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

mathe¯matikoi ‘in general’ were added, as a rule, to similar opinions
already expressed by earlier physicists, while more individual
doxai figured
under the name of their author. Aëtius is unlikely to have added anything to this
material; he must, on the contrary, have omitted a few names, thus making
anonymous some of the
doxai that initially had an authorship.
95
3. From
inventio to translatio artium: scheme and reality
Popular in the post-classical epoch, the theme of
origo artis included the in-
vention of various sciences, but was hardly related to the history of science in
the form given to it by Eudemus. Most authors who touched upon it knew little
of science and, as a rule, satisfied their curiosity with the help of the scheme,
familiar to us (2.3), of eÛresi~ – mímhsi~ (inventio – translatio). With time, the
second of these companion notions, which relates to the transmission of
knowledge from one people (or author) to another, grows steadily in import-
ance.
96
mou~) as the sun (II,16.7); the Morning Star and the Evening Star are the same planet
Venus (ibid.); Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the mathematicians explain in the
same way the phases and eclipses of the moon (II,29.6); why the moon appears
earth-like (II,30.7); the Pythagoreans and the mathematicians on the mirror reflec-
tion (VI,14.3).
93
The Milky Way: Arist.
Mete. 345b 9f. = 42 A 6; Olymp. In Mete., 68.30f.; the
comets:
Dox., 231; cf. Arist. Mete. 342b 29ff. = 42 A 5; Schol. in Arat., 546.21–22
Maass. The
doxa of Hippocrates, preserved in the scholia, probably derives from
Achilles, who relied on
Vetusta placita.
94
The moon 30 days, the sun, Venus, and Mercury 12 months, Mars 2 years, Jupiter
12 years, Saturn 30 years. The same planetary periods figure in
Ars Eudoxi (col. V)
and in Sosigenes ap. Simpl.
In De caelo, 495.26ff. = fr. 124 Lasserre.
95
See above, n. 93.
96
Worstbrock,
op. cit.

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Chapter 8: Historiography of science after Eudemus: a brief outline
298
The earliest version of the origin of astronomy and arithmetic is known from
Aeschylus, one of whose tragedies ascribes their invention to Palamedes, an-
other to Prometheus.
97
Under Herodotus’ influence (II, 109), this mythical ver-
sion yields to the historical (or, rather, pseudo-historical) one that regarded as-
tronomy and geometry as coming from Egypt and Babylon, and arithmetic
from, probably, Phoenicia.
98
There seems to have been no radical disagreement
between ‘serious’ and ‘not serious’ genres and authors concerning the Oriental
origin of mathematical sciences.
99
This idea remained predominant until the
end of Antiquity and was inherited from it by Byzantine, Arabic, and, later,
European historiography. Everybody seemed to agree that geometry was first
invented in Egypt. Named as the person who brought it to Greece were either
Thales or Pythagoras.
100
More complicated is the origin of astronomy, which,
according to the three main versions, derived from Egypt (with Thoth-
Hermes),
101
Babylon and Phoenicia,
102
or Greece. The last version added to the
traditional inventors of astronomy, Palamedes and Prometheus, two more:
Atlas and Endymion.
103
The invention of arithmetic and counting was at-
tributed not only to their traditional Greek
pro¯toi heuretai Palamedes and
Prometheus, but also to the Egyptians and the Phoenicians.
104
The orientalizing
tendency showed even in the stories of the origin of medicine, whose first dis-
coverers, Asclepius and Chiron, mentioned by Homer himself (