remem-bered today for his studies of plants. Stratowas more an empiricist than Theophrastus

Peripatetic School 179

and focused the studies of the Lyceum downthis more experimental path. Eudemus ofRhodes (350–290 BCE) was a student ofAristotle who opened an Aristotelian schoolat Rhodes. He wrote a history of mathemat-ics and treatises on arithmetic, astrology,geometry, and physics.Another Rhodian,An-dronicus, during the first century CE pub-lished an edition of Aristotle’s works, gener-ating renewed interest in the philosopheramong Romans. Anatolius was a third-cen-tury CE Aristotelian, the Christian bishop ofLaodicea, and author of Elements of Arithmetic.He advocated the use of the Metonic Cycle infiguring Easter. The Peripatetic influence inphilosophy and science had a long reachthroughout antiquity, influencing Greeks andRomans, pagans and Christians.

See also Academy; Aristotle; Athens; GreekClassical Age;Theophrastus

ReferencesEusebius. History of the Church. Translated by G. A.

Williamson. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1965.

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:TheHellenistic World. New York: History Book Club,2000.

Wheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle. NewYork: Odyssey Press, 1951.

Philo of Byzantium (260–180 BCE)Philo was an engineer and inventor as well asthe Greek author of Seven Wonders of the AncientWorld. His specialty was pneumatics, and hewrote a book of that title, in which he devel-oped a number of theories and a multitude ofdevices such as an air pump operating bel-lows, a chain pump, whistles and sirens, andpistons, all of which used principles of air ex-pansion and contraction due to heat. Hiswork, like that of Hero of Alexandria, fore-shadowed modern steam power. Like Hero,however, Philo’s inventions were used morefor show or leisure than to perform work.

Philo’s Seven Wonders of the Ancient World dis-cusses those accomplishments of ancient cul-ture that the modern world continues to lookupon in astonishment. The seven wonders

were the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, theTemple of Zeus at Olympia, the HangingGardens of Babylon, the Great Pyramid ofEgypt, the Lighthouse at Alexandria, theColossus of Rhodes, and the Mausoleum atHalicarnassus.

See also Engineering and Technology; Hero;Hydraulics; Seven Wonders of the AncientWorld

ReferencesTechnology Museum of Thessaloniki website:

www.tmth.edu.“The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”:

http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/index.html.

Philolaus (floruit fifth century BCE) Philolaus of Croton in Italy was one of theleading Pythagorean philosophers of the an-cient world. Indeed, many of the ideas attrib-uted to Pythagoras might have originated withPhilolaus. His writings, such as the Bacchae andOn the World, exist only in fragments preservedby later commentators. Philolaus hypothesizedthe counter-world that brings to ten the num-ber of heavenly bodies: Sun, moon, earth, fiveplanets, and realm of fixed stars make nine.But as nine is a number less perfect than ten(the sum of 1, 2, 3, and 4), there must be an-other heavenly body, the counter-earth, hid-den behind the sun, hence unseen to earth-lings. Philolaus also advocated the idea of thecentral fire around which the heavenly bodies(even the earth) orbit—this was an early ver-sion of a heliocentric universe. Pythagoreanssuch as Philolaus hypothesized other contrastsin nature, such as the infinite and the finite,and even and odd numbers, as well as an even-odd number. Number is the most elevated ofall truths; geometry is the form of thought thatcan conceive of the purity of mathematicalforms. Proclus, the mathematician of the LateRoman Empire, wrote that Philolaus assignedgeometric forms to the traditional Greekgods. Indeed the four elements also had theirdivine counterparts: Cronos, the Titan and fa-ther of Zeus, is water; Ares, the god of war, isfire; Hades, the god of the underworld, is

180 Philo of Byzantium

earth; Dionysus, the god of wine, representsthe warm moist nature of air.

Philolaus, like other Pythagoreans, wasconcerned with health, seeing good health asthe product of a balance and believing thatanimal flesh is to be avoided. Iamblichusrecorded Philolaus’s belief that animals aredefined by their brain, the source of thought;the heart, the seat of the soul; the navel, thebasis of growth; and the genitals, the sourceof regeneration. Enjoining the principle oflike attracts like, Philolaus argued that ani-mals are conceived and live in heat, as semenis hot, the womb is hot, and whatever entersinto the human body is expelled in a heatedform: cool air is exhaled as warm breath; coolwater is expelled as hot urine.

See also Astronomy; Greek Archaic Age; MagnaGraecia; Mathematics; Medicine; Pythagoras

ReferenceBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.

PhilosophyScience and philosophy were more closely as-sociated in the ancient world than at anyother time in human history.The Greek wordfor science, episteme, means knowledge, whilephilosophy means love (philo) of wisdom(sophia). Both of these words, knowledge andwisdom, are pregnant with possibilities, con-tradictions, and questions. For example, howdoes one derive knowledge? Or wisdom?How does one recognize knowledge and wis-dom in others? Can a person possess knowl-edge but not wisdom? Wisdom but notknowledge? Wisdom implies awareness of thetimeless, yet science often seems very downto earth. To be wise one is removed fromeveryday concerns; a scientist has to be an ex-pert in the ins and outs of the everyday.Wis-dom is a product of age and experience. Isknowledge as well? Can one know and still beyoung and foolish?

The ancients, in particular the Greeks, an-swered these questions by making sciencedevoted to the acquisition of wisdom, and

making philosophy rely on knowledge.Knowledge can be abstract as well as con-crete. Today’s scientist eschews the meta-physical (that which transcends the physical)for the physical, and tries as much as possibleto divorce science from religion (the super-natural). The ancient scientist often couldnot distinguish between the physical andmetaphysical, the natural and the supernatu-ral. For example, the Greek scientist Aris-totle sought the essence (ousia) in phenom-ena.An essence can of course be physical andconcrete, perceived by the five senses. ButAristotle also believed essence can beephemeral, transcendent, supernatural, andmetaphysical.

The Greeks provided an interesting di-chotomy with which to approach this ques-tion of science and philosophy. All of scienceand philosophy can be explained according tobeing and becoming (that is, coming to be). Beingis the principle of staticity, of the unchanging,of existence that is eternal and absolute, nei-ther generated nor regenerated.To be (esse) isto exist in a fundamental way that is uninter-rupted by outside forces, change, time, any-thing that is becoming.That which is becom-ing is undergoing change and movement. It isgenerated and regenerated, and if absolute itis an absolute formed by alteration over time.Being implies the metaphysical; becomingimplies the material. Philosophers tend tofind being more attractive; scientists find be-coming more attractive. Greek philosophersand scientists who focused on being morethan becoming were those who emphasizedthe mind (nous), essence (ousia), and thought(logos).Those who focused on becoming morethan being emphasized the primary sub-stances, the four elements, the corporealbasis of all things.

Among the Greeks, we might includeamong the scientists of being Thales of Mile-tus, who was one of the first Greek thinkersto conceive of and seek an ultimate basis ofreality.Thales’ student Anaximander believedthe fundamental reality was the infinite.Pythagoras tried to identify the ultimate real-

Philosophy 181

ity with transcendent number. Xenophanes ofColophon and Anaxagoras of Clazomenae hy-pothesized that mind is the basis of all things.Parmenides of Elea, a Pythagorean, theorizedabout the one encompassing all reality.

Greek scientists looking at the basis of re-ality coming to be included Heraclitus of Eph-esus, who believed that fire is the essential el-ement. Empedocles of Acragas expanded theidea of basic material elements to include notonly fire but air, water, and earth. It was leftto Leucippus and Democritus to hypothesizean unending plurality of elements coming tobe, atoms of constant movement and change.

Aristotle was the greatest philosopher/sci-entist of the ancient world because he wasable to integrate these two points of view,being and becoming. Aristotle assumed ametaphysical being, an essence (ousia) to allthings.Yet he was quite adamant that changeis also fundamental to the universe. Unlikethe pure metaphysician, Aristotle relied onexperience, observation, and logic—themethods of science—to arrive at an under-standing of being. At the same time he usedthe methods of the philosopher, logic andreason, to deduce universals from particularsand to induce particulars from universals.

The Stoics also bridged the two Greek ap-proaches to knowledge. Stoic thinkers be-lieved on the one hand in a divine fire, a uni-versal being and creator who was unlike mindor number, unlike a metaphysical ultimate re-ality. The Stoic logos was physical, made ofatoms like all else in a material universe, yetone and eternal.

Skeptics such as Pyrrho of Elis (365–270BCE), who was one of the philosophers ofAlexander’s expedition, possibly came intocontact with Indian philosophers such asCalanus who taught an extreme form of as-ceticism. His disciple Sextus Empiricus, anearly third-century CE physician, wrote theOutlines of Pyrrhonism in defense of Pyrrho’sthought and Against the Mathematicians to pourout his doubt and ire against scientists, math-ematicians, and philosophers.

Over the course of Western thought, the

distinction between science and philosophy ismore apparent than real.The past holds manyexamples of the commensuration of objectiveand subjective thought, empiricism and ideal-ism. The ideals and metaphysics of theteacher Plato were followed by the more con-crete science of the student Aristotle. Thetheologian Thomas Aquinas was Aristotelian,the mathematician Copernicus a Platonist.Isaac Newton spent more time studying Godand the Creation than he did mass, force, andacceleration. Twentieth-century physicistscould at the same time speak of the godlessBig Bang and the beauty and wonder of theSingularity that preceded it. Theorists of sci-ence have come to see logical positivism as adistant dream and posit the subjectivity of themost concrete and objective scientific disci-pline. Einstein reshaped our perception of theuniverse with mathematics stimulated by acreative imagination that refused to believethat “God plays dice.”Thales or Anaximander,Anaxagoras or Parmenides could not havestated the relationship between science andphilosophy any better.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Anaximanderof Miletus; Aristotle; Atoms; Empedocles;Heraclitus of Ephesus; Stoicism;Thales;Xenophanes of Colophon

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Davies, Paul. God and the New Physics. New York:

Simon and Schuster, 1983.Wheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle. New

York: Odyssey Press, 1951.

Philostratus (170–250 CE)Philostratus wrote the Life of Apollonius andLives of the Sophists. He was active at the courtof Septimius Severus, receiving the patronageof the empress Julia Domna, who brought to-gether Sophists and astrologers and others in-volved in pseudoscience. Although limited,Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists providessome information about intellectual life dur-ing the chaotic third century of the RomanEmpire. The Life of Apollonius of Tyana is even

182 Philostratus

less valuable, being a somewhat imaginary ac-count of the life of the wonder-worker Apol-lonius of Tyana.

Philostratus’s brief biographies includedlives of famous scientists such as Eudoxus ofCnidus; Favorinus, the geographer and histo-rian; Protagoras, the sophist made famous byPlato in his dialogues; Hippias of Elia, the ge-ographer and astronomer; Aelius Aristides,the analyzer of dreams and devotee of Ascle-pius; and Aelian, the zoologist.

See also Aelian, Claudius; Eudoxus of Cnidus;Later Roman Empire; Magic;Women andScience

ReferencesPhilostratus. Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Translated

by F. C. Conybeare. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1912.

_____. Lives of the Sophists. Translated by W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1921.

Phoenicians The Phoenicians contributed much to ancientknowledge of geography and navigation. ThePhoenicians were the great mariners of antiq-uity, sailing on trading expeditions out of theirport cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos in theeastern Mediterranean. They opened the en-tire Mediterranean region to trade, sailing be-yond the Strait of Gibraltar (the Pillars ofHeracles) at the end of the second millenniumBCE.They founded the port cities of Carthageand Utica in North Africa and Cadiz in Spainand were thought by the Greeks to havefounded the trading center of Tartessus on theAtlantic Coast of Spain. The Phoenicians ofCarthage were responsible for creating a greattrading empire that extended from NorthAfrica to Sicily to Spain and in the Atlanticfrom the British Isles to the western coast ofAfrica. Homer’s somewhat erratic under-standing of geography in the Odyssey owesmuch to Phoenician exploration.The Greeks,emerging from their Dark Ages in the eighthcentury, borrowed the Phoenician alphabet.Ironically, however, few records survive fromPhoenician city-states, even Carthage. The

sources for Phoenician exploration and sci-ence come from Greek and Roman writers.

Herodotus, writing in the mid fifth cen-tury, described in detail the peoples of the an-cient Near East, recording stories in particu-lar that he had heard about the Phoenicians.He was told, for example, that when the Per-sian king Xerxes was marching against theGreeks in 480, he ordered the Phoenicians toconstruct a bridge across the Hellespont(Dardanelles), the strait that separates Asiafrom Europe. Phoenician bridge builderslashed boats together, side by side across thestrait, using thick ropes made of flax. Theytied massive boards to the decks of the shipsto allow the hundreds of thousands of Persiantroops, camp followers, and animals to cross.

Herodotus also described one of the greatexploring expeditions of all time. He learnedfrom Egyptians, when he traveled to Egyptdoing research for his book, that the pharaohNecho II had, around 600 BCE, orderedPhoenician sailors to discover the extent andnature of Africa, called by the Greeks Libya.In Book 4 of The Histories, Herodotus nar-rated the voyage of the Phoenicians.They setsail from the northern tip of the Red Sea, ex-ited into the Indian Ocean, and proceededalong the eastern coast of Africa. Their smallwooden ships were sufficiently seaworthy tonavigate the shoal waters along the coast.Herodotus claimed that they patiently madeport in autumn, sowed seed, waited, har-vested the crop, then pursued the journeyrested and well supplied with food. It tookthem over two years to make the voyage, dur-ing which they observed and recorded theirfindings. Upon circumnavigating the conti-nent, rounding the Cape of Good Hope sail-ing east to west, they entered Atlantic watersand sailed up the coast of Africa to the Gulf ofGuinea. They then rounded the horn ofAfrica, battling contrary winds and currents,ultimately reaching the Pillars of Heraclesand the Mediterranean. Once back to theNile River, they reported to Necho a strangephenomenon. Sailing west from the Indian tothe Atlantic oceans, rounding the Cape of

Phoenicians 183

Good Hope, they noted the sun on the port(right hand) side of their ships. WhenHerodotus heard this he was incredulous,knowing from his experience that ships sail-ing west in the Mediterranean always had thesun on their starboard (left hand) side. Herecorded the dubious story anyway, in sodoing providing later observers with clear ev-idence that the Phoenicians had indeedcrossed the Tropic of Capricorn into thesouthern hemisphere, where for travelersgoing east to west the rays of the sun are al-ways to the north.

The Phoenician colony of Carthage inNorth Africa became the dominant city of thewestern Mediterranean. Carthage controlledthe trade of the region, dominated Africa,Sicily, Sardinia, southern France, and Spain,and explored the Atlantic coast of WesternEurope and western Africa. Because of thethree Punic Wars between Rome andCarthage, in which Rome was victorious, andparticularly the last war, in which Romecompletely destroyed Carthage, few recordsof Carthaginian civilization survive. One ofthe few is the Periplus of Hanno.

The Periplus describes a Carthaginian expe-dition of the sixth century BCE, led by Hanno,a king of Carthage. Hanno led a fleet westthrough the Strait of Gibraltar, then southdown the coast of Africa past the Tropic ofCancer to the region of the Cape Verde Is-lands, modern Senegal.The Carthaginians ex-plored, recorded their observations, and tooksamples. Elephants, crocodiles, and hip-popotamuses fascinated them. The native in-habitants were fascinating, too, and a bit terri-fying. The Carthaginians made contact with apeople they called the Troglodytes as well aswith another savage people, whose womenhad shaggy bodies. The Carthaginians pursuedthe men without luck and contented them-selves with flaying the women captives, theskins of which they took back to Carthage as aspecimen of the inhabitants and strange lands.

Hanno’s voyage was apparently just one ofmany carried out by the Carthaginians.

Roman and Greek writers periodically re-ferred to Carthaginian exploits, such as thevoyage of Himilco, a Carthaginian captainwho possibly explored the North Atlantic tothe British Isles, perhaps even the SargassoSea. Diodorus Siculus recounted the story ofthe Carthaginian discovery of large islandswith vast rivers in the Atlantic, which has ledsome imaginative historians to assert theCarthaginian discovery of America.

In short, the Phoenicians and Carthagini-ans were an active, enterprising people ratherlike Americans—pragmatic explorers andobservers of nature who were content lesswith grand theories than with exploring theirenvironment and working to build powerful,long-lasting communities.

See also Geography/Geodesy; Greek ArchaicAge; Herodotus of Halicarnassus; MarineScience

ReferencesCary, M., and E. H.Warmington. The Ancient

Explorers. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1963.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey deSelincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Lipinski, Edward. “The Phoenicians.” InCivilizations of the Ancient Near East. 4 vols., ed.Jack Sasson et al. New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1995.

Physical SciencesPhysicsThe Greeks were the first great physicists of theancient world because of their efforts to dis-cover the sources of movement and change innature.Thales,Anaximander, and Anaximenes,all of Miletus in Asia Minor, speculated on theultimate cause and nature of things.Thales ar-gued that movement and change came aboutthrough the agency of water. Anaximenes be-lieved that air was the causal agent.Anaximan-der, more metaphysical, believed that the infi-nite (apeiron) was responsible for all movement.The infinite is unknowable, anonymous, ab-solute, without beginning or end.

184 Physical Sciences

Title page of the Latin edition (1561, Lyons, France) of Aristotle’s Physics (Physicorum). (Archivo Iconografico,S.A./Corbis)

The InfiniteThe concept of the infinite perplexed Greekthinkers and inspired them to some of themost advanced thought of all time. Ionian,Pythagorean, and Eleatic philosophers of theGreek Archaic Age speculated on the natureof time, its extent and duration, and the na-ture of space, of physical boundaries, its ex-tent and scope. The infinite is spatial andtemporal. Zeno, the Eleatic philosopher,speculated on the infinite possibilities con-tained in each moment. In each moment oftime a person recalls past experiences, isaware of persent experience, and can antici-pate infinite experiences as well. The poten-tial for action is seemingly infinite each andevery moment because the imagination pre-sents to the individual infinite possibilities.

Aristotle, less metaphysical than the pre-So-cratic philosophers of Greece, wrote Physics toexplore what are the fundamental principles ofnature. Aristotle identified four natural causesof movement in nature: the material substanceof an object; the class (genos) to which it be-longs; the agent that moves the object; and theultimate goal (telos) of said movement. Aristo-tle believed that most movement is finite sinceit is linear between different points. The fourelements, earth, air, fire, and water, move in alinear path and thus are finite. Each elementhas its set, natural place. Earth moves towardthe center, while fire tends upward. The onlyform of infinity in Aristotle’s mind was theendlessness of the circle. He conceived of afifth element, ether, as having a circular path.Thus it is in infinite motion.

AtomistsStoic and Epicurean thinkers such as Leucip-pus, Democritus, Epicurus, Zeno, and Lu-cretius explained cause and motion accordingto atoms, invisible material objects that areinfinite in number and cause and compose allthings. The atomists not surprisingly rarelyconceived of a direct divine agent in naturaland human affairs and they usually conceivedof the universe as infinite and eternal, foreverin change and movement.

ChemistryThe origins of the study of chemistry in theancient world occurred as an intellectual ex-ercise of philosophers attempting to under-stand the fundamental bases of the universe aswell as a more practical exercise of scientistsand magicians attempting to uncover the usesof the substances of the earth. Of the former,the Greeks of the Archaic and Classical agesstand out; of the latter, the alchemists of theHellenistic Age and of ancient China werechemistry’s first practitioners.

The Ionian Greek philosophers Thales,Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoraswere the founders of chemical thinking inthat they tried to undercover what are thebasic substances of the universe. Their jointconclusion was that the universe is composedof several foundational substances: water, air,fire, earth, and ether, organized in perhaps in-finite quantities (Anaximander) by a creativeand sustaining mind (Anaxagoras) that is theessence of all being. The materialists andatomists Empedocles, Heraclitus, Leucippus,and Democritus, on the other hand, arguedfor the material rather than the metaphysicalfoundations of the universe—that change andconflict, matter in motion, and invisible par-ticles, atoms, formed a universe that is alwaysin the process of becoming.

AlchemistsAncient humans, sensing the presence of themysterious in nature, tried by magical meansto assert control over the forces inherent inthe natural environment.The attempt to un-derstand material substances of the earth soas to contrive to alter their character, pro-ducing other, more valuable substances,marked the beginnings of chemistry in theancient world.The first alchemists were Hel-lenistic chemists working with substancessuch as sulfur and metals in attempting toimprove the appearance and qualities of met-als to transform them into something else.They worked under the influence of Aristo-tle and the atomists, believing that the ele-ments could be expressed in terms of solids,

186 Physical Sciences

liquids, gases, and colors. They believed thata spiritual substance (pneuma) underlay allmaterial substances, and they thought that bychanging a substance the spiritual would beunleashed or changed as well. This changewas called transmutation and involved re-ducing the substance to a fundamental massof black material, and then acting upon it insuccessive stages to arrive at a white and thena yellow substance, the latter of which, if thealchemist had performed the work correctly,would be gold. The key to all of this was amanipulation of not only the material aspectof the metal but the spiritual aspect as well.In a sense the alchemist thought he was re-ducing the material to a state of death andthen encouraging the seeds of life to regen-erate the material into something else. Sulfurwas used as a causal agent of such change.Another important material in the al-chemist’s repertoire was mercury, whichseemed to be the ideal substance of changefrom liquid to metal and back. Its shiny, sil-ver appearance made it particularly valu-able. To produce changes to metals the al-chemist developed a variety of apparatuseswith which to heat materials and performexperiments. These included cauldrons,beakers, tubes, stills, furnaces, ovens, andso on.

The practice of alchemy in ancient Chinawas similar to that of Alexandria in the Hel-lenistic Age in that the Chinese were con-cerned with bringing the spiritual qualitiesfrom metals and turning materials into theperfect and incorruptible substance of gold.They used many of the same apparatuses andexperimented with similar substances, suchas mercury made from the ore of cinnabar.The main difference between Hellenisticand Chinese alchemy was that the lattersought to make gold for ingestion, the ideabeing that gold had magical, curative prop-erties that could lead to rejuvenation andeternal life. Often the opposite resultedwhen those ingesting materials like mercuryfor the sake of youth and eternity poisonedthemselves.

See also Anaximander of Miletus; Anaximenes ofMiletus; Aristotle; Asia, East and South;Atoms; Eleatic School; Elements; Hellenism;Thales

ReferencesLeicester, Henry M. The Historical Background of

Chemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by John

F. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.Plutarch. Moralia. 15 vols. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1968–1976.

Physics See Physical Sciences

Planets See Astronomy

Plato (427–347 BCE)Greek thinkers of the sixth and fifth centuriesBCE such as Thales, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras,Xenophanes, and Socrates sought to explainthe universe by imposing the structure of thehuman mind upon it—to conceptualize it soas to understand it. They broke from theprimitive anthropomorphism of their fore-bears to create a universe that resembled thehuman mind—a universe with a sound ethi-cal structure, one with a logical, orderly, har-monious whole.The Greek philosopher Platobuilt a philosophy around his conception ofthe divine attributes of the universe, what hecalled ideal forms.

Plato was a product of aristocratic Atheni-an society naturally suspicious of democracy,which often appeared to be mob rule. Thiswas his experience as a young man watchinghis friend and mentor Socrates stand trial forsimply teaching the truth. Many of Plato’smost famous dialogues feature Socratesteaching his students, confronting his ene-mies, defending himself, and preparing fordeath by drinking hemlock. Socrates died in399 BCE, after which Plato traveled andlearned more about Pythagoras and his teach-ings.When he returned to Athens after about

Plato 187

Roman marble copy of a bronze original of the Athenian philosopher Plato (427–347 BCE). (Kathleen Cohen/Victoria andAlbert Museum, London)

ten years, he opened a school called the Acad-emy. Students at the Academy studied philos-ophy, logic, music, astronomy, and mathe-matics. Plato believed that knowledgederived from intuition and reason. He es-chewed empirical, scientific thinking, arguingthat mere observation reveals only the shad-ows of reality. Plato was not a scientist, yethis thought was so broad and penetrating thathe had a founding role in many disciplines ofstudy that would become in time empiricalsciences.

Plato, his mentor Socrates, and his studentAristotle could arguably be considered thefounders of what today we call political sci-ence. They formed a systematic approach togovernment employing a methodology basedon reason, logic, and observation. Most im-portant, for Plato, was to consider what gov-ernment should be, then to follow with imple-mentation of ideas upon what is. Plato arguedin his dialogue Republic that the principle ofjustice could be mirrored in human societyby building a community wherein all mem-bers perform the task they are meant to do.Plato extended community justice to the self,arguing that the just individual achieves orderand tranquility in his conduct by self-masteryand discipline, bringing oneself into tunewith the universe and forming an inward mu-sical harmony.

Plato’s ideal society in the Republic hasbeen oft-criticized for creating a totalitarianstate based on the absolute control of theguardians—those who, like Socrates, ap-proached knowledge of the ideal forms.Plato, a product of the Athenian democracyof the fifth century BCE, sought to free hu-mans from the problems inherent in the freeexchange of ideas, by forcing them to con-form to the truth, the ideal forms as under-stood by the guardians. Plato thus erectedsomething akin to an ideal city, one reflectingthe truth. What would be the point of free-dom in a society where the truth is known?Freedom only matters in a society where thetruth is not known—hence comes the demandfor the freedom to pursue it.

The truth, as Plato conceived it, is tran-scendent, invisible, generally unknown; ma-terial, corporeal existence hints at the truth,as the mind informed by the senses can onlyapproximate an understanding of truth. Hu-mans only experience the shadows of what isreal. But the shadows provide a beginning forthose exceptional thinkers, such as Socrates,who can bring the mind out of its inherentdarkness to approach the light of truth. Thetechnique to discovering reality first involvesmathematics, understanding the principle ofnumber, which is based on infinite individualunits that are distinct wholes. Geometry, theshapes that represent transcendent forms,helps the mind to grasp abstract ideas, whichsets the stage for dialectic. Socrates was themaster of dialectic, the technique of questionand answer, of drawing out the truth by a se-ries of ever more penetrating interrogatives.

Through geometry and dialectic, for ex-ample, Plato discovered (after Pythagoras)that the earth is a sphere. The sphere is themost perfect shape, he wrote in Phaedo, and asthe earth is the most perfect solid, the earththerefore is a sphere. Astronomy is impor-tant, but only insofar as mathematics and di-alectic inform us of the true nature of theuniverse that we only dimly perceive withour senses.

Plato believed that the wisest persons in asociety should rule it. In the Republic, thesewere the guardians, both male and female,who trained for years to recognize and knowthe truth, living in communal fashion, un-concerned with the material conditions oflife. Plato also conceived of a society wherethe single ruler, the king, would be a philoso-pher as well, therefore ruling according tojustice.This idea of the philosopher-king wasone of Plato’s greatest legacies. Alexanderthe Great, the student of Aristotle, sought torule as a philosopher. Marcus Aurelius theStoic was emperor of Rome. Many moreRoman emperors thought of themselves asphilosophers, even if the fact did not matchthe image. Julian (331–363 CE) was theideal philosopher-king: he ruled according to

Plato 189

philosophy (Neoplatonism), he modeledhimself on the philosophers of past and pres-ent, and he exercised the wisdom of humil-ity. Plato himself tried to put his ideas intoaction in the person of Dionysius II, tyrant ofSyracuse. As in most such cases, however,power was more persuasive than philosophy,and Plato failed miserably.

Plato expected the philosopher, king ornot, to have a clear awareness of the limita-tions of human thought. In Theatetus, Plato ar-gued that a science of knowing is impossible,that the philosopher must rely on belief. InThe Sophist Plato challenged the thinker tounderstand the nature of being as opposed tobecoming, the former being an immutablepresence in the universe, the core of truth,the latter being material and changing, basedon faulty human perception. Arguing againstParmenides’ concept of being, Plato arguedthat one must conceive of the possible beingof nonbeing. In Timaeus, Plato discussed theOne, which would have such influence onNeoplatonists of the Late Roman Empire.The One is the ultimate reality from whichsprings the Good.

Plato influenced subsequent Greek andRoman thought by means of his writings,which were widely circulated, as well as bymeans of the Academy. The Academy existedfor centuries after Plato’s death, sometimesexercising very little influence on philosophy,at other times being a center of thought in theMediterranean world. The two most impor-tant leaders of the Academy after Plato wereXenocrates, who lived the life of a philoso-pher and whose behavior and motives werebeyond reproach, and Carneades, who con-tinued Plato’s emphasis on the hazy under-standing of reality in a physical world.

Plato’s legacy of thought reaches forwardtwo millennia to modern times. Neoplatonistphilosophers and scientists dominatedthought at the end of the Roman Empire. Me-dieval philosophers such as Augustine,Boethius, and Anselm were heavily influencedby Plato. During the European Renaissance,Platonic thought experienced a revival—the

philosopher Ficino is an example. Platonicthought was an important inspiration to thenineteenth-century Romantics.Among scien-tists, Plato’s impact has been more check-ered. Science does not easily accommodate aphilosophy that limits the reality of physicalphenomena, that proclaims that all a scientistdoes in studying nature is to understand themere shadows of what is real.And yet subjec-tive thought is part of scientific thinking.Plato has had a major impact on science, evenif it is not altogether clear.

See also Academy; Aristotle; Aurelius, Marcus;Greek Classical Age; Neoplatonism; Plotinus;Socrates

ReferencesHare, R. M. Plato. Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1982.Jowett, Benjamin, trans. The Portable Plato.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1976.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE)Pliny the Elder, Gaius Plinius Secundus, was aRoman polymath and author of Natural His-tory, which is a diverse collection of anec-dotes, history, geography, medical informa-tion of varying worth, discussions ofastronomy and earth science, and a catalog ofRoman knowledge on botany and zoology.Pliny’s information varies in its quality;sometimes he seems amazingly credulous; atother times he appears a worthwhile scien-tist. Natural History is filled with interestinginformation and useful facts, which may ex-plain why it was one of the most widely readbooks during the Late Roman Empire, Mid-dle Ages, and Renaissance.

Pliny was born during the reign of the sec-ond Roman emperor Tiberius (14–37 CE);he died in the same year that the emperorVespasian died and his son Titus, Pliny’sfriend, assumed the throne. Pliny was of theequestrian class, which the Roman emperors

190 Pliny the Elder

relied on for political support and to fill themany administrative positions in the far-flung Roman Empire. Pliny served in themilitary, as a provincial governor (procura-tor), and as head of the Roman fleet, a posi-tion he held at his death. Indeed, the fleetwas moored at Misenum on the Bay ofNaples up the coast from Pompeii and Her-culaneum when Mount Vesuvius erupted inAugust, 79 CE. Pliny died when he re-sponded to the eruption with a sense of dutyto help those who were trying to flee the vol-cano as well as a sense of curiosity about thephenomenon of a volcanic eruption. A Stoic,he had a no-nonsense approach to life, ap-proaching death fearlessly, doing his duty tothe last, and not allowing emotions to over-whelm reason. Pliny believed in the Stoicconcept of afterlife, that whatever it is, it willnot involve conscious awareness—hence thislife is all a person has. Pliny filled every mo-ment with activity and study. He slept little,preferring to write his many books at nightrather than to repose. Besides Natural History,he wrote books on military affairs and theGerman people. It is Natural History, ofcourse, for which he is best known, becauseof the book’s influence for centuries after hisdeath, because of its eclectic and universalapproach to learning, and because it is acces-sible to a variety of readers of different skillsand interests.

Pliny’s ultimate concern was to make thesciences—human knowledge—accessible toall people. His attempt at universal knowl-edge is of mixed quality. Natural History’spresentation of astronomy is elementary, use-ful perhaps for the farmer but not the savant.Pliny, likewise, was not an expert in geodesy,the study of the shape of the earth. His ap-proach to meteorology was also simple—butthen a simple explication of natural eventswas his goal.

Pliny was at his best when discussing natu-ral phenomena to which he was a witness. Hehad traveled throughout the empire as a sol-dier and administrator; during his travels hetirelessly recorded his observations and local

accounts of natural phenomena.Added to thiswas his broad reading and collection of usefulfacts from past experts in the sciences. Hisgeographical descriptions of Western Europewere therefore very accurate.The overall ex-tent of Europe, its size and limits, was un-known to Pliny, but he was not afraid to spec-ulate. He assumed that Europe waswonderful enough to be half the size of theknown world. He described credulously theHyperboreans, who lived in northern Europenear the source of the winds, and who werereputedly extremely happy in their imaginedutopia. Pliny’s knowledge of Africa and Asiawas, of course, limited, and Pliny made con-stant use of fabulous stories, exaggeratingplaces, peoples, and landmarks, making themlarger and grander than what was real. Hisimagination told him of strange peoples at thefarthest extent of the world: men with noheads but faces on the chests, others with onelarge foot that gave them shade on particu-larly hot days. When Pliny used sources

Pliny the Elder 191

Portrait of Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), the Romanpolymath. (Bettmann/Corbis)

penned by actual observers, such as the sci-entific observations based on Alexander’s ex-pedition to Asia, Herodotus’s stories of theeastern Mediterranean, and Polybius’s ac-count of north and west Africa, his descrip-tions were better, if dated.

AstronomyPliny’s encyclopedic approach is clearly seenin his discussion of astronomy and meteorol-ogy. Pliny accepted contemporary Greek as-tronomical theories about a geocentric uni-verse, the heavenly bodies of Sun, Moon,Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, andstars revolving around the earth, which itselfrotates at a remarkably high speed. He pro-vided full descriptions of eclipses, the move-ment of the planets, constellations, comets,and other astronomical phenomena. Yet hewas much too absorbed as were his contem-poraries in the belief that the movements ofthe heavenly bodies affected human affairs,even natural phenomena. A case in point wasthe impact of planets and stars on meteoro-logical events. Thunderstorms and otherweather changes were caused by the influ-ence of planets and stars in the heavenlysphere above Earth. Even if somewhat ab-surd, Pliny’s discussion of some meteorologi-cal phenomena, such as rainbows, earth-quakes, and the nature and force of winds, isremarkable.

MetallurgyPliny’s discussion of metals and metallurgyhad much common sense, being largely basedon his own observations and analysis. He dis-cussed the nature and uses of gold, silver,iron, lead, tin, copper, mercury, and bronze,providing some fascinating insights with littleaccompanying fantasy. He provided an exten-sive description of mining practices and thedangers miners endured in their quest formetals. He was fascinated with precious met-als, yet he knew their limitations, and knewas well the greed and negative impact on theRoman character of gold and silver. One is

surprised to find Pliny condemning theRoman obsession with gold and silver and itsmining and wondering why it is necessary todisembowel the earth for the sake of metalsused to satisfy greed and vanity. Pliny, alwaysinterested in the practical side of science, dis-cussed a few of the apparent medicinal bene-fits of metals, such as the application of silveror lead on bodily parts needing cooling andpassivity.

Biology, Botany, and MedicineAs one might expect from a compiler, Pliny’slife and human sciences were rudimentary,based largely on hearsay.The anthropologicaldiscussion in Natural History reveals Pliny’sutter credulity when it comes to world peo-ples. Likewise, his zoology was marred by awillingness to accept strange stories: he un-critically accepted remarkable tales about hu-manlike behavior, characteristics, emotions,and intelligence of animals such as elephantsand lions. Pliny recorded accounts of mythi-cal animals such as werewolves, although inthis case he doubted their reality. His accountof bees and their culture was a completestudy based on close observation.

Pliny’s discussion of flora was erudite andexhaustive, although generally derived fromother botanical writers, such as the student ofAristotle, Theophrastus. His focus, asthroughout Natural History, was on usefulknowledge. Hence he provided a long discus-sion on papyrus, spice trees, viticulture, olivetrees, the benefits of forest trees, and agricul-ture. Pliny saw enough of the effects of wineon Romans to condemn wine-drinking out ofhand as a terrible vice.

Pliny provided as well an extensive mate-ria medica, basing his study on the writings ofphysicians and other scientists as well as onhis own experience. He cited Cato the Elderas a source for cabbage being used as a poul-tice on wounds and Asclepiades for usingonion juice as a cure for ailments of the eyesand digestive tract. Pliny believed that vine-gar used as a salve and rinse, as well as when

192 Pliny the Elder

gargled and ingested, was efficacious in cur-ing and reducing pain in a variety of diseasesand ailments.Vinegar is useful for asthma andother respiratory ailments and was a surpris-ingly good antidote for snake bite. Indeed,Pliny recorded a variety of antidotes forsnake bite and poison.

LegacyAlthough Pliny was not an original scientist, hewas nevertheless significant as a compiler. Hisencyclopedic approach to learning had a pro-found effect on subsequent compilers, partic-ularly of the Late Roman Empire and Euro-pean Middle Ages. More significant is Pliny’swillingness to cite other writers and to catalogsystematically their writings. Modern studentsof the ancient world and science know of an-cient writers and writings that would other-wise be unknown, save for Pliny’s efforts.

