Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

RhM 42 (1887) 7.
163
Diels believed that Simplicius borrowed these fragments from Alexander (
Dox.,
108f.; McDiarmid,
op. cit., 90f.), but see Reinhardt, K. Parmenides und die Ge-
schichte der griechischen Philosophie, Bonn 1916, 92 n. 1; Regenbogen. Theo-
phrast, 1536; von Kienle,
op. cit., 66f.; Steinmetz, op. cit., 341.
164
Dox., 181. The question of how precisely these parts corresponded to the 16 (or 18)
books of Theophrastus remains open.

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Chapter 4: The historiographical project of the Lyceum
158
stood by physics,
165
though many of the problems of zoology and botany
studied by Aristotle and Theophrastus are lacking here, since the early physi-
cists either did not touch upon them at all or paid very little attention to them,
which made a representative collection of their opinions impossible.
166
The six parts of
Vetusta placita were divided into chapters dealing with in-
dividual problems and following each other in logical order. In the part on the
soul, e.g., opinions on the five senses in general were duly followed by those
on the individual senses: sight, hearing, the sense of smell and taste being
taken separately (
Dox., 182). In De sensibus, however, the material is not ar-
ranged in accordance with the five senses following in succession, but with the
individual thinkers’ theories on all the senses. This reflects Theophrastus’ at-
tention not so much to the opinions as such, but rather to the doctrines of con-
crete thinkers, in which he tried to emphasize their common as well as individ-
ual features. At first, he divides them into two groups: the first follows the prin-
ciple ‘like by like’, the second sticks to the opposite principle (1). Individual
physicists’ doctrines are then critically exposed according to this division,
though not consistently enough. The first group includes the teachings of Par-
menides, Plato and Empedocles (3–24), ranged in the order of the growing
complexity and elaborateness of their theories (
Dox., 105). Yet they are not fol-
lowed by the proponents of the opposite principle, but by all the others, ar-
ranged in chronological order: Alcmaeon, Anaxagoras, Clidemus, Diogenes,
and Democritus (25–58).
167
The multi-level structure of the
Physiko¯n doxai can be preliminarily charac-
terized as follows. On the whole, the treatise was organized on systematic prin-
ciples, with the choice and the succession of problems reflecting the histori-
cally attested interests of the physicists. The material is divided into books
165
According to Theophrastus (
Met. 9a 13–15, 9b 20–10a 4), the subject of physics
starts with celestial bodies and ends with animals and plants. Cf. Aët. V, 14.
166
In his writings on plants, Theophrastus repeatedly refers to the Pythagorean Menes-
tor, who wrote on the causes of the falling of leaves, on the difference between warm
and cold plants, etc. (32 A 2–7). There were no corresponding divisions in the
Physi-
ko¯n doxai, so that Menestor is lacking here.
167
In section 1, Heraclitus is placed in the second group, but is not mentioned subse-
quently. Anaxagoras is the only true representative of the second group, whereas
Alcmaeon, Clidemus, Diogenes, and Democritus do not belong entirely to any of
them. It seems that the difficulties of clear-cut systematization prompted Theo-
phrastus to use the simplest, i.e., chronological, principle. Clidemus’ position be-
tween Anaxagoras and Diogenes is the only chronological indication on this obscure
figure, on which basis Diels dated him. In the second part of