1 G. Sarton, “Acta atque agenda,” Arch. internat. d’histoire des sciences 30, 322–356 (1951). Sudhoff was the founder of the Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften (40 vols.; 1902-1942), which, as the title indicated, was devoted to the history first, of medicine, and second, of science.
2 I used the second revised edition of vols. 1-4 (1896, 1898, 1899, 1900) and the first of vol. 5 (1899).
3 A list of them, in order of death years, may be convenient: Paul Tannery (1843–1904); Hermann Diels (1848–1922); Alfred Croiset (1845–1923); Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854–1928); Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), Maurice Croiset (1846–1935), Sir Thomas Little Heath (1861–1940), Joseph Bidez (1867–1945), Franz Cumont (1868-1947).
4 Witness the Incas of Peru, whose civilization was very complex and advanced. They had an elaborate language but no system of writing, [ Isis 6, 219 (1923–24)].
5 William Henry Hudson remarked, “It is sad to reflect that all our domestic animals have descended to us from those ancient times which we are accustomed to regard as dark or barbarous, while the effect of our modern so-called humane civilization has been purely destructive to animal life. Not one type do we rescue from the carnage going on at an ever-increasing rate over all the globe.” The naturalists in La Plata (London: Chapman and Hall, 1892), p. 233. The only animal domesticated in historic times is the ostrich [ Isis 10, 278 (1928)]; this was a poor achievement, which was justified only because some women and generals wanted feathers for their hats.
6 Wheels remained unknown in the Americas; see Isis 9, 139 (1927).
7 The finest weaving, that of silk, was invented by the Chinese in times immemorial. Consider what the invention implied–the domestication of an insect, the “education” of silkworms, the cultivation of the white mulberry, the whole of sericulture! The Chinese ascribe the first idea of sericulture and silk weaving to Hsi-ling Shih , the lady of Hsi-ling (in Hupeh), consort of the mythical Yellow Emperor, Huang Ti , supposed to have ruled from 2698 to 2598 B.C. It must be added that the earliest specimens of silk that have come to us date only from the Han dynasty.
8 It is often called Brazilian, but is used also in other parts of South America than Brazil. See a map of its distribution in Albert Métraux, La civilisation matérielle des tribus Tupi-Guarani (Paris, 1928) [ Isis 13, 248 (1929–30)], p. 114. See also Victor W. von Hagen, “The bitter cassava eaters,” Natural History (New York, March 1949), with many illustrations.
9 Yang Shao culture, so called after the place Yang Shao Tsun in Honan; latest stone age. See J. Cunnar Anderson, Children of the yellow earth (London: Kegan Paul, 1934), pp. 221, 330 [ Isis 23, 274 (1935)].
10 In a lecture delivered at the Second International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Oslo, 1936, and referred to by Vilhjalmur Stefansson in his Ultima Thule (New York: Macmillan, 1940), p. 31, and Greenland (New York: Doubleday, 1942), p. 26 [ Isis 34, 379 (1942-43)].
11 J. M. de Navarro, “Prehistoric routes between Northern Europe and Italy defined by the amber trade,” Geographical J. 66, 481-507 (1925); maps, referring to the Bronze and Early Iron Ages.
12 Some iden of the earliest iron metallurgy may be obtained from E. Wyndham Hulme, “Prehistoric and primitive iron smelting,” Trans. Newcomen Soc. 18, 181–192 (1937–38); 21, 23–30 (1940–41). The best book on early metallurgy now available is R. J. Forbes, Metallurgy in antiquity(Leiden : Brill, 1950).
13 According to the interpretation by W. Max Müller, in his Egyptological researches. Results of a journey in 1904 (Washington : Camegie Institution, 1906), p. 61, pl. 106, of a monument ( Fig. 10 ) in the necropolis of aqq ra of the beginning of the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2625–2475). It is true that Jean Capart, Une rue de tombeaux à Saqqarah (2 vols., Brussels, 1907), vol. 1, p. 51; vol. 2, pl. lxvi, does not accept that interpretation unreservedly. At any rate, stone knives arc mentioned in Exodus 4:25 and Joshua 5:2 (the translation of harbot zurim in the Authorized Version by “sharp knives” is wrong; the correct meaning is “flint knives”).
14 Auguste Edouard Mariette (1821-1881), French Egyptologist.
15 A perforated disk of stone (or torra cotta) slipped along a spindle, acting by its weight as a flywheel, causing the spindle to rotate more steadily.
16 This process of discovery and selection is the more mysterious, because (like the creation of language) it is largely unconscious. The following remarks, taken from Carl Binger, The doctor’s job (New York: Norton, 1945), p. 153, will fascinate the reader as they did me. “Dr. Curt Richter of the Johns Hopkins Medical School, whose ingenious and important experiments on white rats I shall presently refer to, tells the story of a three-and-a-half-year-old boy who was admitted to the Johns Hopkins Hospital with a tumor of the adrenal gland–a fatal disease. The child had the habit of eating salt by the handful. He took to it as another child might to sugar or to jam. When he entered the hospital his salt-eating habit was stopped and he was put on the regular hospital diet. Unfortunately, he died soon thereafter. Now it appears that this child had discovered independently what it has taken experimental scientists many years to find out–that patients suffering from lesions of the adrenal glands are greatly benefited by the addition of large quantities of common salt to the diet.
Dr. Richter’s white rats are also gifted scientists. He has shown that on a mixed standard diet of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, plus minerals and vitamins, the rats will maintain a predictable rate of growth and weight increase. Now if he offers his rats the ingredients of the diet unmixed they will still select just what they need to continuo their growth and development at the usual rate. But even more remarkable is the fact that whereas a normal rat will consume relatively little salt a rat whose adrenal glands have been surgically removed will quickly and automatically increase its salt intake sufficiently to survive, whereas cagemates, similarly operated upon, will die when allowed only the normal salt ingredient in their diets. Rats deprived of their parathyroid glands will eat enough calcium to keep themselves alive and free from tetany. If the rats could consult medical literature they would find that calcium is given to babies with tetany as it is to adults whose parathyroid glands have been removed during an operation for goiter. Rats fed on thyroid extract develop a morbid appetite for weak solutions of iodine, the standard medicine given to patients whose thyroid glands are overactive.”
17 There is a considerable literature on the subject. See, for example, Stéphen-Chauvet, La médecine chez les peuples primitifs (Paris: Librairie Maloine, 1936); Henry E. Sigerist, History of medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951), vol. 1 [Isis 42, 278–281 (1951)]. Sigerist’s volume had not yet appeared when I wrote this chapter.
18 Franz M. Feldhaus, Die Technik (Leipzig, 1914), p. 115.
19 Though means of intoxicating or benumbing him may already have been available. Such means were used very early in mary parts of the world.
20 The Chinese name of the sexagenary cycle, chia tz , is made up of the names of the first stem chia and of the first branch tz . The names of the twelve branches are names of animals (as for the zodiac) ; tz is the rat.
21 It is interesting to compare the Chinese calendar with the Maya, for each was as independent of the other as if they had developed on different planets. The Mayas enmeshed a civil year ( haab ) of 365 days with a sacred year (tzolkin) of 260 days; this implied a great year or a “year bundle” as they called it (xiuhmolpilli) of 18,980 days ( - 52 haab - 73 tzolkin). For details, see Silvanus Griswold Morley (1883-1948), The ancient Maya (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1946). pp. 265-274 [ Isis 37, 245 (1947) ; 39, 241 (1948)].
22 For the fives, see synoptic table in Isis 22, 270 (1934-35).
23 W. F. Mayers, Chinese reader’s manual (Shanghai, 1874).
24 Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay archipelago (London, 1869), chap. 12. Lombok is one of the smaller islands lying between Java and Australia; its western coast faces Bali.
25 There were still other bases, for which see Levi Leonard Conant, The number concept (New York, 1896). For the decimal ones, see G. Sarton, “Decimal systems early and late,” Osiris 9, 581–601 (1950).
26 Counting on the feet was natural enough in warm countries where people remain barefooted. In many languages, for example, Greek, Latin, and Arabic, the same words are used for fingers and toes; if more precision is needed, the latter are called fingers of the foot.
27 Consider our own language. To count up to a hundred we need nineteen words: one, two, . . . ten; twenty, . . ., ninety; hundred; but we must remember a few modifications of them for the second decade, as eleven (for one ten), twelve, thirteen, . . ., nineteen. To count up to 999,999 we need only one more word, thousand.
28 One may see in the National Museum, Washington, D. C., five bundles of reeds which constituted a census made by the Comanche Indians (originally in western Wyoming, later ranging widely between Kansas and northern Mexico). These bundles indicate respectively the number of women in the village, the number of young men, the number of warriors, the number of children, and the number of lodges. They were collected by Edward Palmer in the 1880’s (letter from Alexander Wetmore, Washington, D. C., 20 June 1944).
29 Its meaning is not yet agreed upon; for the English — in this, more logical than we are — it is 10 ¹² ; for us, 100.
30 Witness the words (popular creations!) duodeviginti and undecentum in Latin and triacosi n apodeonta myria in Greek; these words mean 18, 99, 9700.
31 The Latin word cubitum means elbow, but also the distance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger.
32 In the northern hemisphere.
33 Lucifer, He sphoros , or Ph sphoros, and Hesperus or Hesperos ; the identity of the two stars may have been recognized very early, but we cannot tell how early. Both are identical with the planet Venus, Aphrodit s ast r. In low latitudes (that is, in the subtropical countries where a higher culture began) it was possible to observe another couple, the morning star Apollo ( Apoll n ) and the evening star Mercurius ( Hermés ), both identical with the planet Mercury. One could not fail to see Mercury even in latitudes as high as 50°.