See also Astronomy; Life Sciences; Meteorology;Philo of Byzantium; Pliny the Younger; RomanPrincipate; Seven Wonders of the AncientWorld; Social Sciences;Vesuvius

ReferencesPliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by John

F. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991._____. Natural History. 2 vols.Translated by H.

Rackham. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1938, 1947.

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny.Translated by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963.

Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE)Gaius Plinius Luci was nephew and heir ofPliny the Elder. He was, like his uncle, inter-ested in a variety of topics of inquiry, some ofthem scientific, which are revealed in his Let-ters. Pliny was a consul, senator, and lawyer.He was a warm supporter of the emperorTrajan (98–117 CE), who rewarded Plinywith the governorship of Bithynia and Pontusin the eastern Mediterranean. Pliny’s intel-lectual interests were focused mostly on lit-erature and rhetoric. He was not a scientistbut rather an educated Roman.Yet his Letters

contain important portraits of the cultureand science of his time.

It is through the Younger Pliny that we ob-tain most of our information on the eruptionof Mount Vesuvius in August 79 CE, which re-sulted in the death of his uncle and adopted fa-ther, Pliny the Elder. His description of theeruption of Mount Vesuvius was recorded atthe bidding of Cornelius Tacitus, who waswriting his history of the time and sought torecord all remarkable phenomena. Pliny theYounger described the eruption as causing amassive cone of smoke and ash—white, yetspotted with a dark mixture—soaring abovethe mountain and then spreading out in all di-rections like an umbrella. As night fell, themountain vomited unremitting fire. Daybreakon the morning of August 25 at Stabiae nearPompeii was indistinguishable because of theintense darkness. The nephew, meanwhile,and his mother remained in Misenum acrossthe Bay of Naples from Pompeii.The eruptionof Vesuvius caused everything to shake in a

Pliny the Younger 193

Portrait of Pliny the Younger (61–113 CE), whose lettersprovide insights into ancient Roman science.(Bettmann/Corbis)

continual earthquake. The sea churned aswell, and the tide receded to such an extentthat marine animals were thrust upon theshore and stranded. Pliny and his motherjoined an exodus from Misenum, the peoplewandering blindly in the utter darkness. Ashfell like heavy rain and covered everything.People cried out in fear of the end of theworld and their abandonment by the gods.

Pliny claimed that he was terrified but lesssuperstitious than others about the eruptionof Vesuvius. Nevertheless, he painted an in-teresting portrait of the leading Roman intel-lectuals of his age, for example, his friendsCornelius Tacitus, the historian, and Sueto-nius Tranquillus, the biographer, as believersin the traditional Roman gods and goddessesand the prophetic nature of dreams and ani-mal sacrifice.

Pliny’s letters reveal the Roman fascina-tion with water. Like many of his contempo-raries, Pliny believed that bathing, particu-larly in cold water, was a guarantor of goodhealth. He enjoyed watching natural hy-draulics at work, the fall of springs and fillingof ponds. As governor of Bithynia, he over-saw the building and maintenance of severalpublic works, particularly aqueducts andcanals.

See also Pliny the Elder; Roman Principate;Tacitus;Vesuvius

ReferencePliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny.

Translated by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963.

Plotinus (205–270 CE)Plotinus was the leading Neoplatonicphilosopher of the Later Roman Empire. Astudent of Plato (427–346 BCE), Plotinussought to adapt the master’s philosophy of theIntelligible world of ideal forms to a moreuniversal conception of the absolute sourceof all things, the One, and the human abilityto approach the One through intensive self-examination leading to a mystical union.Plotinus wrote the Enneads (literally, the nine

tracts in each of six books), which outlinedhis philosophy of the realms of existence inorder from the Intelligible world of the One;the Intellectual world of the manifestation ofthe One through the logos, the word; theworld of the Soul, both a universal world souland the individual soul that makes eachhuman unique; and the world of the body, ofnature, and of demons, which is the counter-part of the Good, and the multiplicity thatbecomes somehow swept up in the encom-passing One. Like Plato, Plotinus believedthat a mystical union with the transcendentOne could be achieved by intuition combinedwith reason built on a solid foundation oftraining in mathematics and logic.

Plotinus was a native Egyptian who taughtat Alexandria and Rome. He lived during atime of civil unrest, economic dislocation,and cultural malaise. Plotinus compared hisworld to a Greek drama—the reality of theactors, the stage, and sets being highly ques-tionable. Greek philosophy involved an un-ending repetition of the same theories, acontinuing discussion of the same books bythe great thinkers of the past. Plotinussought to reinvigorate thought through histeachings and writings. Plato inspired himmore than any other philosopher, and Ploti-nus adopted Plato’s theories of ideal formsand methods to achieve knowledge and toapproach the Good. Eunapius, writing abouta century after Plotinus’s death, claimed thatPlotinus was still popular with intellectualsand altars to his genius continued to be well-attended to.

In the Enneads, Plotinus distinguished be-tween his philosophy based on transcendentideals that accommodate human freedom andthe philosophies of his rivals. He thought thephilosophy of the atomists, basing all truth onmaterial forces, was absurd. Plotinus ques-tioned how science could be erected fromsuch uncertain foundations. Philosopherssuch as the Stoics argued that all events arefated by the creative principle, the divinefire—there is a necessity to all things. Ploti-nus, on the contrary, was a believer in the ra-

194 Plotinus

tional human acting according to free will.Other philosophers, astrologers in particular,believed in necessity and determination ac-cording to the motion of the stars and thearrangement of the planets. Plotinus believedin the Platonic notion that the heavenly bod-ies moved in perfect spheres and were them-selves divine and ethereal. He did not denythe influence of the heavens upon man andnature, nor did he disapprove of astrologersinvolved in prophesying the future. He wasadamant that the anonymous and passive Onegave humans, collectively and individually,power over many of the details of corporeal,temporal existence.

Plotinus is notable for his penetratingstudy of the human psyche, its relationship tonature and the ultimate reality, and the deepwell of the self. Anticipating modern psy-chologists such as Carl Jung, Plotinus be-lieved that all reality is joined spiritually, thatall humans commune with each other andwith the Intellectual world and the Intelligi-ble world. The One encompasses all, eveneach individual human. This is the Greekconcept of sympatheia. Plotinus was one ofthe first philosophers to explore the selfthrough his writings. In Ennead IV Plotinuswrote of transcendent moments duringwhich he confronted the divine. Porphyry,his disciple, who wrote a biography of histeacher, described several moments of suchspiritual union during Plotinus’s life. Ploti-nus compared the longing of the individualsoul for the unified world soul as the ex-tended drink after an endless thirst. At timeshe felt conflict between his soul surroundedby the things of this world and the universalsoul that has nothing to do with what is cor-poreal and transient.The individual longs forthe ultimate reunification, coming home tothe One, but until then must suffer througha divided life, being simultaneously pulled intwo directions, to the transcendent and tothe transient, good and evil. Plotinus be-lieved that said union relies upon the humanrather than the One.The individual soul can-not help but return to the world soul.

See also Iamblichus; Julian; Later Roman Empire;Neoplatonism; Plato; Porphyry; Psychology

ReferencesDodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age of

Anxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

Katz, Joseph, ed. The Philosophy of Plotinus. NewYork: Appleton Century Crofts, 1950.

Plutarch (46–120 CE)The Greek philosopher and biographerPlutarch is best known for his moralistic bi-ographies of great Greek and Roman states-men and warriors. Plutarch was an eclectic,encyclopedic thinker who understood thephilosophies and scientific theories of thepast. He was willing to employ a given the-ory, especially from the masters Plato andAristotle, whenever the biographical, histori-cal, philosophical, or scientific needs of themoment demanded it. Plutarch was in somerespects a compiler and commentator, partic-ularly respecting the writings on the physicalsciences contained in his massive Moralia.Plutarch was at his best as a biographer andstudent of human nature and behavior. As thesixteenth-century French philosopher Mon-taigne realized, Plutarch was particularlygifted in his ability to understand the humanpsyche.

Plutarch was a native of Chaeronea inGreece, where centuries before the Mace-donian king Philip II had conquered theGreek city-states, forever depriving them oftheir freedom. Plutarch spent his life inChaeronea, serving in various political ca-pacities. He was for many years priest ofApollo at the nearby Oracle of Delphi. Hetraveled to Rome, where he came to knowmany of the leading intellectuals, and Egypt,where like his many philosophic predeces-sors he became inspired by the mysteries ofthe past. He was educated at Athens. Hismentor was the Pythagorean philosopherAmmonius. Plutarch was a prolific writer,turning out not only his extensive ParallelLives but a series of essays, Moralia, as well.

Plutarch 195

PsychologyPlutarch’s psychology derived from his life-long study of human behavior and morality.This interest in the human motivation to actand its consequences led Plutarch to writethe first great biographical portraits of indi-vidual humans. These are the Parallel Lives,fifty in all, somewhat incomplete portraits ofmen of mixed characters and accomplish-ments. Plutarch’s aim, as he wrote in his Lifeof Alexander, was to draw individual portraitsof life. He sought to penetrate the humansoul, to go beyond the exterior behavior andappearance to find the essence of what ishuman.

Plutarch’s biography of Alexander is acase in point. Modern scholars trained inhistoricism and the theories of personalitydevelopment often point out the limitationsof Plutarch’s psychology, noting that it didnot allow for changes in the stages of life. Itis true that Plutarch was subject to the as-sumptions of his own time. Hence he couldblame Alexander’s drunken rage that killedhis friend Cleitus on demons. Plutarchthought that Alexander’s hot personality re-flected his hot bodily constitution.Yet wherein literature does one find a more penetrat-ing portrait of insecurity propelling a per-son forward in constant acts of personal val-idation? Plutarch’s Alexander is molded byhis youth. Olympias, his mother, estrangedfrom his father Philip, encouraged Alexan-der’s suspicions and fears directed towardhis gruff, one-eyed father, and suggested tothe toddler that his true father was Zeus.Alexander’s confusion was accentuated byconstant comparisons to Heracles andAchilles.The hatred of his mother and fatherfor each other instilled a deep void inAlexander’s life that Alexander filled bycontinual activity. Childlike feelings of angerbecame warlike acts of violence against theenemies of Macedonia. As a man he usedpower and glory to erase the anxieties andfears of childhood. A contradictory self-image gave way to a godlike Great King ofPersia. Uncertainty about self was buried in

a series of conquests, victories, and unheardof, foolhardy accomplishments.

Plutarch claimed to write bios, stories ofhuman life, discovering that, as he wrote inhis Life of Timoleon, by studying past humanshe came to identify, even empathize with,these people long dead.

As Michel de Montaigne discovered whenhe perused Plutarch’s writings, Plutarch cre-ated a personal dialogue with an individualpast human; this dialogue involved empa-thetic give and take on the part of Plutarchand, vicariously, his object of inquiry.Plutarch had the insight that the only sureway to uncover the deepest emotions in aperson is to form a bridge to connect one’semotions and personal past with another.Thisempathetic tie remains today one of the fun-damental approaches of psychoanalysis andcounseling.

The individual struggle to sort reality fromimage and fantasy occurs on a broader humanscale, as Plutarch revealed in his Lives.Plutarch lived in an age when philosophystruggled to make sense out of the fictionsand myths of the past.The Platonic and Peri-patetic schools refused to give credence tothe Homeric gods and heroes. Epicureans andStoics discounted any form of anthropomor-phic gods. Stoics elevated the divine to thestatus of a universal logos, while Epicureanswere practical atheists, joined in their senti-ments by the Skeptics. Plutarch used themedium of the human past to sort throughthe rival claims to truth. When approachingthe life of the legendary Theseus, for exam-ple, Plutarch was duly suspicious of the nu-merous myths and stories surrounding thelife of the Athenian hero; yet at the same timePlutarch sensed that even in myth there issome truth.

One of the most perplexing anthropomor-phic devices that Homer used to express theinfluence of the divine upon human actionswas his anticipation of the modern idea of thehuman conscience in episodes wherein godswhispered direction to humans. In Book 1 ofthe Iliad, for example, Achilles prepares to

196 Plutarch

strike Agamemnon in anger but is checked bythe goddess Athena, who arrives just in timeto forestall this hasty action by wise words ofadvice. Plutarch’s explanation for tales of di-vine intervention was pragmatic and reason-able. He assumed that there must be a divinepresence in some way or form in humanevents. Plutarch rejected the Epicurean argu-ment that the gods exist but have absolutelyno role in human affairs. Nor did he acceptthe Stoic ideal of a divine force that anony-mously sets forth all things but then has an ut-terly passive role in human affairs. Plutarchassumed the existence of the divine and as-sumed that the divine had a role in human af-fairs and a concern for individual humans.Homer’s portrayal of gods qua conscience fitperfectly well with Plutarch’s assumptionsthat the divine has a subtle influence onhuman thought, encouraging and suggestingbut never demanding and requiring, puttingthoughts into one’s head or calling out in adistant inner voice. Here, the god is invisible,anonymous, known only to the especiallyperceptive, sensitive human, who under-stands the divine as a message of hope.

Plutarch interpreted dreams in this fashionas well. Dreams reveal the inner workings ofthe mind, upon which the divine might act,again in an ever-so-subtle way. So whenAlexander was trying to decide where heshould found his city in Egypt, he had adream in which a wise old man came to himand suggested the isle of Pharos. Alexander,who read Homer as a person would a Bible,awoke knowing that Homer was leading himto this place, which turned out to be the su-perb location upon which Alexandria wasbuilt. According to the Greeks the muses orsome other deity inspired and spoke throughthe poets. On this occasion, Homer wasAlexander’s muse. Plutarch related a similaridea in his essay, On Socrates’ Personal Deity, inwhich the idea that each human has a deity,one might say conscience, is defended, basedin part on Socrates’ own experience as Platodescribed in several of his dialogues, notablyApology.

Plutarch was often bold in his interpreta-tions of human psychology. In On the Use ofReason by ‘Irrational’ Animals, he broke fromthe teachings of Plato and Aristotle to suggestthe view that animals are naturally intelli-gent, even more intelligent than their humancounterparts. Human reason is acquired byteaching, study, and practice—by artificialmeans (“art”), in other words. Animals, how-ever, are instinctually wise, hence are less aptthan humans to stray from their inherent pro-clivity toward wise and moral behavior. Thecontext for this strange argument is an evenstranger story involving Odysseus, heldagainst his will on the isle of Circe, the witch,forced to debate with one of his men in theform of a pig (which was Circe’s doing) overthe question, Is it better to be a man or a hog?The hog, Gryllus, turns out to be much thebetter debater. He points out to the King ofIthaca that humans display courage, honor, orresponsibility only to protect their reputa-tions, or because they are afraid of customs orlaws.They are so compelled by these outsideforces that they lack free will, which cannotbe said of an animal who willingly goes tobattle to find food or to protect its young.Likewise, animals are not governed by greedfor possessions like humans, and they exer-cise more restraint on their desires than hu-mans do. Only humans are omnivorous, bi-sexual, and pleasure-seeking. In short,Gryllus shows that animals, being close to na-ture, are therefore more intelligent than hu-mans, who do all that they can to separatethemselves from nature by forming artificialenvironments.

Some scholars doubt that Plutarch reallymeant what he argued in On the Use of Reasonby ‘Irrational’ Animals. But a student ofPlutarch’s thought, Michel de Montaigne, be-lieved that Plutarch was serious. Montaigne’sApology for Raimond Sebonde, for example, re-lies heavily on Plutarch’s apparent skepti-cism. Montaigne used Plutarch rather like abreviary for twenty years as he fought to con-trol the obsessions and anxieties of his mind,perplexed with illness and images of death.

Plutarch 197

Montaigne finally arrived at the conclusion towhich Plutarch had been guiding his readersall along, in his essay On Contentment. Plutarchbelieved that all humans, even the mentallyill, possess within themselves the basis of hap-piness, which derives from acceptance of self,position, responsibility, life, and death. Theproclivity of humans is to find meanness, evil,suffering, and trouble in life rather than whatis good and enjoyable. Obsessions about pastactions destroy present moments and castdoom upon the future.

The future, as well as the past and thepresent, fascinated Plutarch, because hefound in the passing of time, moment to mo-ment, the source of discontent. Humans be-come obsessed with time, Plutarch wrote inOn Contentment. Obsession with the futureforces people to ignore the present, becausethey are always in anticipation of what willcome next, and to ignore the past, as beingirrelevant to upcoming moments. Like Au-gustine, Plutarch argued that time is a con-tinuum of past, present, future—indistin-guishable except by means of memory andanticipation in the present moment and heldtogether by a sense of the unity and efficacyof time and life. Fighting depression causedby memory or dread is as simple as pushingthe anxiety into the background of one’s lifeportrait as it is being sketched moment bymoment. Obsessions cannot be ignored,merely made unimportant. Anticipatingmodern psychology, Plutarch advocated thatan individual suffering from depressionshould confront the fears, purposefully ob-sess and ritualize, to discover that obsessionsbrought into the light, out of the dark, be-come less terrifying.

Natural HistoryPlutarch directly tied human happiness withthe human and natural past.The latter, he be-lieved, was the product of the benevolence ofthe Good, which provides all that a humanneeds to survive, thrive, and be content.Plutarch’s approach to the study of nature,then, had a therapeutic value to it. Science

had the potential to provide the student ofnature with insights necessary to understandthe whole and one’s place in it, which, inshort, is the key to happiness. To this endPlutarch refused to limit his studies to anyone discipline, but like his hero Plato tried tounderstand a variety of topics of inquiry bythe use of reason, observation, and analysis.Plutarch was particularly interested in theprinciples of heat and cold and the action ofheat and cold on the core elements of theearth. He wondered, in On the Principle ofCold, whether or not cold has an independentexistence apart from heat—is there some-thing that exists in nature that is simply cold,rather than dependent upon relationshipswith other phenomena? Plutarch like othersbefore him recognized that the meeting ofcold and warm air produces violent thunder-storms. He was fascinated by the interactionof cold and warm water and its effect on seacreatures, as seen in his Causes of Natural Phe-nomena (Quaestiones Naturales). Natural Phe-nomena is similar to a Peripatetic exercise inasking learned, open-ended questions aboutnature: plants, animals, meteorology. IndeedPlutarch relied heavily on Aristotle andTheophrastus in deriving the various possibleanswers to the questions that he asked. Inother of his essays Plutarch wrote on a mul-titude of topics, such as the number ofworlds in what appeared to be the fixed sys-tem of the heavens; the proclivity of fire togrow more bold in cold weather; the phe-nomenon of demi-gods in oracles; the closeassociation of science and religion; whetheror not the moon is inhabited and if so, bywhat sort of beings; the possibility of settledlands west of Britain in the Atlantic; and thepossibility that animals have more sense thanhumans expect.

In his Life of Camillus Plutarch identifiedfire, or heat, as the basic principle of causa-tion and motion, inaugurating movement inall things, which otherwise lie cold and still.In his On the Principle of Cold, he argued thatcold derives not from air or water but fromearth itself.

198 Plutarch

For the historian of science and philoso-phy, Plutarch’s writings are a treasure of ref-erences and quotes from the great thinkerswho preceded him. Many intellectuals of thePax Romana have important parts inPlutarch’s dialogues. Moreover, in his Lives,Plutarch included important vignettes ofmany noteworthy scientists. In the Life of Mar-cellus, for example, Plutarch provided a fulldescription of the activities of Archimedes ofSyracuse. We learn much about Plato fromthe Life of Dion, about Aristotle from the Lifeof Alexander, about Pythagorean thought fromthe Life of Numa Pompilius, and about the socialsciences from the Life of Solon.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Dreams; History;Life Sciences; Philosophy; Physical Sciences;Psychology; Roman Principate; Solon

ReferencesBarrow, R. H. Plutarch and His Times. New York:

AMS Press, 1979.Plutarch. Essays. Translated by Robin Waterfield.

London: Penguin Books, 1992._____. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

_____. Moralia. 15 vols. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1968–1976.

Polybius (208–126 BCE)During the second century BCE, the GreekPolybius was sent to Rome as a prisoner,where he became the client of ScipioAemelianus. Polybius, along with Panaetius,brought Stoic beliefs in reason and traditionalmorality to Rome, which had a profound im-pact on the Roman worldview. Polybius cameto admire the Romans, who had already em-braced a lifestyle very much like the Stoics;he brought his Stoic didacticism to the writ-ing of a universal history of his time. Poly-bius’s Histories narrates the rise of Romanpower throughout the Mediterranean fromthe third to the second centuries BCE. Hiswork was pragmatic and ecumenical, exam-ining all affairs relating to Rome and theMediterranean during this time. Polybius

traveled to many of the regions described inthe books; thus the Histories are part geo-graphical treatise. Polybius wrote in the tra-dition of Thucydides, seeking to describe thetruth of human events but not to sacrificetruth to rhetorical flourish. He condemnedthe historian Timaeus in this regard, whoused high rhetoric to mask the fact that hewrote about events in which he had no partand of places that he had not seen. Polybiuswrote a chronological narrative usingOlympiads as the basic framework of dates.He claimed to use all available documents aswell as his firsthand knowledge of lands andpeoples. Parts of Polybius’s book contain ahistory of science, which is based on a scien-tific approach to history.

Polybius enlivened his history with first-hand accounts of the landscape and peoplesof the Mediterranean. He described Italy as atriangle with the Apennine Mountains form-ing the center from which land and watersdescend to the Adriatic in the east and theTyrrhenian Sea in the west.The Po drains thenorthern region of Italy, its waters reachingflood stage about the time of the rising of theDog Star, that is, mid-July. Likewise the Eu-phrates in Mesopotamia rises at the sametime. The lotus of North Africa is useful inproducing fruit from which wine can be fer-mented. Polybius traveled to Africa, andwrote of its geographical features, such asthe behavior of wild animals, the habits ofthe Egyptians, and the environs of MountAtlas. Unlike some ancient geographers,Polybius argued (in a lost treatise, On theParts of the Globe under the Celestial Equator)that the equatorial zone of earth is a delight-ful place to live. Heat is concentrated in thetropic zones (Tropic of Cancer and Tropic ofCapricorn) because the sun’s rays settledreadfully upon these spots, at the solstices,for about forty days. The geographer Strabowrote that Polybius believed the equatorialzone to be higher in elevation, with morerainfall than the tropics. In lost parts of hisHistories, Polybius discussed the supposedtravels of Odysseus, making realistic assess-

Polybius 199

ments of actual locales to match the strangemonsters and mythical forces described inHomer’s poem The Odyssey. Polybius also de-scribed in detail but with much skepticismthe supposed voyage of Pytheas of Massilia.After visiting the Alps of Europe, Polybiusdeclared them uninhabitable because of snowand height. Astonished by the immensity ofthe Alps, Polybius imagined their extent tobe at least a million feet. Indeed, all of thedistances in Polybius’s Histories are grosslyoverestimated.

One of the more famous parts of Poly-bius’s massive history is Book 6, which de-scribes in detail the Roman system of gov-ernment. Polybius argued that a mixedgovernment like that of the Roman Repub-lic was the best form of government, be-cause it combined democracy, aristocracy,and kingship, any one of which is on its owninadequate. Polybius formed his politicalscience on a cyclical view of history. He be-lieved that humans congregate together inherds like animals, but unlike beasts, hu-mans use reason to form ideas of duty andjustice. The initial form of government inhuman society is kingship, which is simplyleadership by the best warrior and mostcourageous leader. As a hereditary principleworms its way into this natural form of lead-ership, oppression often results because in-adequate leaders must use force and intimi-dation to secure their rule. Eventually thepeople rebel, led by wealthy aristocrats,who take charge of government upon thetoppling of the king. But this leads to a newform of oppression, the oligarchy, whichagain is toppled by the will of the people,who form themselves into a body politic, ademocracy. For a generation or so, Polybiusargued, democracy works, but eventuallythe people grow lazily content with theirfreedom and let it slowly slip away into civilwar and chaos, bringing the society aroundonce again to primitive kingship.

See also Eratosthenes; Geography/Geodesy;Mountains; Pytheas of Massilia; SocialSciences; Stoicism; Strabo

ReferencePolybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.

6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Porphyry (234–305 CE)Porphyry was the student of Plotinus andone of the great Neoplatonic thinkers of theLater Roman Empire. He adopted Plotinus’sPlatonic beliefs in the division of existenceinto the Intelligible, Intellectual, and Naturalworlds. He agreed with Plotinus that theessence of all things is the anonymous One.Porphyry also held the Platonic notions ofthe importance of human free will in domi-nating the corporeal passions and temporallimitations so as to gain reunification withthe One and the transcendency of the humansoul, encompassing a unified world soul.Porphyry was also a commentator on theworks of Euclid.

Porphyry lived at a time of civil unrest andsocial despair followed by the autocraticreign of the emperor Diocletian. He was,perhaps, a Phoenician by birth, though hestudied under Longinus the philosopher atAthens and at Rome under Plotinus. The bi-ographer Eunapius claimed (probably inerror) that Porphyry immigrated to Sicilyand contemplated suicide because Plotinustaught him to hate his body. Porphyryclaimed that Plotinus experienced a mysticalunion with the One on several occasions,while he only accomplished it once or twice.He was human enough to marry and havechildren. Porphyry was a polymath who mas-tered a variety of topics ranging fromPythagorean philosophy to mathematics andlogic to rhetoric and astrology. He wrote bi-ographies of Plotinus and Pythagoras, com-mentaries on Homer, and enjoyed quotingphilosophical maxims to make a point. Heagreed with Heraclitus that what is good andjust to the gods is incomprehensible to hu-mans and with Pythagoras that eating anykind of flesh was sinful (because of the trans-migration of souls).

200 Porphyry

Porphyry conceived of the Greek pan-theon of gods as representing manifestationsof the One, the infinite and eternal. In OnImages, Porphyry conceived of the One asbeing manifested in the Intellectual world asthe Sun (Helios, or Apollo), although to theGreeks the One was worshipped as Zeus.Zeus’s son Apollo represents the sun andZeus’s daughters the Muses are the sevenheavenly spheres and the starry vault. Fertil-ity goddesses—Hestia, Rhea, Demeter,Kore—represent the productive and regen-erative natural world. Asclepius symbolizesthe healing power of the sun. Hecate,Artemis, and Athena are like the moon, withits nocturnal light giving wisdom and bless-ing women with fertile wombs. Meanwhile,Aphrodite is the morning and evening stars,Kronos is time, and Hermes is the source ofrational thought. Porphyry believed that thepantheons of gods in different cultures rep-resented the same natural and transcendentpowers of nature, the mind, and the uni-verse.

See also Iamblichus; Julian; Later Roman Empire;Maximus of Ephesus; Neoplatonism; Plato;Plotinus

ReferencesEunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translated by

W. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968.

Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.

Katz, Joseph, ed. The Philosophy of Plotinus. NewYork: Appleton Century Crofts, 1950.

Porphyry. On Images. Translated by Edwin H.Gifford. In Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.

Posidonius of Rhodes (135–50BCE)Posidonius, originally from Syria, was a Stoicphilosopher and Greek thinker who was veryinfluential in first-century Rome.A student ofPanaetius, who first introduced Roman intel-lectuals to Stoic thought, Posidonius contin-ued the Stoic influence upon the Romans par-ticularly because of his friendship with Marcus

Tullius Cicero. He was known to be theteacher of Gnaeus Pompey. Posidonius partic-ularly made his mark in the science of geod-esy, imitating Eratosthenes in his estimate ofthe circumference of the earth based on theuse of the gnomon to measure the angle of thesun’s shadow at Alexandria, then comparing itto a similar measurement made at Rhodes. Hecalculated the circumference of earth at180,000 stades (a little over 20,000 miles,which is remarkably accurate). Much trav-eled, Posidonius reputedly journeyed all overthe Mediterranean in search of scientific data.A polymath, he wrote on meteorology andhistory and penned a periplus based on histravels. Posidonius was also a student of geol-ogy (volcanoes) and meteorology (tides).

See also Cicero; Geography/Geodesy; Hellenism;Stoicism

ReferenceOgilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Potter’s WheelSee Engineering and Technology

PrometheusThe ancient Greeks penetrated ever deeperinto the mystery of man. They realized thattheir own civilization was vastly differentfrom the peoples to the north, east, and westof Greece. Greek writers and philosopherscontrasted their culture, which included so-phisticated literary discourse, the reflectiveart of mathematics, the physical and biologi-cal sciences, and technological and artisticachievements, with surrounding, “barbarian”cultures. How did the Greek achievementcome about? Thoughtful Greeks, in search ofanswers, believed that in the distant past, in agolden age of gods and heroes, humans weresomehow granted rational thought that en-abled them to adapt to and seek to controltheir environment. The Greek poet Hesiod(about 700 BCE) believed that civilization

Prometheus 201

was the result of the gift of fire. Prometheus,the titan, against the will of the king of thegods, Zeus, taught humans the uses of fire,which resulted in the civilizing arts and sci-ences.The myth of Prometheus had, perhaps,a Sanskrit origin, in which in some Indianepics Pramanthu invented the fire drill.

Several centuries after Hesiod, the Athe-nian playwright Aeschylus (525–456 BCE),in Prometheus Bound, was more explicit in as-signing Prometheus the role of the paradoxi-cal benefactor of mankind. According toAeschylus, Prometheus was a primeval titanwith human characteristics who defied theplan of the eternal mind and power, the godZeus, to maintain humans in a primitive, ani-malistic state. Prometheus saved humansfrom their fate of ignorance and innocence.Humans were helpless, aimless, blind crea-tures to whom Prometheus introduced thedeliberative arts of philosophy, astronomy, as-trology, mathematics, poetry, prose, medi-cine, divination, and magic.

Prometheus, whose name means foresight,could not give humans what they reallyneeded, his own gift of looking into the fu-ture. Aeschylus echoed Hesiod in blamingPrometheus for dooming humans to live inblind confusion, driven by fate, uncertain ofthe future. Granted the power to controltheir material existence, to understand theworkings of the universe, yet their uncer-tainty about the future guaranteed human im-potence. Prometheus unwittingly cursed hu-mans as he cursed himself. His punishmentwas to endure ceaseless torment, chained tothe rocks of the distant Caucasus Mountains,visited daily by a vulture that ate his liver,which regenerated during the night, henceleading to an endless cycle of torture.

The myth of Prometheus was a fascinatingattempt on the part of reflective Greeks totry to understand the varied contradictions intheir society. Rational thought and scienceled to an apparent knowledge of man and theuniverse that, while it solved some problemsof human existence and provided some of thecomforts of civilized living, failed to releasehumans from war, disease, famine, and otherforms of suffering.The curse of Prometheus,according to the Greeks, is the temptation toassume that science will provide the answers,will lead to a golden age. But the Greeks dis-covered, with the Hebrew poet of Ecclesiastes,that in much knowledge is much suffering.

See also Greek Archaic Age; Hesiod; MythReferencesAeschylus. Prometheus Bound. Translated by Rex

Warner. In Ten Greek Plays. Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1957.

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Vol. 1.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1960.

Hesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica.Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936.

Kerenyi, Karl. Prometheus:Archetypal Image ofHuman Existence. New York: Pantheon Books,1963.

Vandvik, Eirik. The Prometheus of Hesiod andAeschylus. Oslo: I Kommisjon hos J. Dybwad,1943.

202 Prometheus

Prometheus. Lithograph by Rockwell Kent (1931). (Libraryof Congress)

PsychologyOne of the greatest accomplishments of an-cient science was the discovery of the humanpsyche. Psychology, the study of the psyche(soul), was largely brought about by Greekphilosophers, in particular the Platonists,Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Gnostics,and Christians. The Greeks were able to atonce apply analysis, imagination, specula-tion, logic, and intuition to a thorny, myste-rious, hidden object of inquiry—the mind.During the span of a millennium from theappearance of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey toAugustine’s conversion experience, ancientthinkers were able to discover the existenceof the individual, the singular mind tied tounique experiences; the emergence of theself from a sea of others, the collective massof humanity; the identification of the selfwith the Other, the numinous, the sum andtotal of all existence; and how the individ-ual’s momentary awareness fits in the overallfluidity of time.

The Ancient Near EastGreek psychology did not develop in a vac-uum. The Greeks built upon the insights oftheir predecessors, the Mesopotamians,Egyptians, and Hebrews. Mesopotamia,where the first civilization developed, hosteda people, the Sumerians, who engaged inspeculation into the relation of humans to thedivine, the ultimate purpose of existence, andthe role of the individual in the whole. Thehuman population increased dramaticallyduring the third millennium BCE inMesopotamia, and the Sumerians were ableto isolate individual human achievements andpersonality traits. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, forexample, we are able to read about an indi-vidual human who is complex, unique, andtragic. Gilgamesh’s search for eternal life andhappiness is a general human search madesingular to the life of one man. Gilgamesh,moreover, is part god, and he can compete onthe gods’ level, which indicates a growingawareness of the significance and value of theindividual person.

The Egyptians, meanwhile, expanded thehuman search for personal immortality andindividual recognition both in the present andin the future. Although most Egyptians livedanonymous lives, the pharaohs and their fam-ilies and close supporters became convincedof their own personal immortality and theirgreatness spanning the epochs, demandingmonuments to direct future individuals notto forget this one commemorated in a monu-ment or buried within a pyramid. The self-centered arrogance of the fourteenth-centuryBCE monotheist Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV)revealed a clear identification of himself withthe divine, of his own inner light with thegreat light of the sun.

Amenhotep IV ruled during the eigh-teenth dynasty of Egyptian pharaohs, whenThebes was the religious capital of the NewKingdom dedicated to the worship of thesun, Amen. Upon assuming the throne in1379 BCE, Amenhotep changed his name toAkhenaten, moved the religious center southto a new capital at Amarna, and devoted him-self to the worship of the one god, Aten, thedisk of the sun. Akhenaten’s Hymn to Aten is apious account of the god written by his owntrue worshiper, the pharaoh. Aten is the uni-versal source of all light, warmth, and truth;only Akhenaten understands this, and there-fore knows his true self as a reflection of thedivine. Aten is with each human at the mo-ment of conception; he nourishes the child inthe womb; he determines his length of daysand aims of life; he watches over each of hischildren, each human. Aten is the beginningand end of all things, the sum of time, theuniversal presence that chooses the sun’s diskas his incarnation, visible to humans, espe-cially to pharaoh.As the sun’s rays reach deepinto a person’s being, so too does the Aten.Akhenaten feels the presence of the godwithin himself. It strengthens him to act onbehalf of the Aten, spreading his worship,notwithstanding opposition and trials.

Akhenaten’s Hymn to Aten sounds remark-ably similar, of course, to the writings of theHebrew Old Testament. Whereas ancient

Psychology 203

polytheistic religions typically portray the di-vine as humanlike and hence superficial, aspowerful but not all-powerful, as beingbound by fate like humans are, Akhenaten’sAten and the Hebrew Yahweh are blinding,omniscient, omnipotent, all-encompassing.When Moses asks God in the Book of Exoduswho he is, God replies: “I am that I am.”Thisis the most powerful proclamation of the di-vine in human history, yet it is a proclamationmade to an individual man who is terrifiedout of his wits at a particular time and place.“I am” encompasses all things, all time, alllife, all thought. And yet “I am” can becomeinstantly knowable to anyone, not just toMoses. The Hebrew Yahweh had similar at-tributes to Aten, yet Yahweh was at the sametime visibly grander and more powerful, yetmore personal.The prophet Elijah discoveredthat he was less apt to be made known inthunder, lightning, and earthquakes than inthe quiet moment, the gentle breeze. KingDavid, the writer of the Psalms, knew a per-sonal God who cares for each individual, kingand commoner—who is a gentle shepherd toeach of his children. David’s interaction withYahweh in the Psalms reveals anguish, fear,loneliness, hope, courage, love: the Psalmsportray the breadth of human emotions andthe search of the individual to find peace andredemption from pain, suffering, sin, anddeath. The Psalms provide a complete psy-chological portrait of humankind.

The GreeksA very different approach to human psychol-ogy is found in the Iliad and Odyssey of theGreek poet Homer. Homer’s tale is a timelessportrait of human struggle against fate. Un-like the Hebrews, fate in Homer’s poems isanonymous and unknowable, and tremen-dous will and strength of character is re-quired for the individual to forge his or herown life in time. Homer put a premium onthe characteristics of the individual hero. Inso doing he created a personality standard ofthe heroic individual who strives against fateby means of the peculiar human trait of

arete—manly courage. The hidden presenceof gods poetically describes the unconsciousmind of individuals who typically heed theadvice of this inner voice and act accordingly.

