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

Catalogue, he was ‘a little
younger’ than Anaxagoras, i.e., born around 490/85. We may presume that in the
History of Astronomy he also followed Anaxagoras. This does not exclude, though,
that the Pythagoreans who discovered the order of planets could have been men-
tioned before Oenopides and possibly before Anaxagoras as well. But unlike An-
axagoras, they could not serve Eudemus as a reliable chronological reference point.
Burkert.
L & S, 333, calls Oenopides Anaxagoras’ pupil, though evidence on this is
lacking.
134
To all appearances, this Oenopides is a different figure; his provenance from Chios is
not indicated (the provenance of Oenopides the astronomer is given in most of the
cases). Geminus mentions Zenodotus, “who belonged to Oenopides’ school but was
a pupil of Andron” (Procl.
In Eucl., 80.15f.). Since Zenodotus and Andron belong to
the Hellenistic period (see above, 178f.), this Oenopides may also have been a Stoic
(so Zeller,
op. cit. III, 48 n. 1; von Fritz. Oinopides, 2271f. discarded this version for
no good reason), particularly since he is mentioned along with the Stoics Cleanthes
and Diogenes of Babylon. The idea that Diogenes of Apollonia is meant here and
that the
Placita does not refer to Diogenes the Stoic (DK 64 A 8), is based on a mis-
understanding; originally Diels (
Dox., 676a) related this note to Diogenes the Stoic;
see also
SVF III, 216 fr. 31. God as the world’s soul is a typically Stoic notion (SVF
II, 217.24, 306.21, 307.8. 17, 310.18 etc.).
135
Aët. II,11.2, Ps.-Galen.
Hist. phil., 55 = Dox., 340.25f., 624.2f. See Burkert. L & S,
306 n. 38. Cf. Bodnár, I. Oinopidès de Chios,
DPhA 4 (2005) 761–767.

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5. Oenopides of Chios
261
Theophrastus was hardly inclined to credit Pythagoras with astronomical dis-
coveries,
136
and Eudemus connected the estimation of the obliquity of the eclip-
tic with Oenopides (fr. 145). The idea of Oenopides ‘plagiarizing’ Pythagoras is
foreign to Peripatetic doxography and is more likely to go back to the Hellen-
istic tradition.
137
3) Still more strange is the section on the Great Year (II, 32). It confuses two
different notions, as is often the case: the first part of the section (II,32.1) is re-
lated to Plato’s Great Year (
Tim. 39b), i.e., to the period of the revolution of all
the planets, while the second (II,32.2) speaks of different intercalation periods
for a luni-solar calendar. Four different calendar schemes are mentioned here:
the authors of the first three remain anonymous, while the fourth is attributed to
Oenopides and Pythagoras.
138
The first scheme (8 years) stems, in fact, from
Cleostratus, the second (19 years) from Meton, the third (76 years) from Cal-
lippus. None of them belonged to the physicists or was ever mentioned in
Theophrastus. In addition, Callippus was two generations younger than Plato,
who comes last in the
Physiko¯n doxai. All this precludes attributing the latter
evidence on Oenopides to Theophrastus.
Oenopides is unlikely to have set forth any physical doctrine or developed a
cosmology of his own. His name is absent, in any case, from the corresponding
sections in Aëtius. Though Sextus Empiricus (ca. 200 AD), followed by Ps.-
Galen (fourth – fifth centuries AD?), does indeed attribute to him the idea of air
and fire as first principles,
139
even a cursory look at Sextus’ doxographical
source proves its late origin.
140
There is absolutely no reason to relate evidence
on Oenopides’ principles back to the