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

pro¯toi heuretai – were developed by Hecataeus and, later, by Hero-
dotus, whose influence on later literature proved decisive.
53
Hecataeus reveal-
ingly corrects the generally accepted Greek tradition of assigning the invention
of wine to Dionysus and attributes it to the Aetolian king Oresteus, the son of
Deucalion (
FGrHist 1 F 15). He names Danaus as the inventor of the Greek al-
phabet (F 20), thus pointing to the Egyptian origin of this discovery.
54
In Hero-
dotus, Greek gods and heroes never figure as first discoverers at all, discoveries
usually being attributed by him to ‘barbarian’ nations, first of all to Egyptians.
We shall return later to this
egyptophilia, which in certain authors will grow
into a genuine
egyptomania.
55
Meanwhile, I would like to point out still another
important source of the rapidly changing concept of
pro¯toi heuretai.
In the late sixth to early fifth centuries, we encounter in Greek philosophy
the first theoretical reflections on the origin and development of culture. The
notions z2thsi~ and eÛresi~ play the key role in them. Depending on context,
they can be understood to mean ‘search – find’ or ‘research – discovery’, the
latter more often in philosophical and scientific writings. A well-known frag-
ment of Xenophanes (21 B 18), where this pair of notions first occurs, marks an
important stage in secularizing the search for first discoverers:
The gods did not reveal to men all things in the beginning,
but in the course of time, by searching, they find out better.
56
51
Kramer,
op. cit., 61ff.
52
Hieck, W. Berufsgötter,
Lexikon der Ägyptologie 2 (1974) 641f. On Thoth as the in-
ventor of writing, see below, 6.3.
53
Vogt, J. Herodot in Ägypten,
Genethliakon W. Schmid, Stuttgart 1929, 97–137.
54
Hellanicus of Lesbos (
FGrHist 4 F 175) also pointed out that the vine was first dis-
covered in Egypt; he ascribes the invention of iron weapons to the Scythians (F 189).
55
For an introduction to this topic, see Froidefond, C.
Le Mirage égyptienne dans la lit-
térature grecque d’Homère à Aristote, Paris 1971.
56
oÚtoi @p’ @rc4~ pánta qeoì qnhto$s’ ûpédeixan, / @llà crónwi zhtoñnte~
ëfeurískousin Ámeinon (transl. by W. Guthrie).

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3. Inventors and imitators. Greece and the Orient
35
Without totally denying the part of gods in creating civilization, Xenophanes
strongly emphasizes the independent efforts of people leading in time to new
discoveries and inventions.
57
Viewed from such a perspective, man is no longer
the beneficiary of divine care, but rather the subject of a civilization whose
progress is due, first and foremost, to his own efforts. These two verses are
often justly regarded as the first clear formulation of the notion of progress in
human society.
58
To judge from the importance Xenophanes accorded to sofíh
(21 B 2), the agent of progress was not the ordinary man but the sage.
At the end of the fifth century, Archytas, echoing Xenophanes, begins his
account of the discovery of the art of calculation with a discourse based on the
same companion notions ‘research – discovery’ (47 B 3):
To know what was heretofore unknown, one has either to learn it from another, or
to discover himself … Discovering without research is difficult and (happens) sel-
dom, by research it is easy and practicable, but without knowing (how) to re-
search it is impossible to research.
Only the knowledgeable man (ëpistámeno~), the specialist in his field, or, still
better, a sage can find something new. It is in the person of the sage (@n3r
sofó~) that philosophy (and later the Sophistic) finds a new cultural hero.
59
No
wonder the biographies of the Seven Sages and the first philosophers contain
such a wealth of references to their eûr2mata, related to the sphere of culture
in the largest sense: from discoveries in astronomy and geography to the intro-
duction of weights and measures and the invention of the anchor.
60
Revealingly,
57
For the motif of the gradual increase of discoveries in classical literature, see Aesch.