Subsequent Greek philosophers, particu-larly of the Ionian school—such as Anaxago-ras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle—took thisconcept of arete, that is, individual free will inthe face of overwhelming odds or fate, andfashioned it into a more universal presence ofmind (nous) making itself known in each indi-vidual by means of the soul (psyche), an incor-poreal presence, a being (ousia) that tran-scends time and place.Truth is a mental statescarcely achieved by humans living in time.But humans at least have the ability to recog-nize what they typically lack and have thefreedom to pursue truth so as to achieve asense of well-being that, more than strengthof body, is a firm anchor in the storms oftime. Plato and the Academy and Aristotleand the Peripatetics also hypothesized a tran-scendent truth expressed as knowledge, thelogos, the word spoken in the creationthroughout all time, recognized by the indi-vidual knower at a given point in time.

Aristotle was one of the greatest studentsof human psychology. He made extensivestudies of sleep, discovering that human men-tal activity continues as during wakefulness.He examined dreams and declared them tobe natural rather than supernatural and sub-ject to scientific analysis rather than religiousfaith. In On Memory and Reminiscence he stud-ied how the human mind responds to timeand experience. He understood the role ofsense-perception in observation and analysis,the chief means by which an Aristotelian sci-entist acquires knowledge. Aristotle referredto the psyche, or soul, as the force of being inthe human upon which bodily actions are de-pendent.

Meanwhile, the Italian school counteredthe idealism of the Platonists and Aris-totelians with a materialist psychology. De-veloped by Leucippus and Democritus, thismaterialism took the form of invisible atomscomposing all existence. Even the mind,

204 Psychology

thoughts, dreams, the soul, and being werecomposed of atoms constantly in movement.Life held them together into an individualbeing; death released them to scatter andform other arrangements. Mortality wasnothingness for the individual, but not for theuniverse, which is constantly transformingand remaking itself. Epicureans such as Lu-cretius believed the aim of life was achievingcontentment, a pleasant sense of self that isgenerally immune from fear of the future andunfazed by mental, emotional, or physicalpain. Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius con-ceived of a material logos that created andgoverned (if distantly) the universe. Eachhuman shares in the logos by means of the

mind and soul; but identity is restricted tothe here and now, its future limited by death.

Plutarch, the Greek author of Moralia andParallel Lives during the Pax Romana, is agood example of the Platonic philosopherwho was influenced by, even if he rejected,materialist philosophy. Plutarch made human(and animal) psychology one of his favoritetopics. Plutarch employed an empathetic ap-proach to converse, as it were, with past hu-mans such as Alexander the Great, to dis-cover fresh insights into their personalities.Plutarch made a study of depression and itscauses; he believed depression was the resultof obsessive thoughts about the momentarypresent and the approaching future. One

Psychology 205

Bas relief of the pharaoh Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV, eighteenth dynasty, fourteenth century BCE) and his wife, Nefertiti,basking in the rays of Aten, ca. 1345 BCE,Amarna, Egypt. (Kathleen Cohen/Egyptian Museum, Berlin)

must enjoy the present by using the past,which is an extensive repository of pleasantmemories, an encyclopedia of wisdom neverto be equaled by oneself, and a peaceful bal-ance to the irritations and fears of the pres-ent moment.

Plutarch believed that the mind was apowerful agent in arriving at contentment.Reason was not a foil but rather an aid to hap-piness. One must exercise control over de-pressing images and obsessive thoughts.Thoughts cannot always be avoided. InPlutarch’s essay On Contentment he recom-mended that the anxious and depressed per-son purposely confront the fears and obses-sions so as to make them less powerful.Modern psychologists often recommend thesame technique to their patients.

Plutarch was not as original in his animalpsychology as he was in human psychology. InWhether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer and Onthe Use of Reason by ‘Irrational’ Animals he ar-gued that animals do possess reason. Natureitself provides animals with courage, accept-ance, and patience, which are all too oftenlacking in humans. Plutarch’s arguments arenot too different from the Pythagorean beliefin the transmigration of souls. On the Use ofReason by ‘Irrational’Animals, for example, pitsthe wise Odysseus against a philosophic hog,who seems to get the better of the famousIthacan. Plutarch as a young man went so faras to advocate vegetarianism in his essay Onthe Eating of Flesh.

Christianity and the Later RomanEmpireChristianity as it developed during the firstfew centuries CE brought together into onesystem of thought the psychology of antiquityas it was developed over the course of severalmillennia by the Mesopotamians, Egyptians,Hebrews, and Greeks.The Gospels and Epis-tles of the Greek New Testament present anapproach to the human psyche that is at thesame time spiritual and materialist, based onsurrender as well as freedom, in direct con-trast to the omniscience of God, yet sharing

in the mind of God.The crucial developmentin ancient Christian psychology revolvesaround the life and teachings of Jesus ofNazareth combined with the belief by theearly Christian church that he was the Christ,the Logos.

The fourth gospel, the Gospel of John, isthe crucial text in the emergence of Chris-tianity from the psychology of the ancientNear East and ancient Greeks. John inter-preted Jesus as the Greek logos, the creativeforce of the universe, the source of reason,knowledge, and being. The Jesus of theGospel of John is, as well, the begotten, co-eternal word of the Hebrew conception ofGod,Yahweh.What was completely new andunique amid the religious and philosophicalhistory of the ancient Mediterranean was thatJesus, besides being the logos, the nous, andthe ousia, was also a simple peasant born to acarpenter and his wife in the poor rural soci-ety of first-century BCE Palestine.

That Jesus was a man, or as he called him-self, the Son of Man, had a profound effect onthe development of Christian psychology. It isaltogether a different experience to findwithin oneself a sense of knowing, being,feeling, and thinking that is human ratherthan eternal, infinite, transcendent, andanonymous. One knows, knowing that Jesusknew. One feels, knowing that Jesus felt. Onethinks, knowing that Jesus thought. Christianpsychology is so overwhelmed with humanfeelings and experiences of love, joy, faith,hope, sorrow, suffering, and pain that the be-liever, by believing in Jesus as the Son of Manand Christ, feels less alone, a part of some-thing encompassing the whole of human ex-perience, akin to a man who was god incar-nate who suffered and died, the fear of whichis precisely the source of anxiety, obsession,and depression among humans. Christ is themeans of contentment for the Christian.Christ is the means of achieving a satisfactorysense of identity, of having a meaningful un-derstanding of life, of accepting oneself, lifeand death, the universe itself.

Harkening back to Yahweh’s proclamation

206 Psychology

to Moses that “I am that I am,” the Gospel ofJohn quotes Jesus proclaiming to his disciplesand the Jews, “I am” (ego eimi). Jesus, a man,proclaimed himself the transcendent logos.But he also set forth an invitation to thehuman who seeks to know the transcendent,that to simply proclaim “I am” is to know thetruth, the source of freedom.

Christianity combined with other religiousand philosophical sects flooding the RomanEmpire of the second and third centuries CEto produce one of the most intellectually dy-namic times in human history. Gnostics suchas Valentinus, Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius,Neoplatonists such as Plotinus, and Chris-tians such as Origen tried to find meaning ata time when the ancient world was coming toan end, the Roman Empire was showing signsof collapse, the world seemed old and de-cayed, and humans were weighed down withsin and suffering. For many, the mind was thebest escape to a new and better reality. Thiswas certainly true of Plotinus, who believedthat the self was the means of achieving thedivine, to unite with the ultimate reality, theOne, in an ecstatic transformation. Gnosticphilosophers and Christians believed that re-ality was nonmaterial, noncorporeal, andhence the body had to be ignored, neglected,or punished.This period from the third to thefifth century CE was the time of the greatdesert hermits and self-mutilators such asSimon Stylites. The body had nothing to dowith personal identity, indeed it hamperedman’s experience with the divine world.Totalsexual abstinence was extremely popular;some fanatics castrated themselves; others re-fused to bathe; some loaded chains on theirbodies to purge it of sin; others practicallystarved themselves in the name of purity.Such actions imply tremendous guilt, whichappears to have been a common experienceas a response by individuals and groups to thegrowing problems of the Roman Empire,such as civil war, famine, epidemics, vio-lence, apathy, and so on.

That the individual search for identity con-tinued as the Roman Empire of the West

reached its last stages is seen in the life of Au-relius Augustine, who was at various times aNeoplatonist, Stoic, and Manichee before heturned to Christianity.Augustine was the typ-ical obsessive individual who was over-whelmed with feelings of guilt that resultedin depression even as he was becoming richand famous in fourth-century Italy. Havingtried to find happiness by exorcising his guiltby means of self-examination, self-control,and the use of reason, and finding himselfeven more miserable, Augustine turned toChristianity in response to a religious experi-ence in which he heard the call of a childtelling him to “take and read” the Bible. Au-gustine did, and became a completely newman, born again, free from the oppressivefeelings of guilt, confident that his life wasvalid. Augustine discovered that he could notthink or will himself happy, he had to surren-der, accept, and embrace something largerthan himself to find himself. He wrote theConfessions to describe his journey to content-ment and the connection of his psyche to thelogos, Jesus Christ.The Confessions is in manyways the beginning of modern psychology.Few people have documented so completelydepression and recovery, the obsessive-com-pulsive personality, and the sources and reso-lution of anxiety and the identity crisis. Mar-tin Luther, who suffered from many of thesame problems as Augustine, was an Augus-tinian monk deeply influenced by the Confes-sions and City of God, Augustine’s other grandtreatise dealing with the duality of mind andbody. Jonathan Edwards, eighteenth-centuryAmerica’s great theologian, was a student ofAugustine’s psychology. Sigmund Freud andCarl Jung were also similarly influenced.

Modern psychological study continues tolearn from the ancients, thanks to the experi-ences of Renaissance intellectuals such asFrancesco Petrarca and Michel de Montaigne.The philosophy and psychology of the ancientworld inspired Petrarch to write his incredi-ble works of self-examination, such as the Se-cret, and Montaigne’s great essay on self, theEssays. Petrarch learned from his study of Au-

Psychology 207

gustine that the path to contentment lies inself-examination in the context of a full un-derstanding of time and the impact of thefleeting nature of time on the human psyche.Montaigne learned from Stoic thinkers suchas Seneca and Platonists such as Plutarch asimilar lesson of finding in the present suffi-cient contentment from the active recollec-tion of the past and passive anticipation of thefuture. Montaigne gained assistance in com-bating his depression and anxiety by engagingin a dialogue with the past, conversing withpast humans, by means of which Montaignewas able to see his life as hardly unique, as acommon human experience of guilt, regret,suffering, and unhappiness. Accepting his hu-manness helped Montaigne “to live appropri-ately,” which he discovered was the means ofcontentment.

See also Aristotle; Aurelius, Marcus; AureliusAugustine; Egypt; Greek Classical Age; LaterRoman Empire; Mesopotamia; New Testament;Old Testament; Plato; Plotinus; Plutarch

ReferencesAristotle. On Sleep and Sleeplessness; On Prophesying

by Dreams; On Memory and Reminiscence.Translated by J. I. Beare. In The Parva Naturalia.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.

De Montaigne, Michel. Essays. Translated byDonald Frame. Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 1957.

Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.

Hallo,William, and William Simpson. The AncientNear East. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1971.

Jacobsen,Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness:AHistory of Mesopotamian Religion. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1976.

Plutarch. Essays. Translated by Robin Waterfield.London: Penguin Books, 1992.

_____. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

St. Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1961.

Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past: Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1987.

Ptolemaeus, Claudius (100–170 CE)Claudius Ptolemaeus, or Ptolemy, of Alexan-dria was one of the most influential scientistsof the ancient world. Ptolemy was the head ofthe Library of Alexandria. He was a mathe-matician, geographer, and astronomer of notewhose conception of the world and the uni-verse influenced thinkers of Medieval andRenaissance Europe and the Islamic East. Hisworks were translated into Arabic as Almagest,and have been known as such ever since.

Ptolemy worked in the shadow of Eratos-thenes and other Alexandrian geographers todevelop the most sophisticated system of ge-ography in the ancient world. His ideas were,however, erroneous in several respects.Ptolemy’s measurement of the earth’s cir-cumference underestimated the earth by 80degrees or 2/9 of the earth’s surface, and con-ceived of the earth as being largely composedof land rather than water. Not knowing of thePacific Ocean or the Americas, Ptolemy’sconception of the earth was of three conti-nents (Europe, Asia, Africa), a world-encir-cling ocean (the Atlantic), and a landlockedIndian Ocean. He assumed that Asia andAfrica were connected, Asia dipping farthersouth and west than in reality, and he con-ceived of a vast terra incognita in the south-ern hemisphere.

Ptolemy’s astronomy was informed by hispredecessors, especially Hipparchus, as wellas Babylonian astronomy. Because of his po-sition as Librarian at Alexandria, Ptolemyhad before him the vast corpus of Babylo-nian observations: ephemerides coveringmany centuries and lunar and solar eclipserecords. Indeed, in the Almagest, Ptolemyprovided numerous tables to describe astro-nomical phenomena. Ptolemy’s geocentricuniverse was very similar to the Babylonianuniverse and theories of Greek astronomersbefore him. In it, Ptolemy assumed that theearth is the center around which the sun or-bits. The planets are generally on the sameplane as the sun. And from earth the ob-server can see their movement. Ptolemy ex-plained a planet’s retrograde motion by as-

208 Ptolemaeus, Claudius

suming that planets rotated on an epicyclearound the spherical path that took themaround the earth. When a planet is rotatingabout the earth in the distant semicircle ofthe epicycle it appears to move rapidly inthe direction of the sun. But when it is ro-tating about the earth in the semicircle ofthe epicycle closest to earth it appears to re-verse its orbit and then go back again—ret-rograde motion. Ptolemy’s explanation ofthe morning and evening stars, that Mercuryand Venus are visible for short times in theeastern horizon and western horizon, de-pended on the daily location of these planetsin the direction of the sun.The morning staris visible until it reaches an area where it isblocked by sunlight, but then it reappearsagain on the opposite horizon when the sunsets in the west.

Ptolemy’s concern was to create a theo-retical model that could explain for thegeometer and astronomer the positions ofthe planets relative to the fixed stars at agiven time.Whereas in another work, Plane-tary Hypotheses, Ptolemy treated the planetsas physical phenomena and tried to estimatedistances from earth, the Almagest is entirelytheoretical, and one wonders whether he in-tended his complex system of epicycles tobe real or just a good theoretical plan. In thepreface to the Almagest, Ptolemy claimedthat theoretical rather than practical philos-ophy is best, and that that would be the ap-proach he would take in his book. He fol-lowed Aristotle in defining the three areas ofinvestigation as theology, the study of theFirst Cause; mathematics, the study offorms and motions of heavenly bodies bothphysical and immaterial; and physics, thestudy of the actual physical motions and at-tributes of material phenomena. Ptolemyconcluded that of these three areas, the sec-ond, mathematics, was most appropriate forthe scientist, as the former is unknowable byhumans, and the latter is subject to the dis-tressing uncertainty and corruptibility ofmaterial objects.

See also Alexandria; Astronomy;Geography/Geodesy; Hellenism

ReferencesCrowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from

Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York:Dover Books, 1990.

Kuhn,Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution:Planetary Astronomy in the Development of WesternThought. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1957.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

Pythagoras (570–490 BCE)Pythagoras, along with Thales and Anaximan-der, ranks as one of the founders of Greekphilosophy. Legends told of Pythagoras em-phasized his great wisdom, his ability to fore-tell future events, his relationship with thegods (particularly the god of wisdom,Apollo), and his understanding and control ofnature. Like other holy men, many miraclesand aphorisms were associated with Pythago-ras that cannot be confirmed by his ownwords as he apparently never recorded them,or they were irrevocably lost. Later writerssuch as Plutarch, Aristotle, Porphyry, andDiogenes Laertius recorded the bases of hisphilosophy. He believed in the transmigrationof souls, which necessitated a vegetarian diet.The belief in reincarnation necessitated a re-fusal to abide by the norm of animal sacrificeto the gods. Likewise Pythagoras chose towear clothes of linen rather than animal skin.He preached the virtue of silence, which iscontradicted by other anecdotes of his life. Afragment from the writings of Xenophanes,for example, portrays humorously Pythago-ras’s belief in reincarnation, that he wasmoved to prevent the beating of a dog be-cause in the animal’s yelps he heard the voiceof an old (dead) friend. Pythagoras was ametaphysician who emphasized the transcen-dent nature of being. The best way to ap-proach an understanding of this invisible, uni-versal truth is through mathematics. Numberis the essence of being.

Pythagoras 209

Pythagoras was reputedly of Ionian origin,possibly born in Samos to the engraver Mne-sarchus. As an adult Pythagoras migrated toCroton in southern Italy. Herodotus, a fa-mous traveler to such places as Egypt, be-lieved that Pythagoras traveled to Egypt tolearn the mysteries of the transmigration ofsouls. Porphyry in his Life of Pythagorasclaimed that Pythagoras was taught byChaldean astrologers—the magi of Asia. Di-ogenes Laertius named his teacher as Phere-cydes of Syros. Pherecydes wrote on astron-omy and the spheres of the heavenly bodies,reputedly learned to predict eclipses, con-structed the gnomon to gauge time accordingto the movement of the sun, and learnedmuch on his travels in Egypt.

Pythagoras astonished his contemporarieswith his extravagant claims, one of which wasthat he had been blessed with being able to re-member his past lives. Hence he recalledbeing Aethalides, the son of Hermes; then hewas Euphorbus at the time of the Trojan War;

followed by Hermotimus and then Pyrrhus, afisherman.After Pyrrhus, he became Pythago-ras. In this last life (that we know of) Pythago-ras opened a school and got involved in poli-tics at Croton and died at Metapontum.

Changing seasons, unending cycles, allowhumans to conceive of number, a quantita-tive aspect to life. Pythagoras found numer-ical harmony in music, shapes, and quanti-ties of things. He is known for the theoremthat states that the square of the length ofthe hypotenuse of a right triangle equals thesum of the squares of the lengths of theother two sides. The Babylonians had, how-ever, made use of this technique a millen-nium earlier. Such theorems as thePythagorean, abstract conceptions based onmeasurement of lines and spaces, gave riseamong his followers to a general approach tolife—that reality is not concrete and israrely seen but yet can be approximated bymathematics. Time, for example, is notseen, not “real,” but movement can be tracedaccording to set measurements, numbers,which gives us an idea of some metaphysicalreality that we call time.

It is entirely possible that Pythagoras wasthe first to hypothesize the spherical shape ofthe earth based on geometry. Diogenes Laer-tius asserted that Pythagoras thought that theearth was perfect, that the sphere was themost perfect shape, and thus the earth mustbe a sphere. But a perfect sphere would natu-rally be the center of all things; hencePythagoras had a geocentric conception ofthe universe. Plutarch, however, in his life ofNuma Pompilius, who was reputedly aPythagorean, claimed that the Pythagoreansbelieved that the earth orbited the centralfire, and that Plato, under their influence,adopted a similar heliocentric view.

Much of what is attributed to Pythagorasderived from his followers, which includedphilosophers and scientists such as Telarges,his son, Philolaus, Hippo, and Hippasus.Philolaus was the leading Pythagorean andperhaps the source for the ideas of the central

210 Pythagoras

Pythagoras (570–490 BCE), the great Greek mathematicianand philosopher. (Courtesy of the National Library ofMedicine)

fire, the counter-earth, the tetractys (10 is aperfect number derived from adding 1, 2, 3,and 4), and the music of the spheres. Hippa-sus reportedly discovered the mathematicalharmonies of the musical scales, the dodeca-hedron (a twelve-sided figure), and irrationalgeometric constructs.

See also Astronomy; Greek Archaic Age; Hippo ofCroton; Iamblichus; Mathematics;Neoplatonism; Philolaus; Plato; Plotinus;Porphyry

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Burnet, John, ed. and trans. Early Greek

Philosophy. London: Adam and C. Black,1930.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. NewYork: Dover Books, 1913.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1931, 1938.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians andRomans. Translated by John Dryden; revisedby Arthur Hugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed.,New York: Random House, 1992.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of WesternPhilosophy. New York: Simon and Schuster,1945.

Pytheas of Massilia (floruit latefourth century BCE) Pytheas of Massilia lived about 300 BCE. Lit-tle is known about his journeys and even lessabout his life. The account of his journey tothe North Atlantic is lost. But ancient authorsand geographers, such as Strabo and Polyb-ius, wrote about Pytheas and provided somedetails of his journey. Pytheas was an ad hocscientist, an explorer who in the process ofpenetrating the unknown had to adopt a sci-entific methodology of observation, formingand testing hypotheses, and recording data.Some ancient critics, particularly Strabo,doubted the authenticity of Pytheas’s ac-count; others, such as Eratosthenes, believed

his voyage took place.The few details that dosurvive provide compelling evidence thatPytheas of Massilia did indeed journey to theNorth Atlantic.

Massilia in Pytheas’s time was a city situ-ated at the mouth of the Rhone River in whatis today southern France. Massilia was a sea-faring city engaged in shipbuilding and trade.Carthage, across the Mediterranean in NorthAfrica, dominated the trade of the westernMediterranean. Mariners such as Pytheas fre-quently looked for the rare opportunity tosail undetected through the Strait of Gibral-tar. Somehow Pytheas was able to do soaround 300 BCE. Knowing of the Carthagin-ian tin trade with the British Isles, Pytheasand crew made their way up the coast ofSpain and hugged the shores of France untilthey reached England. He claimed to havecircumnavigated the Isles, making measure-ments and taking notes, and to have exploredthe islands on foot.

The most tantalizing and incredible partof Pytheas’s journey was his exploration ofThule. Strabo reported that Pytheas claimedThule was several days of sailing north of theTin Islands, Britain. Thule was never clearlydefined by the ancients, or by later authors;even as late as the sixteenth century CE, theson and biographer of Christopher Colum-bus, Ferdinand, recorded a visit by his fatherto the North Atlantic, where he had heard ofThule. Candidates to be Thule are northernScotland, the Orkney Islands, the ShetlandIslands, Iceland, or Scandinavia—some haveclaimed that Thule was Greenland or evenBaffin Island in Canada. Pytheas’s descriptionof the environs of Thule leads one to specu-late that it was Norway or Iceland. Pytheasdescribed the icy fog that enveloped the seain that arctic region; his description couldonly have been gained by experience.

As a scientist, Pytheas’s knowledge of ce-lestial navigation helped him on the outwardand return voyages. The report of his ex-ploits included precise measurements of theBritish coastline, which he estimated to be

Pytheas of Massilia 211

about 40,000 stadia, or 4,600 miles, in ex-tent. Pytheas believed that there was a rela-tionship between the moon and the oceantides. He made calculations of the position ofthe North Star and also used the sundial todetermine the solstices and equinoxes. Likemost inquisitive Greeks of his time, Pytheas’squestions resulted in reasonable answersbased on experience and observations madeon the spot.

See also Geography/Geodesy; Greek ArchaicAge; Polybius; Strabo

ReferencesFreeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. New York:

W.W. Norton, 1950.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R. Paton.

6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1922–27.

Strabo. Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917,1923.

212 Pytheas of Massilia

Roman Principate(31 BCE–180 CE)AugustusThe Roman Principate is named for the pre-ferred title of Augustus (Octavian) Caesar,who was only eighteen years old when hisgreat-uncle and adopted father Julius Caesarwas assassinated by Republican senators atRome.Yet Octavian quickly gained the loyaltyof Caesar’s troops and supporters, made waragainst the leaders of the conspiracy, Brutusand Cassius, and then gradually became themost powerful man in the empire. In 31 BCE,he defeated his rival Antony at the Battle ofActium and assumed control of the RomanEmpire. Octavian ostensibly returned powerto the “Senate and People of Rome” but wasgiven the special powers of Proconsul, com-mander of Roman military forces, and Tri-bune, defender of the people, with vetopower. Octavian also had personal controlover the province of Egypt, which gave himunlimited wealth and put him in charge of aprimary source of food in Rome. In 27 BCE,the Senate conferred upon Octavian the titlesof Augustus (honored, revered) and Impera-tor (conqueror, one holding imperium,power). Augustus preferred, however, thetitle Princeps, which Roman leaders in goodstanding in the Republic had long used; it

meant simply First Citizen. Henceforth Au-gustus and his successors during the two-hundred-year Principate would rule Romewith almost total power, yet style themselvesas the Princeps of Rome.

Julio-ClaudiansAugustus, after years of civil conflict, tried torestore the empire to health and prosperity.He initiated a campaign to bring back the oldmorality of the Romans, and he sponsoredthe work of many poets and historians, suchas Virgil and Horace. This atmosphere ofprosperity and achievement inspired othersto engage in science and medicine.Three dy-nasties of Roman emperors oversaw a rela-tively peaceful time in the history of Romethat encouraged thought and speculationabout nature. The three dynasties were theJulio-Claudian dynasty (31 BCE–68 CE)under the emperors Augustus (31 BCE–14CE), Tiberius (14–37), Caligula (37–41),Claudius (41–54), and Nero (54–68); theFlavian dynasty (69–96) under the emperorsVespasian (69–79), Titus (79–81), andDomitian (81–96); and the Antonine dynastyunder the emperors Nerva (96–98), Trajan(98–117), Hadrian (117–138), AntoninusPius (138–161), and Marcus Aurelius(161–180).

R

213

StoicsRoman science during the final centuriesBCE had become heavily dependent upon theGreeks.The Epicurean view of a material uni-verse was eloquently expressed by Lucretiusin On the Nature of Things. Stoicism, foundedby Zeno, a Greek, was the most popular phi-losophy among Roman intellectuals. Its lead-ing advocate during the late Republic wasCicero, who, although he was primarily anorator and statesman, produced works suchas On the Nature of the Gods and On Divination.A century later during the reign of Nero an-other great Stoic thinker of the Principate,Seneca, in his daily practice of philosophy, en-gaged in spirited inquiries into the nature ofthings. His surviving Epistles reveal his preoc-cupation with morality, nature, and science.Seneca wrote other works, too, such as Prob-lems in Natural Science. A half century laterduring the reign of Trajan the Younger, Plinyrevealed his scientific inclinations in his cor-respondence. The emperor Marcus Aureliuswas a fine example of a Stoic philosopher. HisMeditations reveal his inquisitiveness abouthistory, nature, the origin of things, and theirfinal end. Other emperors likewise consid-ered themselves to be philosophers: Nero en-gaged in verse and architecture; Hadrianloved Greek philosophy and also delved intoarchitecture; Claudius was a biographer,philologist, and historian.

History and GeographyHistorical writing was the art and science parexcellence during the Principate. Roman his-torians, as students of the entire experienceof humankind, of necessity engaged in specu-lation on human nature and natural history.During Augustus’s reign, Titus Livius pro-duced a massive history of Republican Romethat included wonderful descriptions of theimposing forces of nature, such as the Alps.C. Julius Hyginus, a native of Spain and afreedman, was the librarian of the Palatine li-brary who wrote biographies and histories aswell as treatises on geography, agriculture,

aviculture, and religion. The polymath Cor-nelius Tacitus, who wrote during the reign ofTrajan, explored the human psyche (in hisstudy of Tiberius, for example) and describedthe culture of the Germanic tribes of north-ern Europe in the Germania. Plutarch, aGreek writing during the Principate, com-posed not only Lives but Moral Essays as well,in which he explored a variety of scientific is-sues ranging from human behavior to worldgeography to astronomy. Plutarch was a poly-math, as was his predecessor in the art ofknowing a little about a lot, the Elder Pliny.Pliny was a historian and geographer, a tire-lessly inquisitive man who lost his life whenMount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. Pliny’sNatural History, a wonderful catalog of hearsayand observation, was published posthu-mously.

The works of Livy, Tacitus, and Plutarchreveal that historical writing requires thecomplement of geographical investigation.The Greek Strabo produced a massive com-pendium of geographical facts and observa-tions about nature ranging from Europe toAfrica to Asia. Pomponius Mela of Spain pro-duced a multivolume Chorographia during thereign of the emperor Claudius wherein hedescribed the many lands subjugated by theRomans. Augustus sponsored the work ofHyginus on the geography of Italy.

Roman PragmatismThe Roman mind-set was less speculative andmetaphysical than that of the Greeks, who ex-celled at philosophy and the search for being.The Roman scientist was interested in knowl-edge that could be usefully applied to prob-lems of everyday life as well as issues of order,mobility, structure, power, and majesty.Roman road-building is a good example.Roads are useful for travel and trade, ofcourse, but initially the Romans constructedroads as a consequence, or to facilitate, mili-tary activity. Logistics, unimpeded communi-cations and supply lines, were keys to Romanmilitary success. Roman surveyors solved the

214 Roman Principate

problem of drainage and picked the bestroutes with the least fluctuation in elevation.Surveyors solved the problem of elevation andgravity in the construction of aqueducts, someof which still exist, which brought fresh waterto towns using the force of gravity: waterflows as long as there exists an uninterrupteddeclivity. The aqueducts were astonishingstructures of elegance and utility, which reliedon sophisticated engineering techniques.Roman engineers learned how to distributethe material forces of weight and gravity bymeans of the vaulted arch. The emperorHadrian showed his ability as an engineer inthe design of the domed Pantheon, which be-came the form of choice for builders of pub-lic buildings for centuries to come. TheRoman Coliseum, completed during the reignof Titus (79–81 CE) was not only a magnifi-cent engineering achievement but featured anintricate design for a partial cloth covering orshade to be used on sunny days. Many of theideas and techniques of Roman construction,engineering, and architecture are preserved inVitruvius’s On Architecture.

Agriculture was the mainstay of the Romaneconomy. Thus many Romans studied andwrote on agricultural practices. Varro, bestknown for his study of language, wrote OnAgriculture during the period of civil conflictafter the assassination of Caesar. Varro be-lieved in practical experience gained by yearsof working with the land as well as experi-mentation with crops and soils. Columella,surpassing Varro, wrote On Agriculture and OnTrees. He was interested in aviculture (bird-keeping), relying on the work of Hyginus inthis regard.Viticulture was also important forthe wine-imbibing Romans, and several no-table authors, such as Julius Graecinus,penned works on the cultivation of grapes.

See also Aurelius, Marcus; Cicero; Columella;Engineering and Technology; Epicureanism;Lucretius; Pliny the Elder; Pliny the Younger;Plutarch; Roman Roads and Bridges; Seneca,Lucius Annaeus; Stoicism;Tacitus;Varro;Vitruvius

ReferencesBarrow, R. H. The Romans. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1949.Durant,Will. Caesar and Christ. New York:

Simon and Schuster, 1944.Lucretius. The Nature of the Universe. Translated

by R. E. Latham. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1951.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1980.

Sinnigen,William, and Arthur Boak. A Historyof Rome. 6th ed. New York: MacmillanPublishing, 1977.

Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated byRobert Graves. London: Penguin Books,1957.

Tacitus. The Annals. Translated by MichaelGrant. London: Penguin Books, 1971.

Roman Roads and BridgesThe great builders of antiquity were the Ro-mans.The Roman practical genius combinedwith military necessity, the riches of empire,and soldiers who knew how to work and tobuild to create lasting roads and bridges thathave withstood the passing millennia. TheRoman legions built as they marched, confi-dent that they would be returning the sameway again and again once enemy territorywas pacified and brought into the RomanEmpire. The empire, as it expandedthroughout the Mediterranean world, re-quired good roads for communications.Often the roads traversed hilly, wet land thatnecessitated numerous bridges. The de-mands of civilization meant that the Romanroad- and bridge-builders were constantly atwork.

The first Roman road is in many ways stillthe most grand. The Via Appia, or AppianWay, connects the city of Rome with Capuato the south. It was built at the insistence ofthe Roman senator Appius Claudius Crassusin 312 BCE. The Via Appia, like subsequentroads, was built by Roman engineers usingsoldiers to do the labor.They dug a runningpit three feet deep and fifteen feet wide and

Roman Roads and Bridges 215

layered it with gravel and stone. No cementwas used. The stones, basalt and silex, werequarried from ancient volcanic sites,brought to the construction site and care-fully cut. Workers placed the octagonalstones in a bed of gravel and heated sand.Workers wedged the stones together sotight as not to allow even a knife’s edge topenetrate. The use of a surveying instru-ment, the groma, which relied on plumblines, ensured that the road would be level.Low-lying, marshy regions required addi-tional care and the building of causeways.The Via Appia traversed the Pontine Marshesand was forced to end at Lake Pontia inCampania at the Forum Appii. After the lakethe Via Appia continued to Capua. Along theroad, numerous tombs were built, begin-ning with that of its creator, Appius, whodied shortly after the completion of the roadthat bears his name.

As the centuries passed Roman roadschanged to meet the conditions of differentlands. Some roads were built with curbs.Lands such as Africa did not have volcanicstone, so other rock, such as limestone, wascut by masons into rectangles and laid closelytogether. Engineers learned how to build aroad with a delicate slant from center tosides to allow for drainage. By the mid-firstcentury CE there were over three hundredroads covering over fifty thousand miles.Roads connected the empire. Dozens ofroads spread from Italy to the Alps, connect-ing Rome with Ravenna, Marseilles, Lyons,Milan, Naples, and Syracuse. Roads followedconquests. Thus they extended into Spain,Gaul, and England, connecting the cities ofToledo, Cadiz, Tarrogona, Barcelona, Bor-deaux, Paris, Cologne, London, and York.Under Hadrian, roads in England ended at aseventy-six-mile wall built to hold back the

216 Roman Roads and Bridges

Roman engineering genius applied to roads is evident in the modern ruins of this Roman road in Algeria. (Corel Corporation)

Picts and Scots to the north. Hadrian’s Wallwas built of stone and cement and was forti-fied every mile with a small fort or castle.Roads later extended beyond Hadrian’s Wallto the Antonine Wall, built under his succes-sor Antoninus Pius.To the south, eight roadsentered London. Eighteen entered Rome.Throughout the empire there was a sophisti-cated post system with hostels every eigh-teen miles where travelers could find re-freshment and a place to stay. Perhaps theRomans borrowed the idea from the Per-sians, who once had the great Royal Roadspanning their Asian empire, which had hos-tels every fifteen miles. The Roman systemwas called during the later Roman Empirethe cursus publicus. Beginning during the sec-ond century BCE, Romans set up milestonesevery mile (4,800 feet) to indicate distance.Cartographers drew early road maps togauge distance and direction, especially forimperial and military purposes. Of thesemaps, called itineraria, which were drawn ongoat’s skin or papyrus, only one survives, thePeutinger Table, a copy of an itinerarium ofthe Late Roman Empire.

The Romans were also the greatestbridge-builders in antiquity. Few people be-fore the Romans understood the art and sci-ence of bridging rivers and streams. Onereads about pontoon bridges and bridgesformed by lashing boats together, but nocountry except Rome made bridges of stonethat spanned rivers and time. Some of themost famous Roman bridges included theMilvian Bridge that crossed the Tiber, at theplace where Constantine defeated Maxentiusin 311 CE; the mile-long bridge spanning theDanube, built by the emperor Trajan underthe direction of the engineer Apollodorus ofDamascus; the Pont du Gard, a bridge andaqueduct, still standing, built by MarcusAgrippa during the reign of Augustus; theAlcántara in Spain, also designed by Apol-lodorus; the aqueduct at Segovia, Spain, builtduring the reign of Augustus; Valen’s aque-duct, built during the late fourth century,

which lasted 800 years and spanned the 150-mile breadth of the Balkans to Constantino-ple. Some of these imposing works werebuilt with stone blocks arranged togetherwith such precision as to withstand gravity,time, and geologic events. Others used ce-ment, which the Romans developed, com-bining volcanic rock with lime, sand, andwater. Bridges required a firm base in themarsh or river; engineers dug through silt torock, to which they cemented ashlars ofstone or pylons kept upright with huge boul-ders.

See also Engineering and Technology; Hydraulics;Roman Principate

ReferencesDal Maso, Leonard B. Rome of the Caesars.

Translated by Michael Hollingsworth.Florence: Bonechi-Edizioni, 1974.

Von Hagen,Victor W. Roman Roads. London:Werdenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.

RomeRome, built on the Tiber River of centralItaly in (according to tradition) 753 BCE,was a scientific center during the ancientworld due more to its place as a governmen-tal center of great power, wealth, and popu-lation than to its promotion of the sciences.The Romans purposely cultivated a practi-cal, active mind-set rather than metaphysicsand speculation, which they thought to beless manly and suitable more for conqueredpeoples such as the Greeks. Roman sciencewas devoted to the arts linked to empire,power, and war, such as engineering, hy-draulics, military science, and architecture.Their great accomplishments were construc-tion of roads, buildings, aqueducts, and en-gines of war. As a society that enslaved theconquered and relied on slavery for laborand production, the Romans had little incen-tive to devise new forms of technology toexpand production. And speculative sciencesthat seemed to have no pragmatic result theyeschewed.Yet the Romans embraced science

Rome 217

against their better judgment, particularlyduring the Augustan Age and after, when theempire included tens of millions of peoplesliving in three continents with diverse andcosmopolitan ideas.The Greeks in particularexercised a tremendous influence on Romanthought and belief during the first few cen-turies CE.

