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

pro¯toi heuretai and their inventions.
1
The first surviving evidence on the
pro¯toi heuretai is found in a fragment of
Phoronis, an epic poem of the first third of the sixth century.
2
It mentions the
Idaean Dactyls, mythical creatures named after the mountain range Ida in
Troas.
3
Originally, the Dactyls were represented as dwarfish smiths, yet in
Pho-
ronis they take quite a different shape. The author calls them Phrygian sorcerers
(góhte~ ^Ida$oi Frúge~ Ándre~), the first to have invented blacksmith’s work
(oÏ prõtoi técnhn polum2tio~ ˆHfaístoio e0ron). Though the question of
pro¯tos heurete¯s is in itself new,
4
it is applied to the traditional, albeit somewhat
transformed material. From the traditional dwarfish blacksmiths, the Idaean
Dactyls turn here into Phrygian sorcerers who discovered the art reputed to be
under the patronage of Hephaestus. Later Hephaestus himself will turn from
patron of the blacksmith’s work into its first discoverer, in accordance with the
pattern applied to most of the gods. But the author of
Phoronis, though well
aware that ironwork constitutes “the art of the wise Hephaestus”, assigns its
discovery not to the divine patron, but (using the modern idiom) to foreign
specialists endowed with supernatural qualities. The discovery is thereby trans-
ferred from the divine sphere into the human one, unusual as these people ap-
pear to be,
5
and attributed to the neighbors of the Greeks.
1
On Homer’s and Hesiod’s treatment of different técnai and their role in human life,
see Erren, M. Die Geschichte der Technik bei Hesiod,
Gnomosyne, ed. by G. Kurtz,
Munich 1981, 155–166; Schneider, H.
Das griechische Technikverständnis, Darm-
stadt 1989, 11ff., 31ff.
2
Schol. Apoll. Rhod. I, 1129f. See Kleingünther, op. cit., 26ff.
3
For material on the Dactyls, see Hemberg, B. Die Idaiischen Daktylen,
Eranos 50
(1952) 41–59.
4
Referring to the fragment of Pseudo-Hesiodean
On the Idaean Dactyls (fr. 282 Mer-
kelbach – West), Schneider,
op. cit., 46, attributes the tradition of the invention of
iron by the Dactyls to Hesiod. Meanwhile, fr. 282 merely repeats what is said in
Pho-
ronis, and the work On the Idaean Dactyls is a result of ancient philologists’ com-
binations: Rzach, A. Hesiod,
RE 8 (1912) 1223; Schwartz, J. Pseudo-Hesiodea,
Leiden 1960, 246f.
5
In Greek mythology, the Dactyls figure along with other fabulous dwarfs, the Cabiri
and Telchines, who are also credited with the invention of metalwork (Hemberg, B.
Die Kabiren, Uppsala 1950; Dasen, V. Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece, Oxford
1993). Though the tradition of gnome-blacksmiths connected one way or another
with Hephaestus is very old, the author of
Phoronis has in mind people rather than

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1. Prõtoi eûretaí: gods, heroes, men
25
Interpreting this evidence in the manner of Euhemeristic rationalization of
myth, one could find in it a reminiscence of the real history, namely, how iron
smelting, discovered by the Hittites, spread from Asia Minor to Greece. Yet it
would be unfounded to suppose that the author of
Phoronis, active in Argos in
the early sixth century, had heard anything of this history or taken interest in it.
The early searches for the
pro¯toi heuretai focused, characteristically, not so
much on their identities and historical background as on the technical and cul-
tural achievements as such.
6
“X discovered y” is a classic formula of heurema-
tography, featuring simply the name of the author and, in a very few cases, his
origin. The time of the discovery is hardly ever recorded, let alone the circum-
stances, and the discoverer himself was far from being a real figure. In the
heurematographic tradition that comes to us through the catalogues of dis-
coveries of the Imperial age,
7
god-inventors (Athena, Demeter, Apollo) and
cultural heroes (Triptolemus, Palamedes, Daedalus) are virtually matched in
number by the other two major groups: historical personalities (Pheidon, Stesi-
chorus, Thales) and Greek or ‘barbarian’ cities and nations.
8
That heurematography’s shift from mythography to real events was gradual
and remained unfinished is not surprising. Greek historiography, as represented
by Hecataeus, Herodotus, and Hellanicus of Lesbos followed the same path. In
the absence of written evidence and adequate methods for the analysis of
sources, heurematography (as well as history) could become