34 No attempt has been made to discuss the mixed origins of science and magic, and we might add of religion and art, because a sufficient account of the facts involved would cover too much space. The reader will find an excellent account of those moot questions in “Magic, science and religion,” by the late Bronislaw Malinowski, in Joseph Needham, ed., Science, religion and reality (New York, 1928), pp. 19–84 [ Isis 36, 50 (1946) 1, with bibliography. See also M. F. Ashley Montagu, “Bronislaw Malinowski, 1884–1942,” Isis 34, 146–150 (1942).
35 The lower courses of the two last named are distinctly tropical, and to is the Ganges estuary.
36 Osiris 2, 410 (1936).
37 There was no glacial period in Egypt, and hence no Interruption of its prehistoric development. This gave Egypt a tremendous but incalculable advantage over other countries.
38 Isis 37, 96 (1947).
39 I use throughout the “short” chronology, according to which the first king of the First Dynasty, Menes, began to rule c. 3400. Other chronologists would place him much earlier, the extreme dating being that of Champollion-Figeac, 5867! For an explanation and justification of the “short” chronology, see James Henry Breasted, Ancient records of Egypt (Chicago, 1906), vol. 1, pp. 25–48. One should always mention the dynasty; I have done so.
40 From hieros, sacred, and glyphein, to engrave.
41 It should be borne in mind that hieroglyphics or other conventional signs are easier to read, if one knows them, than alphabetic writing, and therefore such signs are introduced into every language, especially into the scientific language. Consider the signs used to convey astronomical, chemical, mathematical meanings, or more homely ones such as $ for dollar, or the ampersand, &. The weakness of all such signs is that one cannot understand them at all unless one is already familiar with them, whereas everybody can read such words as “Venus,” “ascending node,” or “antimony,” and look them up in the dictionary, if necessary.
42 For further discussion and exemplification, see Won Kenn ( = Huang Chüan-shêng), Origine et évolution de l‘écriture hiéroglyphique et de l’écri-ture chinoise (Lyons: Bosc Frères and Riou, 1939).
43 Joseph de Guignes (1721–1800), Mémoire dans lequel on prouve que les Chinois sont une colonie égyptienne (Paris, 1759; 59 p., 1 pl.).
44 Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Egyptian dictionary (London, 1920), p. xiv.
45 Simeone Levi, Vocabolario geroglifico-copto-ebraico (10 parts in 3 vols.; Turin, 1887–1894).
46 Just as the Semitic elements of Egyptian have been exaggerated by some scholars, so the Egyptian elements in the Old Testament have been exaggerated by others, for example Abraham Shalom Yahuda, The language of the Pentateuch in its relation to Egypt (London: Oxford University Press, 1933).
47 J. D. S. Pendlebury, Aegyptiaca. A catalogue of Egyptian objects in the Aegean area (Cambridge: The University Press, 1930) [ Isis 18, 379 (1932–33)].
48 It is no longer found in those marshes but still flourishes in the Sudan. Would its disappearance from the Deltn be due to exhaustive use of it in ancient and medieval times? According to Pliny, who gives much information on papyrus (Natural history, XIII, 21–27), there was such a scarcity of it under Tiberius (emperor, 14–37), that senators were obliged to regulate its distribution. Thus paper rationing is not a novelty of our own day!
49 A reed was not used until much later (Greco-Roman times); it is still used by natives today (qalam).
50 Relatively cheap. Papyrus was never as cheap or abundant as handmade paper was, not to mention the paper of today which is so cheap that it is continually wasted for vain and vile purposes. Papyrus was always a de luxe material. We know but little about its early production, but for later times see Naphtali Lewis, L’industrie du papyrus dans l’Egypte greco-romaine (200 pp.; Paris: Rod-stain, 1934) [Isis 35, 245 (1944)].
51 A good example of this is the use of palm leaves for writing in Ceylon and India. They used the leaves of talipot ( Corypha umbraculifera ), which grows in Ceylon and Malabar, and produced a kind of papyrus, in narrow strips, called olla. Unfortunately, the climate of India was not as favorable for the preservation of olla documents as that of Egypt was for papyrus.
52 Then clay tablets used in Mesopotamia were excellent from the point of view of preservation of separate items, but did not make possible the invention of anything comparable to a roll, and hence the integrity of long documents was jeopardized.
53 Papal bulls were published on papyrus until 1022. Pontificum Romanorum Diplomata papyracea quae supercunt in tabulariis Hispaniac, Italiae, Germaniae, phototypice expressa fussu Pii PP.XI consilio et opera procuratorum Bibliothecac Apostolicae Vaticanae (18 pp., 15 facsimiles on 43 pls.; Rome, 1929).
54 Hieraticos = priestly (because the scribes were popular. generally clerics); enchõrios = rural, d moticos =
55 Alexander Pogo, “Three unpublished calendars from Asy t,” Osiris 1, 500–509 (1936); 10 pls., 3 figs., 1 table.
56 Sothis = Sirius = cy n = Dog Star. The “dog days” or “canicular days” refer to the hot period beginning with Sothis’ heliacal rising (that is, the first observable rising of Sothis at dawn). The date of that rising varies with the latitude and changes slowly in the course of time. It was 19 July in Roman times, and is now 21 July Julian ( = 3 August Gregorian) for Memphis. It is not clear to me how well the heliacal rising could be observed, for this implies the ability to distinguish a star when its elongation from the sun is less than, say, 1°.
57 Carl Schoch, “Die Länge der Sothisperiode beträgt 1456 Jahre.” Astron. Abhandl., Ergän-zungshefte Astron. Nachr. 8, no. 2, B9–B10 (1930).
58 Breasted, Ancient records of Egypt (vol. 1, p. 30 ).
59 They have been elaborately discussed by Ludwig Borchardt, Altägyptische Zeitmessung (folio, 70 pp., 18 pls., 25 figs.; Berlin, 1920) [ Isis 4, 612 (1921–22)].
60 Henry Honeychurch Gorringe, Egyptian obelisks (folio, 197 pp., 51 pls.; New York, 1882); Edward Bell, The architecture of ancient Egypt (280 pp., 1 map; London, 1915); Reginald Engelbach, The problem of the obelisks, From a study of the unfinished obelisk at Asw n (134 pp., 44 figs.; London, 1923), valuable for technical details, but inferior for historical matters; Somers Clarke and R. Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian masonry. The building craft (258 pp., 269 ills.; London, 1930); Alfred Lucas, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries (480 pp.; rev. ed., London, 1934); Flinders Petrie, Wisdom of the Egyptians (162 pp., 128 figs.; London: Quaritch, 1940) [ Isis 34, 261 (1942–43)].
61 In order to consider the obelisks we have to make a big jump, from the so-called Old Kingdom into the New one. The great pyramids date from the Fourth Dynasty (2900 to 2750), the Obelisk Age is that of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties (1580 to 1205); mean interval between the two ages, fourteen centuries!
62 That is, 7°27’ south of the Mediterranean (Damietta mouth). Asw n is about half a degree north of the Tropic of Cancer. Asw n–Syene of the Greeks.
63 Some Egyptian tools are discussed by Clarke and Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian masonry, p. 224; 3 pls.
64 The Greeks called by the name entasis the swelling in the middle of a column necessary to correct an illusion of concavity ( Vitruvius, III, 3, 13). A convexity was intentionally left on the front face of the Paris obelisk. That obelisk dates from the Nineteenth Dynasty (1350–1205).
65 It seems certain that an obelisk was not erected from its position on the ground to a position perpendicular to it; that would have been impracticable. The obelisk was pulled up a long sloping embankment until it was at a height well above that of its balancing point, or center of gravity; than the earth was cut from below it carefully until the obelisk settled down onto the pedestal with its edge n the pedestal notch, leaning against the embankment. From this position it was pulled upright. For details and drawings, see Engelbach, The problem of the obelisks, pp. 66–84.
66 The obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut (1495–1475) at Karnak came on to its pedestal askew, but the irregularity is too small to be unpleasant.
67 Modern architects, beginning with Fontana, do use scale models.
68 The translation of that moving inscription may be read in Breasted, Ancient records of Egypt, vol. 3, pp. 561–568.
69 There are a dozen obelisks in the public squares of Rome.
70 Domenico Fontana (1543–1607), Della trasportatione dell’ obelisco vaticano (Rome, 1590). Fontana was the main architect and collaborator of Sixtus V (pope, 1585–1590) in the creation of “Sixtine Rome.” See C. Sarton, “Agrippa, Fontana and Pigafetta. The erection of the Vatican obelisk 1586,” Arch. internat. d’histoire des sci. 28, 827–854 (1949), 14 figs.
71 The weights are quoted from Engelbach, The problem of the obelisks, p. 30. Engelbach’s tons are long tons (= 2,240 1b avoirdupois). In short tons (= 2,000 1b), the weights would be 1308, 510, 371, 254, 216, 209.
72 To To those already mentioned one might add A. Richard de Montferrand, Plans et détails du monument consacré àla mémoire de l’empereur Alexandre (elephant folio; Paris, 1836); copy in Harvard Library. The Leningrad column is a granite monolith, 12 ft in diameter and 84 ft long; the whole monument is 154 ft high. The Russian undertaking is more directly comparable to the Egyptian one, for the Russians did all the work, beginning with the quarrying of the granite in Finland. Montferrand’s original idea was to create an obelisk but the emperor preferred a column.
73 T. Eric Peet, The Rhind mathematical papyrus (folio, 136 pp., 24 pls.; Liverpool University Press, 1923 [Isis 6, 553–557 (1924–25)]; Arnold Buffum Chace, Ludlow Bull, Henry Parker Manning, and Raymond Clare Archibald, The Rhind mathematical papyrus (2 vols.; Oberlin, Ohio, 1927–1929) [ Isis 14, 251–253 (1930)]; W. W. Struve, Mathematischer Papyrus des Staatlichen Museums der Schönen Künste in Moskau (210 pp., 10 pls.; Berlin, 1930) [ Isis 16 , 148–155 (1931)]; Otto Neugebauer, Vorlesungen über Geschichte der antiken mathematischen Wissenschaften. 1. Band, Vorgriechische Mathematik (Berlin: Springer, 1934) [Isis 24, 151–153 (1935–36)].