The beginnings of Greek philosophy inRome occurred with the Roman conquest ofGreece during the second century BCE.Greek thinkers such as Panaetius and Polyb-ius arrived in Rome, some such as Polybiusunder compulsion, where they introducedsuch ideas as Stoicism to the Romans. Thefocus on reason, on duty, on self-control, onliving according to the rules of nature, ap-pealed to the pragmatic Romans. Posidoniusof Rhodes during the first century influencedCicero, who took Stoicism to heart in his po-litical activities and in his many writings onpolitics, rhetoric, and science. Epicureanismcame to Rome about the same time as didStoicism. The Epicurean Philodemus ofGadara wrote varied scientific treatises in thefirst century that appealed to many Romans,who might have otherwise found the tenetsof Epicureanism difficult to accept. Lu-cretius’s On the Nature of Things, which pre-sented Epicurean tenets of acceptance of life,of the physical nature of the universe, and of

complete free will, found an audience inRome during the mid first century. Epicure-anism had less of an enduring hold on theRomans than Stoicism. Some of Rome’sgreatest thinkers and scientists during thefirst several centuries CE, such as Seneca,Pliny the Elder, Epictetus, and Marcus Aure-lius, were Stoics.

Stoicism appealed to Romans in part be-cause of its focus on the practical, on actionrather than words. Romans eschewed meta-physics for ideas and things that worked. Ittook Polybius, a Greek, to write a completepolitical analysis of the Roman Republic.The Roman love for practical knowledgewas emphasized in particular during thereign of Augustus Caesar (31 BCE–14 CE),who patronized great writers and thinkerssuch as Titus Livius, Virgil, and Vitruvius.Building and architecture were activitiesthat exhibited the Roman love for monu-ments to Roman glory and reminders ofpersonal military achievements, as well asthe means to achieve more. The city, by theend of the Pax Romana, featured numerousforums that commemorated the victories ofemperors such as Trajan and the love forbuilding of emperors such as Hadrian.Hadrian, for example, had a hand in design-ing the pantheon, the temple to all deities,which had a large dome with a hole at thetop to let the sunlight in; light moved acrossthe towering walls during the course of theday.The pantheon used concrete and a seriesof panels that grow larger and heavier asthey descend from the cupola. Other em-perors built baths, theatres, circuses, andstadiums. The emperor Vespasian began theColiseum, which was finished under his sonand successor Titus.Trajan and Marcus Aure-lius set up great columns to commemoratemilitary victories. Titus, Septimius Severus,and Constantine constructed grand archesfor the same purpose.The city featured sev-eral obelisks and numerous temples as well.The vast wealth that sponsored such publicworks was based on agriculture, trade, and

218 Rome

The Roman Coliseum, built from 72 to 80 CE, illustratesRoman sophistication in monumental architecture. (CorelCorporation)

military conquest. The importance of theformer led to a variety of handbooks andtreatises on farming, viticulture, and olivegrowing. Authors included Cato, Celsus,Columella, and Pliny. Perhaps the most im-portant key to the success of the empire wasthe network of roads, beginning with the ViaAppia, constructed in 312 BCE. A maze ofthousands of miles of roads crisscrossedSpain, Gaul, Britain, Italy, Africa, Greece,Turkey, and Palestine. Roads were built bythe Roman legions using sand, gravel,basalt, and limestone.They were built so ef-ficiently that many are in use even today.

See also Engineering and Technology;Epicureanism; Roman Roads and Bridges;Stoicism

ReferencesBarrow, R. H. The Romans. Harmondsworth,

Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1949.Dal Maso, Leonard B. Rome of the Caesars.

Translated by Michael Hollingsworth.Florence: Bonechi-Edizioni, 1974.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Rowell, Henry Thompson. Rome in the AugustanAge. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1962.

Rome 219

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (5–65 CE)Seneca was an extremely influential states-man and Stoic philosopher of the mid-firstcentury CE. He was primarily a moralist, buthe also speculated on nature in his NaturalQuestions, and he explored the human psychein the Moral Letters. A native of Spain, Senecagained a reputation in Rome for his essays andplays. He served under the emperor Claudiusand was made tutor to Claudius’s adoptedson Nero. Upon Nero’s accession in 54 CE,Seneca served as the young emperor’s chiefadviser.After about ten years, Nero grew sus-picious of Seneca, who retired to his villasand his books. He was compelled to commitsuicide in 65 CE, after a plot to topple Nerowas discovered. Nero thought that Senecawas behind it.

Seneca was one of the leading Stoics of hisday. Stoicism had as one of its chief tenets thatnature is rational and orderly, and the manwho imitates such reason and order willenjoy the best sort of existence. Natural his-tory was therefore important to a Stoic suchas Seneca. His Natural Questions, addressed toLucilius, like the Moral Letters, reveals thisconcern. The book examines meteorology,astronomy, and geosciences. Seneca ex-plained meteors according to changes in theatmosphere. He described the origin ofwinds, the varied precipitation falling from

clouds, the weather of Egypt compared toItaly, the causes of earthquakes, and the na-ture of comets.

The Moral Letters reveal Seneca to havedeeply pondered the nature of happiness andhow to achieve it. His psychology focused onthe constant fear of death, the ongoing aware-ness of the passage of time and mortality, andthe resulting anxiety that overwhelms, de-presses, imprisons, and freezes human action.Seneca advocated a form of apatheia, the abil-ity to withstand change and contingency,which are the forerunners of death. Onemust treat death, he preached in letters to hisfriend Lucilius, as another act of life, as some-thing one simply does, like eating, sleeping,and bathing. The key is to avoid a constantfocus on the future. One must rid oneself ofthoughts or sensations of fear as well as ofhope—anything that represents the utter un-known of the future. Seneca’s argument re-garding the quandary of hope and fear wasvery similar to St. Augustine’s of centurieslater.Time involves anticipation of the future,awareness of the present, and recollection ofthe past. But if memory brings on obsessionsabout past wrongs and sins, while anticipa-tion of the future suggests all sorts of awfulpossibilities, and the present moment goes bytoo quickly to make sense of it, then humansare destined, it seems, to suffer unhappiness.

S

221

Seneca’s solution to the dilemma of humansuffering was to assume that he was in con-stant recovery from the illness of anxiety: theonly medicine that works is acceptance of lifeand self.The latter involves knowing oneself,one’s faults and virtues, and accepting one’sexistence and, especially, one’s mortality.

Seneca’s psychology of self had a profoundinfluence on many subsequent psychologistsand philosophers such as Epictetus, Augus-tine, Montaigne, and Erasmus, and throughthem the modern study of the mind, emo-tions, and behavior.

See also Roman Principate; Psychology; StoicismReferencesClarke, John, trans. Physical Science in the Time of

Nero: Being a Translation of the QuaestionesNaturales of Seneca. New York: Macmillan, 1910.

Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. Translated by RobinCampbell. London: Penguin Books, 1969.

Seven SagesThe Seven Sages were legendary thinkers iden-tified by ancients of the Greco-Roman world toexplain the origins of thought, literature, andscience. Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philoso-phers lists the seven as Thales, Solon, Periander,Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias, and Pittaeus, althoughDiogenes noted that sometimes these were re-placed by others: Anacharsis the Scythian,Myson of Chen, Pherecydes of Syros, Epi-menides the Cretan, and Pisistratus, tyrant ofAthens. Thales of Miletus was, perhaps, theonly physical scientist among the lot. He was anastronomer, engineer, and metaphysician whowas clearly influenced by Egyptian andMesopotamian scientists. The Athenian Solonwas known for his wisdom and statesmanshipin creating the Athenian state. Besides Thalesand Solon, most of the other Seven Sages areknown only by anecdotal information. Diog-enes Laertius called Chilon, Pittaeus, Bias, andCleobulus moral philosophers, although thelatter was familiar with Egyptian philosophy.Anacharsis was reputed by some to be the in-ventor of the anchor and potter’s wheel. Diog-enes claimed that Myson argued for a concreteapproach to acquiring knowledge based on ac-cumulating facts with which to support argu-ments. Epimenides, according to Diogenes,saved Athens from the ravages of plague. Ac-cording to Pliny the Elder he lived for 157years, having spent 57 of those asleep in a cave.Plutarch claimed he was a soothsayer. Pherecy-des, whom some call the teacher of Pythago-ras, was, perhaps, a philosopher and scientist oftime, inventing the sundial. Pliny the Elderclaimed (without giving details) that Pherecy-des was able to predict earthquakes.

See also Diogenes Laertius; Solon;ThalesReferencesLaertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Plutarch. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.Translated by John Dryden; revised by ArthurHugh Clough. 1864; reprint ed., New York:Random House, 1992.

222 Seven Sages

Seneca (5–65 CE), the Roman Stoic philosopher.Photographische Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1880 to 1930.(Library of Congress)

Seven Wonders of the AncientWorldThe Seven Wonders of the Ancient Worldwere selected by the ancients themselves asbeing astonishing examples of human creativ-ity and construction.

The Great Pyramid of Cheops, built about2650 BCE, was observed by Herodotus onhis visit to Egypt during the fifth century CE.Herodotus learned from Egyptian prieststhat the pyramid was built with the labor of100,000 men who dragged massive lime-stone blocks from barges that had sailed upcanals filled with water from the floodingNile. Levers were used to raise the blocksfrom each level or step to the next. Theheight of the pyramid was the same as eachside of its base. Pliny the Elder consideredthe pyramids unforgivable examples ofhubris, built by peasants in massive buildingprojects. The largest, he said, covered fiveacres and was 725 feet high. The ancientswere uncertain how they were built—Plinythought perhaps by means of mud brickramps or heaps of salt. The theory that thehuge limestone blocks were brought to thebuilding site during the Nile’s flooding wasdoubted by Pliny.

The Colossus of Rhodes, designed andconstructed by Chares of Lindos on the islandof Rhodes, was a massive bronze statue overone hundred feet high of the sun god Apollo.The statue took twelve years to build, from292 to 280 BCE. Bronze covered an ironstructure that was built by piling up hills ofsand around the statue as it rose in height.Pliny the Elder recorded that the colossusstood for sixty-six years, falling to pieces dur-ing an earthquake.

The lighthouse of Alexandria at Pharos wasdesigned and built by Sostratos of Cnidus.The tower was built in three levels and wasfour hundred feet high. Pliny the Elderclaimed that the lighthouse cost eight hun-dred talents—a talent was a unit of measureof silver or gold that equaled roughly 6,000drachmas in classical Athens.

The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was de-signed by Pythius of Halicarnassus from 355to 350 BCE as a marble monument to theking of Caria Mausolus. It was fifty-five me-ters high, was supported by thirty-twocolumns, and had a step-pyramid at the top.

According to legend, King Nebuchadnez-zar II (604–562) built gardens for his wife,who missed the forested mountains of her na-tive land. Authorities such as Diodorus Sicu-lus, Strabo, and Philo of Byzantium describedthe gardens from hearsay. Reputedly an elab-orate system of irrigation kept the trees andshrubs blooming in constant dazzling colors.The ruins of the Hanging Gardens of Babylonat the southern palace of King Nebuchadnez-zar II suggest layered walls that hosted a di-verse flora.

The Temple of Artemis (Roman Diana) atEphesus was, according to Pliny the Elder,425 long and 225 feet wide, with 127columns of up to 60 feet in height. The ar-chitect, Chersiphron of Knossos, receivedguidance in building the temple fromArtemis herself in dreams. The temple wasbuilt on low-lying, marshy ground to escapethe impact of earthquakes. Sand bags,stacked one upon another, supported theweighty stone; once the capital and lintelwere in place, Chersiphron had the sand re-leased from the bags, one after another, sogently easing the massive stones into place.Fire destroyed the Temple of Artemis in 356BCE, the same day, it was claimed, as thebirth of Alexander of Macedon. Soothsayersinterpreted the omen as indicating thatAlexander would scorch all of Asia.The tem-ple was rebuilt in 334 BCE by Deinocrates ofRhodes, the urban planner of the city ofAlexandria.

The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was de-signed by Libon of Ellis and was completed in456 BCE. The wonder, a statue of Zeus de-signed and sculpted by the art director of theParthenon, Phidias, was forty-four feet talland twenty-two feet wide.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World 223

See also Alexandria; Engineering andTechnology; Egypt; Philo of Byzantium

ReferencesHerodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey

de Selincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Oates, Joan. Babylon. London:Thames andHudson, 1986.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated byJohn F. Healy. London: Penguin Books,1991.

“The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”:http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/index.html.

Sextus Empiricus See Philosophy

Shipbuilding and Design See Marine Science

Skepticism See Philosophy

Social SciencesSocial science is literally the scientific studyof society in all its forms: family, community,kinship, nation, institutions, laws and norms,ethnic groups, human culture. Although thesocial sciences are modern scientific disci-plines of study, one finds the roots of the for-mal study of sociology, anthropology, ethnol-ogy, geography, economics, and politicalscience in the ancient world, particularlyamong the Greeks. Social science is, ofcourse, vastly different in scope and methodfrom the physical and life sciences.The latterscientists manipulate the objects of study inways that social scientists refuse to do.Thereare few laboratory experiments in the studyof society. Ancient scientists, however, per-

224 Social Sciences

The Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) at Giza, built during the twenty-sixth century BCE, is the most amazing of the SevenWonders of the Ancient World. (Corel Corporation)

formed few experiments, and therefore sci-ence was less empirical and more reliantupon reason, logic, observation, and analysis.In short, social science was scarcely differentfrom the physical and life sciences in the an-cient world.

In ancient Mesopotamia at the end of thethird millennium and beginning of the secondmillennium BCE, the first law codes wererecorded, that of Ur Nammu at Ur in thetwenty-first century BCE and the Code ofHammurapi at Babylon in the eighteenth cen-tury BCE.These law codes, although barbaricin some ways with an unrelenting focus on vi-olence and capital punishment, neverthelessbegan the process of the state determiningright and wrong, releasing humans from thehitherto endless cycle of blood vengeance.The Code of Hammurapi was a code of jus-tice, which was in the hands of the state anddetermined by the state.The idea of a publicto which the individual must conform hadbegun.

The GreeksThe Greek historian Herodotus has beencalled the father of history, the father of ge-ography, and even the father of lies. Arguablyhe was the father of anthropology as well. Hisaccounts of Asian and African cultures, gainedby personal observation over the course ofseveral years journeying through Asia Minor,Palestine, and Egypt, sometimes containedthe ludicrous and stories that challenge one’scredulity.Yet his writings also give fascinatingand highly accurate and sensitive portraits ofcontemporary customs and beliefs. In Egypt,for example, Herodotus found a societywhere the women and men had distinct rolesand habits, the women being involved intrade and going to market, the men stayinghome to perform domestic duties such asmaking clothing. Egyptians mourned bygrowing their hair rather than cutting it, as inother cultures.Although they lived with theiranimals and handled dung, in other ways theyhad singular ideas of cleanliness: for example,

unlike most people, the Egyptians practicedcircumcision, which they thought was moresanitary. And Egyptian priests shaved theirentire bodies to ensure that lice and othervermin would not plague them. Herodotuswas fascinated by the Egyptian obsession withcats—Egyptians even had their house petsmummified.

AthensSixth- and fifth-century BCE Athens was theplace and time during which the basic ideas ofsocial science were developed, primarily bysuch thinkers as Solon, Pericles, Thucydides,Socrates, and Plato.The lawgiver Solon madethe Athenian law code more equitable and fit-ting to the people and place of ancient Attica.Pericles oversaw the implementation of thebasic core values and institutions of democ-racy—such as trial by jury, equality amongcitizens, public responsibility and service, andthe secret ballot. Thucydides the historianused the Peloponnesian War to make lastingobservations about human behavior. Socratesand Plato, as revealed in Plato’s dialoguessuch as the Republic, developed such coreideas of political and social science as the so-cial compact, where government is a volun-tary association among free humans who jointogether to promote their own survival; thereliance of society upon a division of labor,wherein each human performs the task thatmost benefits the public good; ideals of polit-ical and social responsibility, of leaders whodedicate their lives to bringing truth into theworkings of the state. The Greeks inventedthe science of political oratory, the greatestorators being Lysias, Isocrates, and Demos-thenes.

Aristotle was one of the first scientists ofhuman behavior. His study Ethics is based oncorrect behavior in the human community.Selfless motives lead to virtuous actions asopposed to selfish motives that result in vice.Society clearly benefits from actions done fortheir own sake and not from ulterior motives.The best society promotes virtuous actions

Social Sciences 225

by means of the body politic—this was Aris-totle’s argument in his treatise Politics. Aris-totle studied human and animal behavior tosee how they were similar and different. Hebelieved that by observation, analysis, deduc-tion, and induction an understanding of pat-terns in human behavior can be acquired.

RomeThe Romans, ever practical and concernedwith building successful communities, gov-ernment, and empire, developed social andpolitical systems based on observations ofhuman nature and experience. Polybius, theGreek who wrote a history of Rome in thesecond century BCE, argued that only bymeans of history, an examination of humanexperience, may correct behavior be moldedand successful institutions be adopted. Livyechoed Polybius in his history of Rome, de-claring that morality is gained by the readingof history and an imitation of good behaviorand an avoidance of the bad.

The Roman Constitution as presented byPolybius was a masterly experiment in politi-cal science. Polybius argued that Rome bal-anced power by combining the rule of oneperson (kingship) with the rule of many peo-ple (aristocracy and oligarchy) with the ruleof the people en masse (democracy). Rome’smixed constitution gave executive power tothe Consuls, deliberative power to the Sen-ate, and legislative power to the people in theAssembly. The two Consuls served annuallyand could not be reelected. They wereelected by the people: one came from thelower and middle classes, the Plebeians; theother from the aristocracy, the Patricians.Each had a veto over the other’s actions; theSenate exercised a powerful influence overboth Consuls. The numbers of the Senateconstantly changed as its membership wasnot dependent upon election—rather Con-suls immediately joined the Senate after theirone-year term expired. Senators served forlife. It was their job to advise the Consuls andrecommend legislation for the Assembly to

consider.The Assembly was composed of themale citizens. It passed the laws and electedthe Consuls.The rights of the Assembly werealso represented by the Tribune, which hadveto power and was bound to exercise it inthe protection of the people from wantonabuse of power.

The Republican Marcus Tullius Cicero,lamenting the loss of the Republic to the ag-gressive ambition of dictators such as JuliusCaesar, argued in On the Character of the Oratorthat the laws of the Roman Republic arebased on a systematic approach to society andgovernment; thus, following Aristotle, thelaws are based on a science of politics. In OnLaws and On the Republic Cicero advocated areturn to the Rome of the past, when theSenate held ultimate authority, providingthrough its conservative guidance for a rela-tively free state.

A century later, after the imperial structureof rule by the emperors had established itselfin Rome, Pliny the Elder wrote Natural His-tory, in which he provided a long pseudoscien-tific discussion of human culture compared tothe habits of animals. Notwithstanding hiscredulity in accepting stories of the remark-able and strange among humans in Asia,Africa, and northern Europe, Pliny made anattempt at an anthropology: a description ofworld culture, institutions, habits, geographicand racial similarities and differences, and dif-fering physical characteristics.

The last and perhaps greatest contributionof the ancient world to the origins of socialscience were the two great law codes of theLater Roman Empire, the Codex Theodosiusand Codex Justinius. The Theodosian Codewas published under the auspices of the em-peror Theodosius in 438 CE. It summarizedthe edicts of Roman emperors for previouscenturies, showing how earlier lawgiversdealt with certain crimes and setting prece-dent for later jurists.The Justinian Code, andits offshoots the Digest and Institutes, were theresult of intense research by a group oflawyers and jurists, led by Tribonian, working

226 Social Sciences

at the command of the emperor Justinian,who ruled from Constantinople during theyears 527 to 565 CE.

See also Aristotle; Athens; Cicero;Geography/Geodesy; Herodotus ofHalicarnassus; History; Mesopotamia; Plinythe Elder; Polybius; Rome; Solon

ReferencesHerodotus. The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de

Selincourt. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Justinian. The Digest of Roman Law. Translated byC. F. Kolbert. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1979.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Taylor, Lily Ross. Party Politics in the Age of Caesar.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949.

Socrates (470–399 BCE)Socrates of Athens was one of the greatestphilosophers of all time. He inspired the workof countless other philosophers and scientists

such as Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon.Socrates was a philosopher of being, perfectlyin line with Ionian thinkers such as Anaxago-ras and Archelaus. Socrates believed that real-ity is incorporeal and transcendent, perceivedby the very few thinkers who have the intel-lect and discipline to penetrate the generallyunknowable ideal forms of the universe.Socrates did not write anything, but we knowof his thought from his disciples Plato andXenophon.

Plato’s dialogues indicate that Socrates be-lieved that constant questioning would leadto the truth. His technique in conversation,teaching, and debate was to pose a question,responding to the answer with another ques-tion, and so on. Each question became morepenetrating and was posed in such a way toyield a desired response from the respon-dent. Plato’s dialogues show that Socrateshad already deduced the truth that he wascarefully and patiently trying to elicit from

Socrates 227

This eighteenth-century engraving by L. P. Boitard (in Cooper, The Life of Socrates, London, 1750, p. 115) shows thephilosopher Socrates lecturing to his students in Athens. (Library of Congress)

his conversants. This technique of assumingan a priori truth that one will certainly arriveat through a mental process is the hallmarkof deductive reasoning, of which Socrateswas the greatest practitioner.

Socrates was unafraid to challenge the be-liefs and knowledge of others in his pursuit oftruth and his goal of revealing this truth andthe correct methods by which to achieve aknowledge of the truth to others. His chal-lenging intellectual demeanor eventually gothim into trouble after the Athenians had lostthe Peloponnesian War to the Spartans andAthenian democracy was crumbling at theend of the fifth century. Socrates was put ontrial for corrupting the youth of Athens,charges that he vigorously denied and showedto be absurd in his trial, recorded by Plato inthe Apology. Nevertheless Socrates was con-victed and sentenced to die, which he couldavoid by exile. Athenian to the end, Socrateschose to end his life by drinking the hemlockprovided by the executioner, discoursingwith his disciples on life and death to the veryend.

See also Anaxagoras of Clazomenae; Archelaus ofAthens; Athens; Greek Classical Age; Plato;Xenophon

ReferencesJowett, Benjamin, trans. The Portable Plato.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1976.

Tredennick, Hugh, trans. The Last Days of Socrates.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1959.

Solar System See Astronomy

Solon (640–560 BCE)The Greeks considered Solon, the Athenianstatesman, to be one of the Seven Sages be-cause of his wisdom in framing laws forAthens. In his Lives of the Philosophers, Diog-enes Laertius claimed that, of the SevenSages, all were statesmen except Thales, whowas the only naturalist. Plutarch’s Life of Solon

points out, however, that if Solon was not anaturalist, he was a political thinker who de-vised laws to promote equality and democ-racy in sixth-century Athens. Solon was a po-litical scientist, the first and perhaps greatestin antiquity, one who applied reason to lawand government.

Little is known of Solon’s life exceptthrough anecdote. The sources indicate thathe was born in Salamis, the little island southof Athens. He came to Athens at an early ageand gained a reputation for wisdom. He wasa merchant who earned great wealth andcame to see that Athens’s hope for politicaland economic greatness lay in production,trade, and the sea.As archon, an executive of-fice in early Athens, Solon suggested thatAthenians open their city and citizenship toforeign craftsmen and traders in order to ridthe city of its reliance upon the land and de-crease the power of the landed aristocracy inthe process. A city of merchants, craftsmen,and laborers necessarily moved toward amore open society politically—an importantprecondition for democracy in Athens. Suchwas Solon’s reputation that he gained the re-spect of the Athenians to reform their lawcode to conform to their more middle-classsociety.The focus of his laws was on fairness,equity, and reason. His legislation led to re-forms based on advancement and participa-tion in government on merit and wealth.Thereforms linked an expectation of public re-sponsibility to the accumulation of wealth,relieved the burdens of the poor by cancelingdebts, and established the institutions uponwhich democracy in Athens would be based.

According to Plutarch, Solon reformedthe Athenian lunar calendar by not relying onthe phases of the moon but instead on thepoint in the lunar cycle when the moon ap-pears before the sun appears and sets beforethe sun sets.This day Solon called “the old andthe new,” declaring that it should be the wa-tershed between the end of the old monthand beginning of the new.

Aristotle, in his Athenian Constitution,praised Solon for his government reforms, in

228 Solon

particular three of them: first, to preventcorruption in using humans as collateral inloans; second, to assist any Athenian, rich orpoor, in suing for damages; third, to empowerthe citizenry by instituting trial by jury.

According to ancient writers, upon com-pleting his legal reforms Solon decided toleave the city for ten years to allow the re-forms to take shape without the constantpresence of their creator. He traveled toEgypt, as all wise men of antiquity apparentlydid, and spoke with the Egyptian priests andlearned from them as well. He traveled toLydia where he met King Croesus, wealthy,powerful, and vain. Croesus sought compli-ments from all who visited him, but wiseSolon refused to accommodate the king. In-stead he tried to convince Croesus that hap-piness had nothing to do with wealth, butrather resulted from a useful life and honor-able death. Croesus, according to Herodotus,learned this lesson later when he was cap-tured by Cyrus, the king of Persia. Accordingto anecdotal accounts, Solon visited justabout everywhere on his ten-year sojourn,making a point to visit the other sages likehimself and giving advice wherever he went.He became the legendary legal sage of antiq-uity, whose life demonstrated that wisdom,reason, sound judgment, and a clear under-standing of human experience have much todo with the science of government. Aristotlewas impressed, and so too were the framersof the U.S. Constitution centuries later.

See also Athens; Greek Archaic Age; Seven Sages;Social Sciences

ReferencesAristotle. On the Athenian Constitution. Translated

by Frederic G. Kenyon. London: G. Bell andSons, 1891.

Durant,Will. The Life of Greece. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1939.

French, A. “The Economic Background to Solon’sReforms.” Classical Quarterly 6 (1956).

Plutarch. The Rise and Fall of Athens.Translated by IanScott-Kilvert. London: Penguin Books, 1960.

Robinson, Charles A., Jr. Athens in the Age ofPericles. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1959.

Steam PowerSee Hero

StoicismStoicism, a Greek philosophy named for thestoa or colonnade of ancient Athens, was asystem of thought based on a conception of amaterial universe composed exclusively ofatoms in constant motion creating varyingcombinations that compose the stuff of mat-ter and spirit. Atoms move in a void of nosubstance. A material universe of constantmovement does not easily accommodate thesupernatural. Indeed, the Stoics generally re-moved divine forces from their system ofthought, though not going so far as the Epi-cureans. Rather, Stoics could not conceive ofa completely random origin of the universe

Stoicism 229

Illustration of Solon—lawgiver, sage, and Athenian(640–560 BCE). (Bettmann/Corbis)

and assumed the presence of some mind orthought (composed of atoms, of course) thatconceived of and directed, if passively, theuniverse. This eternal force at once materialand spiritual was the logos, variously trans-lated as word, defining principle (Aristotle),or Holy Spirit.The Stoics conceived of a real-ity in which the logos creates and destroys inan unending cycle of change. What remainsthe same are the atoms and the void, whichconstitute over the everlasting cycles an infi-nite number of combinations. This accountsfor all beings—plant, animal, and humans.Each human is one of a kind with a uniquesoul. Upon the completion of life the atomsof the unique human disintegrate into thecollective, anonymous whole to be resur-rected, as it were, in completely differentforms of matter, life, and spirit. The logosconceives of and directs the process but isnecessarily distant and unapproachable. Sto-icism is thus a philosophy based on determin-ism that is impersonal and ultimately un-knowable.The best the human can do is try tounderstand the mind of the logos reflected inthe laws of the universe; in so doing the ra-tional and scientific-minded may compre-hend some of the natural laws upon which theuniverse is based. Such understanding of nat-ural law became an important ingredient inthe pursuit of scientific knowledge in subse-quent centuries.

The great Stoic philosophers were Greekssuch as Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysipus, andEpictetus and Romans such as Cicero,Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. The GreeksPolybius and Panaetius brought Stoicism toRome in the second century BCE. Cicerolearned of Stoicism by means of Posidonius ofRhodes.The Romans, from Cicero on, foundStoic philosophy so much to their liking thatthey adopted it as the only way to understandthe overwhelming mystery of the universe,the apparent arbitrariness of fate, and thequalities that humans can adopt to find themeans of happiness in a universe that other-wise does not promise very much.

Pliny the Elder’s Natural History providesan interesting example of Stoicism applied toRoman science. Pliny advocated the Stoic be-lief in the wisdom and benevolence of God orNature that created a universe based on rea-son. Rational humans can uncover the work-ings of nature and the laws of the universeand base their communities upon suchknowledge. Pliny repeatedly revealed his aweat the remarkable and rational workings ofnature: for example, the orderliness and hu-manlike behavior of bees, who are selfless,productive, and fearless—a perfect exampleof the Stoic belief that humans (like all crea-tures) must accommodate nature in order tothrive.

The most profound Stoic psychologistswere Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Epicte-tus, the former slave and Greek writer of Dis-courses, had a profound influence on the em-peror Marcus Aurelius, who tried to useEpictetus’s techniques of acceptance of selfand circumstances to rise above life’s contin-gencies to achieve happiness. Aurelius’s Medi-tations, however, reveals the limitations ofStoic thought when confronted with the var-ious anxieties of life.

See also Aurelius, Marcus; Cicero; Epictetus;Pliny the Elder; Polybius; Posidonius ofRhodes; Seneca, Lucius Annaeus

ReferencesEpictetus. The Discourses. Edited by Christopher

Gill. Everyman’s Library. Rutland,Vt.:TuttlePublishing, 2001.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated by JohnF. Healy. London: Penguin Books, 1991.

Sandbach, F. H. The Stoics. New York:W.W.Norton, 1975.

Strabo (63 BCE–21 CE)Strabo was the Greek writer of Geography, aninfluential treatise on history and geography.Strabo was a Stoic philosopher influenced byAthenodorus, a contemporary Stoic philoso-

230 Strabo

pher, Xenarchus, a notable Peripateticphilosopher, and the geographer Tyrannion.Strabo spent time in Alexandria, journeyedthroughout the Near East, and ascended theNile River to Ethiopia. His Geography wasbased in part on his personal experiences andreveals him to have been a polymath inter-ested in a variety of topics of inquiry.

Strabo’s concept of the earth was typicalfor his time. He unquestioningly relied onHomer for the geographic essentials. He en-visioned three continents—Europe,Asia, andAfrica—which combined together to form agreat island surrounded by the vast encirclingriver Ocean. The sun orbited the Earth, ap-pearing out of Ocean in the East and settingin Ocean in the West.The Caspian Sea flowedinto the outer ocean.The Isles of the Blessedlay to the West in the Atlantic. Ocean was ariver, flowing in and about, which explainedthe tides.

Strabo went beyond Homer, however, inhis hypothesis that the world could be cir-cumnavigated by sailing west from Europe toAsia on the same latitude.The distance, only,would prevent the fulfillment of the journey.Strabo had the support of Posidonius andAthenodorus, the Stoics, partly because thegreater the water on the surface of the earth,the Stoics thought, the stronger was the bondthat held the planets and stars in place. Straboindicated Hipparchus’s disagreement withboth ideas, the former because of the possi-bility of an interrupted ocean, the latter be-cause of its absurdity. Strabo condemned Er-atosthenes for his criticism of Homer, arguingthat Homer’s myths were meant to bring hishearers and readers to an awareness of thecore of truth found in the Iliad and Odyssey.

The reader of Strabo, in short, finds an au-thor who was skeptical of many of the stories

told of other lands and peoples. He used rea-son to sort through anecdote to arrive atplausible cause and effect. For example,Strabo spent much time in Book 1 of his Ge-ography examining Posidonius of Rhodes andhis stories, particularly one about Eudoxus ofCyzicus. Posidonius gave as fact the accountof Eudoxus’s voyages in and about Africa,which Strabo, checking for internal consis-tency in the stories, branded as spurious.Strabo also doubted the accounts of Pytheasthat Polybius and other writers had passedalong as true.

The structure of Strabo’s Geography is asfollows: Books 1 and 2 provide useful sum-maries of the lost works of writers such asEratosthenes while allowing Strabo to engagein long dissertations defending writers suchas Homer and attacking others such as Posi-donius of Rhodes. Books 3 and 4 analyze thepeoples, places, and sources of informationregarding Spain and Gaul. Book 5 provides adescription of Italy, including an extensivediscussion of the city of Rome. Books 6through 10 discuss Magna Graecia, Sicily,Germany, and Greece, while Books 11through 14 discuss Asia Minor and the NearEast. Books 15, 16, and 17 describe India andAfrica.

See also Eratosthenes; Geography/Geodesy;Posidonius of Rhodes; Pytheas of Massilia;Roman Principate

ReferenceStrabo. Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917,1923.

Surgery See Medicine

Strabo 231

Tacitus (56–117 CE)Cornelius Tacitus was a historian, biographer,and ethnographer. He was a senator duringthe Flavian and Antonine dynasties of theRoman Principate. His works included theAnnals, Histories, Agricola, and Germania. Hewas a friend and correspondent of Pliny theYounger.Tacitus was one of the most sophis-ticated Roman authors, a polymath of note,who, as an ethnologist, penned an enduringportrait of the peoples of Germany.

Tacitus’s Annals has often been praised forits penetrating psychological analyses of em-perors such as Tiberius and for its ability toportray collective behavior. Tacitus waskeenly aware of the abuse of power by thePrinceps and the army during the age of theJulio-Claudian emperors (31 BCE–68 CE).Tacitus yearned for the Republican past whenRomans worked together as a supportivecommunity and selfishness and lust forpower—the products of inequality and in-creasing wealth—had not yet set in.

Generally Tacitus, as an objective thinker,falls short. He believed completely in Romanpolytheism and the pantheon of gods, Stoicand Epicurean skepticism having not, appar-ently, caused sufficient doubts. Like many his-torians, Tacitus recorded miracles, wonders,omens, and prophecy. Tacitus’s Histories re-

lates an incident involving the future emperorVespasian, who received clear messages fromthe gods and even restored sight to a blindman (81–82). The healing was not science,but rather miracle.

The best example of Tacitus as a social andbehavioral scientist is his Germania. Tacitusrelied on a variety of Greek and Romansources, such as Pliny the Elder, who hadwritten histories of the wars with the Ger-mans, and Posidonius of Rhodes, who hadlived during the previous century. Tacituswas also the son-in-law of the Roman com-mander Agricola, who had served as gover-nor of Britain. In his biography of Agricola,Tacitus described the customs and lifestyle ofthe Britons and provided an interesting ac-count of Roman explorations around theBritish Isles, approaching almost to Thule.The Germania, however, provided a fuller andmore sensitive account of the Germanic peo-ples.The Romans considered the Germans asbarbarians, and Tacitus clearly echoed thispoint of view.Yet the Germania is less a con-demnation of the German peoples and morea full description of their physical character-istics, the land in which they lived, and theircustoms, institutions, way of life, and com-munities. The loyalty, constancy, and self-sacrifice of the Germans toward one another

T

233

impressed Tacitus. He believed that if theywere uncivilized compared to the Romans,the Germans were morally superior to theRomans.

See also Geography/Geodesy; History; Pliny theYounger; Roman Principate; Social Sciences

ReferencesTacitus. The Agricola and the Germania. Translated

by H. Mattingly. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1970.

_____. The Histories. Translated by KennethWellesley. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Thales (625–545 BCE)Ancient Greek writers identified Thales ofMiletus as the first great scientist of theMediterranean world. Thales was one of thefamed Seven Sages of the Hellenic world; ofthe seven, Thales was the natural philoso-pher. He hailed from Miletus, a town inWestern Turkey on the eastern shores of theAegean Sea, to which centuries beforeGreeks had migrated; they called themselvesIonians, and their new Asian home, Ionia.Diogenes Laertius, in Lives of the Philosophers,related one tradition that Thales was a nativePhoenician who immigrated to Miletus.Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote thatThales was a contemporary of Croesus, Kingof Lydia, and that he moved to Miletus fromPhoenicia, which explains his interest andskill at celestial navigation. Legend has it thathe diverted the Halys River to allow Croe-sus’s army to advance across it and that hepredicted a solar eclipse in 585 BCE.Plutarch recorded in his Life of Solon that thetwo men knew each other and that Thalestried to convince Solon that a philosophermust not have distractions such as a wife andchildren, a view that Plutarch was highlycritical of.

