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

Particularly famous among the Chaldaean astronomers were Zoroaster and
Ostan, followed by Kidenas, Naburianus, Sudines, and Seleucus of Seleucia.
Abraham, who traveled to Egypt, taught Chaldaean astronomy and arithmetic
to Egyptian sages, who soon excelled in it, Hermes Trismegistus in particular.
The sages who visited Egypt – Pythagoras, Pherecydes, Anaxagoras, Thales,
Solon and above all Plato – brought astronomy over to Greece. The Greeks
brought this science to perfection, surpassing by far the Chaldaeans and the
Egyptians. Particularly famous among the astronomers was Hipparchus, as
well as Pappus and Theon of Alexandria, the successors of the much admired
Ptolemy. Theodore pays particular attention to the latter, briefly summarizing
the contents of
Almagest. In the third book, he continues his overview from the
moment when the Arabs, and then the Persians, learned astronomy from Pto-
lemy’s book, and he gives the names of a dozen Muslim astronomers of the
10
th
–13
th
centuries. According to Theodore, the Arabs and the Persians say the
same as Ptolemy, and most of their books are full of things borrowed almost en-
tirely from this author. Adding to them excellent astronomical and chronologi-
141
Cf. above, 4 n. 9.
142
See Balss, H.
Antike Astronomie: Aus griech. und lat. Quellen mit Text, Übers. und
Erl. dargest., Munich 1949, 201–211;
Tribiblos Astronomique I.1, 96–100.

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Chapter 8: Historiography of science after Eudemus: a brief outline
308
cal tables, they brought scientific learning to its perfection (pãsan logik3n
paideía~ eı~ Ákron ëxhskhménoi~).
What catches the eye when reading this outline is not even the fantastical
mixture of historical legends and facts, but the total lack of references to dis-
coveries, so typical of Eudemus’ history of science. Astronomy is passed on
from one people to another like a ‘black box’ whose contents remain unknown,
with the exception of the very last period. Astronomers themselves are just
listed and the question of their individual contributions to science does not even
arise. The names of the three Babylonian astronomers and Seleucus, who wrote
in Greek, are borrowed from Strabo,
143
and the list of the sages who traveled to
Egypt from Diodorus of Sicily.
144
The whole of Greek astronomy is actually re-
duced to Hipparchus, mentioned by Ptolemy, Ptolemy himself, and his com-
mentators Pappus and Theon.
Theodore’s correctives to the
translatio atrium scheme are quite revealing.
His outline ends, like that of Stephanus, with the Arabs and Persians, whose
works he knew in translation – not a single Byzantine astronomer is mentioned.
But, for both Theodores, it is in Ptolemy that astronomy reached its ultimate
summit. The Muslims, having entirely assimilated his science, perfected only
the technical side of it.
145
Taken as a whole, these outlines constitute the back-
bone of the history of science that we find two centuries later in Petrus Ramus
and in the works of his contemporaries, whose names figure on the opening
pages of this book.
143
mémnhntai dè kaì tõn @ndrõn ëníwn oî maqhmatikoí, kaqáper Kidhnã te kaì
Nabourianoñ kaì Soudínou: kaì Séleuko~ d^ ô @pò t4~ Seleukeía~ Calda$ó~
ësti kaì Álloi pleíou~ @xiólogoi Ándre~ (16,1.6).
144
I,38.2–4: Thales and Anaxagoras; I,69.4: Solon and Pythagoras; I,92.2: Solon,
Plato, Pythagoras; X,3.4: Pherecydes as Pythagoras’ teacher. Diodorus, in turn,
leaned on the book
On Egypt by Hecataeus of Abdera (FGrHist 264 F 25).
145
From the standpoint of a Byzantine of the 14
th
century, this view of things is not to-
tally unfounded, though now we know that many Muslim astronomers produced as-
tronomical models different from the Ptolemaic model. See Saliba, G.