74 James Edward Quibell, Hierakonpolis (London, 1900), p. 9, pl. xxviB.
75 Just as the Romans would write MMCCCIIII for 2304.
76 Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian grammar (Oxford, 1927), p. 191, gives two examples, one of the Middle Kingdom (2160–1788), the other of the time of Ramses III (1198–1167).
77 Petrie, Wisdom of the Egyptians, p. 89.
78 Marcelle Baud , Les dessins ébauchés de la nécropole thébaine au temps du Nouvel Empire (folio, 272 pp., 33 pls.; Cairo: Institut français, d’Arohéologie Orientale, 1935) [Isis 33. 71–73 (1941–42)].
79 Chace, Bull, Manning, and Archibald, The Rhind mathematical papyrus, vol. 2, pp. 192–193.
80 The Rhind papyrus consists really of two papyrus rolls (British Museum Nos. 10057 and 10058), but a fragment connecting these two rolls was discovered in the New York Historical Society, New York. The two British Museum rolls and the New York fragment constituted a single roll or a single treatise.
81 Peet, The Rhind mathematical papyrus, p. 33 .
82 Moritz Cantor, Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik (Leipzig, ed. 3, 1907), vol. 1, p. 95.
83 Chace, Bull, Manning, and Archibald, The Rhind mathematical papyrus, vol. 2, p. 84.
84 As quoted in the John Potter, ed., Miscellanies [Str mateis] of Clement of Alexandria (Oxford, 1715), vol. 1, p. 357. Clement died c. 590 years after Democritos.
85 Peet, The Rhind mathematical papyrus, p. 32.
86 Struve, Mathematischer Papyrus, No. 14, p. 134—145.
87 See Lucas, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries.
88 Ibid., p. 116.
89 The W d Natr n, in the Libyan desert between Alexandria and Cairo, is so called because of the vast amount of na r n (natron) that it contains. That rich source of salt and soda is exploited to this day.
90 Small models of every kind of object and representing many kinds of activities were placed in the tombs. This particular one, showing women engaged in spinning and weaving, was found in Thebes and is now in the Cairo Museum.
91 One example, quoted because the author is very familiar with it, though there are many others, is a wall painting in the tomb of Nefretere, queen of Ramses II (1292–1225). showing Isis conducting her to her tomb. There is an excellent reproduction in Nina de Garis Davies, Ancient Egyptian paintings selected, copied and described (2 vols., 91 pls.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936).
92 This is true only if the amount of tin is small, say 4 percent; if it is a bit larger, say 5 percent, the alloy becomes brittle when hammered, unless frequently annealed during the process; see Lucas, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries, p. 174. This is quoted to illustrate the great complexity of metallurgic problems. There were probably some great metallurgic artists in antiquity, while lesser artists must have been perplexed by mysterious failures.
93 Tin was used in Egypt apart from bronze; on the other hand, bronze may have been made before tin or tin ore were recognized as such. For the antiquity of tin in Egypt, see W. Max Müller, Egyptological researches (Washington, 1906), vol. 1, pp. 5-8, pl. 1; G. A. Wainwright, “Early tin in the Aegean,” Antiquity 18, 57–64, 100–102 (1944); and as always Lucas, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries.
94 J. H. Breasted, History of Egypt (New York, 1909), p. 190, fig. 85.
95 See J. H. Breasted, The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus (2 vols, Chicago, 1930) [Isis 15, 355–367 (1931)]; B. Ebbell, The papyrus Ebers (136 p.; Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1937) [Isis 28, 126–131 (1938)].
96 Jamieson B. Hurry, Imhotep, the vizier and physician of King Zoser and afterward the Egyptian god of medicine (ed. 2, 228 pp., 26 figs.; London, 1928) [Isis 13, 373–75 (1930)].
97 Hennann Junker, “Die Stele des Hofarztes Irj ,” Z. aegyptische Sprache 63, 53–70 (1927) [ Isis 15, 359 (1931)].
98 G. Sarton, Isis 15, 357 (1931).
99 As quoted in Ebbell, p. 27.
100 15, 359 (1931).
101 Breasted, The Edwin Smith surgical papyrua, vol. 1, p. 33.
102 Ibid., p. 36.
103 Ibid., p. 7.
104 Ibid., p. 47.
105 Ibid., p. 165, Case 6.
106 G. Sarton, Isis 15, 366 (1931); see Case 31.
107 Breasted, The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus, vol. 1, p. 12.
108 she was the wife of Ikhnaton (1375–1358). There are many portraits of her.
109 The horses appeared only in the New Kingdom (begun in 1580); they were brought from Asia. As to camels, now ubiquitous, they were very rare and did not come into general use until Greco-Roman times. Joseph P. Free, ”Abraham’s camels, J. Near Eastern Studies 3, 187–193 (1944) [Isis 36, 40 (1946)].
110 It was not necessarily original, for Egypt was submitted early to outside influences; yet it remained sui generis,
111 Most of the papyri are of the New Kingdom or later, but many of the chapters of the Book of the Dead were composed in the Middle Kingdom and some even in the Old Kingdom; the so-called Pyramid Texts can be traced back to the Fourth Dynasty and even to the First. The God Thoth, father of arts and letters, personification of justice, “recording angel,” was considered to be the author.
112 Alan H. Gardiner’s favorite! See his article in S. R. K. Glanville, ed., The legacy of Egypt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), pp. 74–75.
113 For general orientation on Egyptian art, the best way is to consult an album of pictures. There are many such albums.
For Egyptian literature, see Adolf Erman, The literature of the ancient Egyptians, translated into English by Aylward M. Blackman (336 p., London, 1927). The German original edition appeared in Leipzig in 1923.
Max Pieper, Die ägyptische Literatur (Potsdam, 1928).
T. Eric Peet, Comparative study of the litera- tures of Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia (142 p.; London: Oxford University Press, 1931) [Isis 21, 305–316 (1934)].
Josephine Mayer and Tom Prideaux, Never to die. The Egyptians in their own words (New York: Viking, 1938); popular.
Brief surveys have been given by Alan H. Gardiner in his Egyptian grammar (Oxford, 1927), pp. 17–24, and in Glanville, ed., The legacy of Egypt, pp. 53–79.
114 Sec J. H. Breasted, The dawn of conscience (450 p., 19 fig., New York: Scribner, 1933) [ Isis 21, 305–316 (1934)].
115 Peet, Comparative study of literatures, p. 101.
116 Breasted, The dawn of conscience, p. 221.
117 Incidentally, this shows that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with the use of scales of a relatively elaborate kind.
118 Translations of it may be read in Peet, Comparative study of literatures , pp. 78–81, or Breasted, The dawn of conscience , pp. 281–286.
119 Not far from Mallawi, about halfway be- Luxor). tween Memphis and Thebes (between Cairo and
120 Tutankhamon became the best-known Egyptian Pharaoh when the Earl of Camarvon and Howard Carter discovered his unviolated tomb in Thebes, in 1922. The extraordinary treasures revealed in that tomb (now in the Cairo museum) made a tremendous sensation. Howard Carter, The tomb of Tut.ankh.Amen (3 vols., ill.; London, 1923–1933).
121 Papyrus B.M. 10474. Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Facsimiles of Egyptian hieratic papyri in the British Muaeum (second series, pls. I-XIV; London, 1923); The teaching of Amen-em-apt, son of Kanekht, hieroglyphic text and English version (London, 1924). A better English translation is by F. L1. Griffith, J. Egyptian archaeology 12, 191–231 (1926); for detailed comparison with the Book of Proverbs, see D. C. Simpson, Ibid ., pp. 232–239.
122 It is for that reason that we give this chapter a purely geographical title, “Mesopotamia,” instead of one like “Babylonia and Assyria,” which is correct only for certain periods. However, the term Babylonia is often used in a more general way without chronological restrictions. Thus, one speaks of “Babylonian mathematics” meaning Sumerian mathematics as well as Babylonian stricto sensu . There is no harm in that, provided one is careful. No term is completely satisfactory or can remain so very long, for the region of applicability of geographic and historical terms varies from time to time.
123 Edward Chiera (1885–1933), They wrote on clay , ed. by George G. Cameron (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), p. 51. Here is as fine an example of cultural lag as may be found anywhere. Sumerians of 3000 B.C. spoke of nomads as people behind the times, yet similar nomads (Beduin Arabs) are still living in that vicinity today, fifty centuries later!
124 It It is better to leave racial considerations out, for we cannot obtain certain knowledge about the races of the Ancient East. One thing is clear–that by 2000 B.C., if not long before, those races had already been subjected to considerable mixture. One should always hesitate to conclude from language to race. It is easy enough for men, and especially for children, to learn a new language, but they cannot change their chromosomes. Reference to Semitic people in what follows should always be understood to mean people speaking Semitic languages–nothing more.
125 Just as the Greeks twenty-five centuries later conquered their Roman conquerors. Remember Horace’s lines ( Epistolae II, 1, 158 ) :
Graecia capta forum victorem cepit et artes
Intulit agresti Latio...
126 That is, the Amorites of the Old Testament, a Semitic tribe of northern Syria. Their intervention introduced the Mediterranean shores into Mesopotamien history. The dating of Hammurabi is very controversial; the one mentioned in the text is given by Theophile J. Meek in James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), p. 163 [ Isis 42, 75 (1951)].
