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

op. cit., 37f.
25
Polémarco~ gàr ô Kuzikhnò~ gnwrízwn mèn aÿt3n faínetai, öligwrõn dè
!~ oÿk aısqht4~ oÚsh~ dià tò @gapãn mãllon t3n perì aÿtò tò méson ën tŒ
pantì tõn sfairõn aÿtõn qésin (505.21–23). – Transl. by T. Heath.

---

Chapter 7: The history of astronomy
234
case he was as brief as in the case of Callippus. Meanwhile, the detailed de-
scription of Eudoxus’ theory in Simplicius takes several large pages
(493.11–497.5), while the digressions and explanatory notes of the commen-
tator himself are quite insignificant here.
26
This description, which goes back
through Sosigenes to the
History of Astronomy, relies in turn on Eudoxus’ work
On Velocities, which is duly named in the very same passage (494.12). Since no
other source refers to this title, we ought to accept Lasserre’s conclusion: that
the accounts of Eudoxus’ theory of homocentric spheres, which are found in
Sosigenes, Alexander, Simplicius, and other later commentators are based on
Eudemus’ detailed report and on Aristotle’s short summary (
Met. 1073b
17f.).
27
Apart from Sosigenes, several references to the theories of Eudoxus and his
pupils are found in Dercyllides, whose book
On the Spindle and Whorls in
Plato’s Republic is quoted by Theon of Smyrna (Exp., 198.9–202.7). The
latter’s excerpts from Dercyllides open with a valuable though distorted quo-
tation from the
History of Astronomy (198.14–199.8 = Eud. fr. 145), which will
be discussed later. Dercyllides’ own discourse that follows it contains two pas-
sages that can be interpreted as indirectly borrowed from Eudemus. The first of
them says that Dercyllides “does not consider it necessary to see the causes for
planetary movement in spiral lines, or lines similar to îppik2” (200.23–25). In
this îppik2 it is easy to recognize Eudoxus’ hippopede mentioned by Simpli-
cius in the material derived from Eudemus.
28
Further on, Theon says that Der-
cyllides
reproaches those philosophers who, attaching the stars as inanimate objects to the
spheres and to their circles, introduce the systems of many spheres, as Aristotle
does, and among the mathematicians Menaechmus and Callippus, who have in-
troduced some spheres as ‘carrying’ and others as ‘rolling back’.
29
Dercyllides’ criticism clearly refers to the passage in the
Metaphysics where
Aristotle develops the theories of Eudoxus and Callippus.
30
Menaechmus, how-
ever, is not mentioned in Aristotle – moreover, the whole of Greek literature
26
For detailed analysis, see Schramm,
op. cit., 36ff.; Mendell. The trouble with Eu-
doxus, 87ff.
27
Lasserre.
Eudoxos, 199. Alexander must have considered Eudoxus’ theory in his
commentary, now lost, on
De caelo (see Ps.-Alex. Aphr. In Met., 703 = Eudox.
fr. 123). But in the section on homocentric spheres, Simplicius, who otherwise regu-
larly refers to this commentary, makes no mention of Alexander.
28
In Cael. comm., 497.2f. = fr. 124. See Lasserre. Eudoxos, 199.
29
aıtiãtai dè tõn filosófwn Ôsoi ta$~ sfaírai~ o‰on @yúcou~ ênøsante~
toù~ @stéra~ kaì to$~ toútwn kúkloi~ polusfairía~ eıshgoñntai, ^Aristotélh~ @xio$ kaì tõn maqhmatikõn Ménaicmo~ kaì Kállippo~, oÏ tà~
mèn feroúsa~, tà~ dè @nelittoúsa~ eıshg2santo (
Exp
., 201.22–202.2 = 12 F 2
Lasserre).
30
Met. 1074a 10: ô d3 âpasõn @riqmò~ tõn te ferousõn kaì tõn @nelittousõn
(sc. sfairõn).

---

1. Eudemus’
History of Astronomyand its readers
235
contains no further evidence of his astronomical theories. Provided that Dercyl-
lides (or his source) did not make a mistake, mechanically adding to Callippus
the name of his famous schoolmate, the mention of Menaechmus must go back
to Eudemus’ account of his theory.
31
Let us now turn to the excerpt from the
History of Astronomy that Theon
borrowed from Dercyllides. This is a short catalogue of the main discoveries
made by ancient astronomers:
Eudemus relates in his
Astronomies that Oenopides first discovered the obliquity
of the zodiac
32
and the duration of the Great Year; Thales the eclipse of the sun
and the fact that the sun’s period with respect to the solstices is not always the
same; Anaximander that the earth is suspended in space and moves about the
middle of the cosmos; Anaximenes that the moon receives its light from the sun
and how it is eclipsed. And others discovered in addition to this that the fixed stars
move round the immobile axis that passes through the poles, whereas the planets
move round the axis perpendicular to the zodiac; and that the axis of the fixed
stars and that of the planets are separated from another by the side of a (regular)
pentadecagon, i.e., 24° (fr. 145).
Though closely resembling the
Catalogue of geometers, this excerpt is much
more selective and less exact than the compilation by Porphyry and Proclus.
The catalogue of astronomers includes only four names and, accordingly,
covers only part of Eudemus’ book I. Besides, some of the astronomers men-
tioned in Eudemus (the Pythagoreans, Anaxagoras) are left out here and the
chronological order is broken: Oenopides is named before Thales, while one of
his discoveries, the measurement of the obliquity of ecliptic, is assigned subse-
quently to some anonymous oî loipoí.
33