To know his thought one must rely on thereports of other ancient writers. DiogenesLaertius, who presented a twofold division ofHellenic philosophy, the Ionian and the Ital-ian, lauded Thales as the founder of the for-mer by means of his influence on Anaximan-der. Diogenes also gave Thales the title of firstancient astronomer because of two books hereputedly wrote, On the Solstices and On theEquinoxes.Thales was the first to identify UrsaMinor, Little Bear, the basis of sailing theMediterranean by the North Star. SomeGreeks believed Thales explained this in hisbook Nautical Astronomy. If Diogenes Laertiuswas correct, Thales measured the movementof the sun on the zodiac from the sun’s south-ern progression toward the Tropic of Capri-corn from June to December and its north-ern progression toward the Tropic of Cancer

234 Thales

Bust of the Roman historian Tacitus (55–117 CE).(Bettmann/Corbis)

from December to June. From Thales’ solarobservations, he arrived at an estimate of thesize of the sun by hypothesizing that the sizeof the sun’s disk as it was observed traversingthe zodiac is 1/720 of its actual size. Thalesmade similar studies of the moon’s path ofmovement and relative size.

Diogenes Laertius ascribed to Thales theability to estimate the size of the sun, tomeasure the height of the pyramids of Egypt,to argue for the immortality of the soul, toidentify souls in other natural phenomena,and to be the first to proclaim “know thyself.”Proclus, a Neoplatonist living in the LaterRoman Empire, believed that Thales was ageometrician who discovered theoremsabout the diameter of a circle and right anglesat perpendicular lines. Aristotle claimed thatThales believed that water holds the earth inplace, although he ignored the equally signif-icant question of what holds water in place.Thales thought that water served as the pri-mal element because it was a fluid that couldcongeal into a solid or be dispersed into a gas.

Thales was clearly a Greek thinker of amaz-ing breadth and originality.The ancient sourcesindicate that his predecessors in scientific in-quiry, the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, influ-enced the scope and technique of his investiga-tions. He was not the first to consider theorigins of the universe, but perhaps he was thefirst to divorce such investigation from super-stition. Indeed he apparently refused to adoptthe Mesopotamian (Chaldean) propensity toassign magical explanations to natural phenom-ena. Modern scholars doubt that Thales had theknowledge and observational skills to predictan eclipse. The story in Herodotus that helearned the techniques from Babylonian as-tronomers is doubtless untrue, because theydid not have sufficient knowledge to predictlunar or solar eclipses. Besides, Herodotusnoted that Thales predicted the year rather thanthe day or week of the solar eclipse, whichmakes the prediction a little less astonishing.Thales believed that the earth was a roundarched disk, perhaps hollow underneath.

The ancients believed that Thales eitherdiscovered or learned from others (such asthe Egyptians) the technique of using thegnomon, or sundial, to determine theequinoxes and solstices. Herodotus claimedthat Thales followed the Egyptian solar calen-dar rather than the Greek lunar calendar.Some scholars such as Neugebauer doubtThales’ understanding of Egyptian (or Baby-lonian) science.

In short,Thales was a thinker and scientistlearned in the theories and techniques ofEgyptian, Mesopotamian, and Phoenicianphilosophers, astronomers, and mathemati-cians. He is significant in the history of sci-ence for his ability to bring the work of hisAsian and African predecessors to theGreeks. Thales tempered the superstition ofthe Chaldean and Egyptian priests with therational mind-set of the Ionian Greeks. Mostimportant,Thales was not content to merelydescribe natural phenomena; rather, hesought the cause of things in the workings ofnature.

See also Anaximander of Miletus; Anaximenes ofMiletus; Astronomy; Calendars and DatingSystems; Diogenes Laertius; Egypt; Ionians;Miletus; Physical Sciences

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Background ofChemistry. New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

Themistius (317–388 CE)Themistius was one of the greatest commen-tators on the science of Aristotle during theLater Roman Empire. He was a paganphilosopher whose tact, learning, and ap-proach to philosophy earned him the admira-tion of pagan as well as Christian emperors.

Themistius 235

Themistius was born in 317 CE, just a fewyears after the emperor Constantine had con-verted to Christianity.Themistius’s father Eu-genius was a Greek Sophist at Constantinople,Constantine’s new capital of his ChristianRoman Empire.Themistius followed the pathof his father, operating a school at Constan-tinople from 345 to 355. During this time heattracted the attention of the student and fu-ture emperor Julian, who was delighted tofind a pagan philosopher who was the equal toany Christian counterpart. Themistius servedas an orator, panegyrist, tutor, and adviser tosix emperors until his death in 388 CE.

Themistius was one of the many philoso-phers of the Later Roman Empire who triedto reconcile the apparent disparity betweenthe teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Platonic(Neoplatonic) thinkers believed in the con-templative life removed from the demands ofpublic service, which fit their view that theactivities, sights, and sounds of daily life arein the end insignificant, mere shadows ofwhat is true and real. Aristotelian (Peri-patetic) thinkers on the other hand embracedthe apparent reality of everyday life, believingthat in the everyday lie the hints of truth tothe observant philosopher and scientist.Themistius believed in personal enlighten-ment used in public service. For example, inhis orations to the emperor Constantius IIThemistius argued that philanthropia is themost important quality for a ruler to have—to the ancient world, that meant love,clemency, mildness, justice, humanity.Themistius hoped that the emperor, the rulerof the Roman world, would imitate God, theruler of the universe. Here is the Platonicconcern for the awareness of truth combinedwith the statesman’s concern for its properapplication in government and society.

Themistius’s contribution to the study ofAristotle was his Paraphrase, which featured animportant discussion of Aristotle’s On the Soul,Metaphysics, Posterior Analytics, and On Heaven.Themistius’s work was translated into Arabic,Hebrew, Latin, and, in some cases, English. It

was through the work of such Aristoteliancommentators that Aristotle’s science came tobe known to the Muslim world as well as tolate medieval thinkers such as ThomasAquinas. Constantinople, where Themistiustaught, became in the fourth century an im-portant center of learning. Along with otherGreek cities of the Eastern Roman Empire,Constantinople survived the destruction ofthe Western Roman Empire during the fifthcentury. During subsequent centuries, Con-stantinople served as the capital (the secondRome) of the Byzantine Empire, thereby en-suring that the works of ancient science wouldcontinue to be studied for years to come.

See also Aristotle; Julian; Later Roman Empire;Neoplatonism; Peripatetic School

ReferencesDowney, Glanville. “Philanthropia in Religion and

Statecraft in the Fourth Century after Christ.”Historia 4 (1955): 199–208.

Todd, Robert, trans. Themistius: On Aristotle’s On theSoul. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the EmperorJulian. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1962, 1969.

Theon of Alexandria See Hypatia of Alexandria

Theophrastus (370–286 BCE)Theophrastus, a student of both Plato andAristotle, was a native of the isle of Lesbosand an early Peripatetic philosopher, famousfor his work in flora. Theophrastus, like histeacher Aristotle, was at the same time a deepyet practical thinker. A polymath, his creativeoutput was immense. Diogenes Laertiuslisted dozens of titles that came fromTheophrastus’s pen.These included works onastronomy, logic, physics, meteorology,morality, zoology, psychology, political sci-ence, mathematics, history, poetry, music,and commentaries on earlier philosophers.

236 Theophrastus

Theophrastus’s Book of Signs examined cloudsand other environmental conditions withwhich to predict the weather. Upon the deathof Aristotle, Theophrastus took over leader-ship of the Lyceum, Aristotle’s school inAthens.The Lyceum had a wonderful gardenthat Aristotle enjoyed strolling through as hetaught; Theophrastus maintained it and usedit as an herbarium. Proclus, the fifth-centuryCE writer, recorded Theophrastus’s beliefsthat Chaldean astrologers could predict thefuture, including the time of one’s death.Whether or not they predicted Theophras-tus’s own death is not known, although Diog-enes Laertius does transcribe his extensivewill.

Theophrastus’s Enquiry into Plants providesa full description of the flora of the ancientMediterranean; it is an indispensable tool forthose researching the history of botany.Theophrastus classified and described trees,shrubs, and flowers, building a materia med-ica of those plants with medicinal properties.Like Aristotle,Theophrastus was interested inclassifying plants; his Enquiry provided de-tailed discussions of plant types and morphol-ogy. All aspects of plants—roots, leaves,buds, fruit, propagation, uses, and types ac-cording to place and climate—were de-scribed in detail. Theophrastus provided en-cyclopedic accounts of trees, shrubs, flowers,wild and cultivated plants, herbs, edible andinedible plants, cereals, spice-bearing plants,and the odors of plants.The writing was dry,although detailed and without parallel inscope for centuries.

See also Aristotle; Athens; Life Sciences;Peripatetic School; Plato

ReferencesLaertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.

Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1931, 1938.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity. NewYork: Dover Books, 1969.

Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants and Minor Works onOdours and Weather Signs. Translated by ArthurHort.Vol. 2. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1916.

Thucydides (460–400 BCE)Thucydides was the greatest historian in an-tiquity. He penned The Peloponnesian War todescribe what he thought would be one of themost fundamental conflicts in human history,the war between the Ionians (led by Athens)and the Dorians (led by Sparta) from 431 to404 BCE. Thucydides was an Athenian gen-eral who lost his commission early in the war;he decided to stay involved by observingevents, talking to participants, and recordinghis own assessments of the war. He lived inThrace for most of the war and returned toAthens at its conclusion in 404. Thucydidespurposely treated historical inquiry like a sci-ence by asking questions, collecting availablefacts, and setting forth answers based on rea-son, analysis, and an objective mind-set.

In the first book of his history,Thucydides,seeking an accurate picture of the Trojan Warand the Mycenaean kings, engaged in deduc-tive analysis based on reason and experienceto try to reconstruct in general terms theGreek past. He set himself apart from hispredecessors Homer, Hecataeus, Hellanicus,and Herodotus. He condemned their uncriti-cal use of sources and reliance upon myth andpoetry. History has little to do with poetry,Thucydides argued. Aristotle, in the Poetics(Book 9) would echo this same sentiment halfa century later. Aristotle compared historyunfavorably to poetry, in that the formerrefers to particulars, the latter to universalsand thus to the truth. Thucydides, however,believed the exact opposite, seeing in the par-ticulars of human experience the true kernelsof universal human truth.

Thucydides argued that by examining anevent such as a war we might see how humanbehavior will repeat itself, not in the particu-lars of time and place but in the general be-havioral response of humans to certain condi-tions. In this way history can become ascience of human behavior, wherein patternswill be found to occur again and again. Hisportrait of the whims of public opinion andthe power of demagoguery at Athens will be

Thucydides 237

seen again and again over the course of cen-turies in similar democracies and republics.The unexpected and irrational in human af-fairs, so clearly seen in the case of Alcibiades,accused of impiety and driven to the Spartanside, is a constant feature of Thucydides’work. His account of the plague that ragedthrough Athens early in the war is a realisticportrait of the impact of fear and disasterupon human institutions, morality, and de-cency.Thucydides was impatient with the be-liefs among the Greeks that healing couldcome from the gods, particularly in the sanc-tuary of a temple of Asclepius or Apollo.Thegods, he believed, have no apparent impacton prevention of illness or recovery. This ra-tional approach to medicine was being prac-ticed by a contemporary of Thucydides, Hip-pocrates of Cos. Indeed Thucydides’description of the plague in The PeloponnesianWar shows clear indications that he was influ-enced by Hippocrates.

There were many imitators of Thucydidesin subsequent centuries; yet few could matchhis tight narrative and seemingly scientificprecision. True, Thucydides began the prac-tice imitated by other Greek and Roman his-torians and biographers of recreatingspeeches based on his understanding ofhuman character and the particulars of timeand place. This merely showed his genius forinterpretation, for portraying the generalitiesof human existence from sporadic, uncertain,or nonexistent sources. Thucydides’ great-ness lay in his ability to organize a clear nar-rative of sequential events over time, to seetime as one episode after another, movingfrom future possibilities to present existenceand awareness to past recollection. Humansare typically blinded by the present moment,which is fleeting (while the future is un-known and the past unclear). Through thechronological historical narrative, the readercan escape from the dependence on the pres-ent moment, to see human existence and be-havior over a broad expanse of time, andthereby gain an appreciation of what it meansto be human.

See also Athens; Greek Classical Age; Hecataeusof Miletus; Herodotus of Halicarnassus;Hippocrates; History; Homer; Medicine;Psychology; Social Sciences;Time

ReferencesBreisach, Ernst. Historiography:Ancient, Medieval and

Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1983.

Finley, M. I. Aspects of Antiquity: Discoveries andControversies. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1977.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

TimeTime, its nature, meaning, and origins, wasone of the most difficult subjects of philo-sophical and scientific inquiry for ancientthinkers. Scientists, theologians, philoso-phers, and historians have for centuries triedto comprehend time. But because humans areso much a part of, so dependent upon, time,a true understanding has been and continuesto be elusive.The questions of today were thequestions the ancients asked about time. Istime an artificial measure, a tool by which hu-mans trace their own existence? Or doestime have an independent existence—a phe-nomenon separate from human experience?Is it true that there is geologic time, that theuniverse carves a temporal path from its be-ginning to its end? Or is time separate fromhuman awareness?—without humans toknow and trace it, time is meaningless, non-existent. Is time therefore an absolute, a con-stant that can be measured with mechanicaldevices, a certainty that, as Newton believed,has very little fluctuation, and thus allows hu-mans the confidence to base their lives uponit? Clocks, chronometers, and calendars helpus to safely trace the passing of years, days,months, which gives us meaning, helps us toknow ourselves and our world. Perhaps timeis relative, as Einstein believed: Since it de-pends upon the individual observer, time isinconstant and fluctuating, governed by out-side forces, significant only insofar as it yields

238 Time

for us a sense of uncertainty, inconstancy,meaninglessness, and anomie. Is one human’stime the same as another human’s time? Is thetime of twenty-first-century America thesame as the time of first-century Rome? Whatdoes it mean to say that we live in the year2005? How does it help to know one’s age?What does it mean to guide one’s life by theclock? What does it mean to regulate institu-tions, government, the most minute humanevents, according to the passage of seconds,minutes, and hours?

Two of the most fundamental explanationsof the nature of time were developed in theancient Mediterranean. Time as an objectivephenomenon is an external, natural forceseparate from human thought and experi-ence. Time as a component of nature existseven if humans do not—time has an inde-pendent existence that humans struggle toperceive and understand.Time as a subjectivephenomenon, on the contrary, is an internalhuman experience understood best by thosewho understand self.A personal sense of timeis a unique experience enjoyed by each per-son individually over the course of life.

CronosThe earliest Greek writers and philosophersconsidered time as a divine phenomenon,often subjective and personal yet at times dis-tant and untouchable. Cronos, the son ofheaven (Uranos) and earth (Gaia) was, ac-cording to Greek mythology, the god of time.Cronos was an odd one, jealous of his ownpower, suspicious of his own children—heate his daughters Hestia (hearth), Demeter(grain), and Hera (fertility) and sons Hades(hell) and Poseidon (sea) until Zeus (sky)conquered his father and sent him to thedepths of Tartarus. Perhaps Cronos’s confu-sion about power and responsibility explainswhy the poets such as Homer ignored theprecise movement and logic of time and casthuman events in isolated, sporadic momentsseemingly unconnected with the continuumof past/present/future. So contradictory wasHomer’s sense of time that his poems are

models of anachronism, which means literallyagainst time, a confusion of chronology.Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey record the peopleand events of the distant Mycenaean Age(which ended during the twelfth centuryBCE) joined to a portrait of society, institu-tions, and culture at the height of the GreekDark Ages (1000 BCE), while adding randomperspectives of the time (eighth centuryBCE) in which the poems were written downafter centuries of oral telling and retelling.

Time in Classical Greek ThoughtAt the end of the Greek Dark Ages in theeighth century BCE, Greek society was in-creasingly sophisticated.The city-state (polis)was the center of trade, organized govern-ment, and intellectual speculation.The orderand structure of civilization usually requiresa concrete perspective on the passing ofevents and a record of what has happened.Greek thinkers developed a sense of objec-tive time as external to human affairs. OnePherecydes of Syros (according to the Neo-platonist writer Damascius) conceived oftime as the creative force of earth’s primalelements. But time itself was not begotten,therefore was uncreated, eternal, and infi-nite. Anaximander of Miletus (610–540BCE), according to Aristotle, conceived ofthe infinite, which is the unending of spaceand time. Hippolytus in Refutation of All Here-sies explained that Anaximander believed thattime is the eternal action of “being, exis-tence, and passing away” (Heath 1913). Aris-totle claimed that Pythagoras believed “thattime is the motion of the whole (universe)”(Heath 1913).According to the Greek math-ematician Eudemus, Pythagoras argued thatall phenomena experience eternal recur-rence. The heavenly spheres of the universemove according to mathematical precision,in constant repetition of the same harmoniccircles. If the heavenly spheres constantly re-turn to the beginning, then why not humansas well? Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedo, professedhis belief in the recollection of ideas and phe-nomena previous to this life, which implies a

Time 239

fundamental cyclical state of time. Plato inthe Timaeus explained the nature of time asdue to the eternal nature of the Good andthe fixity of number.

At the same time the Greek awareness oftheir spectacular accomplishments in theMediterranean world of the first centuryspawned a complex sense of history to recordthe passage of time in light of political events.Herodotus, the first Greek historian of note,relied on the works of his predecessorsHecataeus of Miletus and Hellanicus of Les-bos to develop a subjective sense of time asinquiries, historia. The Greek sense of time inhistorical writing was chronologically impre-cise and episodic because dating systems wereimprecise and far from standardized.Olympiads were a favorite chronologicalmarker, as were the term of office of archons,the election of priests and priestesses, thereigns of kings or, under the Roman Empire,the annual terms of consuls. Such points onthe human scale of time were overall unsatis-factory. Historians and biographers were lessapt to place the lives of humans in a broadercontext of linear events and more apt to iso-late the object of inquiry in a subjective pro-file of life, character, and personality.

The AtomistsHellenistic philosophy and historiographycontinued the balancing of objective and sub-jective notions of time. Epicurean and Stoicphilosophers argued for recurrence and infi-nite cycles of life and death, creation and de-struction. What was indestructible and infi-nite—atoms—were also uncreated, formingand re-forming in countless combinations ofmatter, alive and dead. Lucretius, the RomanEpicurean, wrote in On the Nature of the Uni-verse that time is objective, and thus existsonly insofar as an observer might recognizeand trace the ongoing transformation of mat-ter. Time is completely merged with naturalmovement, and otherwise has no existence.

One finds in the Stoic philosopher MarcusAurelius’s Meditations, however, a strong senseof the subjective human experience of time.

Aurelius could make little sense out of lifeand death because of his materialistic assump-tions about the indestructibility of matter, thematerial basis of the soul, and the insignifi-cance of human existence. He believed thattime is an unending series of moments overwhich the individual has absolutely no con-trol. Life is random; the self is a product ofrandom atoms in constant movement. Eachindividual’s life is a solitary moment in a vastwhole.There is no meaning in the duration oftime; the only meaning is in the fleeting mo-ment. Ironically, as Aurelius professed themeaninglessness of life he desperately soughtmeaning. As he proclaimed the anonymity oftime he sought to personalize it, make it hisown. In this he ultimately failed because of hismaterialistic fatalism. The self, according toMarcus Aurelius, yearns for significance butcannot find it in a purposeless, godless world.

Aurelius AugustineA one-time Stoic turned Neoplatonist andthen Christian, Aurelius Augustine (354–430CE) reassessed ancient theories of time inlight of Hebrew and Christian theology to ar-rive at a completely original and personalview of time. The societies of the ancientNear East such as the Sumerians, Egyptians,and Hebrews lacked a clear chronologicaldating system and like the Greeks and Ro-mans dated events according to pharaohs,kings, prophets, and the passage of genera-tions of father and son. Hebrew historicalnarratives, such as Chronicles and Kings inthe Old Testament, are clear narratives ofevents with but a simple sense of the linearmovement of time. The Hebrews lived theirlives in between the past and future, the pre-vious greatness of their ancestors and the fu-ture coming of the Messiah. This obsessivesense of concern for the past and futurefound its way into Christian theology duringand after the first century CE because of theteachings of Jesus of Nazareth described inthe Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.Luke the physician, who wrote the thirdGospel as well as Acts, used the same

240 Time

episodic, subjective time frame to couch hisnarrative of events that are otherwise chrono-logically imprecise. Christians made theirmark in the history of human comprehensionof time by seeing the birth of Jesus as themost significant event in human history. Thisevent required a sense of division—beforethe Incarnation of God to Man, before Jesus,and after his crucifixion and resurrection. Itwas not until the sixth century, and thechronology of Dionysus Exiguus, that thedating system of BC (ante Christos) and AD(anno domini) came into being. More signifi-cant than this new dating system was AureliusAugustine’s sophisticated study of the natureof time.

Augustine personalized time in a way noone had before him. His Confessions recountshis own life from birth to conversion andbaptism at middle age. There are no dates,and the passage of time is not marked by clearreferences to the reign of kings and the like,the typical Greek and Roman approach ofproviding an external, objective human ornatural reference.Yet the narrative is tempo-ral and linear, and the reader does achieve aclear sense of Augustine’s path through hisown life, in terms of his own time. Augus-tine’s time is his own; no one else experi-ences his time—each has his own. Each per-son experiences time according to thepattern of his own life. Augustine’s philoso-phy appears to be an extreme form of rela-tivism, yet he tempers it and provides a uni-

versal standard—in other words he providesan objective time frame from which to gaugeone’s own time.This objective standard is un-expected and untraditional in terms ofGreco-Roman writing. It is the Incarnation—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.Augustine’s lifeis understood only by means of reference tothis event that occurred centuries before, butwhich according to Christian theology ismade personal and real to each individualChristian. Here in the thought of Augustine isthe culmination of the ancient approach to-ward time: the objective and subjective, theexternal and personal experiences of time,are combined in the life of the Christian wholives in reference to, and fully in, the life ofthe Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth.

See also Aurelius, Marcus; Aurelius Augustine;Epicureanism; Herodotus of Halicarnassus;History; Myth; New Testament; Plato;Pythagoras; Stoicism

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913;

reprint edition. New York: Dover Books, 1981.Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.St. Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-

Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1961.

Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past: Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1987.

Time 241

Varro (116–27 BCE)Marcus Terrentius Varro was one of the greatscholars of the Roman republic. His manyworks included On Country Life,Antiquities, andOn the Latin Language, which provided a scien-tific account of Roman agriculture, an analysisof the human and natural past, and a scholarlystudy of Latin. Augustine, who used On theLatin Language as well as Varro’s histories,thought Varro was one of the most importantthinkers of the past.Varro’s agricultural writ-ings influenced others such as Columella andPalladius.Varro wrote on farming and ranch-ing, advocating an empirical approach to thestudy of plants and animals. Varro’s On theLatin Language argued the belief, especiallyprevalent in first century BCE Rome, thattruth is dependent upon how it is presented inspeaking and writing.The Antiquities consistedof forty-one books devoted to anthropologyand theology. Augustine despised Varro’s pa-ganism but approved his rational approach to-ward the Roman pantheon of gods.Varro de-scribed the varied approaches of Greekphilosophers to the divine but reserved judg-ment as to which theory was most accurate. Inthe end, Augustine relied on Varro’s naturaltheology to condemn the paganism of the Ro-mans and support his own views on the su-premacy of Christianity.

See also Agriculture; Aurelius Augustine; Cato,Marcus Porcius; Celsus; Columella; Palladius

ReferencesOgilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

St. Augustine. City of God. Translated by HenryBettenson. London: Penguin Books, 1984.

Vesuvius One of Rome’s leading scientists, Pliny theElder, was killed in August of the year 79 CEwhen Vesuvius erupted. Pompeii and Hercu-laneum were two small cities to the south andwest of Mt.Vesuvius in the province of Cam-pania. Both cities looked out upon the Bay ofNaples. It was a beautiful place to live, a placeof wealth and culture. But when Mt.Vesuviuserupted, lava, stone, and ash destroyed andburied the two cities. Thousands of peopledied, including the fifty-six-year-old GaiusPlinius Secundus—known to history as Plinythe Elder.

Mt.Vesuvius has been an active volcano forthousands of years. The region of westernItaly dominated by the four-thousand-footvolcano experienced many warnings of themountain’s volatility before the massive ex-plosion of 79 CE. Cassius Dio, who was not ascientist, described how for years Vesuvius

V

243

had erupted, sending up flames, smoke, andash.The curious had climbed to the crater atits summit, which appeared like an amphithe-ater. Quite often inhabitants had heard therumbling of the mountain, had seen the fre-quent orange glow at night—the warnings ofwhat might occur. But Dio implied that theinhabitants of Pompeii and Herculaneumwere so familiar with the mountain’s habitsthat the roars, quakes, and fires preceding theAugust 24 eruption were ignored.

Seneca, the Roman stoic and naturalist,described the earthquake of 62 CE that pre-saged the total destruction of the year 79.Theearthquake hit in February, causing greatdamage. Herculaneum was partially de-stroyed, and Pompeii almost totally. But the

people immediately set to rebuilding, andwere still doing so in August 79.

Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, alsodescribed the region, its fertility and beauty.He knew Campania well, had observedVesuvius and the surrounding mountains re-peatedly. As a commander of the Romannavy, he was stationed at a nearby port, Mi-senum, on August 24. Pliny’s nephew, theletter writer and naturalist Pliny theYounger, then seventeen years old, was pres-ent the morning of August 24. He recalledlater, in a letter to the historian CorneliusTacitus, that his uncle had determined to in-vestigate the reason for the large dark cloudrising from Vesuvius and called for a boat tobe made ready. Science then had to make

244 Vesuvius

Mount Vesuvius as it appeared in an early-seventeenth-century illustration. (Library of Congress)

way for official duties. Having receivedword that the people of the coast at Pompeiiand Herculaneum were in danger, he or-dered galleys to be launched to rescue theinhabitants. As he sailed across the Bay ofNaples directly toward the massive cloudlooming above the mountain, spreading out-ward, Pliny took notes of his observations.The boats were blocked by the number ofvolcanic rocks falling from the sky, makinghazardous the shallow water along the east-ern shore of the bay. Pliny ordered the shipssouth to the town of Stabiae, where thewind, current, and quakes made escape im-possible. Pliny ordered a bath and dinner andthen slept. Meanwhile pumice stones and ashfell, darkening the sky. Buildings were rock-ing and threatening to collapse. Pliny and hisfollowers rushed to the seashore but foundthere was no escape. The stench of sulphurwas overwhelming. Poisonous gas, heat, andash finally brought death.

Scientists such as Pliny the Elder and hisnephew took a rational, scientific approach tothe eruption and earthquakes of Vesuvius.Thecredulous, however, interpreted the calamityof the eruption of Vesuvius as the work of thegods and demons. Cassius Dio, writing yearslater in his History of Rome, recorded the per-ceptions of many survivors, that the eruptionwas the work of demons.The more thought-ful wondered if it presaged the coming de-struction of the universe by fire. Such was thebelief of Stoic philosophers and scientists.Mt. Vesuvius buried Herculaneum and Pom-peii in feet of ash, mud, and pumice. In time,nature took over, covered the region withnew growth, and the towns were forgotten.The dead of Pompeii and Herculaneum layburied for fifteen hundred years. Finally inthe 1700s and 1800s Italian archeologists un-covered the city, rediscovering what had beenwealthy, productive towns and busy scenes ofhumanity that came to an end in 79 CE whenVesuvius erupted.

See also Pliny the Elder; Pliny the Younger;Roman Principate; Stoicism; Strabo

ReferencesCassius Dio. Roman History. Translated by Earnest

Cary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1914–1927.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. 2 vols.Translatedby H. Rackham. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1938, 1947.

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the Younger Pliny.Translated by Betty Radice. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1963.

Strabo. Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917,1923.

Vanags, Patricia. The Glory That Was Pompeii. NewYork: Mayflower Books, 1979.

Vitruvius (floruit 25 BCE)Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman archi-tect during the age of Augustus and thelearned author of On Architecture. Little isknown of his life except for his book, inwhich he addressed the Emperor Augustusand his interest in the Roman infrastructureof public buildings and forums, hydraulics,and engineering.Vitruvius discussed in detailbuilding materials; the impact of climate onbuilding; the functionality of rooms in adwelling; interior design and wall paintings;and the dangers of lead pipes. Vitruvius ar-gued for the active sharing of scientificknowledge. An engineer, he examined aque-ducts, Archimedes’ discoveries on the dis-placement of water, the water screw, thelever, rotary power, and the use of machineryin making weapons of war.

On Architecture describes in detail the sci-ence of acoustics. Vitruvius compared thehuman voice in speech or song to the wavesspreading out from a stone tossed into stillwater; the voice moves both vertically andhorizontally.The human voice, he argued, hasthree types of modulation in tone. An advo-cate for using the pure shapes of the universe,the knowledge of geometry, in building, Vi-truvius was a student of the Pythagorean the-orem and the works of Archimedes. He ar-gued that the Roman theater should be builtwith four equilateral triangles coming to a

Vitruvius 245

point in the center. He hoped that the the-ater’s acoustics would rival the music of theheavenly spheres.Vitruvius also discussed thebuilding of a hydraulic organ.

Vitruvius was interested as well in astron-omy and its practical uses in time-keeping. Hediscussed sundials, water clocks, and how thegnomon can measure the sun’s shadow at thewinter solstice to get an idea of the extent ofthe world. A long section of On Architecturefocused on the geocentric view of the plan-ets, moon, and sun and the revolution of theheavens about the two poles on the earth.Fascinated by astrology, Virtruvius discussedin detail the zodiac and constellations. Heclaimed that the greatest astrologists were

the Chaldeans, in particular Berossus (a Baby-lonian), who had a school at Cos in theAegean. Vitruvius is often remembered forhis conception of the perfect dimensions ofman, his hands and legs outstretched within asquare and circle.

See also Engineering and Technology; Hydraulics;Roman Principate

ReferencesOgilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.

Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1980.

Radice, Betty. Who’s Who in the Ancient World.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1973.

Vitruvius. On Architecture. Translated by JosephGwilt. London: Priestley and Weale, 1826.

246 Vitruvius

Wheeled Vehicles See Engineering and Technology

Women and ScienceThe ancient sources provide only scarce in-formation about the role of women in sci-ence. The sources were written by men—women in most classical societies were notencouraged to participate in intellectual ac-tivities, and those who did risked a tarnishedreputation or worse. It took an exceptionalperson to rise above such constraints and par-ticipate in the man’s world of science. Onesuch person was Theono of Thurii, who livedin the sixth century BCE and was reputedlythe wife (and disciple) of Pythagoras. She wasmuch younger than Pythagoras; upon hisdeath she continued his work, writing trea-tises on astronomy and number. She wroteTheory of Numbers and Construction of the Uni-verse. In the latter she hypothesized (alongwith another of Pythagoras’s students Philo-laus) that there were ten heavenly bodiesmoving about a central fire. She also hypoth-esized that the distances between the heav-enly bodies is proportional to the distancesbetween notes on a musical scale.

Similar, perhaps, was Aspasia, the consortof Pericles. Aspasia was from Miletus, a lead-

ing center of science during the fifth centuryBCE. She was possibly associated with Anaxi-mander and Archelaus, Pericles’ andSocrates’ teachers, respectively. A hetaira,one of the elegant, promiscuous consorts ofthe rich and famous of Athens, she was Peri-cles’ companion for many years, holdingforth in salon fashion among the intellectualelite of mid-fifth-century Athens. She reput-edly opened a school of philosophy, havingnot only well-born women but some ofAthen’s most important men as her students.

Another wife of a great man who drewaround her the leading intellectuals of hertime was Julia Domna, wife of the third-cen-tury CE Roman emperor Septimius Severusand mother to the emperor Caracalla. Shewas foretold by a horoscope to be an em-press, which compelled the astrologist Septi-mius Severus to marry her. She cultivated thepagan arts and literature, patronizing Philo-stratus, who wrote Lives of the Sophists and Lifeof Apollonius of Tyana, at her bidding. Aelian,the author of On the Characteristics of Animals,was also patronized by Julia.

The greatest woman scientist lived towardthe end of the ancient period at the intellec-tual center of Alexandria—appropriately.Hypatia was the daughter of the mathemati-cian and astronomer Theon, with whom she

W

247

collaborated on commentaries of ClaudiusPtolemaeus. Besides her father, Hypatia wasinfluenced by the geometer Pappas, the arith-metician Diophantus, the Neoplatonist Pro-clus, and the work of mathematicians such asArchimedes, Apollonius of Perga, and ofcourse Ptolemy. Hypatia’s most famous stu-

dent was the Christian philosopher Synesius.A pagan, Neoplatonist, and astrologist inChristian Alexandria, Hypatia was killed bymob violence.

See also Aelian, Claudius; Alexandria; Athens;Hypatia of Alexandria; Philolaus; Philostratus;Pythagoras

ReferencesAelian. On the Characteristics of Animals. 3 vols.

Translated by A. F. Scholfield. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1971.

Durant,Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simonand Schuster, 1944.

_____. The Life of Greece. New York: Simon andSchuster, 1939.

Jones,Tom B. In the Twilight of Antiquity.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1978.

Philostratus. Lives of the Sophists. Translated byW. C.Wright. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1921.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

248 Women and Science

The Athenian patroness of science and consort of Pericles,Aspasia (fifth century BCE). From G. Staal and F. Holl, NewYork: D.Appleton & Co., between 1860 and 1888. (Libraryof Congress)

Xenophanes of Colophon(570–478 BCE)Xenophanes was a poet whose elegies andsatires portrayed philosophers and their theo-ries, as well as provided insights into the na-ture of the universe. Xenophanes was fromthe Ionian town of Colophon; like his fellowIonians Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes,and Anaxagoras, Xenophanes believed in atranscendent cause for all things and was un-comfortable explaining phenomena as the re-sults of proclivities of anthropomorphic gods.At some point during his life, Xenophanesemigrated to Magna Graecia, where he livedat Elea.A tradition grew over time that he wasthe teacher of Parmenides—their philoso-phies are indeed similar. In short, Xenophaneswas an original philosopher, perhaps the firstskeptic, who challenged contemporary beliefsabout nature and the divine.

Xenophanes’ beliefs about the divine arepreserved in several fragments. He con-demned the ancient poets for their anthropo-morphism respecting the divine. Xenophanesproposed a singular, all-powerful god ofthought who exercised control over the uni-verse.

Xenophanes’ verse obscures many of hisbeliefs about the universe, or rather his beliefswere obscure and verse was the best way to

portray them. According to Hippolytus,Xenophanes believed that the universe is nei-ther finite nor infinite, a contradiction thatmay be resolved by considering that Xeno-phanes, like the materialists, hypothesized anongoing creation and destruction of the uni-verse. Xenophanes also was indebted toThales, perhaps, in assigning to water (that is,mud) a creative force. Xenophanes also heldthe contrary view that above the earth is alimited region of air, sun, moon, planets, andstars, while below the earth is an infinite void.This appears to reflect a view of the earth asflat. More perplexing was his belief thatclouds of fire form the heavenly bodies, andthat the sun only appears to be one phenome-non, but is in reality a multitude, indeed an in-finite number. How? Xenophanes, accordingto the first century CE commentator Aëtius,believed “that there are many suns and moonsaccording to the regions, divisions, and zonesof the earth; and at certain times the disclights upon some division of the earth not in-habited by us and so, as if it were stepping onemptiness, suffers eclipse.” Also, Xenophanes“maintains that the sun goes forward ad infini-tum, and that it only appears to revolve in acircle owing to its distance” (Heath 1913). Inshort, the flat earth is infinitely long, overwhich are infinite numbers of suns moving

X

249

east to west; as one appears, moves by, anddisappears from the eyes of the observer thesun seems to be one body appearing and reap-pearing, but the senses fool us.

Xenophanes’ ideas appear ludicrous today,but he did rely on observation more than onblind faith in the same old Homeric gods.Xenophanes took a fresh approach, and, al-though he was in error, his was the same sci-entific approach of his contemporaries andhis forebears, the Ionians.

See also Astronomy; Eleatic School; GreekArchaic Age; Ionians; Magna Graecia

ReferencesBarnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Penguin Books, 1987.Burnet, John, ed. and trans. Early Greek Philosophy.

London: Adam and C. Black, 1930.Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. New York:

Dover Books, 1913.

Xenophon (430–355 BCE)Xenophon was a native Athenian writer,philosopher, historian, adventurer, and sol-dier. He is famous for his Anabasis, an accountof a dangerous journey into the heart of Per-sia and a successful retreat back to Greece ledby Xenophon himself. He also wrote Hel-lenica, a continuation of Thucydides’ brillianthistorical narrative; Oeconomicus, about run-ning one’s personal household (oikos); andSymposium and Memorabilia, both of which arereminiscences of former times when he was astudent of the great Athenian philosopherSocrates. Xenophon’s philosophy was not asgood as Plato’s. His history was not as good asThucydides’. And his Oeconomicus had limitedvalue. And Xenophon was not much of a sci-entist. Nevertheless it was through the Anaba-sis that Xenophon made his mark on the his-tory of literature, of thought, and even ofscience.