127 Leonard W. King, The letters and inscriptions of Khammurabi , king of Babylon, about B.C. 2200 (3 vols.; London, 1898–1900). English translations are in vol. 3.
128 G. Sarton, “A Hindu decimal ruler of the third millennium,” lsis 25, 323–326 (1936), 26, 304–305 (1936).
129 The possible relation with Chinese has been patiently explored by C. J. Ball, Chinese and Sumerian (quarto, 192 pp.; London, 1913). Various other attempts have been made to connect Sumerian with Chinese antiquities, but none is convincing.
130 Compare the differences between our printing and various forms of calligraphy, abbreviations, and shorthand.
131 Hittite is closely related to the Indo-European languages, being derived together with them from a common source. On the contrary, Hurrian has no genetic connection with those languages, nor with Egypitan or Sumerian. Edgar H. Sturtevant, Comparative grammar of the Hittite language (Philadelphia: Linguistic Society of America, University of Pennsylvania, 1933). E. A. Speiser, Introduction to Human (New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1941). Many specimens of Hittite literature have been translated by Albrecht Goetze for James B. Pritchard,Ancient Near Eastern texts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950 p. 503 [ Isis 42 , 75 (1951) ].
132 The largest and most famous of those polyglot inscriptions is that of Behist n (or Bïsut n, near Kirmanshah on the road from Baghd d to Hamad n) wherein Darius the Great related his victories, in 516 B.C. It was that inscription which gave Sir Henry Rawlinson in 1847 the key to tho decipherment of Babylonian and led to the foundation of “Assyriology·· as a science (1857).
133 For further discussion see the excellent semi-popular book of Edward Chiera, They wrote on clay, chap. 6.
134 Unless the scribe placed wet towels over the half-written tablet, as a sculptor does for an unfinished clay model.
135 Sometimes the head or the ending might be missing, or even a middle part; but in any case the roll would preserve a relatively long sequence of the original text.
136 They were separated at first because the places where they had been deposited were burned or fell to pieces in the way adobe houses do; further separations were due to rebuilding, and to furtive or scientific excavations, to sales, and so on. A good many of the tablets in our museums have been bought from dealers who obtained them from Arab diggers hiding their sources of supply. Thus some tablet of a text may be in a Russian museum, while others of the same text are in an American collection. Even individual tablets might be broken and the fragments dispersed. medicnl text studied by Edward Chiera was based on a broken tablet, a part of which was in Philadelphia, the rest of it In Constantinople! See Chiera, They wrote on clay, p. 117.
137 Enlil, the god of air and earth, became the supreme god of the Sumerians. Under Babylonian domination he became Marduk (or Bel). Bel is the Semitic name of Enlil. The gods change with the people. Compare the transformation of Zeus and Aphrodite into Jupiter and Venus.
138 This was natural enough. A temple needs priests and scribes for its rites, traditions, and business, and these must be trained; the logical place of training is in the temple itself or close to it, the men in office being the best teachers of their successors. The same conditions produced everywhere similar results, e.g., schools in Egyptian and Buddhist temples, medieval cathedral schools.
139 The Egyptians lacked that advantage, yet their own language had evolved sufficiently by the end of the Old Kingdom (say by the twenty-sixth century ) to require philological commentaries, and we do find such glosses in the Smith surgical papyrus; Isis 15, 359 (1931).
140 That is, the most ancient are hardly anterior to Hammurabi, the bulk dates probably from the second third of the second millennium.
141 Reference is made here not to Assyriologists, but to historians of science and culture.
142 R. C. Archibald, Bibliography of Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics (2 parts; Oberlin, Ohio, 1927–1929) [ lsis 14, 251–255 (1930)]. Otto Neugebauer, Vorlesungen über Geschtchte der antiken Wissenschaften (vol. 1; Berlin, 1934) [ Isis 24, 151–153 (1935) ]; Mathematische Keilschrift-Texte (3 vols.; Berlin, 1935–1937) [Isis 26 , 63–81 (1936), 28, 490–491 (1938)].. François Thureau-Dangin, Textes mathematiques babyloniens (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1938) [ Isis 31, 405–425 (1939–40)].
143 Stetements made by Hypsicl s (II–1 B.C.) and by Geminos (I–1 B.C.), quoted by Neugebauer, Mathematische Keilschrift-Texte, vol. 3, p. 76, refer probably to late, post-Hellenic, textbooks. We are thinking of pre-Hellenic Babylonian textbooks and there is no evidence that such existed,.
144 The coexistence of sexagesimal ideas in China and Mesopotamia is very striking (see pp. 11–13). That is too slender a basis to conclude that one of these two cultures was influenced by the other; yet it is more convincing to me than linguistic analogies. Sixty is a very large number to agree upon. Its use as a number base or as a cycle implies a high degree of sophistication.
145 For the printer and the reader’s convenience, in our examples of Babylonian (sexagesimal) numbers we will separate each sexagesimal power from the preceding one by a comma, and the negative powers from the positive ones by a semicolon; also we will use zeros, though the Babylonians did not use them. Thus 11,7,42;0,6 means (60 ² × 11) + (60 × 7) + 42 + (60 −2 × 6) − 40, 062.00166.
146 It is one actually found on an old Babylonian tablet; see Thureau-Dangin, Textes mathematiques babyloniens, p. 18.
147 Republic, VIII, 546 B–D.
148 Ibid., x, 615 B.
149 For further discussion of this topic see Hermann Vollrat Hilprecht, Mathematical, metrological and chronological tablets from the Temple library at Nippur (Philadelphia, 1906), pp. 29–34; Sir Thomas Heath, History of Greek mathematics (Oxford. 1921), vol. 1, pp. 305–308 [Isis 4, 532 (1922)].
150 G. Sarton, “Simon Stevin of Bruges, 1548–1620,” Isis 21, 241–303 (1934); “The first explanation of decimal fractions and measures, 1585,” Isis 23, 153–244 (1935).
151 We must remember that the passage from 60 to 360 was not an unnatural one for Sumerians. It would seem that at first, at least, they passed from one sexagesimal order to the next one in two steps; that is, they did not multiply by 60, but by 10 then by 6 (see above).
152 The use of unequal divisions of the day was almost universal in ancient times and it continued in some parts of Europe as late as the eighteenth century. The Egyptians divided the day and the night each into 12 hours, the Greeks and the Romans did the same; those hours were of varying length like the watches. As to the latter, we find them in the Bible, ashm r h in Exodus 14:14 and phylac in Matthew 14:25. The Jews divided the night into three watches, the Romans into four, the guards being changed at the end of each watch.
153 Each gesh was thus equal to four minutes of our time.
154 The earliest Greek work in which the division of the ecliptic into 360° occurs is the one ascribed to Hypsicles (II–1 B.C.).
155 François Thureau-Dangin, “Sketch of a history of the sexagesimal system,” Osiris 7, 95–141 (1939). Solomon Gandz, “Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics,” in M. F. Ashley Montagu, ed., Studies and essays in the history of science and learning offered in homage to George Sarton on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday (New York: Schuman, 1944), pp. 449–462 [ Isis 38 , 127 (1947)].
156 I quote it from Archibald’s analysis of Neugebauer’s publication, Isis 36 , 71 (1936), 28 , 491 (1938), where more details and references to the original tablet may be found.
157 Berlin VAT 8492.
158 Bear in mind that the development of symbolic algebra hardly began before the sixteenth century, more than three millennia later!
159 Essentially the same as the Archimedian-Heronian method. If a is an approximate root of A, and A − a ² = b , then better approximations are a 1 = a = b /2 a , a 2 = a 1 = b 1 /2 a 1 , ...
160 R. C. Archibald, Isis 26 , 76 (1936); yet see Thureau-Dangin, Textes mathematiques babyloniens , p. xxxiv.
161 Archibald is certain of this and quotes examples tending to prove it, Isis 26 , 79 (1936).
162 Heron, Opera (Leipzig, 1914), vol. 5, pp. 30-35. Heron’s date is uncertain; in my Introduction, I placed him tentatively in (1–1 B.C.) . We know better now; he flourished between A.D. 62 and 150. Isis 30 , 140 (1939); 32, 263–266 (1947–49); 39, 243 (1948).
163 Examples given in the Old Testament ( 1 Kings 7:23; 2 Chronicles 4:2) correspond to the same poor approximation (π = 3).
Since writing the above I have examined the paper by E. M. Bruins, “Quelques textes mathématiques de la mission de Suse,” Proc. Roy. Dutch Acad. Sci. 53, 1025-1033 (1950) and his “Apercu sur les mathématiques babyloniennes,” Revue d’histoire des sciences 3, 301–314 (1950). He has investigated some very early Babylonian tablets found in Suse by R. de Mecquenem in 1936. They show that early Babylonian mathematicians investigated regular polygons of 5, 6, and 7 sides and that they found better approximations for what we call π than the Biblical π = 3; they found successive approximations such as the Heronian 3 As we have just seen, this is not the only relation between the early Babylonians and Hellenistic times. The stream of early Babylonian ideas emerging in Heron, in Diophantos (111–2), and later in Arabic algebra has been investigated by Solomon Gandz, “The origin and development of the quadratic equations in Babylonian, Greek and early Arabic algebra,” Osiris 3, 405–557 (1937); “Indeterminate analysis in Babylonian mathematics,” Osiris 8, 12–40 (1948).
164 The pioneer student of Babylonian astronomy was the Jesuit father, Franz Xaver Kugler, Sternkunde und Stemdienst in Babel. Assyriologische, astronomische und astralmythologische Untersuchungen (6 parts; Münster in Westfalen, 1907–1935) [ Isis 25,473–476 (1936)]. The best work on the subject is now done by Otto Neugebauer. For general orientation, see his article, “The history of ancient astronomy. Problems and methods,” J. Near Eastern Studies 4, 1–38 (1945), with full bibliography. Note that Kugler and Neugebauer devote much of their efforts to the explanation of late Chaldean or Seleucid astronomy, which does not concern us in this volume.
