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36 [54] SOSIGENES VITRUVIUS
instance, into a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age. Nothing is known of his life except what is drawn from a small handful of references from later writers. From Saint Jerome, writing four and a half centuries later, we learn that he had intervals of insanity, and he is supposed to have died a suicide during one of them, brought on perhaps by a love philter given him by his wife. It is doubtful whether we ought to ac cept this, although it is constantly being cited. There is no reference to this ear lier and it may have been a tale invented out of distaste for the man and out of a kind of glee that his end should have been so un-genteel. After all, Lucretius was the boldest spokesman in the ancient world of antireligious views. His book was specifically intended to lift what he considered the burden of religious fears from the backs of mankind. He was in deed a lonely voice crying in the wilder ness in this respect and the pious of an cient times viewed him much as those of later times viewed Voltaire [261]. Lucretius’ poem barely survived. It was lost throughout the Middle Ages. A single surviving manuscript was discov ered and popularized in 1417 and soon after Gutenberg’s [114] invention of printing, the poem was printed in full and sown broadcast. In this way, Lucre tius acted as the transmitter of the no tion of atomism from Democritus to Dalton [389] by way of Gassendi [182], [54] SOSIGENES (soh-sij'ih-neez) Greek astronomer Born: about 90 b . c .
Although the Greeks developed mar velous mathematical interpretations of a geocentric universe, thanks to Hip parchus [50], their calendar remained a primitive one, based on the lunar month and the cycle of Meton [23], The Egyptians had early abandoned the lunar calendar in favor of a solar calendar based on twelve 30-day months plus five extra days. The overall length of such a year, 365 days, was a quarter day less than the true year, so that the Egyptian year fell one day behind the sun every four years and made a com plete cycle in 1460 years. In Ptolemaic times, the Alexandrian astronomers tried to establish a 36534-day year, but Egyp tian conservatism rebelled. The chance came with the Romans. The Roman lunar calendar had fallen into complete chaos because the priests in charge had manipulated it for political reasons, in order to alter the time in office of various functionaries. Julius Caesar accepted the advice of Sosigenes and in 46 b .
. established the Julian Cal endar, which consisted of a 365-day year three times in a row to be followed by a 366-day leap year. With minor modifica tions, this has lasted until now. Nothing else is known of Sosigenes ex cept that he wrote some treatises on as tronomy which are now lost and that he mentioned the belief that Mercury re volved about the sun. [55] VITRUVIUS (vi-troo'vee-us) ; in
full, MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO Roman
architect Born: ab o u t 70 b
c .
ab o u t 25
B.C. Virtually all that is known of Vi truvius’ life is that he served as a mili tary engineer in Africa under Julius Cae sar. The Romans are renowned as a “prac tical” people, more interested in en gineering and applied science than in high-flown speculations of the Greek type. It is interesting, then, that Vi truvius, who put out a large volume on architecture, refers constantly to Greek science and scientists, recognizing ap parently that engineering rests on sci ence. Nor did he underestimate the Greek engineers, for he speaks highly of Ctesibius [46], for instance. Vitruvius’ book remained the chief reference on architectural matters well into the Italian Renaissance. What’s more, he went beyond a mere consid eration of architecture in his book. He discussed astronomy, dealt with acous
[56] STRABO
CELSUS [57] tics, described the construction of vari ous sundials and water wheels, and discussed theories that Mercury and Venus went about the sun, without, how ever, mentioning the name of Hera- cleides [28] in that connection. Where the Greek astronomers might conceiv ably have viewed the planetary spheres as abstractions, Vitruvius’ intensely prac tical mind considered them real and ma terial. He envisaged the earth’s axis as set in bearings. On the other hand, he treated the dis covery of fire from the scientific rather than the mythological standpoint and recognized the prime importance of that discovery in the history of mankind. Yet, even though Vitruvius' appreci ation of Greek science was great and his transmission thereof unusually accurate for a Roman writer, he did make mis takes. He gave 3% as the value of pi, and this was less accurate than the value worked out by Archimedes [47] two cen turies earlier. [56] STRABO (strayffioh) Greek geographer Born: Amasya, Pontus (about 75 miles south of what is now the Black Sea coast of Turkey), about 63
b . c . Died: about a . d . 25 Strabo, the son of wealthy parents, traveled widely and, in fact, boasted that no geographer had traveled more widely than he. For instance, he traveled up the Nile to the borders of Nubia in 25 b . c . He based his geography (in seventeen volumes, all but one of which is pre served) on Eratosthenes [48], to whom, however, he was inferior in mathematics. Because of this, his descriptions quickly become distorted as he leaves the Medi terranean area, for his manner of con verting from a sphere to a plane is inac curate. His work also suffered because he insisted on considering Homer to be accurate and disregarded the better data to be found in Herodotus. His work represents the first attempt to collect all geographical knowledge into a single treatise and possesses partic ular value because it is the only geogra phy that survives from antiquity and we know of earlier work chiefly through his book.
