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

Vetusta placita, condensing them
to five books) we find the
doxai of seven astronomers:
88
Oenopides, Eudoxus,
Aratus, Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus, and Seleucus,
89
and of two as-
trologers: Berosus (ca. 300) and Epigenes of Byzantium (ca. 250). Fairly often
(nine times)
mathe¯matikoi figure as a separate category of specialists.
90
In some
cases it is possible to find out who specifically is referred to as
mathe¯matikoi:
thus, cited in II,31.2 is the distance between the earth and the moon, which goes
back (though with errors) to a treatise by Aristarchus.
91
In many cases, how-
ever, the statements assigned to mathematicians are so general that looking for
a concrete author does not make any sense.
92
Apart from the astronomical
doxai
86
See above, 289 f.
87
Athenaeus of Attaleia, the founder of the Pneumatist medical school, was Posido-
nius’ pupil. See Kudlien, F. Posidonius und die Ärzte-Schule der Pneumatiker,
Hermes 90 (1962) 419–429 (with doxographical reports on Posidonius’ medical
views). According to the post-Posidonian account of Stoic natural philosophy (D. L.
VII, 133), aetiology, one of the latter’s three parts, has two subdivisions, in one of
which medical inquiries have a share, “in so far as it involves investigations of the
ruling principle of the soul and the phenomena of the soul, seed and the like”. On
Stoic interest in medicine, see Hankinson, R. J. Stoicism and medicine,
The Cam-
bridge companion to the Stoics, 295–309.
88
Philip of Opus figures only as a source of evidence on the Pythagoreans (II,29.4).
89
In II,1.5 he is called an Erythraean and hence figures in Diels’ index as Seleucus
Erythraeus, but it follows from III,17.9, where the mathematician Seleucus is men-
tioned, that the person in question is Seleucus of Seleucia (ca. 150), the only astrono-
mer who supported Aristarchus’ heliocentric hypothesis.
90
In one case
mathe¯matikoi appear to be astrologers (Aët. V,18.5), in all the other
cases, astronomers. See Diels’ index for
mathematici (Dox., 686).
91
Mansfeld. Cosmic distances, 441.
92
In some of the mathematicians, the order of planets is the same as in Plato, others
place the sun before the inner planets (II,15.5); Alcmaeon and the mathematicians
believe that the planets move from the West to the East (II,16.2–3); Plato and the
mathematicians believe that the inner planets move along the same path (ısodró-

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3. From
inventio to translatio artium: scheme and reality
297
that have an individual or collective author, we find in Aëtius those 1) assigned
to anonymous oî mén, oî dé, or 2) that have no author at all. Related to the first
category are the three calendar schemes mentioned in the section on the Great
Year (II,32.2) and belonging to Cleostratus, Meton, and Callippus (7.5), as far
as we can tell. In the sections on the Milky Way (III,1.2) and the comets
(III,2.1) the
doxai of Hippocrates of Chios appeared to be attributed to “some of
the Pythagoreans”.
93
Coming under the second category, for example, is section
II,31.1, which adduces the data on the sidereal period of planets, which most
probably go back to Eudoxus.
94
All this material, which has not yet attracted the attention of specialists,
needs a separate study. We may note, as a preliminary, that all the mathema-
ticians who figure in Aëtius lived before 100 BC, so that it was the compiler of
Vetusta placita who included them in the doxography. In Vetusta placita, the
opinions of