165 A. T. Olmstead, “Babylonian astronomy,” Am. J. Semitic Languages, 55, 113–129 (1938), p. 117.
166 For the clepsydra, see Neugebauer, Mathematische Keilschrift-Texte, vol. 1, p. 173.
167 The best example of a ziggurat is the Sumerian one of Ur, the excavation of which, begun in 1854, was completed in 1933. For a full description, see Sir Leonard Woolley, Ur excavations. Vol. 5. The ziggurat and its surroundings (folio, 164 pp., 89 pls.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939). The reconstruction of that ziggurat is taken with kind permission from that work.
168 A strict alternation of 29- and 30-day months would have led to discrepancies between the a priori calendar and the observations of the first crescent; hence it was necessary sometimes to break the alternation.
169 The octaet ris, the introduction of which in the Greek calendar was ascribed to Cleostratos (VI B.C.) and also to Eudoxus (IV-1 B.C.).
170 The epactai ( h merai ) or intercalary days are the days denoting the excess of the solar year over 12 lunar months (365-354–11 days). The epact of a given year is the moon’s age at the beginning of it; it increases by about 11 days year by year
171 However, I should justify at once my reference to “Egyptian hours.” The fact that the order of the days is different from the natural order of the planets can be accounted for only on the basis that each hour of the day was dominated by a different planet. Each day was named after the planet dominating its first hour. The explanation implies a rotation of 168 hours per week, that is, the division of the day into 24 hours in the Egyptian manner, not into 12 hours in the Babylonian one. For further details, see Francis Henry Colson, The week (134 pp.; Cambridge, 1926).
172 The latest and fullest translation and discussion of those tablets will be found in Stephen Langdon and J. K. Fotheringham, The Venus tablets of Ammizaduga. A solution of Babylonian chronology by means of the Venus observations of the first dynasty. With tables for computation by Carl Schoch (126 pp., folio; Oxford, 1928). The examples quoted below are taken from that book (p. 7).
173 The synodic period of Venus is exactly 583.921 days. Hence from superior to inferior conjunction the mean interval is 292 days, so that in each year there are usually one superior and one inferior conjunction. Eight Julian yearns = 2922 days; 5 synodic periods of Venus = 2919.6 days, or 2.4 days less; 8 Babylonian lunisolar years including 3 intercalary months = 2923.5 days, that is, 4 days more than 5 synodic periods. See Langdon and Fotheringham, The Venus tablets of Ammizaduga, p. 105.
174 Their determination being 111 days instead of 115.87, according to Ernst F. Weidner, Alter und Bedeutung der babylonischen Astronomio (Leipzig, 1914), p. 13.
175 Carl Bezold, Sze-ma Ts‘ien und die Babylonische Astrologie (Hirth’s Festschrift; Berlin, 1920, pp. 42–49). Apropos of Ss -ma Ch’ien (II–2 B.C.), Bezold concludes that the Chinese became acquainted with Babylonian astrology probably before 523 B.C. Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, vol. 2, p. 398. Léopold de Saussure, Les origines de l’astronomie chinoise. (594 p.; Paris, 1930) [ Isis 17 , 267–271 (1932), 27, 291–293 (1937)]. Ungnad, “China und Babylonien,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 2, pp. 91–93 (1938).
176 Sumerian women were acquainted probably as early as their Egyptian sisters with stibnite (Sb 2 S ³ ), which they used as an eye cosmetic and collyrium. It is not difficult to obtain pure anti-many from the trisulfide.
177 See examples reproduced by C. Leonard Woolley, The development of Sumerian art (New York: Scribner, 1935).
178 In Babylonian times, if not before, some pieces of metal bore an official stamp indicating their weight; this obviated the need of repeated weighings for each transaction. Such stamped pieces of metal constitute a transition to proper coinage; see Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, vol. 1, p. 356. In the time of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (705–681) there is a reference to half-shekel pieces, called “Ishtar heads”; see A. T. Olmstead, History of Assyria (New York, 1923), p. 321. This brings us to the time of the Lydian invention.
179 The Accadian verb “to weigh” is shaqälu, which seems to go back to proto-Semitic, for it is found in all Semitic languages (Arabic, thaqala; Hebrew, sheqel); from it comes “shekel,” unless the verb comes from the noun. Since payments were made in gold, silver, or bronze, which had to be weighed, in Assyrian and Aramaic the verb also comes to mean “to pay.” There are words in Assyrian and Sumerian for scales; these words generally occur in a dual form, as they also do in Hebrew, referring to the two scale pans. (Information kindly given by my Harvard colleague, Robert H. Pfeiffer, 26 September 1944). The Egyptian idea of scales of judgment occurs in Job 31:6.
180 This tablet is of baked clay, 3¼ × inches, written on both sides; B.M. No. 120960. It was edited and translated by C. J. Gadd and R. Campbell Thompson, “A middle-Babylonian chemical text,” Iraq 3, 87–96 (1936), 1 pl. [ Isis 26, 538 (1936)]. For Babylonian chemistry see also R. Campbell Thompson, A dictionary of Assyrian chemistry and geology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), pp. xxiii, 197 [Isis 26, 477–480 (1936)]; “Survey of the chemistry of Assyria in the VIIth century .c.,” Ambix 2, 3–16 (1938). Ernst Darmstaedter, “Chemie,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie,vol. 2 (1938), pp. 88–91. Thompson and Darmstaedter deal mainly with Assyrian (VIIth century) chemistry, very little with the earlier Babylonian efforts.
181 A gufa is a round boat made of wickerwork used in Mesopotamia from very early times unto our own days. The word occurs in the Arabic vernacular under the form quffa.
182 V. Scheil, “Sur le marché aux poissons de Larsa,” Rev. d’Assyriologie 15, 183–194 (1918).
183 Benno Landsberger and Ingo Krumbiegel, Die Fauna des alten Mesopotamien nach der 14. Tafel der Serie Har-ra = bubullu (158 pp.; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1934).
184 As quoted by E. A. Speiser, Some so rces of intellectual and social progress in the ancient Near East (Studies in the history of culture; Menasha, Wisconsin: American Council of Learned Societies, 1942), pp. 51–62, 55. Reginald Campbell Thompson, The Assyrian herbal (322 p.; London, 1924) [Isis 8, 506–508 (1926)]. Thompson rejects some of the identifications quoted above.
185 G. Sarton, “Artificial fertilization of date-palms in the time of Ashur-nasir-pal, B.C. 885–60,” Isis 21, 8-13, 4 pl. (1934); 23, 245-50, 251–52 (1935); 26, 95–98 (1936).
186 Thompson, Assyrian herbal. Of course, sexual terms may be given to plants because of analogies, as Greek orchis and English orchis (testicle), or Arabic khi yun or khisyatun.
187 Bed ich Hrozný, “L’entrainement des chevaux chez les anciens Indo-Européens d’après un texte mîtannien-hittite provenant du 14e siècle av. J.C.,” Archiv Orientální 3, 431–461 (Prague, 1931) [Isis 25, 256 (1936)]. This includes a French translation of the first tablet out of five; a summary of the training is given on pp. 437–438. The date 1360 is Hrozný’s tentative dating; see p. 433.
188 Apsyrtos (IV–1), Hierocl s (IV–2).
189 On account of its tremendous importance many casts of it have been made which can be seen in the leading museums of archaeology. One of those casts is available in the Semitic Museum of Harvard University.
190 The text was first published by Father Scheil in the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse (Paris, 1902), vol. 4. An abundant literature has been devoted to it. The best English translation, by Theophile J. Meek, is included in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts , pp. 163–180. Quotations in this chapter are made from that translation with kind permission of the Princeton University Press. See also Edouard Cuq, Etudes sur le droit babylonien, les lois assyriennes et les lois hittites (530 pp.; Paris, 1929) [Isis 15 , 268 (1931)]. Every history of Babylonia as well as every history of ancient law gives of necessity considerable space to this code.
191 The Lipit-Ishtar code in Sumerian was certainly older than Hammurabi’s in Accadian, perhaps two centuries older. Francis R. Steele, The code of Lipit-Ishtar (28 p., 6 fig.; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1948) [Isis 41, 374 (1950)]. The most convenient survey of the early codes is in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts, pp. 159–223.
192 According to the most recent calculations, Hammurabi ruled for 43 years, from 1728 to 1686; see Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texts, p. 163.
193 Georges Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie et Babylonie (228 pp., ill.; Paris: Maloine, 1938) [Isis 31, 99–101 (1939–40)], with bibliography, pp. 51-52, 207-227.
194 An Accadian treatise on medical diagnosis and prognosis has been prepared by René Labat, Traité akkadien de diagnostics et pronostics médicaux (297 pp., album of 68 pl.; Collection de travaux de l’Académie internationale d’histoire des sciences, no. 7, Paris, 1951). It was my duty and privilege to examine the manuscript of it (July 1951). It has been incompletely preserved on 40 tablets which date back to various times, the earliest that of King Marduk-apal-iddin (722–711), the latest the eleventh year of Artaxerxes (453), yet all represent older Babylonian traditions. The treatise is divided into five parts: 1. When the exorcist goes to the patient’s house. 2. When you come near the patient. 3. If, being ill during a day. . . 4. When you take the patient’s hand. 5. When the woman is pregnant, the top of her forehead is yellow.
195 That is, with more ideographic than phonetic signs. Examples given by Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie , p. 178.
196 French translation in Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie, pp. 190–193. There are various texts of the same family.