Xenophon was a young Athenian noble-man, a veteran of the Peloponnesian War, anda student of Socrates when a friend asked himto join a contingent of Greek hoplites (heav-ily armed infantrymen) who were to march

into Asia Minor on an expedition against thePersians. They were to be led by Cyrus, abrother of the king of Persia Artaxerxes.Xenophon agreed but claimed later that hedid not realize Cyrus’s real intent, to topplehis brother. They marched, however, in 401,into the heart of Persia, where Cyrus waskilled in an engagement with the Persianarmy under Artaxerxes. The Greeks, leader-less and surrounded in hostile territory,began a dramatic journey amid sporadicfighting to return to Asia Minor, the BlackSea, and eventually Greece. During this jour-ney Xenophon rose to be one of the com-manders. He and most of the soldiers sur-vived, after which Xenophon used his swordto fight for the Spartans. He lived in the Pelo-ponnesus for many years, returning near theend of his life to Athens.

The Anabasis is a wonderful adventurestory that provides a fairly good historicalnarrative filled with action, speeches, anddescriptions of Asia. Xenophon imitatedThucydides’ style of writing, presenting ano-nonsense narrative that provides achronological viewpoint following a cleartemporal order. Xenophon rarely di-gressed, but stayed with his story. Althoughhe clearly believed in the Olympian gods,there is little that is ridiculous in the Anaba-sis. From a historical point of view, it isunique as a first-hand account of historicalevents—history as personal experience.Xenophon was observant and intelligent,and he provided some good descriptions ofthe Asian peoples, cultures, and institutionsand the landscapes of Mesopotamia, Arme-nia, and Asia Minor. Xenophon was nottrained in the study of human culture, but hebecame a reasonably good anthropologistout of the necessity of escaping Persiantroops through a foreign and dangerouscountry.

Xenophon’s significance from a scientificstandpoint was limited. He influenced otherswho sought to discover more about Asia’s ge-ography and people. Notably he inspired

250 Xenophon

Aristotle’s interest in the Persian Empire,which was passed on to his student Alexan-der, who used the Anabasis as a guide to Per-sia, its peoples and way of life.That Alexanderbecame an ad-hoc geographer and anthropol-ogist like Xenophon was not a coincidence.Out of Alexander’s anabasis came some othergood narrative adventures filled with geo-graphical, anthropological, and natural in-sights—for example, Nearchus’s Indica.

See also Alexander of Macedon; Greek ClassicalAge; Nearchus of Crete; Plato; Socrates;Thucydides

ReferencesBrunschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey Lloyd. Greek

Thought:A Guide to Classical Knowledge.Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Grant, Michael. Readings in the Classical Historians.New York: Scribner’s, 1992.

Xenophon. A History of My Times. Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1979.

_____. The Persian Expedition. Translated by RexWarner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1972.

Xenophon 251

ZenoSee Stoicism

Zeno of Elea See Eleatic School

ZodiacSee Astronomy

ZoologySee Life Sciences

Z

253

Before the Common Era

10,000 Neolithic Era begins atMesopotamia.

6000 Pottery developed atMesopotamia.

3500 Bronze Age in Mesopotamia:Cities, irrigation, social structure,labor specialization.

3100 First Dynasty in Egypt.Cuneiform developed inMesopotamia.

3000 Hieroglyphics in Egypt.Tradebegins between Mesopotamia andEgypt.

2800– Construction of different phases 1500 of Stonehenge in England.

2700 First step pyramid built at Egyptunder supervision of architectImhotep.

2650 Great Pyramid of Cheops built atEgypt.

2500 Indus River civilization emerges.

2350 Sargon of Akkad creates firstworld empire at Mesopotamia.

2000 Epic of Gilgamesh written afterhaving first been orally composed.Bronze developed at Crete.Achaean migration into Greece.

1900 Mycenaean Age begins at GreekPeloponnesus.

1800 Civilization at Chinese YellowRiver developed.

1792– Reign of Hammurapi of Babylon.1750

1650 Linear A script developed atCrete.

1570 New Kingdom begins at Egypt.

1450 Rise of Hittite Empire at Turkeyand Syria. Decline of Cretanpower in Mediterranean.Mycenaean control of Greece andAegean Sea region.

1400 Appearance of Linear B script inGreece.

Chronology

255

1379– Reign of Amenhotep IV 1362 (Akhenaten), pharaoh of Egypt.

1300 Development of Chinese solarcalendar.

1200 Invasions of Sea Peoplesthroughout easternMediterranean. Dorian invasion ofGreece.

1150 Beginning of Greek Dark Ages.

1000 Homer’s Iliad and Odysseycomposed orally.

1000– Reign of Hebrew King David.962

800–500 Greek Archaic Age.

800 Carthage founded by Phoenicians.Greek poleis (city-states) dominateMediterranean.

776 Olympic games begin.

753 Legendary founding of Rome.

750–700 Appearance of written Iliad andOdyssey.

733 Syracuse in Sicily founded byCorinth.

700 Hesiod’s poems Theogony andWorks and Days appear.

672 Height of Assyrian Empire inMesopotamia.

650 Byzantion founded at Bosphorus.

640–560 Athenian lawgiver Solon.

625–545 Ionian philosopher and scientistThales.

610–540 Ionian scientist and philosopherAnaximander.

604–562 Reign of Nebuchadnezzar, King ofBabylon.

600 Massilia founded in southernFrance.

590 Solon reforms laws of Athens.

586 Babylonians destroy Jerusalem.

585–525 Milesian scientist and philosopherAnaximenes.

585 Eclipse reputedly predicted byThales.

570–490 Philosopher and mathematicianPythagoras.

570–478 Philosopher and scientistXenophanes.

540–480 Philosopher and scientistHeraclitus of Ephesus.

510 Scylax of Caryanda explores theIndus River, Arabian Sea, and RedSea.

509 Roman Republic founded.

500–331 Greek Classical Age.

500 Explorer Euthymenes exploresthe west coast of Africa.

500–428 Philosopher and scientistAnaxagoras.

500 Geographer Hecataeus of Miletusflourishes.

500 Carthaginian Hanno explores westcoast of Europe and Africa.

256 Chronology

495–435 Philosopher Empedocles.

490–430 Greek historian Herodotus.

490 Greek defeat of Persians atMarathon.

480 Greek defeat of Persians atSalamis.

470–399 Athenian philosopher Socrates.

460–370 Epicurean Democritus.

460–473 Greek physician Hippocrates.

460–400 Greek historian Thucydides.

456 Temple of Zeus at Olympuscompleted.

447–438 Parthenon built under supervisionof Callicrates.

431–404 Peloponnesian War.

430–427 Plague in Athens.

430–355 Philosopher and historianXenophon.

427–347 Athenian philosopher Plato.

408–352 Student of Plato, Eudoxus ofCnidus.

401–399 March of the Ten Thousand led byXenophon.

384–322 Athenian philosopher and scientistAristotle.

384–322 Athenian orator Demosthenes.

370–286 Student of Aristotle,Theophrastus.

365–279 Skeptic Pyrrho of Elis.

360–312 Explorer Nearchus of Crete.

356 Temple of Artemis at Ephesusdestroyed. Birth of Alexander ofMacedon.

350 Completion of Mausoleum atHalicarnassus.

341–271 Founder of EpicureanismEpicurus.

333–262 Founder of Stoicism Zeno.

331–31 Greek Hellenistic Age.

331 Founding of Alexandria.

325 Voyage of Nearchus along thesouthern coast of Asia.

323 Death of Alexander of Macedon.

315–240 Astronomer Aratus of Soli.

312 Construction of Appian Way.

310–230 Astronomer and mathematicianAristarchus of Samos.

300 Massilian explorer Pytheasexplores North Atlantic.

300 Greek geometer Euclid flourishes.

287–212 Syracusan mathematician andengineer Archimedes.

280 Completion of the Colossus ofRhodes.

279 Completion of the Lighthouse ofAlexandria.

276–195 Astronomer Eratosthenes.

Chronology 257

275–194 Physician Erasistratus.

260–180 Greek scientist Philo ofByzantium.

235 Mathematician Apollonius ofPerga flourishes.

234–149 Roman agriculturalist MarcusPorcius Cato.

208–126 Greek historian Polybius.

190–120 Astronomer Hipparchus.

146 Roman destruction of Carthage.

145–90 Chinese historian Ssu-Ma Ch’ien.

135–50 Stoic scientist Posidonius ofRhodes.

116–27 Roman polymath Varro.

106–43 Roman philosopher Cicero.

98–55 Epicurean Lucretius.

86–35 Roman historian Sallust.

70–19 Roman poet Virgil.

63– Geographer Strabo.21 CE

59– Roman historian Livy.17 CE

58–50 Caesar’s conquest of Gaul.

49–45 Civil War between Caesar andPompey.

44 Assassination of Caesar.

31 Battle of Actium. Augustus begins45-year reign (31 BCE–14 CE).

31– Pax Romana.180 CE

25 Roman physician Celsusflourishes.

25 Aelius Gallus explores the Arabianpeninsula.

25 Roman architect Vitruviusflourishes.

5–60 CE Roman agriculturalist Columella.

4 (?) Birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

Common Era

5–65 Roman Stoic Seneca.

14–37 Reign of Roman EmperorTiberius.

23–79 Roman polymath Pliny the Elder.

30 Crucifixion and death of Jesus.

37–100 Jewish historian Josephus.

37–41 Reign of Roman EmperorCaligula.

41–54 Reign of Roman EmperorClaudius.

43 Roman conquest of Britain.

46–120 Biographer and essayist Plutarch.

54–68 Reign of Roman Emperor Nero.

55–135 Stoic philosopher Epictetus.

56–117 Roman historian Tacitus.

258 Chronology

61–113 Pliny the Younger.

62–152 Engineer Hero of Alexandria.

64 Great Fire at Rome.

67 (?) Death of St. Paul in Rome.

69–96 Flavian Dynasty of RomanEmperors (Vespasian,Titus,Domitian).

71 Roman destruction of Jerusalem.

79 Eruption of Mt.Vesuvius. Deathof Pliny the Elder.

88–175 Biographer of Alexander, Arrian.

96–193 Antonine Dynasty of RomanEmperors (Nerva,Trajan,Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus).

100–167 Friend and tutor of MarcusAurelius, Fronto.

100–170 Astronomer, mathematician,geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus.

130–200 Roman physician Galen.

150–215 Theologian and commentatorClement of Alexandria.

163–225 Roman historian Dio Cassius.

170–250 Sophist Philostratus.

180–235 Commentator Hippolytus.

180–565 Later Roman Empire.

185–254 Theologian Origen.

193–235 Severan Dynasty of RomanEmperors (Septimius Severus,

Caracalla, Gela, Elagabalus,Severus Alexander).

205–270 Founder of Neoplatonism,Plotinus.

216–276 Life of Mani, founder ofManicheism.

234–305 Neoplatonist and disciple ofPlotinus, Porphyry.

235–284 Civil War in the Roman Empire:twenty-six emperors.

250–325 Neoplatonist Iamblichus.

251–356 Desert hermit St. Anthony.

264–340 Church historian Eusebius ofCaesarea.

284–305 Reign of Diocletian andadministrative reform of theRoman Empire.

306–337 Reign of Roman EmperorConstantine I.

312 Edict of Religious Toleration.

312 Conversion of Constantine.

314–393 Orator Libanius.

317–388 Aristotelian commentator andorator Themistius.

325 Council of Nicaea.

330 Dedication of Constantinople ascapital of Christian RomanEmpire.

337–361 Reign of Constantine’s sonConstantius II.

Chronology 259

340–402 Orator Symmachus.

340–420 Theologian and Bible translatorSt. Jerome.

354–430 St. Augustine of Hippo.

361–363 Reign of Roman Emperor Julian.

363–392 Reigns of Roman EmperorsJovian,Valentinian I and II,Gratian,Valens.

370–415 Alexandrian mathematicianHypatia.

378 Battle of Adrianople.

379–395 Reign of Roman emperorTheodosius the Great.

395–408 Reign of Roman emperorArcadius.

395–423 Reign of Roman emperorHonorius.

395 Permanent political division ofRoman Empire (Western RomanEmpire and Eastern RomanEmpire).

395 Christianity made official religionof Roman Empire.

397 Augustine becomes Bishop ofHippo in North Africa.

398 Augustine completes the writingof Confessions.

410 Sack of Rome by the Goths.

412–485 Commentator Proclus.

426 Augustine completes the writingof City of God.

430 Augustine dies at Hippo while thecity is under siege.

438 Publication of Theodosian Code.

476 Abdication of last Western RomanEmperor Romulus Augustulus.

480–524 Philosopher Boethius.

500–540 Commentator Simplicius.

527–565 Roman/Byzantine emperorJustinian.

585 Dionysius Exiguus develops Eastertable with December 25 date ofChrist’s birth.

260 Chronology

Primary Sources—General

Grant, Michael. Readings in the Classical Histo-rians. New York: Scribner’s, 1992.

Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testa-ments. New York: American Bible Society,1865.

New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Primary Sources—Near East

Budge, E. A. Wallis, trans. Papyrus of Ani:Egyptian Book of the Dead. New York: DoverBooks, 1967.

Josephus. The Jewish War. Translated by G. A.Williamson. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1969.

Neugebauer, O. Astronomical Cuneiform Texts. 3vols. London: Institute for AdvancedStudy, 1955.

Pritchard, James B., ed. Ancient Near EasternTexts Relating to the Old Testament. Prince-ton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Sandars, N. K., trans. Epic of Gilgamesh. Lon-don: Penguin Books, 1972.

Thompson, R. Campbell. Assyrian and Baby-lonian Literature: Selected Transactions. With acritical introduction by Robert FrancisHarper. New York: D. Appleton and Com-pany, 1901.

Primary Sources—Greece

Aelian. On the Characteristics of Animals. Trans-lated by A. F. Scholfield. 3 vols. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Aeschylus. Prometheus Bound. Translated byRex Warner. In Ten Greek Plays. Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1957.

Apollonius of Rhodes. The Voyage of Argo.Translated by E.V. Rieu. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971.

Aristarchus. “On the Sizes and Distances ofthe Sun and Moon.” In Sir Thomas Heath,Aristarchus of Samos. 1913. Reprint edition,New York: Dover Books, 1981.

Aristotle. On Sleep and Sleeplessness; On Proph-esying by Dreams; On Memory and Reminis-cence. Translated by J. I. Beare. In The ParvaNaturalia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908.

_____. On the Athenian Constitution. Trans-lated by Frederic G. Kenyon. London: G.Bell and Sons, 1891.

Arrian. Anabasis and Indica.Translated by P.A.Brunt and E. Iliff Robson. 2 vols. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1933,1976.

_____. The Campaigns of Alexander. Translatedby Aubrey de Selincourt. Harmonds-worth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971.

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Translated byC. B. Gulick. 7 vols. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1963.

Bibliography

261

Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations. Translated byMaxwell Staniforth. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1964.

Bambrough, Renford, ed. and trans. The Phi-losophy of Aristotle. New York: New Ameri-can Library, 1963.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy.London: Penguin Books, 1987.

Burnet, John, ed. and trans. Early Greek Philos-ophy. London: Adam and C. Black, 1930.

Epictetus. The Discourses. Edited by Christo-pher Gill. Everyman’s Library. Rutland,Vt.:Tuttle Publishing, 2001.

Euclid. The Thirteen Books of the Elements.Translated by Sir Thomas Heath. NewYork: Dover Books, 1925.

Eunapius. The Lives of the Sophists. Translatedby W. C. Wright. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1968.

Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated byA. J. Brock. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-sity Press, 1916.

Hero of Alexandria. The Pneumatics. Trans-lated by Bennet Woodcroft. London: C.Whittingham, 1851.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated byAubrey de Selincourt. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1972.

Hesiod. Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica.Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1936.

_____. Theogony and Works and Days. Trans-lated by Richard Lattimore. Ann Arbor:University of Michigan Press, 1959.

Homer. Iliad. Translated by Robert Fitzger-ald. New York: Doubleday, 1989.

_____. Odyssey.Translated by Robert Fitzger-ald. New York: Random House, 1990.

Jones, W. H. S., trans. Hippocrates. Vol. 1.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1923.

Jowett, Benjamin, trans. The Portable Plato.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1976.

Katz, Joseph, ed. The Philosophy of Plotinus.New York: Appleton Century Crofts,1950.

Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Philosophers.Translated by R. D. Hicks. 2 vols. LoebClassical Library. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1931, 1938.

Philostratus. Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Trans-lated by F. C. Conybeare. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1912.

_____. Lives of the Sophists. Translated byW. C. Wright. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1921.

Plutarch. Essays. Translated by Robin Water-field. London: Penguin Books, 1992.

_____. Life of Alexander. Translated byBernadotte Perrin. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1986.

_____. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Ro-mans. Translated by John Dryden. Revisedby Arthur Hugh Clough, 1864. Reprinted., New York: Random House, 1992.

_____. Moralia. 15 vols. Loeb Classical Li-brary. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1968–1976.

Polybius. The Histories. Translated by W. R.Paton. 6 vols. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1922–27.

Porphyry. On Images. Translated by Edwin H.Gifford. In Eusebius, Preparation for theGospel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.

Strabo. Geography. Translated by H. L. Jones.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1917, 1923.

Theophrastus. Enquiry into Plants and MinorWorks on Odours and Weather Signs. Trans-lated by Arthur Hort. Vol. 2. Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1916.

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Translatedby Rex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middle-sex: Penguin Books, 1972.

Todd, Robert, trans. Themistius: On Aristotle’sOn the Soul. Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1996.

Tredennick, Hugh, trans. The Last Days ofSocrates. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pen-guin Books, 1959.

262 Bibliography

Wheelwright, Philip, ed. and trans. Aristotle.New York: Odyssey Press: 1951.

Wright,W. C., trans. The Works of the EmperorJulian. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1962, 1969.

Xenophon. A History of My Times.Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1979.

_____. The Persian Expedition. Translated byRex Warner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Primary Sources—Rome

Caesar. The Civil War. Translated by Jane F.Gardner. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1976.

_____. The Conquest of Gaul. Translated byS. A. Handford. Harmondsworth, Middle-sex: Penguin Books, 1951.

Cassius Dio. Roman History. Translated byEarnest Cary. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1914–1927.

Cicero. Basic Works. Edited by Moses Hadas.New York: Modern Library, 1951.

Clarke, John, trans. Physical Science in the Timeof Nero: Being a Translation of the QuaestionesNaturales of Seneca. New York: Macmillan,1910.

Columella. On Agriculture. Translated by Ed-ward H. Heffner. Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1989.

Eusebius. History of the Church. Translated byG. A. Williamson. Harmondsworth, Mid-dlesex: Penguin Books, 1965.

Frontinus. The Aqueducts of Rome. Translatedby Charles E. Bennett. Cambridge: Har-vard University Press, 1925.

Galen. On the Natural Faculties. Translated byA. J. Brock. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-sity Press, 1916.

Grant, Mark, ed. and trans. Galen on Food andDiet. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Justinian. The Digest of Roman Law. Translatedby C. F. Kolbert. Harmondsworth, Mid-dlesex: Penguin Books, 1979.

Livy. The Early History of Rome. Translated byAubrey de Selincourt. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971.

_____. Rome and the Mediterranean.Translatedby Henry Bettenson. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1976.

Lucretius. The Nature of the Universe. Trans-lated by R. E. Latham. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1951.

Palladius. On Husbandrie.Translated by BartonLodge. London: Early English Text Society,1879.

Pharr, Clyde, trans. The Theodosian Code andNovels. Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1952.

Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Translated byJohn F. Healy. London: Penguin Books,1991.

_____. Natural History. Translated by H.Rackham. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library.Cambridge: Harvard University Press,1938, 1947.

Pliny the Younger. The Letters of the YoungerPliny. Translated by Betty Radice. Har-mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1963.

Rolfe, John C., trans. Ammianus Marcellinus. 2vols. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1950.

Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. Translated byRobin Campbell. London: Penguin Books,1969.

St. Augustine. City of God. Translated byHenry Bettenson. London: PenguinBooks, 1984.

_____. Confessions. Translated by R. S. Pine-Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pen-guin Books, 1961.

Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated byRobert Graves. Harmondsworth, Middle-sex: Penguin Books, 1957.

Tacitus. The Agricola and the Germania. Trans-lated by H. Mattingly. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970.

_____. The Histories. Translated by KennethWellesley. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1972.

Bibliography 263

Thatcher, Oliver J., ed. The Roman World. Vol.3, in The Library of Original Sources, pp.286–292. Milwaukee: University Re-search Extension, 1907.

Valesius, Henri de, trans. The History of theChurch . . .Written in Greek by Eusebius Pam-philus, Socrates Scholasticus, Evagrius. 1692.Reprint ed., London: Henry Bohn, 1853.

Vegetius. Epitome of Military Science. Trans-lated by N. P. Milner. Liverpool: LiverpoolUniversity Press, 1993.

Vitruvius. On Architecture. Translated byJoseph Gwilt. London: Priestley andWeale, 1826.

Wippel, John, and Allan Wolter, eds. MedievalPhilosophy. New York: Free Press, 1969.

Secondary Sources—General

Abell, George O. Exploration of the Universe.3d ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston,1975.

Ahrens, C. Donald. Meteorology Today:An Intro-duction to Weather, Climate, and the Environ-ment. St. Paul:West Publishing, 1988.

Bass, George F. “Sea and River Craft in theAncient Near East.” Vol. 3, in Civilizationsof the Ancient Near East, edited by Jack Sas-son et al. 4 vols. New York: Charles Scrib-ner’s Sons, 1995.

Boardman, John, Jasper Griffin, and OswynMurray. Oxford History of the Classical World.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Boorstin, Daniel. The Discoverers. New York:Random House, 1983.

Bowersock, G.W. Fiction as History: Nero to Ju-lian. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1994.

Breisach, Ernst. Historiography: Ancient, Me-dieval and Modern. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1983.

Cary, M. The Geographical Background of Greekand Roman History. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1949.

Cary, M., and E. H.Warmington. The AncientExplorers. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1963.

Cassirer, Ernst. An Essay on Man. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1944.

Casson, Lionel. Ships and Seamanship in the An-cient World. Princeton: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 1971.

Childe, Gordon. What Happened in History.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1946.

Crowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from An-tiquity to the Copernican Revolution. NewYork: Dover Books, 1990.

Davies, Paul. God and the New Physics. NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

De Camp, L. Sprague. Ancient Engineers. NewYork: Doubleday, 1963.

Encyclopedia Britannica. 24 vols. Chicago: En-cyclopedia Britannica, 1962.

Finley, M. I. Aspects of Antiquity: Discoveries andControversies. Harmondsworth, Middlesex:Penguin Books, 1977.

Gross, M. Grant. Oceanography: A View of theEarth. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1987.

Hawkes, Jacquetta. Prehistory: History ofMankind: Cultural and Scientific Develop-ments, vol. 1, pt. 1. New York: MentorBooks, 1965.

Heyerdahl, Thor. Early Man and the Ocean: ASearch for the Beginning of Navigation andSeaborne Civilizations. New York: VintageBooks, 1980.

_____. Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft.Translated by F. H. Lyon. New York:Wash-ington Square Press, 1984.

Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. New York:Doubleday, 1964.

Kelsey, Morton. Healing and Christianity. NewYork: Harper and Row, 1973.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution:Planetary Astronomy in the Development ofWestern Thought. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1957.

_____. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1970.

264 Bibliography

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of theBody and the Divergence of Greek and ChineseMedicine. New York: Zone Books, 1999.

Leicester, Henry M. The Historical Backgroundof Chemistry.New York: Dover Books, 1971.

Ogden, Daniel. Greek and Roman Necromancy.Princeton: Princeton University Press,2001.

Otto, Rudolf. The Idea of the Holy. New York:Oxford University Press, 1968.

Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1993.

Oxford English Dictionary. 20 vols. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1989.

Radice, Betty. Who’s Who in the Ancient World.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1973.

Raven, Charles E. Natural Religion and Christ-ian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1953.

Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philoso-phy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.

Sasson, Jack, et al., eds. Civilizations of the An-cient Near East. 4 vols. New York: CharlesScribner’s Sons, 1995.

Sullivan, Richard E. Aix-la-Chapelle in the Ageof Charlemagne.Norman: University of Ok-lahoma Press, 1963.

Tillinghast, William H. “The GeographicalKnowledge of the Ancients Considered inRelation to the Discovery of America.” InNarrative and Critical History of America, vol.1, ed. Justin Winsor. Boston: Houghton,Mifflin, 1889.

Wilcox, Donald. The Measure of Time’s Past:Pre-Newtonian Chronologies and the Rhetoric ofRelative Time. Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1987.

Woolley, Leonard. The Beginnings of Civiliza-tion: History of Mankind: Cultural and Scien-tific Developments, vol. 1, pt. 2. New York:Mentor Books, 1965.

Zimmerman, J. E. Dictionary of ClassicalMythology. New York: Harper and Row,1971.

Secondary Sources—Near East and Asia

Beasley, W. G., and E. G. Pulleyblank, eds.Historians of China and Japan. London: Ox-ford University Press, 1961.

Cimok, Fatih. Istanbul. Istanbul: A TurizmYayinlari Ltd., 1989.

Daniel, Glyn. The First Civilizations:The Archae-ology of Their Origins. New York: Thomas Y.Crowell, 1968.

Downey, Glanville. Constantinople in the Age ofJustinian. Norman: University of Okla-homa Press, 1960.

_____. Gaza in the Early Sixth Century. Nor-man: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

Erman, Adolf. Life in Ancient Egypt. Translatedby H. M.Tirard. New York: Dover Books,1894.

Fairbank, John K., Edwin O. Reischauer, andAlbert M. Craig. East Asia: Tradition andTransformation. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1978.

Ghirshman, R. Iran: From the Earliest Times tothe Islamic Conquest. Harmondsworth, Mid-dlesex: Penguin Books, 1954.

Glassner, Jean-Jacques. The Invention ofCuneiform: Writing in Sumer. Translated byZainab Bahrani and Marc Van De Mieroop.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 2003.

Grant, Michael. Jesus: An Historian’s Review ofthe Gospels. New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1977.

Hallo,William, and William Simpson. The An-cient Near East. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1971.

Hunger, Hermann, and David Pingree. AstralSciences in Mesopotamia Handbook of OrientalStudies: The Near and Middle East. Leiden,Boston: Brill, 1999.

Jacobsen,Thorkild. The Treasures of Darkness: AHistory of Mesopotamian Religion. NewHaven:Yale University Press, 1976.

Kramer, Samuel Noah. History Begins at Sumer.Philadelphia: University of PennsylvaniaPress, 1980.

Bibliography 265

Mote, Frederick W. Intellectual Foundations ofChina. New York: Knopf, 1971.

Neugebauer, O. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity.New York: Dover Books, 1969.

Oates, Joan. Babylon. London: Thames andHudson, 1986.

Orlinsky, Harry M. Ancient Israel. Ithaca: Cor-nell University Press, 1960.

Pedley, John G. Sardis in the Age of Croesus.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,1968.

Riefstahl, Elizabeth. Thebes in the Time ofAmunhotep III. Norman: University of Ok-lahoma Press, 1964.

Sandars, N. K. The Sea Peoples. London:Thames and Hudson, 1985.

Scholz, Piotr O. Ancient Egypt: An IllustratedHistorical Overview. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Bar-ron’s Education Press, 1997.

Steiner, Rudolph. Christianity as a MysticalFact. New York: Anthroposophic Press,1947.

Vasiliev,A.A. History of the Byzantine Empire. 2vols. Madison: University of WisconsinPress, 1958.

Watson, Burton. Early Chinese Literature. NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1962.

_____. Ssu-Ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian ofChina. New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1958.

White, Jon Manchip. Everyday Life in AncientEgypt. New York: Capricorn Press, 1967.

Secondary Sources—Greece

Barnes, Jonathan. Aristotle. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1982.

Botsford, George, and Charles A. Robinson.Hellenic History. Revised by Donald Kagan.New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1969.

Brunschwig, Jacques, and Geoffrey Lloyd.Greek Thought: A Guide to Classical Knowl-edge. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 2000.

Burkert, Walter. Structure and History in GreekMythology and Ritual. Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1979.

Burn, A. R. The Pelican History of Greece. Har-mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1974.

_____. The World of Hesiod. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1936.

De Montaigne, Michel. Essays. Translated byDonald Frame. Stanford: Stanford Univer-sity Press, 1957.

Doumas, Christos G. Thera: Pompeii of the An-cient Aegean. London:Thames and Hudson,1983.

Durant, Will. The Life of Greece. New York:Simon and Schuster, 1939.

Ehrenberg, Victor. Alexander and the Greeks.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.

Empereur, Jean-Yves. Alexandria Rediscovered.New York: George Brazziler, 1998.

Faraone, Christopher A. Magika Hiera:AncientGreek Magic and Religion.New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991.

Finley, M. I. The World of Odysseus. Har-mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1972.

Fowler, David. The Mathematics of Plato’s Acad-emy: A New Reconstruction. New York: Ox-ford University Press, 1999.

Fox, Robin Lane. The Search for Alexander.Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

Freeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. NewYork:W.W. Norton, 1950.

French, A. “The Economic Background toSolon’s Reforms.” Classical Quarterly 6(1956).

Grant, Michael. From Alexander to Cleopatra:The Hellenistic World. New York: HistoryBook Club, 2000.

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. Vol. 1. Har-mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,1960.

Griffin, Jaspar. “Greek Myth and Hesiod.” InOxford History of the Classical World. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1986.

Hadas, Moses. Humanism:The Greek Ideal and ItsSurvival. New York: Mentor Books, 1972.

Hamilton, J. R. Alexander the Great. Pitts-burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press,1974.

266 Bibliography

Hare, R. M. Plato. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1982.

Heath, Sir Thomas. Aristarchus of Samos. 1913.Reprint edition, New York: Dover Books,1981.

Hussey, E. The Presocratics. London: Duck-worth, 1972.

Kerenyi, Karl. Prometheus: Archetypal Image ofHuman Existence. New York: PantheonBooks, 1963.

Mayor, Adrienne. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, andScorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical War-fare in the Ancient World. Woodstock: Over-look Duckworth, 2003.

Netz, Reviel. The Shaping of Deduction in GreekMathematics: A Study in Cognitive History.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1999.

Phillips, E. D. Greek Medicine.London:Thamesand Hudson, 1973.

Robinson, Charles A., Jr. Athens in the Age ofPericles. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1959.

Schmitt, Charles B. Aristotle and the Renais-sance. Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1983.

Starr, Chester. The Awakening of the Greek His-torical Spirit. New York: Knopf, 1968.

Taplin, Oliver. “Homer.” In Oxford History ofthe Classical World. Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 1986.

Turner, William. “Aristotle.” Catholic Encyclo-pedia. New York: The Encyclopedia Press,1913.

Vandvik, Eirik. The Prometheus of Hesiod andAeschylus. Oslo: I Kommisjon hos J. Dyb-wad, 1943.

Warmington, E. H. Greek Geography. London:J. M. Dent, 1934.

Secondary Sources—Rome

Barrow, R. H. Plutarch and His Times. NewYork: AMS Press, 1979.

_____. The Romans. Harmondsworth, Mid-dlesex: Penguin Books, 1949.

Birley, Anthony. Marcus Aurelius. Boston: Lit-tle, Brown, and Co., 1966.

Bowersock, G. W. Julian the Apostate. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1967.

_____. The Making of Late Antiquity. Cam-bridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.

Browning, Robert. The Emperor Julian. Berke-ley: University of California Press, 1976.

Chadwick, Henry. Augustine. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986.

Chadwick, Nora. The Celts. Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970.

Dal Maso, Leonard B. Rome of the Caesars.Translated by Michael Hollingsworth. Flo-rence: Bonechi-Edizioni, 1974.

De Kleijn, Gerda. The Water Supply of AncientRome: City Area,Water, and Population. Ams-terdam: Gleben, 2001.

Dodds, E. R. Pagan and Christian in an Age ofAnxiety. New York:W.W. Norton, 1965.

Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York:Simon and Schuster, 1944.

Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of theRoman Empire. New York: Modern Library,1932.

Grant, Michael. The Climax of Rome. Boston:Little, Brown, 1968.

Jones,A. H. M. The Decline of the Ancient World.London: Longman, 1966.

_____. The Later Roman Empire. 2 vols. Nor-man: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

Jones, Tom B. In the Twilight of Antiquity. Min-neapolis: University of Minnesota Press,1978.

McCluskey, Stephen C. Astronomies and Cul-tures in Early Medieval Europe. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Meagher, Robert. Augustine: An Introduction.New York: Harper and Row, 1978.

Ogilvie, R. M. Roman Literature and Society.Harmondsworth, Middlesex: PenguinBooks, 1980.

Rowell, Henry Thompson. Rome in the Augus-tan Age. Norman: University of OklahomaPress, 1962.

Sandbach, F. H. The Stoics. New York: W. W.Norton, 1975.

Bibliography 267

Sinnigen,William, and Arthur Boak. A Historyof Rome. 6th ed. New York: MacmillanPublishing, 1977.

Taylor, Lily Ross. Party Politics in the Age of Cae-sar. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1949.

Vanags, Patricia. The Glory That Was Pompeii.New York: Mayflower Books, 1979.

Von Hagen, Victor W. Roman Roads. London:Werdenfeld and Nicholson, 1966.

Websites

O’Connor, J. J., and E. F. Robertson. Historyof Mathematics: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/References/Heron.html (website of School of Mathe-matics and Statistics, University of St. An-drew’s Scotland).

“The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”:http://ce.eng.usf.edu/pharos/wonders/index.html.

Technology Museum of Thessaloniki website:www.tmth.edu.

268 Bibliography

Note: Page numbers in italic type refer toillustrations; page numbers in bold type referto main entries.

