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

toteles. Werk und Wirkung, Vol. 2, 380–389; Gutas. The ‘Alexandria to Baghdad’
complex of narratives.
119
Gutas. The ‘Alexandria to Baghdad’ complex of narratives, 161–166.

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Chapter 8: Historiography of science after Eudemus: a brief outline
302
portraying the Christian Byzantines as benighted fanatics, who prohibited the
ancient sciences, in contrast with the Muslims who welcomed and translated
them”.
120
What interests us now is not the propagandistic aspect of the story,
but the fact that its account of the situation in the Muslim and Christian worlds
was, on the whole, accurate. Al-Ma’mun went out of his way to procure Greek
manuscripts, and the school of translators he founded in Baghdad (whose most
important members, Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his son Ishaq ibn Hunayn, were
Nestorian Christians) translated into Arabic and Syriac more than three
hundred philosophical, scientific, and medical texts, so that by the end of the 9
th
century the Arabs appeared to be in possession of nearly everything that inter-
ested them in Greek culture.
121
That this time
translatio artium did take place follows from the list of Greek
mathematicians and astronomers from the encyclopaedia
Fihrist, written by ibn
al-Nadim (10
th
century), a Baghdad bookseller and a connoisseur of literature.
It includes the names of Euclid, Archimedes, Hypsicles, Apollonius, Eutocius,
Menelaus, Ptolemy, Autolycus, Simplicius (as author of the introduction to the
Elements), Theon of Alexandria, Theodosius, Pappus, Hero, Hipparchus,
Diophantus, Nicomachus of Gerasa, and Aristarchus.
122
Each entry contains a
vast bibliography of their scientific works, Greek and Arabic commentaries to
them, and their Syriac and Arabic translations; most entries are supplied with
chronological references. It is easy to see that here we are dealing with almost
the entire repertoire of Greek mathematical and astronomical writings available
in late Antiquity. Euclid’s predecessors whose works had not survived are not
mentioned, but that does not mean that they were unknown. On the contrary, it
is very possible that they were known from no one else other than Eudemus,
through the intermediary of some late commentators.
123
In support of this, let us look at the refutation of astrology written by as-
Samaw’al (12
th
century), a Jewish mathematician and physician converted to
Islam.
124
An original scientist and thinker, as-Samaw’al formulates his own
view of scientific progress, which substantially differs from the belief, pre-
dominant in Arabic culture, that the ancients had already discovered everything
that could be known at all. Denying that the limit of perfection in science has
been reached and that such a limit exists,
125
as-Samaw’al turns to historical
120
Ibid., 177.
121
Meyerhof. Sultan Saladin’s physician, 177.
122
Fihrist, 634–644. Further on, the author lists the Indian and Arabic mathematicians
up to his own time.
123
The name of Eudemus repeatedly occurs in Arabic sources, where he figures as Ar-
istotle’s pupil and a logician and physicist (Gutas, D. Eudemus in the Arabic tradi-
tion,
Eudemus of Rhodes, 1–23). Cf. above, 167 n. 4.
124
Rosenthal. Al-Asturlabi and as-Samaw’al on scientific progress, 560ff.
125
As believed, e.g., by al-Biruni and ibn-Chaldun (Brentjes. Historiographie, 44f.,
49f.).

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3. From
inventio to translatio artium: scheme and reality
303
facts, which clearly show that “in every age knowledge manifests itself in an in-
creasing volume and with greater clarity”:
The biographies of scientists bear witness to this fact. Euclid collected the geo-
metrical figures which were widely known in his time in a systematic work on
the principles of geometry. He perfected the work by his own additions of in-
structive figures. The statement that before the time of Euclid, there existed no
geometer or outstanding brain at all is contradicted by the testimony of history.
On the other hand, the contention that Euclid knew more about geometry than
the many excellent scholars who lived before his time does not necessarily imply
that Euclid might not be succeeded by someone who, just as Euclid was better
than his predecessors, would be better than Euclid. There is, for instance, Archi-
medes. His book on the