197 That superstition is universal and immemorial; Greek bascania = Latin fascinum (hence fascination ); maldocchio, iettatura, etc.; Hebrew qinah, meaning envy. F. T. Elworthy, Encyclopedia of religion and ethics, vol. 5 (1912), pp. 608–615.
198 Leonard W. King, History of Sumer and Akkad (London, 1910), p. 183.
199 An Egyptian dreambook of the Twelfth Dynasty was edited by Alan H. Gardiner, The library of A. Chester Beatty. Description of a hieratic papyrus with a mythological story, love-songs and other miscellaneous texts (folio, 45 pp., 61 pls.; London, 1931) [Isis 25, 476–478 (1936)]. For persistence of interest in monsters see Sebastian Brant’s broadside (Basel, 1496 [ Osiris 5, 119, 171 (1938)], or the side shows of our circuses.
200 There is an elaborate discussion in the edition of Arthur Stanley Pease (656 pp., Urbana, 1920–1923).
201 Reference is made to the intellectual underworld, which cuts across all classes and conditions of people.
202 Meissner suggested that much; Babylonien und Assyrien, vol. 2, p. 244.
203 Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie, pp, 65–67.
204 I saw in the Louvre (May 1948) some fifteen objects of this kind excavated in M ri (Tell-Hariri) in 1936. They date back to the beginning of the second millennium. See G. Conteneau, Manuef d’archeologie orientale (Paris: Picard, 1947 ) [Isis 40, 153 (1949)].pup. 1906-1911.
205 For hepatoscopy in addition to Bouché-Leclerq and the books referred to in the illustrations apropos of the liver models, see Alfred Boissier, Mantique babylonienne et mantique hittite (82 pp., 5 pis.; Paris: Geuthner, 1935). Some 57 hepatoscopic tablets have recently been edited by Albrecht Goetze, Old Babylonian omen texts (Yale Oriental Series, Babylonian texts, 10; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1947). These tablets, preserved at Yale since 1913, are undated, but undoubtedly very ancient — some of them pre-Hammurabi. Goetze adds a list of other monuments of the same kind previously published.
206 Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie, p. 40.
207 In a review in Isis IS, 356 (1931).
208 Ebeling, “Aussatz,” Reallexikon der Assyriologie, vol. 1 (1932), p. 321.
209 Samuel N. Kramer, Sumerian mythology. A study of spiritual and literary achievement in the third millennium B.C. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944), p. 19 [Isis 35, 248 (1944)].
210 In addition to the tablets given to the museum of Constantinople. For a brief account, see Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, Rise and progress of Assyriology (London, 1925), pp. 247-250.
211 From a tablet (No. 29.16.422) in the Nippur collection in Philadelphia. See Kramer, Sumerian mythology , frontispiece, p. 107.
212 A striking example is that of Simon Stevin of Bruges, 1605; see Isis 21, 259 (1934).
213 John Bagnell Bury, The idea of progress (London, 1920) [ Isis 4, 373–375 (1921–22)].
214 They are so much alike that they may have been written by the same scribe. Samuel N. Kramer, The oldest literary catalogue. A Sumerian list of literary compositions compiled about 2000 B.C. (Bull. American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 88, 1942), pp. 10-19; also Sumertan mythology, p. 14, pl. 2.
215 Francis W. Calpin, Music of the Suzerians (quarto, 126 pp., 12 pls.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1937) [ Isis 29, 241 (1938)].
216 William Hayes Ward (1835–1916), Seal cylinders of Western Asia (quarto, 460 pp., 1315 figs.; Washington, 1910) [ Isis 3, 356 (1920–21)], p. 255. Contenau, La médecine en Assyrie , p. 41, illustrates two medical seals.
217 Photographs of these monuments and many others may be seen in every good history of ancient art. See C. Leonard Woolley, The development of Sumerian art ; Simon Harcourt-Smith, Babylonian art (76 pls.; London, 1928).
218 In addition to the works of the pioneers, Heinrich Schliemann (1822–90) and Sir Arthur Evans (1851–1941 ), consult their biographies: Emil Ludwig, Schliemann of Troy. The story of a goldseeker (336 pp., ill.; London: Putnam, 1931) and Joan Evans, Time and chance. The story of Arthur Evans and his forebears (422 pp., 16 ills.; London: Longmans, 1943 ) ( Isis 35, 239 (1944)]. See also Harry Reginald Hall (1873–1930), Aegean archaeology: An introduction to the archaeology of prehistoric Greece (xxii+270 pp., 33 pls., 112 figs., 1 map; London, 1915); Gustav Glotz, The Aegean civilization (xvi+422 pp., 87 ills., 3 maps, 4 pls.; London, 1925); Pierre Waltz, Le monde égéen avant les Grecs (Collection Armand Colin no. 172; 206 p.; Paris, 1934), a popular but competent introduction to the subject.
219 For a more detailed definition of Mediterranean geography and climate, see G. Sarton, “The unity and diversity of the Mediterranean world,” Osiris 2, 406–463 (1936).
220 Strabon (I–2 B.C.) used that very word in the astounding prolegomena to his Geography (I, 1, 16): “And to this knowledge of the nature of the land, and of the species of animals and plants, we must add a knowledge of all that pertains to the sea; for in a sense we are amphibious and belong no more to the land than to the sea” ( amphibioi gar tropon tina esmen cai u mallon chersaioi thalattioi ) (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1, p. 28).
221 Politica 1327 b .
222 Aegean monuments had been found before 1876 in various places (for example, Thera and Rhodes, even Thebes) but not recognized as such. The Cyclopean walls of Tiryns and Mycenae, and in the latter place the “Treasury of Atreus” and the “Lion Gate” had been known even to the ancients and described by Pausanias (II–2), but Schliemann’s excavation of Mycenaean graves excited world-wide interest. Antiquities that had been taken for granted were seen in a new light.
223 Arthur Evans, The palace of Minos (4 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1921–1935; index, 1936). Schliemann died in 1890, Dörpfeld half a century later in 1940, Evans in 1941. The great gap in these dates is due to the fact that Schliemann died at 68 while his younger contemporaries lived to be 87 and 90.
224 Table first published in Isis 34 , 164 (1942–43).
225 It may be added that no culture is territorially continuous. It exists only in centers of sufficient human density, whence it percolates more or less slowly into the surrounding districts. Those centers are seldom close to one another; they are generally distant from one another, sometimes very distant. Any two centers may be separated by fertile land or desert, or by a stretch of river or sea; those differences are significant but not essential.
226 Thucydides, I, 4 (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1, p. 9). The Carians were a strange people, addicted to piracy, speaking a language unrelated to Greek, and having customs of their own such as matriarchy and a special mode of burial. Says Thucydides (I, 8), “When Delos [one of the Cyclades] was purified by the Athenians in this war [426 B.C.] and the graves of all who had ever died in the island were removed, over half were discovered to be Carians, being recognized by the fashion of the armor found buried with them, and by the mode of burial, which is that still in use among them.”
227 Obsidian objects are found all over the area, though the only source of it is the island of Melos, the most westerly of the Cyclades. Pottery objects of definite provenience are also widely distributed.
228 This is the more tantalizing because some of the Cretan symbols are very much like hieroglyphics; examples are given in Isis 24, 377 (1935–36).
229 The drain pipes of the palace of Cnossos were not the first of their kind; some 1300 feet of copper pipes were found in the pyramid temple of Abu r (Fifth Dynasty=2750–2625) built a thousand years before Cnossos!
230 C. R. Wason, “Cretan statuette in gold and ivory,” Bull. Roy. Ontario Museum (March 1932), pp. 1–12; 14 figs.
231 The earliest iron sword of the Aegean area was found in a tomb of Mouliana (northeastern Crete ) dating from the very end of Late Minoan III, corresponding to the Nineteenth Dynasty (1350–1205). Glotz, The Aegean civilization , p. 389.
232 The iron age reached central and western Europe somewhat later. The Hallstatt period, as it is called in European archaeology, lasted from c. 1000 to c. 500; it is so called after the main site in Hallstatt, Salzkammergut, Austria. It is characterized by the use of bronze and iron, agriculture, domesticated animals, and typical artifacts.
233 Thucydides, I, 12.
234 Margaret Alice Murray, “Connexions between Egypt and Russia,” Antiquity 15 , 384–386 (Gloucester, 1941), 2 pls.
235 Tripolye is the name of its principal site, some 50 miles from Kiev on the middle Dnieper River.
236 Gregory Borovka, Scythian art (112 pp., 74 pls.; London, 1927), a fine collection of examples with an excellent introduction and references to the main Scythian publications.
237 The largest river of Asia Minor, some 600 miles long, Encyclopedia of Islam (5 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1908–1938), vol. 2, p. 1054. The name we give to it is the translation of its Turkish name, Qizil–Irm q; the Greeks called it Halys.
238 Georges Contenau, La civilisation phénicienne (396 pp., 137 ills.; Paris, 1926) [ Isis 9, 179 (1927)]. Raymond Weill, Phoenicia and Western Asia to the Macedonian conquest (208 pp., London: Harrap, 1940).
239 That tradition was related by Manethon (III–I B.C.), fragment 42 (Loeb Classical Library), p. 85.
240 Franz Heinrich Weissbach, Die Denkmaeler und Inschriften an der Mündung des Nahr el-Kelb ( Wiss. Veröff. des deutsch-türkischen Denkmal-schutz-Kommandos, Heft 6, 16 figs., 14 pls.; Berlin, 1922). René Mouterde, S.J., Le Nahr el Kelb (Beyrouth: Imprimerie Catholique, 1932), small popular guide.
241 It is better to say factory than colony, because the Phoenician settlements were essentially different from the Greek in that the latter were independent offshoots from the mother country (like swarms out of a beehive); while the former were more like branch offices controlled by the main administration in Tyre.