A priori truths, 21–22Academy, 1–2, 38, 189, 190

Aristotle at, 20, 138Euclid at, 79See also Platonic philosophy

Achilles (Homeric hero), 7, 117, 196–197Achilles Tatius, 93Acoustics, 245–246Acropolis, 37, 75, 97–98. See also ParthenonAelian, Claudius, 2, 134, 183, 247Aelius Aristides. See Aristides, AeliusAeneas of Gaza, 87Aeschylus, 37, 38, 102, 202Aesculapius. See Asclepius and the AsclepiadsAether. See EtherAëtius, 13, 127, 249Africa, circumnavigation of, 183–184Agathemerus, 3, 15Agricola (Tacitus), 233Agriculture, 3–6

astronomy and, 108Babylonian agriculture, 45calendars' importance, 52Cato's writings, 5, 55–56Columella's writings, 5, 58, 215and the development of writing, 48, 74,

112–113, 148–149Egyptian agriculture, 4, 4, 117–118, 124–125eschewed by Saracens, 11–12and meteorology, 152Neolithic agriculture, 3, 47Palladius's writings, 5, 5, 179Roman agriculture (generally), 5, 6, 215, 219Varro's writings, 5, 215, 243See also Irrigation

Airas basic element, 16, 66, 72, 121, 153, 184Hero's work on air and vacuums, 105See also Elements

Airs, Waters, and Places (Hippocrates), 111, 152Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), 177, 203–204, 205Alchemy, 186–187. See also ChemistryAlcibiades, 238Alcmaeon, 6–7, 95, 141, 146–147Alexander of Macedon ("the Great"), 7–9, 8, 98

Alexandria founded, 7–10, 197and Aristotle, 8, 21, 38, 98, 138, 251Arrian's accounts, 9, 25–26birth omen, 223exploration and geographic interests, 9, 92,

159–160, 165 (see also Nearchus of Crete)and the Hellenistic Age, 98, 102–103and military technology, 155as philosopher-king, 189Xenophon's influence, 250–251Zeus as father, 7, 21, 196

Alexandria, 9–11astronomers, 33–34 (see also Ptolemy)canals, 10, 118founding, 7, 8, 9–10, 197importance, 7, 9, 99leading scholars and scientists, 10–11, 16, 78, 92,

99, 119 (see also specific individuals)library, 10–11, 99, 119 (see also Eratosthenes;

Hypatia; Ptolemy;Theon)medicine and physicians, 11, 147Pharos lighthouse, 7, 10, 180, 223

Algebra, 46, 144. See also MathematicsAlmagest (Ptolemy), 209 Alphabets, 74Ambrose (bishop of Milan), 42Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), 177, 203–204, 205Ammianus Marcellinus, 11–13, 115, 130Ammonius, 195Amphion, 127

Index

269

Anabasis (Arrian), 9, 25, 26, 165–166Anabasis (Xenophon), 26, 97, 250–251Anacharsis the Scythian, 222Anatolius, 53, 180Anatomy, 66, 78, 85, 107, 147. See also MedicineAnaxagoras of Clazomenae, 13–15, 14

and chemical thinking, 186on earthquakes, 12influenced by Athenians, 36influenced by Leucippus, 131influences on, 13–14, 16on meteorology, 152methods, 111mind (nous), 13–14, 17, 36, 95, 97, 121, 182on the nature of humans and animals, 132and Pericles, 13, 36, 97students, 13, 17, 121

Anaxarchus of Abdera, 8Anaximander of Miletus, 15, 94–95, 153

and chemical thinking, 186cylindrical earth theory, 15, 91divine conceived in metaphysical terms, 178on earthquakes, 12the infinite, 15, 121, 153, 181, 184, 239influenced by Anaxagoras, 13on meteorology, 152methods, 111on the origin of human beings, 15, 142Thales' influence on, 15, 234

Anaximenes of Miletus, 15–16, 94–95air as basic element, 72, 121, 153, 184and chemical thinking, 16, 186influenced by Anaxagoras, 13, 16on meteorology, 16, 152methods, 111

Andronicus of Cyrrhus, 54Andronicus of Rhodes, 180Androthsenes, 9Animals

Aelian's writings, 2, 134compared to humans, 132, 133Egyptian animals, 132in Philolaus's thought, 181Pliny's writings, 192Plutarch on animal intelligence, 197, 206weather changes and animal activity, 152–153See also Zoology

Annals (Tacitus), 114, 233 Anselm, 190Anthemius of Tralles, 60–61, 154Anthropology, 137, 225, 226, 250. See also Germania;

Herodotus; Pliny the ElderAnthropomorphism

in Greek myth and religion, 108, 163, 177–178in Homer's poems, 116, 117, 163, 196–197

Antioch, 11Antiochus, 1–2, 57

Antisthenes, 38Anubis (Egyptian god), 71Anxiety, 221Aphrodite (Greek goddess), 161, 162, 201Apollo (Greek god), 27, 51, 117, 154, 163, 201. See

also Oracle at DelphiApollodorus, 54Apollonius of Damascas, 75Apollonius of Perga, 16–17

commentators, 58, 119conic sections studied, 16, 81, 144Euclid ranked higher than, 80Hipparchus's work based on, 109influenced by Hypatia, 119, 248

Apollonius of Rhodes, 10, 90, 177Apollonius of Tyana, 59, 182–183Apology (Plato), 154, 197, 228Appian Way (Via Appia), 215–216, 219 Appius Claudius Crassus, 118, 215, 216Aqueducts, 75, 83, 118, 118, 215Aquinas,Thomas, 25, 182Aratus of Soli, 33, 81, 99Arcesilaus, 38Archelaus of Athens, 13, 17, 38, 58, 121Archias, 9Archimedes, 17–19, 18, 99

anticipated by Eudoxus, 81and Aristarchus's astronomical theories, 19–20commentators, 58, 119Euclid ranked higher than, 80hydraulics, 17, 19, 99, 125influenced by Hypatia, 119, 248and pi, 17, 144Plutarch on, 199work on solids, 17, 19, 58

ArchitectureAcropolis, 97–98of Alexandria, 10Hagia Sophia, 60–61, 154Parthenon, 75, 98pyramids, 70, 74–75, 223, 224Roman architecture, 75, 215, 218, 218, 245–246

(see also Aqueducts)wonders of the ancient world, 223–224 (see also

specific wonders)See also Engineering;Technology; and specific

architects and buildingsArgonautica (Apollonius of Rhodes), 90, 177. See also

Greek mythology, Jason and the Golden FleeceAristander of Telmessus, 8Aristarchus of Samos, 16, 19–20, 33, 54, 99Aristides, Aelius, 28, 67, 183Aristobulus, 26, 92Aristotelian philosophy, 22–24

compared to Platonic philosophy, 38–39, 130, 236See also Aristotle; Lyceum; Peripatetic school; and

specific individuals

270 Index

Aristotle, 20–27, 21, 96, 182and Alexander the Great, 8, 21, 38, 98, 138, 251Arab translations, 62astronomical theories, 24, 25, 33, 82atomist beliefs condemned, 64and being (ousia), 20–21, 122, 181, 182botanical and zoological interests, 23, 132commentators, 59, 235–236Diogenes of Apollonia's ideas discussed, 66on earthquakes, 12the elements in Aristotle's thought, 72–73, 186ethics, 23–24, 225geodesy, 24, 91, 93Heraclitus's astronomy derided, 104on history compared to poetry, 22, 112, 237influenced by Erasistratus, 78influenced by Galen, 85Julian's admiration for, 127legacy, 24–25, 96, 130, 182, 236 (see also

Peripatetic school)Lyceum founded, 1, 21, 38, 138meteorological phenomena ascribed to

astronomical phenomena, 152natural causes of movement, 186philosophic overview, 20–22, 121–122, 204Physics, 22, 96, 185, 186as Plato's student, 20–21, 38Plutarch's reliance on, 198and political science, 24, 189psychological studies, 22–23, 67, 204on Pythagoras's conception of time, 239as social scientist, 23–24, 225–226Solon praised, 228–229on Thales, 235

Ark. See Noah and the ArkArrian (Flavius Arrianus Xenophon), 9, 10, 25–26,

76, 165–166Artaxerxes, 250Artemidorus of Daldis, 67Artemis (Greek goddess), 108, 201, 223

Temple of Artemis, 10, 180, 223Asclepiades, 26–27, 27, 86, 147Asclepius and the Asclepiads, 27–28, 111, 117,

146–147, 163, 201. See also Aristides, Aelius;Hippocrates

Asia, East and South, 29–30, 144. See also China; IndiaAspasia (consort of Pericles), 13, 38, 154, 247, 248Aspasia of Athens (physician), 147Astrology, 34–35

Babylonian astrology, 45–46, 150, 246Egyptian astrology, 71magi and, 139Plotinus and, 195Sumerian astrology, 150Vitruvius's writings, 246See also Astronomy; Constellations; Planetary

motion; Zodiac

Astronomy, 30–35, 99and the agricultural year, 108Alcmaeon's beliefs, 7Ammianus Marcellinus's observations, 12Anaxagoras's observations, 13–14Anaximenes' beliefs, 16archaeoastronomy, 30–31Archelaus's beliefs, 17Archimedes' beliefs, 19Aristarchus's work, 19–20, 99Aristotle and, 24, 25, 33Babylonian astronomy, 30, 32, 45–46, 150,

235calendars (see Calendars and dating systems)Chinese astronomy, 29–30constellations and the zodiac, 32, 35, 62Democritus's work, 64Egyptian astronomy, 30, 31, 32, 71Empedocles' theories, 73Eudoxus's theories, 81–82Geminus's work, 34, 88Greek astronomy (generally), 32–33Hellenistic astronomy, 33–34Heraclides' ideas, 33, 103–104Hipparchus's work, 62, 99, 109Hypatia's commentaries, 119lunar and solar eclipses, 12, 13, 32Mesopotamian astronomy, 150–151, 235 (see also

subhead Babylonian astronomy)Philolaus's ideas, 33, 180, 210–211Pliny's writings, 34, 191, 192precession of the equinoxes, 99, 109Proclus as commentator, 59Ptolemy's work, 208–209Pythagorean geocentric universe, 7Roman astronomy (generally), 34Seneca's writings, 221structure of the solar system (see Geocentric

universe; Heliocentric universe; Planetarymotion)

Thales' contributions, 234–235Theono's work, 247Vitruvius's writings, 246Xenophanes' beliefs, 249–250See also Cosmology; Physics

Aten (sun as god), 32, 177, 203–204, 205Athena (Greek goddess), 98, 161, 162, 163, 197,

201Athenaeus, 35Athenian Constitution, The (Aristotle), 24, 228–229Athenodorus, 230–231Athens, 35–39

Acropolis, 37, 75, 97–98 (see also Parthenon)Age of Pericles, 97–98, 102 (see also Aspasia;

Pericles)Alexandria inspired by, 8Anaxagoras in, 13

Index 271

Athens (continued)Aristotle and the Peripatetics (see Aristotle;Lyceum; Peripatetic school)Attica controlled by, 94and Hellenism, 102law and government, 24, 36–37, 225, 228–229legacy, 39lunar calendar, 53, 228and Miletus, 153Peloponnesian War (see Peloponnesian War, The)Plato and the Academy (see Academy; Plato;

Platonic philosophy; Socrates)social sciences (generally), 225–226Socratic school, 37–38, 227–228See also Archelaus of Athens; Solon

Atlantis, 92Atomists, 39–40, 186

beliefs, 131–132, 135–136Democritus, 63, 64, 135, 182on dreams, 67influenced by Anaximenes, 16Leucippus, 63, 64, 95, 131–132, 182Lucretius, 39–40, 77, 135–138materialist psychology, 204–205and medicine, 86Plotinus opposed to, 194Sophists opposed to, 96time in atomist thought, 240See also Epicureanism; Stoicism

Atoms, 39–40, 186, 229in Democritus's thought, 64, 135, 182in Epicurus's thought, 135Leucippus's theory, 131, 135, 182in Lucretius's thought, 135–138See also Atomists

Augustine, Aurelius (St. Augustine) , 42–44, 207conversion, 42–43, 168fascination with mountains decried, 160and Hellenism, 103personal view of time, 43, 55, 240–241Seneca and, 221, 222

Augustus (Octavian) Caesar, 28, 213, 214, 218Aurelius, Marcus, 40–42, 41, 189, 214

Epictetus's influence, 76, 230and Galen, 28, 67, 85on the logos, 40, 134, 205Meditations, 40–42, 214, 230sense of time and purpose, 240

Aurelius Augustine. See Augustine, AureliusAutolycus of Pitane, 33Averroes, 25

Babylon, 45–46astronomy and astrology, 32, 45–46, 150, 208,

235, 246Code of Hammurapi, 45, 225Hanging Gardens, 180, 223

lunar calendars, 30, 52, 151and the magi, 139maps, 46, 88mathematics, 46, 144, 210medicine, 45, 146timekeeping, 54

Beingin Aristotle's thought, 20–21, 122, 181, 182compared to becoming, 141, 181, 186defined, 181Democritus and Leucippus on, 63–64, 131, 134

(see also Atomists; Atoms)and the divine, 178in Ionian philosophy, 204Parmenides' views, 72, 134, 178, 190in Socrates' thought, 227Zeno's theory, 134

Berossus, 46, 246Bias (philosopher), 222Bible. See New Testament; Old Testament; and specific

booksBiology. See Animals; Botany; Life sciences; Natural

science; ZoologyBlessed, Isles of the, 91–92Boethius, 130, 190Bohr, Niels, 131Bolos of Mende, 5, 132Botany, 132–133, 146

Pliny's writings, 192Theophrastus's plant treatise, 38, 133, 147, 237See also Herbs; Pharmacology

Boyle, Robert, 131–132Brahe,Tycho, 31, 104Bridges, 75, 183, 217Britain, 51, 90, 92, 211–212, 216–217Bronze, 47–49, 150. See also Bronze Age; Colossus of

RhodesBronze Age, 46–49, 116–117, 123, 163. See also

Hesiod; HomerByzantine Empire, 129, 130. See also ConstantinopleByzantion/Byzantium (city), 59. See also

Constantinople

Caesar, Julius, 51–52, 52assassination, 52, 55, 213Gallic War, 51, 92, 156influenced by Philodemus, 77Julian calendar, 52, 54, 69water clock used, 54

Calanus, 9, 182Calculus, 17. See also MathematicsCalendars and dating systems, 52–55

Athenian calendar, 53, 228Babylonian calendar, 30, 52Chinese calendars, 30, 53Christian chronology, 55, 240–241dating systems, 54–55, 69, 79, 240–241

272 Index

Easter, calculation of, 53, 55, 69, 180Egyptian calendars, 30, 52–53, 71, 235Geminus and, 88Gregorian calendar, 69Indian calendars, 30Julian calendar, 52, 54, 69Octaëteris (eight-year cycle), 53, 88See also Astronomy;Time

Callicrates, 75, 98Callimachus, 99Callipus of Cyzicus, 33, 53, 82Callisthenes, 8, 21, 26, 98Carneades, 1, 38, 190Carthage, 183, 184, 211. See also PhoeniciansCassius Dio, 28, 243–244, 245Cato, Marcus Porcius (the Elder), 5, 55–56, 192Causes of Natural Phenomena (Plutarch). See Natural

QuestionsCelsus, Aurelius Cornelius, 5, 22, 28, 56, 56, 147Celts, 51Cement, 75, 217Censorinus, 142Chares of Lindos, 180Chemistry, 16, 130, 186. See also Alchemy; Elements;

MetallurgyCheops (Khufu; pharaoh), 70. See also Great Pyramid

of CheopsChersiphron of Knossos, 223Chilon, 222China, 29–30, 53, 144, 187Chlearchus of Soli, 139Choricius, 87Christian Topography, The (Cosmas), 61Christianity and Christians

Asclepius cult countered, 28calendars and dating systems, 53, 55, 69, 180,

240–241Christian commentators, 58, 169compared to Neoplatonism, 168Constantinople's importance, 59–61Hypatia killed by Christian mob, 119and medicine, 28, 86, 170–171and mountains, 160psychology, 28, 206–207 (see also Augustine,

Aurelius)uncertainty in the Later Roman Empire, 82See also Jesus of Nazareth; New Testament; and

specific individualsChronography (Eratosthenes), 79Chrysanthius, 175–176Chrysippus, 38, 230Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 2, 57–58, 57, 214, 218

as "citizen of the world," 103influenced by Augustine, 42on the laws of the Republic, 226and Posidonius, 57, 201, 218, 230southern hemisphere hypothesis, 93

Cincinnatus, 5Cities, 94, 95–96, 149. See also specific citiesCity of God (Augustine), 42–43, 207Civilization (defined), 149Classification, 22, 23, 132, 133Claudius (emperor), 213, 214Cleanthes, 230Cleitarch of Colophon, 8Clement of Alexandria, 58Cleobolus, 222Cleomedes, 93Climate

climatic zones, 91, 92–93and health, 111, 152

Code of Hammurapi, 45, 151, 225Coins, 154Coliseum (Rome), 75, 215, 218, 218Colossus of Rhodes, 180, 223Columbus, Christopher, 91, 93Columbus, Ferdinando (son), 91, 211Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus, 5, 55, 58, 215Commentary on Euclid (Proclus), 59, 169Commentary on the Heavens (Simplicius), 59, 169Commentary on the Physics (Simplicius), 59, 169Commentators, 58–59. See also specific commentatorsCommodus, 85"Concerning the Face Which Appears in the Orb of

the Moon" (Plutarch), 91Confessions (Augustine), 42–43, 207, 241 Confucius, 29Conics (Apollonius of Perga), 16, 81Conics (Euclid), 81Constantine (emperor), 59–60Constantinople, 59–62, 61, 236

aqueduct, 118Hagia Sophia, 60–61, 154Themistius's school, 236

Constantius II (emperor), 60, 127, 145, 236Constellations, 32, 62. See also Astrology; AstronomyCopernicus, 31, 182Cos, Asclepiads of, 28, 111, 146–147. See also

Asclepius and the Asclepiads; HippocratesCosmas Indicopleustes, 61Cosmology

Anaxagoras's thought, 13–14Anaximander's thought, 15Anaximenes' thought, 16Archelaus's thought, 17atomic theory, 131 (see also Atomists; Atoms)Chinese cosmology, 29Democritus's cosmology, 63–64limitless universe, 136Lucretius's atomist cosmology, 136–137Thales' thought, 15, 16See also Astronomy; Geocentric universe;

Heliocentric universe; LogosCrates of Mallus, 93

Index 273

Crates of Olynthus, 10, 118Crateus, 134Crete, 48Crito (patient of Hippocrates), 112Crocodiles, 132Croesus, 154, 229, 234Cronos (Greek god), 108, 161, 180, 201, 239Ctesibius, 10, 99, 104Cyrus, 97, 250

Daniel, Book of, 66, 174Dating systems. See under Calendars and dating systemsDavid (King and psalmist), 174, 204Death

atomist approach, 205in Aurelius's thought, 40–42Egyptian beliefs and practices, 70–71, 71Epictetus and fear of, 76Epicurean approach, 77, 138Seneca's approach, 221

Deductive logic, 22Deinocrates of Rhodes, 10, 223Deipnosophists (Athenaeus), 35Delphi, Oracle at, 115–116, 154, 159, 195Demeter (Greek goddess), 108, 161, 162, 178, 201Demetrius (son of Antigonus I), 155Demetrius of Phaleron, 10Democracy, 24, 36–37, 200, 228. See also Athens;

Political scienceDemocritus, 63–65, 64

as atomist, 39, 64, 182, 186on dreams, 67taught by Leucippus, 63, 131

Demosthenes, 37, 225Depression, 198, 205–206Descartes, René, 44Description of Animals (Aristotle), 23Dialectic, 189. See also SocratesDinon, 139Diodes of Pella, 155Diodorus Siculus, 12, 91, 184, 223Diodotus, 57Diogenes Laertius, 65, 130

on Alcmaeon, 6on Anaximander, 15on Archelaus's influence on Socrates, 17on Democritus, 63on Egyptian science, 71, 152on Epicurus, 77on Eudoxus, 81on Hecataeus, 101Italian school compared to Ionian school, 141on Linus's influence on Anaxagoras, 13on the magi, 139on Parmenides, 95on Pythagoras's teacher, 210on the Seven Sages, 222, 228

as source for Empedocles' life, 73on Thales, 234–235on Theophrastus, 236–237

Diogenes of Apollonia, 38, 65–66Dionysius Exiguus, 55, 69Dionysius II, 190Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 101–102Diophantus of Alexandria, 11, 119, 248Dioscorides, 134Disease

Asclepiades' approach, 26–27, 147Hippocratic approach, 109–112, 147leprosy, 170in the Old Testament, 174plague, 138, 238See also Medicine

Dorians and the Dorian invasion, 49, 94, 123. Seealso Peloponnesian War, The

Dorotheus, 60Dreams, 66–67

Aristotle's studies, 23, 67, 204in the Gospel of Matthew, 169Hypatia's interest in, 119in the Old Testament, 66, 174in Plutarch's works, 197Synesius's interest in, 119

Druids, 12, 51

Earth (element). See ElementsEarth (planet)

as center of the universe (see Geocentricuniverse)

climatic zones, 91, 92–93origins, 136–137 (see also Cosmology)rotation, 20, 33, 103shape and size (see Geodesy)

Earthquakes, 12, 46, 137, 244Easter, calculation of, 53, 55, 69, 180Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, 129, 130. See

also ConstantinopleEcclesiasticus (Sirach), Book of, 174Ecumene, 103. See also Hellenistic AgeEdwards, Jonathan, 44, 207Egypt, 69–72

agriculture and irrigation, 4, 4, 117–118,124–125

Alexander the Great's conquest of, 9–10 (see alsoAlexandria)

astronomy, 30, 32, 71 (see also subhead calendars)and Atlantis, 92calendars, 30, 52–53, 71, 235cleanliness, 225dating system, 240death beliefs and practices, 70–71, 71, 225and the Dorian invasion, 49elements, 72foretelling through dreams, 66

274 Index

gender roles, 225Hecataeus's visit, 101Herodotus's travels (see under Herodotus)hieroglyphics, 74, 112mathematics, 72, 144medicine, 70, 132, 146metallurgy, 48, 123meteorology, 152Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa ordered,

183–184planetary model, 31plants and animals, 132pyramids, 70, 74–75, 158, 180, 223, 224religion and myths, 27–28, 31, 70–71, 161, 177,

178, 203–204 (see also Aten)ships and shipbuilding, 143Solon's visit, 229Thales and, 235See also Nile River

Einstein, Albert, 44, 182, 238Eleatic school, 72, 142, 186. See also Parmenides;

ZenoElements, 72–73

in Archelaus's thought, 17in Aristotle's thought, 72–73, 186in atomist thought, 39–40, 73, 136 (see also

Atomists; Atoms)Chinese five elements, 29classification of flora/fauna according to, 132in Diogenes of Apollonia's thought, 66in Empedocles' thought, 182ether as fifth element, 73, 186gods as counterparts, 180–181See also Air; Fire;Water

Elements of Geometry (Euclid), 79, 81Elijah (prophet), 204Embalming, 70–71, 71Empedocles, 73–74, 73, 141, 186

astronomical theories, 73four elements theory, 72, 73, 95, 182influenced by Leucippus, 131as physician, 147

Engineering, 74–75Archimedes' inventions, 17–19, 125bridges, 75, 183, 217Hero's inventions, 104–105Mesopotamian engineering, 74Philo's inventions, 180 (see also Philo of Byzantium)pyramid building, 70, 74–75 (see also Pyramids)Roman engineering, 75, 155–158, 214–217, 216,

219 (see also Aqueducts; Roads, Roman)Vitruvius's work, 245See also Hydraulics;Technology

Enneads (Plotinus), 167, 194–195Enquiry into Plants (Theophrastus), 38, 133, 147, 237 Epaphroditus, 76Ephesus, 16

Temple of Artemis, 10, 180, 223Epic of Gilgamesh, 142, 149, 158, 203Epictetus, 25–26, 76, 218, 222, 230Epicureanism, 38, 76–77

and atoms, 39–40, 186 (see also Atomists; Atoms)beliefs, 134, 135, 138, 205, 240Democritus, 39, 63–65, 64, 67, 131, 182, 186medicine influenced by, 86Plutarch's rejection, 197Romans and, 218See also Epicurus; Lucretius

Epicurus, 38, 77–78, 78atomist theories, 73, 76, 77, 99, 135, 186influences on, 65, 131See also Epicureanism

Epigenes, 46Epimenides the Cretan, 222Equinoxes, precession of, 99, 109Erasistratus, 11, 78, 147Erasmus, 222Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 10, 78–79, 99

dating system, 54, 79earth's circumference hypothesized, 78–79, 92Homer criticized, 231influenced by other thinkers, 12, 109Pytheas's account used as source, 90

Ether, 73, 186Ethics, 23–24, 64, 225Ethics (Aristotle), 225 Euclid, 10, 79–81, 80, 99

commentators, 58, 59, 119, 169Eudemius, 139Eudemus of Rhodes, 144, 180, 239Eudoxus of Cnidus, 81–82, 99, 183, 231Eunapius, 82

on Iamblichus, 121Maximus of Ephesus criticized, 145on Oribasius, 175on Plotinus, 194, 200

Eupalinus, 118Euphemus the Carian, 91Euripides, 38, 102Eusebius (miracle worker), 145Eusebius of Caesarea, 55Euthymenes, 90Evans, Sir Arthur, 48Evolution, 137Exodus, Book of, 158, 173–174, 204Exploration

Alexander the Great, 9, 25, 92 (see alsoAlexander of Macedon; Nearchus ofCrete)

early Greek exploration, 88–90Hecataeus's travels, 90, 101, 154Herodotus's travels, 4, 70, 96, 105–106, 113Nearchus, 9, 25–26, 92, 165–167Phoenicians, 89, 90–91, 142, 143, 183–184

Index 275

Exploration (continued)Pytheas of Massilia, 90–91, 211–212Sumerian exploration, 151Xenophon, 97, 250See also Geography

Fate, 117, 149–150, 173, 204Favorinus, 183Ficino, 190Fire

in Heraclitus's thought, 104, 182Hero's theory of, 105Prometheus myth, 201–202See also Elements

Flavius Arrianus Xenophon. See ArrianForetelling the future

through astrology, 35, 45–46, 139, 150dreams, 66–67

future knowledge in Ammianus Marcellinus'sthought, 12–13

Jesus's prophesies, 170Theophrastus's death predicted, 237

Freud, Sigmund, 44, 207Frontinus, Sextus Julius, 83

Gaius Plinius Luci. See Pliny the YoungerGaius Plinius Secundus. See Pliny the ElderGalen, 85–87, 86, 148

influence and legacy, 175 (see also Oribasius)and Marcus Aurelius, 28, 67,85

Gallic War (Julius Caesar), 51, 92, 156Gan De, 29Gaul and Gauls, 12, 51, 92Gaza, 87–88Geminus, 34, 88, 93, 144Genealogies (Hecataeus), 101 Generation of Animals (Aristotle), 23Genesis, Book of, 66, 173–175Gennadius, 67Geocentric universe

Anaxagoras's model, 14Archimedes' model, 19Aristotle's model, 24, 33Babylonian theory, 32Chinese universe, 30Eudoxus's model, 81–82Heraclides' model, 33, 103–104of the Later Roman Empire, 12Leucippus's model, 131Pliny's model, 34, 192Ptolemy's model, 31, 34, 208–209Pythagoras's conception, 210Pythagorean, 7Strabo's model, 231See also Astronomy; Cosmology

Geodesy, 91–92Anaximander's cylindrical earth, 15, 91

circumference of the earth, 17, 24, 78–79, 92,99, 201, 208

disk-shaped earth, 16, 108Hipparchus's work, 109in Homer's poems, 116Leucippus's drum-shaped earth, 131Pliny's lack of expertise, 191Posidonius's work, 201spherical earth, 17, 24, 91, 95, 99, 189, 210Xenophanes' flat earth, 249–250

Geography, 88–94Agathemerus's treatise, 3Anaximander and, 15Cicero's beliefs, 57continents, zones, and seas, 91–93Cosmas's works, 61Democritus's writings, 63, 64Eratosthenes' work, 78–79, 92Hecataeus's work, 90, 101Herodotus's work, 105–107Homer and Greek exploration, 88–90latitude, longitude, and meridians, 79, 92, 109Macrobius and, 58Nearchus's explorations and, 9, 25–26, 92,

165–167Pliny the Elder and, 91–93, 191–192Polybius's writings, 159, 199–200Ptolemy's work, 93, 208Strabo's compendium, 92, 214, 230–231See also Earth; Exploration; Geodesy; Maps

Geography (Agathemerus), 3Geography (Ptolemy), 93Geography (Strabo), 92, 214, 230–231Geometry

Apollonius of Perga on geometric shapes, 16Archimedes' work on solids, 17, 19, 58Babylonian geometry, 46, 144Egyptians and, 72Euclid's work, 79–81Eudoxus's work, 81geometric algebra, 144Hypatia's commentaries, 119Neoplatonism and, 167Pappas's discussions, 58pi, 17, 72, 75, 99, 144and Platonic philosophy, 189Pythagorean school and, 180, 210, 211Pythagorean theorem, 46, 58, 144, 151, 210,

245–246Thales' work, 235See also Mathematics; Surveying

Germania (Tacitus), 114–115, 233–234Gibbon, Edward, 129Gilgamesh (Sumerian mythic figure), 142, 149, 158,

203Gnomon. See SundialsGnostics, 178

276 Index

GovernmentAthenian democracy, 24, 36–37, 228Roman government, 200, 218, 226 (see also

Roman Empire; Rome; and specific rulers)See also Political science; and specific city-states

Great Pyramid of Cheops, 70, 180, 223, 224. See alsoPyramids

Greeceagriculture and the growth of Greek civilization,

4–5Archaic Age, 48–49, 94–95 (see also Homer)astronomy (generally), 32–33calendars and dating systems, 53 (see also under

Athens)Classical Age, 95–98, 102, 239–240colonization, 94, 141, 153 (see also Magna

Graecia)Dorian invasion, 49, 94, 123exploration, 88–90Hellenism, 102–103Hellenistic Age, 98–100, 102–103historians (generally), 96–97, 114–115, 240 (see

also Herodotus;Thucydides)Ionians, 49, 94 (see also Ionian school)medicine (generally), 27–28, 146–147 (see also

Asclepius and the Asclepiads; Hippocrates)mountains, 159–160Persian Wars, 104, 113, 155poleis (city-states), 94, 95–96, 155 (see also

Athens; Miletus)ships and shipbuilding, 143social sciences (generally), 225–226 (see also

Geography; History; Political science)timekeeping, 54See also Greek mythology; and specific city-states and

individualsGreek mythology, 161–163

Alexander the Great and, 7constellations and the zodiac, 32god of healing (see Asclepius and the Asclepiads)Hesiod's writings, 108Jason and the Golden Fleece, 89, 90, 163, 177mountains in, 159Mycenaean Age, 48–49Ogygia (island), 91in Porphyry's philosophy, 201and time, 239 (see also Cronos)See also Homer; Iliad; Odyssey; and specific gods and

mythic figuresGregory of Tours, 55Gudea, 177

Hades (Greek god of the underworld), 108, 161,180–181

Hadrian (emperor), 115–116, 213–218Hadrian's Wall, 216–217Hagia Sophia, 59, 60–61, 154

Halicarnassus, Mausoleum of, 180, 223Hammurapi, 45, 151, 225Hannibal, 160Hanno, 184Hebrews

dating system, 240God's creation of the ocean, 142healing and medicine, 146history, 173and mountains, 158–159narratives, 113Yahweh and natural law, 177See also Old Testament

Hecataeus, 15, 90, 101, 106, 154Heisenberg,Werner, 40Heliocentric universe

Anaximander's conception, 15Aristarchus's hypothesis, 19–20, 99Heraclides and, 103–104Pythagorean conception, 33, 180, 210, 247

Heliodorus of Alexandria, 34Helios (sun as god), 13, 168, 178, 201. See also

NeoplatonismHelladic civilization. See Mycenaean civilizationHellanicus of Lesbos, 90, 101–102Hellenism, 33–34, 102–103, 127–128. See also

specific individuals and sciencesHellenistic Age, 33–34, 98–100, 144, 147. See also

specific individualsHephaistion, 10Heracles (Hercules; mythic figure), 7, 102, 117, 163Heraclides of Pontus, 33, 103–104Heraclitus of Ephesus, 58, 95, 104, 104, 182, 186,

200Herbs, 147, 150. See also Materia medicaHerculaneum. See Vesuvius, MountHermes (Greek god), 159, 163, 201Hermias, King, 21, 138Hermippus, 139Hero, 11, 104–105Herodotus of Halicarnassus, 96, 105–107, 106, 113

Ammianus Marcellinus's reliance on, 12on Anaximander's accomplishments, 15on Athenians' fear of slavery, 37in Athens, 38on Croesus, 229Egypt visited, 4, 70, 105–106on Egyptian architecture, 70on Egyptian astronomy/astrology, 35, 71on Egyptian boats, 143on Egyptian customs, 225on Egyptian medicine, 70on Egyptian meteorology, 152on Egyptian mummification, 70–71on Egyptian plants and animals, 132on Egyptian pyramids, 70, 223fact-based geography, 90

Index 277

Herodotus of Halicarnassus (continued)on the Greeks as free people, 96on Hecataeus, 101land thought to dominate sea, 93on the logos, 134Nile River flood theory, 106on Phoenician maritime exploration, 91, 143,

183–184on Pythagoras, 210subjective sense of time, 240on Thales, 154, 234, 235in Thurii, 142

Herophilus of Chalcedon, 11, 78, 107, 147Hesiod, 6, 32, 90, 107–109, 201–202Heyerdahl,Thor, 142, 143Hiero, king of Syracuse, 17–18Hierocles, 61Hieron, 9Himilco, 184Hipparchus, 109

astronomical work and theories, 33, 62, 99,109

calendar system, 53commentators, 59geography and mapping, 92, 93, 109, 231influences on, 16, 79, 109

Hippasus, 210, 211Hippias of Elia, 183Hippo of Croton, 109, 141, 210Hippocrates, 28, 97, 109–112, 110, 146

on environment and racial characteristics, 111health linked to weather, 111, 152legacy, 111, 112as mentor to Galen, 85See also Hippocratic method; Hippocratic Oath

Hippocratic Corpus, 111, 147Hippocratic method, 107, 109–112, 147, 170–171,

175Hippocratic Oath, 28, 112, 171Hippodamus of Miletus, 10, 141, 154Hippolytus, 58

on Anaximander's principle of the infinite, 15, 239on Archelaus's belief in four elements, 17Heraclitus quoted, 104on Xenophanes' beliefs, 249

Hippon, 147Histories (Herodotus), 38, 96, 105–107, 113. See also

HerodotusHistories (Polybius), 113, 199–200. See also PolybiusHistories (Tacitus), 114, 233. See also TacitusHistory, 112–115

Alexander accompanied by historians, 8Chinese historians, 29compared to poetry, in Aristotelian thought, 22,

112, 237dating systems, 54–55 (see also under Calendars

and dating systems)

Greek historians (generally), 96–97, 114–115,240 (see also Herodotus;Thucydides)

Homer and (see Homer)Roman historians (generally), 114–115, 214 (see

also Ammianus Marcellinus; Livy; Pliny theElder;Tacitus)

as science, 112, 115Thucydides on the study of, 237–238Xenophon's writing, 250See also specific historians

History (Ammianus Marcellinus), 11–13, 115History of the Peloponnesian War (Thucydides). See

Peloponnesian War, TheHittites, 123Homer, 88–90, 115–117, 116

in Alexander's dream, 197anthropomorphism in, 116, 117, 163, 196–197astronomy and cosmology, 32, 116dreams in, 66–67Eratosthenes' criticism of, 231fate and courage in, 117, 204and Greek exploration, 88–90and Hellenism, 102and the Ionian worldview, 121Strabo and, 231time in, 239See also Iliad; Odyssey

Hoplites, 155Horace, 77Horoscopes, 35. See also AstrologyHuman beings

contrasted with animals, 133origin theories, 137, 142

Humors, 85–86, 111, 147Hydraulics, 117–119

aqueducts, 75, 83, 118, 118, 215Archimedes' work, 17, 19, 99, 125irrigation, 3–4, 29, 124–125, 223Vitruvius's studies, 245

Hydrotherapy, 27Hyginus, C. Julius, 214Hymn to Aten (Akhenaten), 203–204. See also

AkhenatenHypatia of Alexandria, 11, 119, 247–248Hypsicles, 33–34, 144

I Ching (The Book of Changes), 29Iamblichus, 121–122, 168, 181Ictinus, 98Iliad (Homer), 94, 115–117, 146

anachronism in, 239anthropomorphism in, 116–117, 163, 196–197Asclepius in, 27, 117geography, 90See also Homer

Imhotep, 27–28, 70, 161Incas, 142

278 Index

India, 30, 92Indica (Arrian), 9, 25, 26, 165–166Inductive logic, 22Infinity and the infinite, 186

Anaxagoras's conception, 13in Anaximander's thought, 15, 121, 153, 181,

184, 239in Democritus's thought, 64limitless universe, 136

Introduction of Astronomy (Geminus), 34, 88Ionian school, 122–123, 130

Anaxagoras, 13–15Anaximander, 15Anaximenes, 15–16Aristotle, 20–27compared to Sophist thought, 121"first cause" sought, 121identified by Diogenes Laertius, 153, 234meteorology, 152Milesian school, 153–155Plato, 187–190Socrates, 227–228Thales, 234–235See also other Ionian philosophers

Ionians, 49, 104. See also Greece; Greek mythology;Ionian school; and specific individuals and city-states

Iron Age, 123Irrigation, 124–125

Archimedes' screw, 17 in China, 29in Egypt, 4in Mesopotamia, 3, 223

Isidorus of Miletus, 61, 154Isocrates, 225Italian school, 141, 204–205

Democritus, 63–65Hippo of Croton, 141, 210Pythagoras, 209–211Xenophanes, 249–250See also Atomists; Being, compared to becoming;

Epicureanism; Stoicism

James,William, 44Jesus of Nazareth (Christ)

agricultural parables, 6anointed with oil, 170birth, 139, 140as healer, 170–171and Joseph's dreams, 169as the logos, 135, 168, 170, 206–207and mountains, 160See also New Testament

John, Gospel of, 135, 170, 206John of Gaza, 87Joseph (husband of Mary), 169Josephus, 155–156

Julia Domna, 2, 35, 130, 182, 247Julian (emperor), 60, 127–128, 145

Ammianus Marcellinus as supporter, 13Eunapius's biography, 130and Hellenism, 60, 103, 127and Neoplatonism, 60, 121, 127, 168, 178,

189–190and Oribasius, 127, 128, 175and Themistius, 127, 145, 236

Julian calendar, 52, 54, 69Julius Caesar. See Caesar, JuliusJung, Carl, 67, 169, 195, 207Justinian (emperor), 60–61, 226–227

Kant, Immanuel, 44Kiki plant, 132K'ung-Fu-Tzu (Confucius), 29

Language, development of, 74Latitude, 79, 92, 109Law

Athenian law code, 225, 228–229in the Later Roman Empire, 60, 226–227Mesopotamian law codes, 45, 225Roman Republic's law and government, 226

