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

Il. IV,
193–219), seemed incontestable.
105
Apart from the standard genealogy of
97
Aisch.
Prom. 457–460, fr. 303a Mette; see above, 37.
98
See above, 40. Porphyry (
VP 6) sets forth the most current of versions: the Greeks
(i.e., Pythagoras) borrowed geometry from Egypt, astronomy from Babylon, arith-
metic from Phoenicia. The same in Iulian.
Contra Galil. I, 178a–b.
99
Isoc.
Bus. 22–23; Pl. Phaedr. 274c 7–d 2, Leg. 747a–c; [Pl.] Epin. 986a 3f.; Arist.
Met. 981b 23f.; Eud. fr. 133; Aristox. fr. 23. The most radical version is presented in
Busiris: that Egyptian priests invented medicine and philosophy and also pursued as-
tronomy, arithmetic, and geometry. It is doubtful, however, that Isocrates would have
taken this version seriously.
100
Thales: Eud. fr. 133; D. L. I, 24; Ps.-Heron.
Def., 108.11. Pythagoras: Hecat. Abder.
(
FGrHist 264 F 25, 96f.); Anticlides (FGrHist 140 F 1); Callim. ap. Diod. X, 6, 4;
Iambl.
De comm. math. sc., 66.21f.
101
Isoc.
Bus. 22–23; Pl. Phaedr. 274c 7–d 2; Hecat. Abder. (FGrHist 264 F 15); D. L. I,
11; Clem. Alex.
Strom. I, 16, 74; Schol. in Dionys. perieget., 233.
102
[Pl.]
Epin. 986a 3f.; Strab. 16, 2, 24; D. L. I, 11; Clem. Alex. Strom. I, 16, 74; Elias.
In Porph. isag. 30.8–11.
103
Prometheus: Aesch.
Prom. 457–460. Atlas: Ps.-Eupolemus ap. Euseb. Praep. Ev.
IX,17.9; Diod. III, 60; IV, 27; Vitr. VI, 10, 6; Plin.
NH II, 31; D. L. Prooem., 1. Endy-
mion: Mnaseas (third century BC) ap.
Schol. in Apol. Rhod., 265.10, 275.22; De in-
credibilibus, 11; Alex. Aphr. Probl. 1, 134.
104
Isoc.
Bus. 28, Pl. Phaedr. 274d 1f.; Leg. 747a–c; Eud. fr. 133; Aristox. fr. 23; Strab.
16,2.24; Iambl.
In Nicom. 10.9; Procl. In Eucl., 65.3f.
105
Cels.
De med. I, 2; Plut. Quaest. Conv. 647 A; Schol. in Il. IV, 219; Eustath. Comm.
ad Hom. Il. I, 733.3–11.

---

3. From
inventio to translatio artium: scheme and reality
299
medicine featuring Chiron and/or Asclepius – Asclepiades – Hippocrates, we
find in Hecataeus of Abdera the Egyptian version, which later figures, along
with the Greek one, in Ps.-Galen.
106
The Hellenized Jews very early advanced their own version of the origin of
philosophy and sciences. The Peripatetic Aristobulus (second century BC) be-
lieved that Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle had borrowed many of their teach-
ings from the Jews.
107
In his work
On the Jews, Alexander Polyhistor, referring
to the Jewish historians of the second and first centuries, stated that Chaldaean
astronomy was invented by Abraham while he stayed in Babylonia; it was
Abraham again who transferred this science to the Phoenicians and Egyp-
tians.
108
A similar version is found in Josephus Flavius (
AJ I, 167–168): astron-
omy and arithmetic were invented by the Chaldaeans, Abraham taught these
sciences to the Egyptians, who in turn passed them over to the Greeks. This
view was later vigorously advocated by Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and
Theodoretus, who supported it with a wealth of material borrowed from the
catalogues of discoveries: not philosophy alone, but nearly all the arts and
sciences were invented by the ‘barbarians’, the most ancient of whom were the
Jews.
109
Tatian, having named the inventions of the ‘barbarians’, demands of
the Greeks: stop calling your imitations inventions!
110
Later, some of the By-
zantine authors gave preference to the old, ‘individual’ versions (the Egyptian,
Syrian, Phoenician one, etc.),
111
but in Byzantium on the whole, as well as in
early modern historiography, it is the ‘biblical’ version that determines the gen-
eral view of the historical path of science: from the Jews through the Egyptians
and the Babylonians to the Greeks, and from the Greeks, either directly or
through the intermediary of the Arabs, to modern times.
The Arabs themselves identified Hermes, who was regarded as the fore-
father of science in general, as well as of its particular branches, with the bib-
lical Enoch and with Idris, the character twice mentioned in the Koran, the
founder of arts and sciences according to the Muslim tradition. The biographi-
cal histories of medicine by ibn Gˇulg˘ul (10
th
century) and ibn Abi Usaybi’a
106
Hecat. Abder. (