242 The destruction of Carthage in 146 did not obliterate Phoenician culture in Tunisia and a Phoenician dialect continued to be used. St. Augustine (V–1) quoted Punic words in his sermons.
243 The Pillars of Hercules, Heracles, or Melqart (in Phoenician, king of the city, a name of God), that is, the Straits of Gibraltar. There were early Phoenician settlements, for example, in Carthagena (New Carthage) and Onoba (Huelva), on the coast east and west of the Straits. Later (450–201) a large part of the Spanish Peninsula south of the Douro and Ebro rivers was under Carthaginian power.
244 Strabon, 1, 3, 2.
245 Murex trunculus and M. brandaris, marine gastropods abundant along the Syrian coast.
246 A charming letter written by Renan to Berthelot makes me realize that I am perhaps unfair to the Phoenicians. They were not only merchants, but manufacturers, creators of many goods. The letter is dated Sour (= Tyre), 12 March 1861 “Une chose bien curieuse, c‘est que les restes de la civilisation phénicienne sont presque tous des restes de monuments industriels. Le monument industriel, chez nous si fragile, était, chez les Phéniciens, colossal et grandiose. Toute la campagne est parsemée des restes de cette industrie gigantesque, taillés dans le roc. Les pressoirs, sortes de portes composées de trois blocs superposés, ressemblent à des arcs de triomphe; les vieilles usines, avec leurs cuves, leurs meules, sont là, dans le désert, parfaitement intactes. Les puits dits de Salomon, près de Tyr, sont quelque chose de merveilleux et d’une profonde impression.” E . Renan et M. Berthelot, Correspondance, 1847–1892 (Paris, 1898), p. 254.
247 According to Herodotos, v, 58, the alphabet was brought to Greece by the Phoenicians who came with Cadmos. Cadmos of Tyre, son of a Phoenician king, is one of the mythological personalities symbolizing Phoenician origins. A sufficient proof of the Semitic origin of the Greek alphabet is the fact that the first three letters of that alphabet have Semitic names (alpha, b ta, gamma; aleph, beth, g mel). The order of the letters in all the ancient alphabets (with one exception) is the same as the Semitic order. The exception is the Sanskrit (Devan gar ) alphabet, the order of which is dominated by phonetic considerations.
248 For more remarks on English “orthography” see G. Sarton, “The feminine monarchie of Charles Butler 1609,” Isis 34 , 469–472 (1943), 6 figs.
249 Leonard Bloomfield, Language (New York: Holt, 1933), pp. 86–89; Louis Herbert Gray, Foundations of language (New York: Macmillan, 1939), p. 58. Thanks to my colleague Joshua Whatmough.
250 Innumerable memoirs have been devoted to the alphabet and new ones appear every year. There are also many syntheses, of which it will suffice to mention two of the most recent: Hans Jensen, Die Schrift in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Hannover, 1925; much improved ed., Glück-stadt, 1935) [Isis 30, 132–137 (1939)] and David Diringer, The alphabet (607 pp., ill.; London: Hutchinson, 1948) [ Isis 40 , 87 (1949)]; this is an abbreviation of the original Italian edition (867 pp.; Florence, 1937).
251 This word is taken here stricto sensu, the inability to read and write, but illiteracy might be combined, and often was, with a high degree of education, even literary and poetic education. Many great poets were “illiterate.”
252 Plato, Phaidros , 274 c.
253 “Literature before letters” (1899), reprinted in his Last Essays (1901), vol. 1, pp. 110–138, a very interesting essay.
254 Some of those words are included by Glotz, The Aegean civilization, p. 386, in his list of Creek words retained in the Cretan dialects of historical times.
255 Chronique d’Egypte , vol. 11 (1936), p. 406.
256 Dominique Mallet, Les rapports des Grecs avec l ’ Egypte de la conquête de Cambyse 525 à celle d’Alexandre 331 (Mémoires de l‘Institut français d’archéologie orientale, vol. 48, folio, xv+ 209 pp.; Cairo, 1922).
257 Pierre Jouguet, L‘impérialisme macédonien et l’hellénisation de l’Orient (Paris, 1926). Jouguet had admirably told one side of the story, but there is another side, the Orientalization of the West which is not as well documented perhaps as the first, yet can be read in Roman history. Sarton, “Unity and diversity of the Mediterranean world,” Osiris 2, 424–432 (1936).
258 H. C. Zeuthen, Histoire des mathematiques dans l’antiquité et le moyen âge (Paris, 1902), p.5.
259 It would imply knowledge of the so-called golden section, the division of a line in extreme and mean ratio (Euclid, 11, 2) [Isis 42, 47 (1951)].
260 Sir Thomas Heath, History of Greek mathematics (Oxford, 1921), vol. 1, p. 160 [Isis 4, 532–535 (1922)].
261 Professor Ferris J. Stephens, curator of the Babylonian collections of Yale University, kindly sent me (letter of 7 February 1945) drawings of such bases (four heptagons, one pentagon). They are sufficiently irregular to prove their empirical construction.
262 Carl Schoy, “Graeco-Arabische Studien,” Isis 8, 35–40 (1926).
263 Louis C. Karpinski, “Michigan mathematical papyrus No. 621,” Isis 5, 20–25 (1923), 1 pl. Introduction, vol. 1, p. 354. J. Baillet, Le papyrus mathematique d’Akhmim (Mémoires de la Mission archéologique française au Caire, vol. 9, 91 pp., 8 pls.; Paris, 1892); Introduction, vol. 1, p. 449. W. E. Crum and H. I. Bell, Wadi Sarga Coptica, vol. 3; Copenhagen, 1922), pp. 53–57.
264 Almagest, I, 9.
265 Proclos died in 485. The Academy was closed in 529 by Justinian’s order.
266 G. Sarton, Minoan mathematics,” Isis 24, 371-381 (1935-36), 6 figs., derived from Sir Ar. thur Evans, The palace of Minos.
267 The situation is curiously the same as for Mayan archaeology. We cannot read Mayan inscriptions except in so far as they include numerals. The Mayas had developed early (say about the time of Christ) a vigesimal system of numbers.
268 This king is named Sesostris and there were three kings bearing that name in the XIIth Dynasty (2000–1788). The Sesostris of Greek tradition, however, is a mythical personality which cannot be identified with any one of the known kings of Egypt. The text is quoted from A. D. Godley’s translation ( Loeb Classical Library). ).
269 Herodotos, II , 109.
270 Theuth’s name is now generally spelled Thoth.
271 Plato, Phaidros , 274 c. English translation by Harold North Fowler (Loeb Classical Library).
272 Thoth said, mn m s te gar cai sophias pharmacon h yreth . The conservative king answered, ucun mn m s all’ hypomn se s pharmacon h yres.
273 Str mata (Book I, chap. 15); Wilhelm Dindorf, ed., Clementis Alexandrini Opera (Oxford, 1869), vol. 2, p. 57. That whole chapter 15 deals with the barbarian origins of Greek philosophy, many ancient writers chiefly Plato being adduced in evidence. In the following chapter, Clement shows that the barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy but of almost every art. See also Book V, chap. 7, and Book VI, chap. 4. English version by William Wilson (2 vols.; Edinburgh, 1887–1869 ).
274 Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 122.
275 It is possible, however, that they had some knowledge of the proposition 3 ² + 4 ² = 5 ² and similar ones. See the Kahun Papyrus 6619 of the Berlin Museum, in M. Cantor, Vorlesungen zur Geschichte der Mathematik (Leipzig, 1907), vol. 1, P. ⁹⁵ .
276 T. Eric Peet, The Rhind mathematical papyrus , p. 32.
277 The actual instruments used exist in very early exemplars. See Ludwig Borchardt, Altägyptische Zeitmessung ( Berlin, 1920) [Isis 4, 612 ( 1921–22 ) ], pp. 16–17.
278 For example, let it be required to draw a perpendicular line to the meridian at 0 ( Fig. 35). Let us measure on the meridian OA= OB, then take a rope much longer than AB and divide it into two equal parts by a knot at G. The rope is fastened at A and B and then the knot C is taken as far east as possible; the line OC is the perpendicular. This would be obvious to the Egyptians because of their intuitive understanding of symmetry. For verification, the operation would be repeated westward, and OC and OD should be collinear. The collinearity would be easily tested with three stakes or plumb lines.
Fig. 35
279 Isis 26, 81 (1936). ).
280 Yet see p. 74.
281 Ptolomy, Almagest , 1, 9.
282 Ibid., tables in II, 12.
283 Hesiod, Works and days (11. 174–178; Hugh G. Evelyn-White’s version in the Loeb Classical Library.
284 Nyn gar d genos esti sid reon .
285 For a technical discussion of that Hesiodian-Babylonian parallel see King, History of Babylon, pp. 302 ff.
286 For the decan tradition see Wilhelm Gundel, Dekane und Dekansternbilder. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Sternbüder der Kulturvölker. Mit einer Untersuchung über die ägyptischen Stembilder und Gottheiten der Dekane von Siegfried Schott ( Warburg Studien 19; 462 pp., 33 pls.; Gliickstadt: Warburg Bibliothek, 1936; [ Isis 27, 344–348 (1937)].
287 The word saros is obviously not an original Greek word; its accentuation is uncertain, and it appears but very late in a Greek text, the Assyriaca of Abydenos, written about the beginning of our era; see Carolus Mullerus, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum(Paris, 1851), vol. 4, p. 280. Its meaning in that text is a cycle of sixty times sixty years or 3600 years. The word is derived from Sumerian shar =3600. Berossos (III–1 B.C.) was very probably the transmitter of that Babylonian idea. It is significant that the Babylonians distinguished three periods of years which were called (I quote the Greek transcriptions), sõssos=60 years, n ros=10 sõssoi, saros =60 sõssoi; we notice once more the typical mixture of decimal and sexagesimal factors. The misuse of the word saros to designate the 18-year period was introduced very late; perhaps as late as 1691, by Edmund Holley! See O. Neugebauer, “Untersuchungen zur antiken Astronomic. III. Die babylonische Theorie der Breitenbeweg-ungen des Mondes; V. Der Halleysche ‘Saros’,” Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik (Berlin, 1938), Abt. B, Band 4, pp. 193-358, esp. p. 295; 407-411.
