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

Vit. Isid. fr. 164).
77
Besides Soranus (see above, 285), biographies of physicians were published by his
younger contemporary Hermippus of Berytus (
FGrHist 1061 T 4), and those of
grammarians by Asclepiades of Myrlaea in Bithynia (second – first centuries BC).
See Pfeiffer, R.
History of classical scholarship, Oxford 1968, 158, 162, 272f. In the

---

Chapter 8: Historiography of science after Eudemus: a brief outline
294
The only exception I know of is Archimedes. Eutocius refers twice to his bi-
ography,
78
written by a certain Heraclides, who was most probably the disciple
Archimedes mentioned in the epistle to Dositheus that serves as an introduction
to the book
On Spirals.
79
In the first of these fragments, Heraclides states that
Archimedes was the first to discover (prõton ëpino4sai) the theorems on
conic sections, but did not publish them, while Apollonius of Perga, who lived
in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes, claimed this theory as his own. The accu-
sations of plagiarism, which Eutocius rightfully repudiates, were a current
motif in intellectuals’ biographies, so that Heraclides here follows the canons
of the biographical genre. The second fragment, related to the book
On Meas-
uring the Circle, is more extensive:
This book, as Heraclides in the
Life of Archimedes says, is indispensable for the
necessities of life (prò~ tà~ toñ bíou creía~ @nagka$on),
80
since it shows that
the circumference is three times longer than the diameter, and the resulting excess
is less than
1
⁄
7
of the diameter but more than
10
⁄
71
of it. This, he says, is but an ap-
proximation, while Archimedes, making use of certain spirals, found a straight
line which is exactly equal in length to the circumference of a given circle.
Summing up the main result of
On Measuring the Circle, Heraclides compares
it with a more rigorous mathematical demonstration found in Archimedes’
On
Spirals, the first version of which Heraclides himself handed over to Dositheus.
If in the rest of the biography Heraclides discussed Archimedes’ other works,
both published and unpublished, or at least adduced their most important re-
sults, his life of Archimedes bore the traits of the scientific biography known to
us in modern literature. Such a biography turns out to be closer to Eudemus’
works on the history of science than to the Hellenistic philosophical biography.
Unlike the stories of Archimedes’ part in the defense of Syracuse, repeated
with an increasing number of fabulous details by Polybius, Titus Livius, and
Plutarch,
81
this type of scientific biography required from its reader a certain
degree of mathematical competence. Does not this seem to account for the fact
that other examples of this kind are unknown, while the biography by Hera-
clides is quoted by Eutocius alone?
82
late 16
th
century, Bernardino Baldi (
Vite, 36f.) was still complaining that people
write biographies of the grammarians, orators, sophists, etc., but not of the mathe-
maticians.
78
In Archim. de dimens. circ., 228.19f.; In Apollon. con., 168.5f. = FGrHist 1108 F1–2.
79
Archim.
Spir., 2.1f., 4.27f. = FGrHist 1108 T 1a–b (with commentary).
80
On the motif of mathematics’ practical utility, see above, 48 n. 16.
81
Polyb. VIII, 5, 3–5; Liv. XXIV, 34; Plut.
Marc. XIV, 7–XVII, 7, XIX, 4–6.
82
We may conjecture, however, that the information on Archimedes’ scientific and
technical discoveries, in particular the invention of the so-called Archimedes’ screw
(Diod. Sic. I, 34, 2; V, 37, 3), goes back to this book. The well-known story of
Archimedes, who discovered his famous law in the bathtub while examining King
Hiero’s crown (Vitr. IX, praef. 9–12), is considered by many to be apocryphal. Still,
it explains the meaning of the discovery so vividly, exactly, and fully that it is only

---

2. Biography and doxography
295
Let us consider, for comparison, two biographies from Diogenes Laertius’
compendium, which combines the characteristics of several genres (biographi-
cal successions, doxography, and the literature on philosophical schools) and,
as a result, contains a great variety of material. The biography of Eudoxus, in-
cluded by Diogenes Laertius for some unclear reasons in the chapter on the
Pythagoreans (VIII, 86–91),
83
briefly mentions, among his other eûr2mata
(“was the first to arrange the couches at a banquet in a semicircle”), only one
mathematical discovery, that of “curves” (90), without explaining its meaning.
No mention is made of Eudoxus’ two major works of astronomy,