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

De aer. 11). Dicks, D. R. Solstices, equinoxes, and the Pre-
socratics,
JHS 86 (1966) 30f., alleged that the notion of equinoxes presupposes an
elaborate astronomical theory that could not be available to the Greeks in the sixth
century. This is, of course, incorrect; cf. Woodbury, L. Equinox at Acragas: Pind. Ol.
2. 61–62,
TAPA 97 (1966) 608 n. 26; Kahn, op. cit., 112ff.; Samuel, op. cit., 23 n. 1.
On comparatively simple ways to determine the equinoxes, see Nilsson, M.P.
Primi-
tive time-reckoning, Lund 1920, 313, 316.
78
12 A 1 (D. L.), A 2 (
Suda), A 4 (Eusebius); see below, 249. Diogenes Laertius, on the
other hand, assigns to Thales the ‘discovery of the seasons’ (I, 27). See Szabó,
Maula,
op. cit., 33ff., 118f.
79
Cael. 291a 29f.; cf. 

---

Chapter 7: The history of astronomy
246
Anaximander was the first to find an account of the sizes and distances (of the
planets), as Eudemus says, adding that the Pythagoreans were the first who found
the order of their position (fr. 146).
As has already been indicated, fr. 145 contains a distortion of Eudemus’ text.
The only Presocratic to have postulated the earth’s movement around the center
of the cosmos was Philolaus, not Anaximander. Since Montucla, who sug-
gested the reading ke$tai for kine$tai, practically no serious attempts have
been made to prove that Anaximander represented the earth as moving.
80
Com-
paring fr. 145 with a parallel doxographical tradition that goes back to Theo-
phrastus, we can restore the original meaning of Eudemus’ evidence. Accord-
ing to Hippolytus (12 A 11.3), the earth in Anaximander’s system “is freely sus-
pended, being supported by nothing” (t3n dè g4n e£nai
metéwron
ûpò mhde-
nò~ kratouménhn); as Diogenes Laertius says (II, 1 = 12 A 1), “the earth is in
the middle, holding the central position” (
méshn
te t3n g4n
ke$sqai
, kéntrou
táxin ëpécousan).
To all appearances, Eudemus and Theophrastus described the earth’s posi-
tion in Anaximander’s system in terms close to Aristotle’s note in
De caelo
295b 11f., though somewhat more elaborately. metéwro~, when applied to
earth, does not mean that it literally ‘is hanging in the air’, i.e., suspended in it,
as Simplicius erroneously believed (
In Cael. comm., 532.14). This term confers
upon earth, for the first time, the status of a heavenly body like that of the sun,
the moon, and the stars and constituting one system with them. The reports of
the two Peripatetics differ only in that Theophrastus described the whole of An-
aximander’s teaching, along with the latter’s erroneous
doxai, while Eudemus
focused his attention on those of Anaximander’s discoveries that lead to con-
temporary notions of the cosmos.
81
The central position of the earth, with no
other body to support it, was one of Anaximander’s most brilliant astronomical
insights. It goes far beyond even his most extravagant other notions, like
‘heavenly wheels’, which, though at odds with everyday experience, still stem
from it, while the idea of earth afloat in the center of the cosmos clearly contra-
dicts it. Since this idea is one of the cornerstones of Greek astronomy, Eudemus
could not fail to name its discoverer.
Proceeding from the assumption that the
pro¯tos heurete¯s principle was
among the essential criteria for selecting material for the
History of Astronomy,
it is unlikely that Eudemus would have mentioned those of Anaximander’s
statements he considered erroneous, such as that the earth has the shape of a
80
Cf. ke$tai/kine$tai in the manuscripts of Arist. Cael. 291a 30. A similar confusion
between ke$sqai and kine$sqai (Dox., 344a 11, b 9) is noted by Conche, M. Ana-