He recognized Vesuvius as a volcano. (It did not erupt in the memory of man until the time of Pliny [61] about half a century after Strabo’s death.) Strabo also discussed the land-forming activity of rivers. He accepted Eratosthenes’ view of the size of the globe and was impressed by the small portion of the earth’s globe covered by the known world. He suggested the existence of unknown con tinents, therefore, and this suggestion was to haunt the world for fifteen cen turies, till the time of Columbus [121]. He divided the known world into frigid, temperate, and tropic zones, a division we still use. In middle age he settled in Rome, which, after the destruction of Carthage, was rapidly becoming all-powerful in the Mediterranean area. He wrote a long history of Rome but this work has not survived. [57] CELSUS, Aulus Cornelius (sel'sus) Roman encyclopedist Born: about 10 B.C.
Died: date unknown Celsus, a member of one of the most blue-blooded of the Roman families, gathered together the knowledge and learning of the Greeks and epitomized them for the delectation of the Roman audience. He did so in eight books of el egant Latin that eventually earned him the title of the Cicero of Medicine. The “of medicine” comes about be cause. by chance, all that has survived of his writings are those concerned with medicine. His books contain a good de scription of tonsillectomy and a number of other operations. His books are also the first to discuss heart attacks and in sanity in recognizable fashion. He also wrote on dentistry and described the use of the dental mirror. He also described the “cataract,” a condition in which the lens of the eye grows opaque. Celsus’ book was probably drawn for the most part from the collection of writings of
[58] MELA
DIOSCORIDES [59] the school of Hippocrates [22], In fact, he has also been called the Roman Hip pocrates. Celsus and his book had an odd echo in early modem times. After being snubbed as a mere popularization in an cient times and being totally lost in the Middle Ages, a copy of the medical por tion of his book was discovered in 1426 and an edition was printed in 1478, just at the time when medicine was reviving under the humanistic impact of the Re naissance. Its Latin terminology made use of numerous anatomical terms, such as cartilage, abdomen, tonsil, vertebra, anus, and uterus. In addition Celsus gained a sudden reputation as a physi cian of extraordinary merit (the men of the Renaissance regarded the ancient thinkers with an exaggerated venera tion).
As a result, some half century after the edition appeared, an eccentric alche mist with new theories of medicine adopted the nickname of Paracelsus, which means “beyond Celsus” or “better than Celsus.” There is no question that the name of Celsus remains in the mod em consciousness almost entirely as the result of being a part of the name of Paracelsus [131]. [58] MELA, Pomponius (mee'luh) Roman geographer Born: Tingentera, Spain, about 5 B.C.
