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

Geschichte
der griechischen Literatur, Vol. 1, Munich 1974, 236f.; Janko, R. Homer, Hesiod
and the Hymns, Cambridge 1982, 140f.).
17
Kleingünther,
op. cit., 22, 29; Terpander as pro¯tos heurete¯s was first mentioned by
Pindar (fr. 125 Snell), but this tradition certainly goes back to the seventh century.

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Chapter 1: In search of the first discoverers
28
into first discoverers is confirmed by the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite.
18
Athena
is called here the first to have taught (prøth ëdídaxe) craftsmen the art of
making chariots and carriages and maids that of handiwork (weaving, prob-
ably). Though Athena is described as prøth, her merit here, as in Homer, is
not the invention of handicrafts, but their instruction.
19
If later the Greek cities
renowned for their crafts were credited with the invention of things formerly
considered to be under the patronage of gods,
20
this does not mean at all that in-
itially the
pro¯tos heurete¯s model was created on the mythological material and
applied to gods alone.
21
Since Greek literature before the sixth century happens to be represented
only by poetic genres, what we know best are the innovators in music and
poetry. When Glaucus of Rhegium (late fifth century) undertook in his
On the
Ancient Poets and Musicians one of the first attempts to systematize the early
history of Greek poetry and music, he wrote mainly of who invented what,
who borrowed what from whom, etc., relying in the first place on references
made by poets themselves.
22
Still, the oral and epigraphic tradition that sur-
vived until later times shows that inventions in other spheres were being re-
corded as well.
The fame of the Argivan king Pheidon (first half of the seventh century),
who was regarded as the inventor of an improved system of measures, the so-
called métra Feidønia,
23
obviously preceded the renown of Palamedes as the
18
V, 12–15. The hymn is dated within the period of the eighth through fifth centuries
BC, most often the seventh (Janko.
Homer, 180).
19
For the notion of gods who instructed people in handicrafts, see also
Hymn. Hom.
XX, 2f. (Hermes), Solon. fr. 13, 49 (Athena and Hermes), Pind.
Ol. VIII, 50f.
(Athena). In the Orphic theogony, Athena and Hermes turn unexpectedly from
teachers into pupils: prõtoi tektonóceire~, oÏ ˙Hfaiston kaì ^Aq2nhn daídala
pánt^ ëdídaxan (fr. 178–179 Kern).
20
Thebes becomes the inventor of the chariot, Athens of ceramics (
DK 88 B 1.10, 12),
Corinth of horse gear and the dithyramb (Pind.
Ol. XIII, 18; cf. Hdt. I, 23). See
Kienzle,
op. cit., 72ff.
21
So Schneider,
op. cit., 103. Interestingly, the Muses, while remaining patrons of téc-
nai, never turned into their inventors. Kremmer, op. cit., 111, adduces a list of the
Muses along with the ‘historical’ inventors of arts (
Schol. in Oppian. halieutica I,
78): Clio – history (Herodotus), Thalia – comedy (Menander), Melpomene – tragedy
(Euripides), Euterpe – auletics (Stesichorus), Terpsichore – lyre (Pindar), Erato –
cymbals (Hermes!), Calliope – poetry (Homer), Urania – astronomy (Aratus), Poly-
hymnia – geometry (Euclid).
22
See below, 2.1. On the references of the early Greek lyric poets to their predecessors,
see Janko, R. Schield of Heracles,
CQ 36 (1986) 41 n. 18. On the polemics among
poets, see Zaicev, A.
Das Griechische Wunder. Die Entstehung der griechischen Zi-