Leon, 59Leprosy, 170, 174Letters (Pliny the Younger), 193Leucippus, 131–132

atomic theory, 39, 95, 131–132, 182, 186Democritus as student, 63, 131

Leviticus, Book of, 174Libanius, 127, 145Life of Alexander (Plutarch), 8, 196, 199Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Philostratus), 182–183, 247Life of Marcellus (Plutarch), 18Life of Sertorius (Plutarch), 91–92Life of Solon (Plutarch), 199, 228Life sciences, 132–134, 192. See also Animals;

Botany; Natural science; ZoologyLighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos lighthouse), 7, 10,

180, 223Liu Chih-Chi, 29Lives (Plutarch). See Parallel LivesLives of the Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius), 6, 65,

130, 228, 234Lives of the Philosophers (Eunapius), 175Lives of the Sophists (Eunapius), 82, 130Lives of the Sophists (Philostratus), 2, 130, 182–183,

247Livy (Titus Livius), 113, 214

account of King Philip's ascent of Mt. Hebrus,160

dating system, 54–55farmers eulogized, 5on history and morality, 226

Logic, Aristotelian, 21–22

Index 279

Logos, 134–135, 182in Aristotle's thought, 23, 134, 204in Aurelius's thought, 40Jesus as, 135, 168, 170, 206–207in Platonic thought, 204in Plotinus's philosophy, 167, 194in Stoic philosophy, 134–135, 205, 230

Longitude, 79, 92, 109Lotus plant, 132Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), 135–138

atomic theory, 39–40, 77, 135–136, 186contentment as aim of life, 205influences on, 16, 65on mountain phenomena, 160On the Nature of Things, 135–138, 214, 218, 240on time, 240

Luke, Gospel of, 6, 170, 240–241Lunar eclipses, 13, 32Luoxia Hong, 30Luther, Martin, 44, 207Lyceum, 1, 21, 38, 138, 237

influence and legacy, 96, 179–180See also Aristotle; Peripatetic school;Theophrastus

Lysias, 225

Macrobius, 58, 93Magi, 23, 139–140, 140, 169, 210Magic, 140–141

Aristotle's interest in, 23Babylonian magic, 45Egyptian medicine and, 70Iamblichus and, 121–122Jesus and, 170during the later Roman Empire, 129–130Maximus of Ephesus and, 121, 127, 145–146in the Old Testament, 173–174Pliny on, 139See also Magi;Theurgy

Magna Graecia, 141–142Magnets and magnetism, 73, 137Manicheism, 42Manilius, 34Maps

Babylonian maps, 46, 88cartographical coordinates, 79, 92, 109Constantinople, 61Eratosthenes' work, 78–79Renaissance map, 89Roman itineraria, 217See also Geography

Marcellinus. See Ammianus MarcellinusMarcus Agrippa, 118Marcus Aurelius. See Aurelius, MarcusMarine science, 142–144. See also NavigationMark, Gospel of, 170Materia medica (pharmaceuticals), 132–134, 133,

146, 150, 192–193. See also Medicine

Mathematics, 144–145Apollonius of Perga's work, 16–17Archimedes' work, 17, 19, 99Aristarchus's calculation of size and distance of

heavenly bodies, 19–20Babylonian mathematics, 46, 144, 210Chinese mathematics, 144as core curriculum of Plato's Academy, 1Democritus's writings, 63Egyptian mathematics, 72, 144Eudemus's writings, 180Geminus's writings, 88Greek innovations, 144Hero's work, 104–105Hypatia's commentaries, 119Indian mathematics, 30mathematicians at Alexandria, 10–11, 16Neoplatonism and, 167pi, 17, 72, 75, 99, 144Ptolemy's work (see Ptolemy)Pythagoras's work (see Pythagoras; Pythagorean

theorem)Sumerian mathematics, 150Theono's work, 247Theon's commentaries, 119zero, 30, 46, 144See also Astronomy; Engineering; Geometry;

Measurement; Number(s); SurveyingMatthew, Gospel of, 138, 169Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, 180, 223Maximus of Ephesus, 121, 127, 145–146Mayan civilization, 30Measurement

earth's circumference, 17, 24, 79, 92, 99, 201, 208Indian decimal system, 30mass and water displacement, 19"Nilometer," 128quinaria (water measurement unit), 83size and distance of heavenly bodies, 19–20, 33of time (see Calendars and dating systems;Time)See also Astronomy; Mathematics

Medicine, 112, 146–148Aelian's remedies, 2Asclepiadic cures, 28Asclepius and the Asclepiads, 27–28, 111, 117,

146–147, 163, 201Babylonian medicine, 45, 132Christianity and, 28, 86, 170–171Democritus's writings, 63Egyptian medicine, 70, 132, 146foods as medicine, 56four humors theory, 85–86, 111, 147, 175Greek medicine (generally), 27–28, 111, 146–147Hebrews and, 146, 170Hippocratic method, 107, 109–112, 147,

170–171, 175Hippocratic Oath, 28, 112, 171

280 Index

Julian's support for, 128during the later Roman Empire, 129materia medica, 132–134, 133, 146, 192–193metals, 192Methodists, 27 (see also Asclepiades)moisture and health, 109New Testament treatments, 170observation and diagnosis, 147Pliny's writings, 192–193pulse as diagnostic tool, 78, 107Roman medicine (generally), 56, 147–148 (see

also Asclepiades; Celsus; Galen)Sumerian (Mesopotamian) medicine, 146, 150Thucydides' thoughts, 238See also Anatomy; Physicians

Meditations (Marcus Aurelius), 40–42, 214, 230Megaliths, 30–31Melissus of Samos, 72, 95Menaechmus, 81Menelaus, 33, 144Menerates, 147Mercury (element), 187Mercury (planet), 31, 103, 209Mesopotamia, 148–152

agriculture and irrigation, 3, 124, 148Anaximander possibly influenced by, 15astronomy, 150–151, 235boats, 142calendar, 52engineering and architecture, 74first scientists, 132, 150foretelling through dreams, 66law codes, 45, 225medicine, 146, 150metallurgy, 47–48writing, 74, 112, 148–149ziggurats, 74, 158See also Babylon; Sumerians

Metallurgyalchemy and, 186bronze and the Bronze Age, 46–49, 150copper pipes and fittings, 118iron and the Iron Age, 123Pliny's writings, 192

Metaphysics (Aristotle), 8, 22, 64, 96, 236Meteorology, 152–153

Anaximenes' beliefs, 16Aristotle's observations, 24Lucretius's thoughts, 137Pliny's approach, 191Pliny's theories, 34, 192rainbows, 12, 16, 34, 137, 152Seneca's writings, 221Theophrastus's writings, 237Xenophanes' thoughts, 142

Meteorology (Aristotle), 24Meteors, 12, 24

Meton of Athens, 53, 54Metonic Cycle (calendar), 53Milesian school, 153–155. See also Anaximander;

Anaximenes; Hecataeus; Ionian school;ThalesMiletus, 153–155, 234Military science and technology, 17–18, 155–158,

214–215Mills, 5Mind, the, 204

in Anaxagoras's thought (nous), 13–14, 17, 36, 95,97, 121, 182

in Plutarch's thought, 197–198, 205–206in Xenophanes' thought, 182See also Psychology

Minoan civilization, 48. See also Bronze AgeMithras cult, 168, 178Mithridates, 27Monica (mother of Augustine), 42Montaigne, Michel de, 206–207

Augustine's influence on, 44Epictetus's influence on, 76and Plutarch, 195, 196, 197–198, 208Seneca's influence on, 222

Moonin Babylonian astrology, 45–46Democritus on, 64in Egyptian myth, 32and the female reproductive cycle, 31, 52Lucretius's observations, 137lunar calendars, 30, 52–53, 151, 228 (see also

Calendars and dating systems)lunar eclipses, 13, 32Pliny's observations, 34Pythagoras's observations, 33religious significance, 31size and distance, 19, 109See also Astronomy

Moral Letters (Seneca), 221–222Moralia (Moral Essays) (Plutarch), 195, 214Moses, 158, 173, 204Mospus, 177Mountains, 158–161. See also Vesuvius, MountMummification, 70–71, 71Music, 127Muslims, 25, 86, 236Musonius Rufus, 76Mycenaean civilization, 48–49. See also Bronze AgeMyson of Chen, 222Myth, 161–163

Aelian's writings informed by, 2Egyptian myth and religion, 27–28, 31, 70–71,

161, 177, 178, 203–204 (see also Aten)geography of mythic places, 90, 91–92Hebrew origin story (Genesis), 174–175meteorology and, 152mountains in, 158–159ocean and sea myths, 142

Index 281

Myth (continued)Plutarch and, 196–197Sumerian myths and beliefs, 142, 149–150, 158,

161, 203See also Greek mythology; Magic

Natural History (Pliny the Elder), 34, 92, 148,190–192, 214, 226, 230, 244

Natural Questions (Natural Phenomena) (Plutarch), 132,133, 153, 198

Natural Questions (Seneca), 221Natural science (natural history)

Aelian's writings, 2, 134Aristotle's contributions, 22, 23Democritus's writings, 63Diogenes of Apollonia's ideas, 65–66mountains and, 159–160natural phenomena personified by gods, 108Plutarch and, 198–199See also Animals; Botany; Natural History (Pliny);

Zoology; and specific individualsNatural theology, 173. See also Old TestamentNaucydes, 77Nausiphanes, 77Navigation, 142

Nearchus's naval expedition, 165–167Phoenician maritime exploration, 89, 90–91,

142, 143, 183–184Polynesians, 30Thales' contributions, 234See also Exploration; Ships and shipbuilding

Nearchus of Crete, 165–167Arrian's Indica, 9, 25, 26, 165–167journey to India, 92

Nebuchadnezzar II, 223Necho II (pharaoh), 183–184Neolithic peoples, 3, 30–31, 47, 74, 148Neoplatonism, 167–169

and Ammianus Marcellinus, 11–13, 115, 130compared to Aristotelianism, 236Constantinople and, 60Eunapius's biographies of Neoplatonists, 82, 130and Hypatia of Alexandria, 11, 119, 247–248and Iamblichus, 121–122, 168, 181and Julian, 127, 145, 168, 178, 189–190and Plotinus's philosophy, 145, 167–168,

194–195, 207and Porphyry, 28, 168, 195, 200–201, 210and Simplicius, 15, 59, 72, 169See also Proclus

Nero (emperor), 213, 214, 221Netz, Reviel, 144Neugebauer, O., 235New Testament, 169–171

agriculture in, 5–6Augustine's reading of, 42dreams in, 169

Gospel of John, 135, 170, 206Gospel of Luke, 6, 170, 240–241Gospel of Mark, 170Gospel of Matthew, 138, 169healing and medicine, 146medicine in, 170and psychology, 206–207See also Christianity and Christians; Jesus of

Nazareth; Old TestamentNewton, Isaac, 182, 238Nicander of Colophon, 132Nile River, 4, 106, 117, 124

and Egyptian mythology, 161"Nilometer," 128ships, 143See also Egypt

Noah and the Ark, 142–143Nous. See MindNuma Pompilius, 54, 210Number(s)

magical/spiritual significance, 174place value, 144in Platonic philosophy, 189, 240in Pythagorean philosophy, 95, 167, 180,

181–182, 209, 210zero, 30, 46, 144See also Mathematics

Nutrition, 85–86

Oceans and seas, 142, 162, 166marine science, 142–144Phoenician maritime exploration, 89, 90–91, 93,

142, 143, 183–184Pytheas's voyage, 90–91, 211–212world-encircling ocean hypothesis, 93, 231See also Exploration; Navigation;Water

Octaëteris (eight-year calendar cycle), 53, 88Octavian Caesar (Augustus), 28, 213, 218Odysseus, 197, 199–200, 206. See also OdysseyOdyssey (Homer), 88–90, 94, 115–117

agriculture in, 4anachronism in, 239anthropomorphism in, 116, 163geography, 88–90ocean in, 142, 162

Oenopides of Chios, 53Ogygia (island), 91Old Testament, 173–175

Augustine's reading of, 42dream interpretation in, 66, 174healing and medicine, 146, 174Hymn to Aten compared with, 203–204mountains in, 158–159Noah and the Ark, 142–143sense of history in, 113time in, 240See also Hebrews; New Testament; and specific books

282 Index

Olympia,Temple of Zeus at, 180, 223Olympiads, as means of measuring time, 54, 199, 240Olympias (mother of Alexander), 7, 196Olympus, Mount, 159On Architecture (Vitruvius), 215, 245On Contentment (Plutarch), 198, 206On Husbandrie (Palladius), 179On Images (Porphyry), 201On Medicine (Celsus), 56On Nature (Anaximander), 15On Nature or On What Exists (Melissus), 72On Socrates' Personal Deity (Plutarch), 197On the Character of the Orator (Cicero), 57, 226On the Characteristics of Animals (Aelian), 2, 134On the Heavens (Aristotle), 24On the Mysteries (Iamblichus), 121On the Natural Faculties (Galen), 86, 148On the Nature of the Gods (Cicero), 57, 214On the Nature of Things (Lucretius), 135–138, 214,

218, 240On the Principle of Cold (Plutarch), 198On the Republic (Cicero), 57, 93, 226On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon

(Aristarchus), 19–20On the Use of Reason by 'Irrational' Animals (Plutarch),

197, 206One, the, 13, 182, 200–201, 207. See also HeliosOnesicritus of Astypalea, 92, 165Oracle at Delphi, 115–116, 154, 159, 195Oration, 57Oribasius, 127, 128, 148, 175–176Origen, 168Orosius, Paulus, 55Osiris (Egyptian god), 70, 178

Paganism, 177–179. See also Greek mythology; Myth;and specific deities

Paleolithic peoples, 46–47, 74, 166Palladius, 5, 55, 58, 179Panaetius, 230Pandora (mythic figure), 108, 163Pantheon, 75, 215, 218Pappas, 11, 58, 119, 248Papyrus, 10, 132, 143Papyrus of Ani (Egyptian Book of the Dead), 70Parallax, 33, 62Parallel Lives (Plutarch), 196, 199, 205, 214Paraphrase (Themistius), 236Parmenides of Elea, 72

on being, 95divine conceived in metaphysical terms, 178earth's temperature zones postulated, 91influenced by Leucippus, 131Plato's rejection of concept of being, 190reality encompassed in the one, 182spherical earth hypothesized, 95Xenophanes as teacher, 249

Parthenon, 75, 98Parts of Animals (Aristotle), 23Pausanius, 91Peloponnesian War, The (Thucydides), 38, 54, 96–97,

102, 113, 225, 237–238 Periander, 222Pericles, 97

Age of Pericles, 97–98, 102Anaxagoras and, 13, 36, 97and Athenian democracy, 36, 225Athens praised as "school of Hellas," 102consort (see Aspasia)Parthenon built under, 75

Periegesis (Hecateaeus), 101, 154 Peripatetic school, 20, 24–25, 38, 138, 179–180

Aeneas of Gaza's imaginary account, 87influence and legacy, 78, 96, 103, 179–180See also Aristotle; Lyceum; Strato;Theophrastus

Periplus of Hanno, 184Persian Empire. See Alexander of MacedonPersian Wars, 105, 113, 155, 183Petrarca, Francesco, 44, 160, 206–207Petron, 147Phaedo (Plato), 14, 91, 189, 239–240Phaedros, 57Phaenomena (Aratus), 33, 81, 99Phaenomena (Eudoxus), 81Pharmacology. See Materia medicaPharos lighthouse, 7, 10, 180, 223Pherecydes of Syros, 210, 222, 239Phidias, 98, 102, 223Philanthropia, 236Philip II of Macedon, 21, 160. See also Alexander of

MacedonPhilistion of Locri, 147Philo of Byzantium, 1–2, 57, 99, 135, 180, 223Philodemus, 57, 77Philolaus, 33, 141, 147, 180–181, 210–211Philoponus, 169Philosophy, 181–182

Confucian philosophy, 29Eleatic school, 72Epicureanism, 76–77Ionian philosophy/Ionian school (see Ionian

school)Italian school (see Italian school)Milesian school, 153–155and myth, 196Neoplatonism, 167–169Peripatetic school (see Aristotle; Lyceum;

Peripatetic school)Platonic philosophy (see Academy; Plato; Platonic

philosophy)psychology's relationship to, 203 (see also

Psychology)Stoicism, 229–230See also specific individuals

Index 283

Philostratus, 182–183biography of Apollonius of Tyana, 59, 182–183Julia Domna's patronage, 130, 182, 247Lives of the Sophists, 2, 130, 182–183, 247

Phoenicians, 183–184alphabet, 74and Gaza, 87and Greek myths, 108maritime exploration, 89, 90–91, 142, 143, 143,

183–184Physical sciences, 184–187

practical applications (see Architecture;Engineering; Hydraulics; Surveying;Technology)

See also Astronomy; Atomists; Atoms; Chemistry;Physics

PhysiciansAlcmaeon, 6–7, 95, 141, 146–147Asclepiades, 26–27, 27, 86, 147the Asclepiads, 27–28Celsus, 56, 56Dioscorides, 134Egyptian physicians, 70Empedocles, 73–74, 147Erasistratus, 11, 78Galen, 28, 67, 85–87, 86, 148, 175Herophilus, 11, 78, 107, 147Hippocrates, 109–112Hippocrates' near contemporaries, 147in the Iliad, 117Jesus as healer, 170–171in the Old Testament, 174Oribasius, 127, 128, 148, 175–176Sumerian physicians, 150See also Medicine

PhysicsAnaxagoras and, 13–14Archelaus's thought, 17Archimedes' work on mass and water

displacement, 19Aristotle and, 22, 24, 25, 96, 185, 186Hero's work, 104–105Milesian school and, 153–154, 184 (see also

Anaximander; Anaximenes;Thales)See also Astronomy; Atomists; Atoms; Cosmology;

Engineering; Hydraulics; MathematicsPhysics (Anaxagoras), 13Physics (Aristotle), 22, 96, 185, 186Pi, 17, 72, 75, 99, 144Pisistratus, 222Pittaeus, 222Plague, 138, 238Planetary motion

in Alcmaeon's thought, 7in Anaximenes' thought, 16astrology and, 34–35in Pliny's model, 34

in Ptolemy's model, 31, 34, 208–209See also Astronomy; Geocentric universe;

Heliocentric universe; and specific planetsPlants. See Agriculture; Botany; Herbs; Materia

medicaPlato, 96, 187–190, 188

and the Academy, 1, 38Anaxagoras's influence on, 14Apology, 154, 197, 228on Atlantis, 92and Egypt, 70legacy, 96, 130, 182, 190 (see also Neoplatonism;

Platonic philosophy)Phaedo, 14, 91, 189, 239–240philosophic overview, 121–122, 178, 187,

189–190Plutarch on, 132, 199Republic, 189–190, 225Socratic method, 38, 227–228spherical earth hypothesized, 91, 189students, 20–21, 38, 81on time, 240

Platonic philosophy, 96compared to Aristotelian philosophy, 20–21,

38–39, 130, 236compared to atomist thought, 135–136ideal forms, 96, 187, 189influenced by Anaxagoras, 14Julian's interest in, 127legacy, 190reality in, 96, 121, 189See also Academy; Neoplatonism; Plato; and specific

individualsPliny the Elder, 190–193, 191, 214

agricultural writings, 5Ammianus Marcellinus's reliance on, 12on Anaximander's use of first globe, 15as anthropologist, 226and astronomy, 34, 46, 191, 192death during Vesuvius eruption, 160, 191, 193,

243–245on Epimenides, 222geographical writings, 91, 92, 93, 191–192humans contrasted with animals, 133influences on, 55–56, 58legacy, 193on the magi, 139medical writings, 148meteorological writings, 34, 191, 192on Mithridates, 27Natural History, 34, 92, 148, 190–192, 214, 226,

230, 244on the origin of papyrus parchment, 10on the Pharos lighthouse, 7on Pherecydes, 222on the Seven Wonders, 223as Stoic, 191, 230

284 Index

as Tacitus's source, 233Pliny the Younger, 54, 193–194, 193, 233Plotinus, 194–195

Iamblichus as follower, 121influenced by Augustine, 42philosophy, 145, 167–168, 194–195, 207Porphyry and, 195, 200

Plows and plowshares, 3–4, 4Plumbing, 118Plutarch, 195–199, 214

Alexander the Great biography, 8, 196Ammianus Marcellinus's reliance on, 12on Anaxagoras, 13, 132Anaximander's principle of the infinite recorded,

15on animal intelligence, 197, 206on Archimedes' military machines, 18on Democritus, 132on the founding of Alexandria, 10on Greek reverence for Poseidon, 142meteorological musings, 153Montaigne and, 195–198, 208mythic islands discussed, 91–92on plants as animals tied to the soil, 132on Plato, 132, 199psychological studies, 195–198, 205–206on Pythagoras's astronomical beliefs, 210on the Roman calendar, 54on Solon, 53, 70, 228Thales lauded, 121

Pneumatics, 180Poetics (Aristotle), 22, 96, 112, 237Poleis (Greek city-states), 94, 95–96, 155. See also

Athens; MiletusPolemarchus, 81Political science

Aristotle's contribution, 24, 189Athenian political science, 36–37 (see also Plato;

Socrates; Solon;Thucydides)Plato's contribution, 189, 225Polybius's analysis of the Roman Republic, 200,

218, 226Solon's contribution, 228–229See also Law

Politics (Aristotle), 24, 96, 225Polybius, 114, 199–200, 230

dating system, 54, 113, 199Eratosthenes' influence on, 79geographical writings, 159, 199–200on history, 226political analysis of the Roman Republic, 200,

218, 226on the Roman legions, 155–156zone of fire deemed absurd, 93

Polynesians, ancient, 30, 142Polytheism, 177. See also Greek mythology; PaganismPompeii. See Vesuvius, Mount

Pompey, Gnaeus, 201Pomponius Mela, 92, 93, 214Porphyry, 168, 200–201

on the decline of the Asclepius cult, 28Iamblichus as student, 121, 168and Plotinus, 195, 200on Pythagoras, 210

Poseidon (Greek god of the sea), 7, 142, 161Posidonius of Rhodes, 34, 201

and Cicero, 57, 201, 218, 230circumference of earth measured, 99Strabo and, 231as Tacitus's source, 233

Potamo, 11Pottery, 74Praxagoras, 107Praxiteles, 102Pre-Socratic philosophers and scientists, 94–95. See

also specific individualsPriscus, 127Proclus, 11, 59, 119, 169

on Euclid, 79influenced by Hypatia, 248on Philolaus, 180on Thales as geometer, 235on Theophrastus, 237

Procopius of Gaza, 61, 87Prohaeresius, 127Prometheus (mythic figure), 108, 159, 163,

201–202, 202Prometheus Bound (Aeschylus), 202Protagoras, 38, 96, 102, 121, 183Protagoras (Plato), 38Psalms, Book of, 174Pseuophis of Heliopolis, 70Psyche. See SoulPsychology, 203–208

Aristotle's studies, 22–23, 204Christian psychology, 28, 206–207 (see also

Augustine, Aurelius)Epictetus's approach, 76Epicurus's approach, 76–77Erasistratus's studies, 78in the Old Testament, 174–175Plotinus and, 195Plutarch and, 195–198, 205–206Seneca's psychology, 221–222Tacitus's psychological analyses, 233See also Dreams; Greek mythology; Myth;

PhilosophyPtolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), 11, 208–209

astrological treatise, 35astronomical studies and planetary model, 31, 32,

34, 82, 208–209Babylonian mathematics and astronomy known,

46, 208commentators, 58, 119, 119, 247–248

Index 285

Ptolemy (continued) Eratosthenes' influence on, 79geographical writings, 93, 208influences on, 25, 109legacy, 209and pi, 144theories anticipated by Apollonius of Perga, 16

Ptolemy I (pharaoh), 10, 147Ptolemy II Philadelphus (pharaoh), 10, 147Punic Wars, 184Pyramids, 70, 74–75, 158, 180, 223, 224Pyrrho of Elis, 182Pythagoras, 95, 209–211, 210

astronomical theories, 32–33geographic hypotheses, 92–93Iamblichus's admiration for, 121legacy, 141, 209 (see also Pythagorean school)number as basis of the universe, 95, 167, 181–182,

209Porphyry's biography, 200reincarnation belief, 209, 210and the tetrad, 121on time, 239vegetarianism, 200visits Egypt, 69–70, 210wife, 247See also Alcmaeon

Pythagorean school, 141, 210–211Alcmaeon and, 6–7, 141Democritus, 39, 63–65, 64, 67, 131, 182, 186Druids compared to, 12Hippo of Croton, 109, 141, 210Philolaus, 33, 141, 147, 180–181, 210–211Plutarch on, 199

Pythagorean theorem, 46, 58, 144, 151, 210,245–246

Pytheas of Massilia, 90–91, 211–212Pythius, 223

Rainbows, 12, 16, 34, 137, 152Reality, 181–182

in Aristotelian metaphysics, 22in early Christian thought, 207in Platonic thought, 96, 121, 189in Pythagorean philosophy, 210in Socrates' thought, 63, 227See also Being

Refutation of All Heresies (Hippolytus), 58, 239Reincarnation, 71, 209, 210Republic (Cicero). See On the Republic (Cicero)Republic (Plato), 189, 225Retrograde motion of planets, 34, 208–209Rhodes, 109, 180, 223Roads, Roman, 75, 156, 214, 215–217, 216, 219Roman Empire

agriculture, 5, 6, 215, 219 (see also Agriculture)aqueducts, 83, 118, 118, 215 (see also Aqueducts)

architecture, 218–219 (see also Rome)astronomy, 34bridges, 75, 217building technology, 75calendars, 52, 54as ecumenical society, 103extent, 114geocentric universe, 12god of healing, 27–28gold and silver, obsession with, 192historians (generally), 114–115, 214 (see also

specific historians)Later Roman Empire (180–565 CE), 129–130,

168, 207–208 (see also Neoplatonism;Theurgy)military and military technology, 155–158,

214–215 (see also subhead roads)Pliny's position in, 190–191Principate, 213–215, 233 (see also specific rulers)Republic, Polybius's analysis of, 200, 218, 226roads, 56, 75, 214, 215–217, 216, 219Second Punic War, 17–18ships and shipbuilding, 143social sciences (generally), 226–227Stoic philosophy embraced, 230See also Rome; and specific individuals

Rome, 217–219agriculture and agricultural writers, 5aqueducts and hydraulics, 83, 118architecture, 75, 215, 218, 218–219calendars, 54Hannibal's attack on, 160Hellenistic kingdoms conquered, 99–100during the later Roman Empire, 130Republican government, 226social sciences (generally), 226–227timekeeping, 54See also Roman Empire

Rutherford, Ernst, 131

Saracens, 11–12Schliemann, Heinrich, 48Science

agriculture fundamental to emergence of, 3Aristotle and scientific methods, 20first scientists, 132, 150Greek word episteme, 181modern compared to ancient science, 181, 182philosophy's relationship to, 181–182, 190Roman science (generally), 217–218See also Life sciences; Natural science; Physical

sciences; and specific sciences and pseudosciences"Scipio's Dream" (Cicero), 57, 93Scylax of Caria, 91Seneca, 214, 221–222, 222

Ammianus Marcellinus's reliance on, 12on the earthquake of 62 CE, 244as Stoic, 218

286 Index

Thule mentioned in Medea, 91Septimius Severus, 2, 59. See also Julia DomnaSerapion, 11Sertorius, 91–92Seven Sages, 222, 228. See also Pherecydes; Solon;

ThalesSeven wonders of the ancient world, 180, 223–224.

See also specific wondersSeven Wonders of the World (Philo), 99, 180Sextus Empiricus, 104, 182Shih Shen, 30Ships and shipbuilding, 142–143, 143, 151Simplicius, 15, 59, 72, 169Social sciences, 224–227. See also Anthropology;

Geography; History; Political science;Psychology

Socrates, 96, 102, 227–228, 227Anaxagoras's influence on, 14, 121Archelaus's influence on, 17, 121and Athens, 37on knowing that he does not know, 154legacy, 227 (see also Plato; Platonic philosophy)and memory, 239–240other philosophers contrasted with, 63, 109Plutarch on, 197and political science, 189, 225Socratic method, 38, 227–228as Sophist, 38, 96trial and death, 187universal truth ("the Good"), 20See also Plato

Socrates Scholasticus (Christian historian), 119Socratic school, 37–38Solar eclipses, 12, 13, 32Solar system. See Astronomy; Geocentric universe;

Heliocentric universe; Planetary motion; Sun;and specific planets

Solids, mathematical, 17, 19, 58Solon, 24, 228–229, 229

and the Athenian law code, 225, 228–229hears of Atlantis, 92lunar calendar, 53as one of Seven Sages, 222, 228

Sonchis of Sais, 70Sophist, The (Plato), 190Sophists, 35, 38, 96, 98, 121. See also Aelian;

Philostratus; Plato; SocratesSophocles, 38, 102Sosigenes, 54Sostratus of Cnidus, 7, 223Soul

in Alcmaeon's thought, 6, 95in Aristotelian thought, 22–23, 204in Aurelius's thought, 40See also Logos

Speusippus, 38, 138Ssu-Ma Ch'ien, 29

Steam mechanisms, 105Stoicism, 38, 98–99, 182, 205, 214, 229–230

Ammianus Marcellinus as Stoic, 13and atoms, 39, 186, 229 (see also Atomists; Atoms)Augustine and, 42Cicero, 57–58Democritus's influence, 65dominance during/after Hellenistic Age, 103embraced by Romans, 218Epictetus, 25–26, 76, 218, 222, 230Geminus as Stoic, 88Julian attracted to, 127logos, 134–135, 205Marcus Aurelius, 40–42Pliny and, 191, 230Plotinus's ideas contrasted with, 194–195Plutarch's rejection, 197Polybius, 199–200Posidonius, 201Seneca, 221–222Strabo, 230–231time, 240and the Vesuvius eruption, 244

Stone Age. See Neolithic peoples; Paleolithic peoplesStonehenge, 30–31Strabo, 92, 214, 230–231

Ammianus Marcellinus's reliance on, 12and Eratosthenes, 79on Eudoxus, 81Hanging Gardens of Babylon described, 223Polybius's belief in equatorial coolness recorded,

199on Pytheas's voyage, 90, 211world-encircling ocean hypothesized, 93, 231

Strato, 25, 179–180Suetonius, 52Sumerians, 149–150

agriculture, 3cuneiform script, 112dating system, 240mythology and beliefs, 142, 149–150, 158, 161,

203shipbuilding and exploration, 151See also Mesopotamia

SunAristarchus's measurements, 19Egyptian worship of, 31, 32, 69, 177, 203–204Helios, 13, 168, 178, 201in Lucretius's cosmology, 136–137religious significance, 31solar calendars, 30, 52–53, 71 (see also Calendars

and dating systems)solar eclipses, 12, 13, 32Thales' measurements, 234–235in Xenophanes' thought, 249–250See also Astronomy; Heliocentric universe

Sundials, 15, 16, 32, 54, 246

Index 287

Superstition, 129–130. See also Magic;TheurgySurveying, 75

Hero's work, 104Roman surveyors, 155, 156, 214–215, 216

Syllogism, 22Synesius of Cyrene, 119Synopsis (Oribasius), 175. See also Galen; OribasiusSyracuse, siege of, 17–18

Tacitus, Cornelius, 114–115, 214, 233–234, 234Ammianus Marcellinus compared to, 11dating system, 54–55and Pliny the Younger, 193, 194, 233

Technology, 74–75agricultural technology, 3–5, 4 (see also Irrigation)alchemical apparatus, 187Archimedes' inventions, 17–19, 99, 125Hero's inventions, 104–105Mesopotamia, 74plumbing, 118pyramid building, 70, 74–75, 223Roman building technologies, 75, 214–217ships and shipbuilding, 142–143See also Architecture; Engineering; Hydraulics;

MetallurgyTelarges, 210Temple of Artemis (Ephesus), 10, 180, 223Temple of Zeus (Olympia), 180, 223Tetrad, 121Thales, 94–95, 153, 181, 234–235

Anaximander as student, 15astronomy, 32and chemical thinking, 186divine conceived in metaphysical terms, 178eclipse prediction, 32Egypt possibly visited, 69–70Halys River diverted, 154, 234influenced by Anaxagoras, 13, 14methods, 111as one of Seven Sages, 222, 234water as basic element, 15, 72, 121, 142, 151,

153, 184, 235wisdom of, 154

Theatetus (Plato), 190Themistius, 60, 127, 130, 145, 235–236Theodosius (emperor), 226Theodosius of Tripolis, 34, 92Theogony (Hesiod), 107–108 Theon, 11, 119, 247–248. See also HypatiaTheono of Thurii, 247Theophilus, 60Theophrastus, 138, 179, 236–237

Aeneas of Gaza's imaginary account, 87Alcmaeon quoted on the brain and the senses, 7Babylonians thought to predict future through

astrology, 35Diogenes of Apollonia's ideas discussed, 66

Lyceum headed, 24–25, 138, 237on meteorology, 152–153plant treatise, 38, 133, 147, 237Plutarch's reliance on, 198

Theopompus, 139Theory of Mathematics (Geminus), 88Theseus, 196Theurgy, 82, 129–130

Iamblichus, 121–122, 168, 181Maximus of Ephesus, 121, 127, 145–146

Thrasymachus, 147Thucydides, 102, 113, 225, 237–238

dating system, 54Hellanicus's history criticized, 102historical style, 38, 96–97, 113, 237–238Xenophon compared to, 250

Thule, 91, 211Thurii (town), 141–142, 154Timaeus, 142, 199Timaeus (Plato), 92, 190, 240Time, 238–241

in Anaximander's thought, 239in Augustine's thought, 43in Aurelius's thought, 40–41Plutarch on, 198in Pythagorean philosophy, 210, 239timekeeping, 54, 150, 238, 246 (see also Calendars

and dating systems; Sundials)See also History

Timochares, 10–11Timothy of Gaza, 87Titus (emperor), 156, 190Trajan (emperor), 193, 218Transmutation, 187Tribonian, 60, 226–227Tso Chuan, 29Turullius, 28Tyrannion, 231

Uncertainty Principle, 40Universal Treatise (Apollonius of Perga), 16

Valens (emperor), 118Varro, Marcus Terrentius, 5, 55, 215, 243Vegetius (Flavius Vegetius Renatus), 156–158Venus (planet), 31, 34, 103, 209Vespasian (emperor), 156, 218, 233Vesuvius, Mount, 160, 191, 193–194, 243–245,

244Via Appia (Appian Way), 215–216, 219. See also

Appius Claudius CrassusVictorius of Aquitaine, 55Vinegar, 192–193Virgil, 77Viticulture, 55, 58, 215Vitruvius (Marcus Vitruvius Pollio), 92, 144, 215,

245–246

288 Index

WaterArchelaus on, 17as basic element, 15, 16, 72, 121, 142, 151, 184,

235as creative force, 249in Hippo's thought, 109hydrotherapy, 27See also Elements

Water clocks, 54Weather. See MeteorologyWhales, 166Whether Land or Sea Animals Are Cleverer (Plutarch), 206Wilcox, Donald, 54Wisdom of Solomon (Book of Wisdom), 173Women

Aristotle on, 24women scholars, 147, 247–248 (see also Aspasia;

Hypatia)Wonders of the ancient world, 180, 223–224. See also

specific wondersWorks and Days (Hesiod), 6, 32, 107 Writing, 3, 48, 74, 112–113, 148–149

Xanthus, 139Xenarchus, 231Xenocrates, 1, 38, 190Xenophanes of Colophon, 94–95, 249–250

beliefs about the divine, 178, 249commentators, 58mind as basis of all things, 182

on Pythagoras, 209on water, 142, 249

Xenophon, 26, 97, 250–251Xerxes, 105, 113, 183

Yahweh (God of the Old Testament), 173–175, 177,204. See also Old Testament

Yin and yang, 29

Zeno, 38, 65, 98–99on infinite possibilities, 186Julian and, 128Leucippus's influence, 131logos in Zeno's thought, 134Oribasius as student, 175paradoxes, 72See also Stoicism

Zero, concept and use of, 30, 46, 144Zeus (Greek god), 108, 161

as father of Alexander the Great, 7, 21, 196and mountains, 159Pharos lighthouse dedicated to, 7in Porphyry's philosophy, 201and Prometheus, 202Temple of Zeus (Olympia), 180, 223

Zodiac, 32, 35, 62. See also Astrology; AstronomyZoology, 23, 132, 166, 192. See also AnimalsZoroaster and Zoroastrianism, 139, 140, 169. See also

MagiZosimus of Panopolis, 130

Index 289

Russell M. Lawson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of history and chair of the Division ofGeneral Studies at Bacone College, Muskogee, Oklahoma. His published works include TheLand between the Rivers:Thomas Nuttall’s Ascent of the Arkansas, 1819, and Passaconaway’s Realm: Cap-tain John Evans and the Exploration of Mount Washington.

About the Author

291