Died: date unknown Mela is known only for a small geog raphy book, written a . d . 43 or 44, which was probably intended for popular read ing among the general Roman public. It borrowed from the Greek geographers but left out all the mathematics. How ever, since it was the one ancient book of geography that was written in Latin, it was particularly important throughout medieval times. In fact, its ideas re mained in force until the beginning of the age of exploration some thirteen cen turies after the time of Mela. Mela divided the earth into five zones, following Strabo [56], a division we keep right down to the present: North Frigid, North Temperate, Torrid, South Tem perate, and South Frigid. Of these, Mela considered only the Temperate zones to be habitable. The known world of the time was located in the North Temperate Zone and Mela believed, by analogy (al ways a dangerous route to a conclusion), that a similar world must exist in the South Temperate Zone. This southern land area, though habitable, was forever barred to the men of the north by the burning impenetrable heat of the Torrid Zone. After the Torrid Zone was found to be passable in early modem times, the southern world of Mela was persistently searched for down to the days of Cap tain Cook [300]. (Note: From this point on, all dates are a . d .
otherwise.) [59] DIOSCORIDES (dy-os-koFih-deez) Greek physician
what is now Turkey), about 20 Died: date unknown Dioscorides was a surgeon who served with the Roman armies under Nero. His chief interest lay in the use of plants as a source of drugs. In this connection he wrote De Ma teria Medica in five books, and this was the first really systematic pharmacopeia. It at once replaced the work of Diodes [34] which was primitive in comparison. Dioscorides was an objective observer and both his botanical and pharma cological details are accurate and free of superstition. The work, which deals with about six hundred plants and nearly a thousand drugs, was preserved by the Arabs and when translated into Latin served as an inspiration for later botanical research. It finally appeared in a printed edition in 1478. Dioscorides reported the condensation of mercury on the underside of the lid of the container holding it. Some think this observation eventually led to the tech
[60] HERO
PLINY [61] nique of distillation, in which a liquid is heated and the vapors condensed and stored separately. [60] HERO Greek engineer Born: about 20 Died: date unknown After 150 b .
. Ptolemaic Egypt fell into decay and by 30 b . c . it had become a Roman province. The great days of Alexandria—and, indeed, of Greek science—were over. Nevertheless the curtain did not go down abruptly. There were fitful flashes of genius for some centuries. One of those flashes was that of Hero, who displayed an almost modern apti tude for mechanics. Almost nothing, however, is known of his personal life, not even, until recently, the century in which he lived. It has been pointed out, however, that a lunar eclipse referred to in his writings was visible in Alexandria in 62. We might guess then that he was born about 20. He is most famous for his invention of a hollow sphere to which two bent tubes were attached. When water was boiled in the sphere, the steam escaped through the tubes and as a result of what we now call the law of action and reaction (not stated explicitly until Newton [231]) the sphere whirled rapidly about. This was an early method of converting steam power to motion and it is often called a steam engine. The device is still used as a rotating lawn sprinkler, in which jets of water, rather than of steam, are the motivating force. The principle of steam power was es tablished, but it was put to use only in the automatic workings of doors and statues (by means of which priests might impose on gullible worshipers), in toys to amuse children, and so on. The idea of utilizing the energy implicit in inani mate nature as a substitute for strained and aching slave muscle seemed to occur to no one. The idea was not to arise for seventeen centuries after Hero and then only in regions where slave labor did not exist and nonslave labor was getting more expensive. Hero wrote on mechanics, describing the various simple machines (lever, pul ley, wheel, inclined plane, screw, wedge) by which effort could be properly chan neled and magnified. He made it quite clear that when a force was magnified it was at the expense of exerting that magnified force through a corre spondingly shortened distance. This was an extension and generalization of Ar chimedes’ [47] law of the lever. In constructing his ingenious devices, he made use of syphons, syringes, and gears. He used gears, for instance, in converting wheel revolutions of a chariot to the revolutions of a pointer—a primi tive taximeter. Hero wrote a book on air that was far in advance of his time. He demonstrated air was a substance by showing that water would not enter a vessel already filled with air