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

part of the fourth century, the sciences as we understand them, i.e.,
mathe¯mata,
still were related to técnai, only gradually being set apart as a separate group.
Aeschylean Prometheus, speaking of his services to civilization, calls himself
the inventor of pãsai técnai (506), numbering among them building, astron-
omy, arithmetic, writing, shipbuilding, medicine, divination, and metallurgy
(450ff.) – in a word, every sphere through which social life is civilized. Greek
thought of that time does not seem to make any fundamental distinction be-
tween practical and unpractical discoveries. Xenophanes mentions the Ly-
dians’ invention of the coin (21 B 4) and Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse
(21 B 19), and Pindar refers to Corinth’s invention of the dithyramb and horse
gear (
Ol. XIII, 18). In the archaic epoch, Palamedes was credited with the in-
vention of measures, weights, and the alphabet,
47
Hermes with the invention of
the lyre and the art of making fire (
Hymn. Hom. IV, 24f., 108f.). Athena was as-
sociated with the appearance of the chariot, flute playing, the cultivation of
olive trees, etc.
48
The ancient Oriental tradition has also brought us the names of many gods
and cultural heroes associated with the beginnings of human civilization.
Among their gifts to mankind, alongside purely practical things like agricul-
ture, the plow, or beer, there are such socially important inventions as writing
and music.
49
Yet we do not find here the names of those who invented new
genres in poetry, new styles in architecture, new trends in music, or new
methods in mathematics and astronomy, though such people undoubtedly
existed.
50
The lack of interest in human
pro¯toi heuretai correlates with the fact
44
Eutoc.
In Archim. De sphaer., 88.3–96.9; Knorr. TS, 131ff.
45
Eutoc.
In Apollon. con., 168.5f. = FGrHist 1108 F 1–2: prò~ tà~ toñ bíou creía~
@nagka$on.
46
See Joos, P. TUCH, FUSIS, TECNH: Studien zur Thematik frühgriechischer Le-
bensbetrachtung (Diss.), Winterthur 1955, 31f.; Thraede. Fortschritt, 145, 152.
These, however, did not include laws and regulations, nómoi.
47
The alphabet is first mentioned in Stesichorus (fr. 213 Page).
48
Kleingünther,
op. cit., 28f.
49
See e.g. the Sumerian myth of the origin of agriculture and cattle breeding (Kramer,
S. N.
Sumerian mythology, Philadelphia 1944, 53f.).
50
The sole exception seems to be the Egyptian tradition on Imhotep (later ranked
among gods) as the inventor of the pyramid: Wildung, D. Imhotep,
Lexikon der
Ägyptologie 3 (1980) 145f.

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Chapter 1: In search of the first discoverers
34
that the gods of Sumer, Egypt, and Babylon, just like the gods in Homer, were
thought of as the donors or teachers of crafts, not as their inventors. In the myth
of the goddess Inanna, for instance, she wheedles from Enki, the god of wis-
dom, more than a hundred divine institutions, including various crafts, lan-
guage, writing, and music, and imparts them to people.
51
It does not follow
from the myth that Enki invented all these things. The Egyptian gods respon-
sible for various crafts (
Berufsgötter) also were not regarded as their inventors,
with the possible exception of Thoth.
52
3. Inventors and imitators. Greece and the Orient
Both tendencies indicated above – the willingness of the Greeks to attribute
their own inventions to their Oriental neighbors and the secularization of the
notion of