unless the air was allowed to escape. He also maintained, from the fact that air was compressible, that it must be made up of individual particles separated by space. Here was the atomism of Democritus [20] again. This matter of the compressibility of air made no impression on scholars generally in Hero’s time, but it was to come up again, more forcefully, fifteen hundred years later with Boyle [212] and his successors. Hero also wrote a book on mirrors and on light. He felt that vision resulted from the emission of light by the eyes and that these light rays traveled at infinite velocity. These conclusions were incorrect, but he also said that the angle at which a light ray struck a reflecting surface was equal to the angle at which it was reflected, and that was correct. [61] PLINY (plih'nee); in full, GAIUS PLINIUS CECILIUS SECUN- DUS, the Elder Roman scholar Born: Novum Comum (modem Como), Italy, 23 Died: near Mount Vesuvius, Italy, August 25, 79 40 [61] PLINY
FRONTINUS [62] Pliny was a man of universal interests and universal curiosity. He had ample opportunity for indulging these in the Rome of his day, for the empire was in its full flush of power. In military service he commanded troops in Germany and had a chance to explore various regions of Europe. He returned to Novum Comum in 52, studied law, and settled down to writing and scholarship. He was an intimate friend of Vespa sian, who became Roman emperor in 69. In 70 Pliny was appointed governor over a section of Gaul, and in 73 over a sec tion of Spain. Finally he was placed in charge of the Roman home fleet and this, indirectly, proved fatal to him. The fleet was stationed at the naval base at Misenum, just northwest of the Bay of Naples, when in 79 the nearby volcano of Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii and Herculaneum. In his eagerness to witness the eruption, Pliny went ashore and delayed too long in retreating from the ashes and vapor. He was found dead afterward. Pliny is the very model of the compul sive worker. If he wasn’t reading or hav ing books read to him, he was taking notes or writing. He hated sleeping and he considered walking a waste of time, because, if he drove, he could write at the same time. Even in the army he managed to find time to write a history of the Germanic wars and to put down observations on the manner of hurling weapons while on horseback. He scrib bled voluminously, and his major work,
volumes a complete summary of ancient knowledge concerning the world. It was first published in 77 and was dedicated to the Emperor Titus, son of Vespasian. Pliny’s Natural History was secondary —a digest drawn from two thousand an cient books by nearly five hundred writers. In preparing his digest, Pliny was completely credulous and undiscrim inating. If anything interested him, it went in, regardless of its plausibility, though occasionally he did draw the line. He refused to accept the possibility of immortality, for instance. And some times the implausible was correct, like Pytheas’ [39] theory that the moon was responsible for the tides, which Pliny re fused to accept. Again, he described the origin of amber correctly, but only after he had also included all the wrong and fanciful theories on the subject that had been advanced. The book dealt with astronomy and geography, where he accepted the sphe ricity of the earth, but its major concern was zoology and it was here that he went hog-wild. His tales of monsters and won ders lingered on through the Middle Ages under the guise of sober science. He described men without mouths who lived by inhaling the perfumes of flowers; men with large feet, which they used as umbrellas to shade themselves from the heat of the sun; unicorns; mer maids; flying horses; and so on. (In Othello, Othello charms Desdemona with tales of wonders taken straight out of Pliny.) The unifying thread throughout Pliny’s work was that of anthropocentrism. Man was the measure of everything; all was designed for the use of men. A plant had to be useful as a food or as a drug; an animal as a food or as a servant. If a plant or animal seemed of no material use to man (or even a danger) then its life and habits taught a moral lesson. To this view the early Christians were sympathetic and this helps to explain the survival of the work. And although Pliny contains more errors per square foot than any other ancient author, he did perform the very useful service of main taining, through medieval times, a sense of the wonder and majesty of the natural world. After all, while food for curiosity is supplied, there is always the hope that observation and research will rise anew and that error will be corrected. [62] FRONTINUS, Sextus Julius (fron- ty'nus)
Roman administrator Born: about 30 Died: 104 Frontinus served as governor of Brit ain, and during his term of service sub dued the hardy tribes of what is now southern Wales. His military career over,
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