288 More exactly 223 synodic months, equalling 242 draconic months (6585 days or 18 Julian years plus 11 days); after this period full and new moon return to the same position relative to the nodes.
289 Theodor von Oppolzer, Kanon der Finster nisse (Vienna, 1887). 0. Neugebauer has proved that the saros was not sufficient to predict eclipses of the Sun, though it may have sufficed to predict eclipses of the Moon. It is significant that the earliest Greek text on eclipses is the one by Philippos of Opus (c. 350 B.C.), restricted to lunar eclipses. See Neugebauer, “Untersuchungen zur antiken Gastronomic” The matter has been very clearly explained by the Dutch astronomer Antonie Pannekoek, “The origin of the saros,” Dutch Academy, Proceedings of the section of sciences 20, 943–955 (Amsterdam, 1918). In my own brief account, I have largely followed Pannekoek and even used his own wording, because it could not be improved upon.
290 More exactly, 54 years 34 days. That is the cycle called later exeligmos by Geminos of Rhodes (1–1 B.C.) and by Ptolemy, Almagest, IV, 2. It is the shortest period containing whole numbers of synodic months and days and exact returns of the Moon to former positions. The wordexeligmos was first used for military evolutions bringing soldiers back to their original places, then for the revolutions of celestial bodies.
291 Pannekoek, “The origin of the saros,” p. 944.
292 Carl Bezold and Franz Boll, “Reflexe astrolo-gischer Keilschriften bei griechischen Schrifstellern,” Sitzber. Heidelberger Akad., Phil. Kl., No. 7, 54 pp. (1911). Franz Cumont, L’Egypte des as-trologues (254 pp.; Brussels: Fondation Egyptolo-gique Reine Elisabeth, 1937) [ Isis 29, 511 (1938)].
293 Of course, there were “unlucky days” in every age, like “Friday the 13th” in our own.
294 In Aristotle, Works. The Oxford Translation (vol. 4, 1910). The remark that I quote was made by him in The legacy of Greece, p. 160, reprinted in his Science and the classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940) [ Isis 33, 269 (1941–42)]. p. 74.
295 Horapollon of Nilopolis (IV–1), Egyptian archaeologist who wrote in Coptic a treatise on hieroglyphics, known to us in a poor Greek version.
296 “If we are to believe Ctesias,” wrote Aristotle cautiously ( Historia Animalium, 501A ,25), but he did not hesitate to repeat the description of that fantastic animal. The name mantich ras or mantichoras means in its Old Persian (Avestan) form, manslayer.
297 Aristotle, De partibus animalium, 680A, 32.
298 The lore is extended to every kind of shellfish, which are supposed to increase and decrease with the Moon.
299 G. Sarton, “Lunar influences on living things,” Isis 30, 495–507 ( 1939 ) ; see p. 505.
300 Jamieson B. Hurry, Imhotep (ed. 2, 228 pp., 26 ills.; Oxford, 1928 ) ( Isis 13, 373–375 (1929–30)].
301 Breasted, History of Egypt, pp. 590–591.
302 Herodotos, II , 84.
303 Hermann Junker, “Das Spezialistentum in der ägyptischen Medizin,” Z. Ägyptische Sprache 63, 68–70 (1927) .
304 Hurry, Imhotep, pp. 49–56, 105–11. Mary Hamilton, Incubation or the cure of disease in pagan temples and Christian churches (234 pp.; London, 1906); Diodoros’ account is given by her in English on p. 98.
305 I am acquainted with the following partial lists; there may be others. Heinrich Lewy of Breslau, Die semitischen Fremdwörter im Criechischen (268 pp.; Berlin, 1895). At the end of Georg Curtius, Principles of Greek etymology (London, ed. 5, 1886), vol. 2, pp. 461–473, there are Sanskrit and Iranian indices.
306 It would be worth while to make a fresh study of Dioscorides ( I–2 ) from that point of view. See Max Wellmann, “Die Pflanzennamen des Dioskurides,” Hermes 33, 360–422 (1898) and the indices at the end of his edition of Dioscorides (Berlin, 1914), vol. 3, pp. 327–358. The index of plant names taken out of the dictionary of Pamphilos (1–2 ) begins with a long list of Aegyptiaca.
307 Herodotos, VI, 47.
308 Ibid., III, 60.
309 Petrie, Wisdom of the Egyptians, p. 119.
310 Resin exuded by the mastic tree ( Pistacia lentiscus ) abundant in Chios, one of the main sources of its prosperity throughout the ages.
311 Clarke and Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian masonry, p. 224, Fig. 264; other Egyptian tools are illustrated.
312 Panopolis or Chemmis on the Nile in Upper Egypt, modern Akhmïm.
313 Georges Contenau, La civilisation des Hittites et des Mitanniens (Paris: Payot, 1934), p. 142.
314 Adrian De Buck, De godsdienstige opvatting van den slaap inzonderheid in het oude Egypte (Leiden, 1939) [ Chronique d’Egypte 15, 215 (1940)]. For mysteries, Greek and Oriental, see Franz Cumont, Lux perpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949) [ Isis 41, 371 (1950)], pp. 235–274.
315 Herodotos, IV, 186.
316 The main Greek source on Isis and Osiris after Herodotos is the essay of Plutarch (I–2) Peri Isidos cai Osiridos which he wrote for one Clea, priestess at Delphi. This is a very late source, of course, but it embodies old traditions. See text in Plutarch’s Moralia (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 5). Plutarch had visited Egypt but his knowledge of Egyptian matters had remained very superficial.
317 Paul Foucart, Les mystères d‘Eleusis (508 pp.; Paris, 1914). Martin P. Nilsson, The MinoanMycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion (604 pp., 4 pls.; Lund, 1928). Georges Meautis, Les mystères d’Eleusis (92 pp., ill.; Neu-châtel: La Baconnière, 1934) [ Isis 26, 268 (1936)]. Foucart had exaggerated the Egyptian influence; Nilsson ascribes the mysteries rather to Aegean influences; Méautis’s little book is a popular but sound outline, very readable.
318 Augustus Nauck, Tragicorum graecorum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1856), Sophocles, 753.
319 West Semitic, Astarte; Greek, Aphrodit ; Latin, Venus.
320 The earliest text revealing some knowledge of them, rudimentary, is that of Horapollon (IV–1).
321 It is hardly likely that every priest could read them. Bear in mind the ignorance exhibited by many of our own priests in the Middle Ages, and yet a knowledge of Latin was incomparably easier to attain than the ability to read hieroglyphic or hieratic texts. The clerical ignorance of Latin has been repeatedly illustrated by George Gordon Coulton, Europe’s apprenticeship (London: Nelson, 1940).
322 John Burnet (1863–1928), Greek philosophy. Part 1 Thales to Plato (London, 1924), p. 4.
323 It is curious that hom ros in the Cumaean dialect had the same meaning as typhlos, blind. On the other hand, in the Ionian dialect hom reu means pod ge , to lead or guide. The name might thus be a description, physical or mental, of the author, as if one said “the blind man,” “the guide,” “the poet.”
324 Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenai. These names are interesting; note that the majority are Ionian. The Homeric dialect is largely Ionian.
325 Especially the splendid work done by the two Chadwicks, man and wife, Hector Munro Chadwick and Norah Kershaw Chadwick, The growth of literature (3 vols.; Cambridge: University Press, 1932–1940) [Isis 29, 196 (1938)]; vol. 1 (1932) deals with the ancient literatures of Europe; vol. 2 (1936), with the Russian, Yugoslav, Indian, and Hebrew literatures; vol. 3 (1940), with the Tatars, Polynesia, the Sea Dyaks, African peoples, and general survey. See also Solomon Gandz, “The dawn of literature,” Osiris 7, 261–515 (1939).
326 The number of phrases and lines repeated is very large, and no wonder, for the repetition being partly instinctive and partly systematic, everything conspired to bring back favorite sayings. See the concordance to the parallel passages in the Iliad, Odyssey, and hymns in Henry Dunbar,Complete concordance to the Odyssey and hymns of Homer (Oxford. 1880), pp. 391–419.
327 Aoidos = vates, poet, seer . The word occurs in the Iliad, XXIV, 721, and frequently in the Odyssey and in Hesiod.
328 Rhaps dol = stitchers of songs or song sewers. The word as applied to reciters of Homeric poems occurs for the first time in Herodotos, (v, 67), but is probably of earlier coinage for it expresses the business of the early minstrels rather than that of the later reciters, whose initiative decreased as the epics were gradually canonized.
329 As Parry died at the age of 35, before having been able to exploit his materials, his achievement has not received the attention and praise that it deserved, and therefore the following details may be welcome. He took more than 2,550 double-sided disks from the lips of 90 different singers. His recordings include two long epics of 13,000 and 12,000 odd lines (2.200 disks) and 300 other songs, so-called women’s songs (350 disks). In many cases he recorded the same lays or songs from different singers, or twice from the same one after an interval of some days or weeks between the recordings. This enables one to measure individual variations and to understand better the regularities and irregularities of oral transmission. Parry’s work was done at the eleventh hour, when the heroic recitations that he recorded were fast disappearing; but for him immemorial traditions might have been completely lost. These details were obtained from an article by the Hungarian composer Béla Bart6k ( New York Times, June 28, 1942), who investigated the Parry records, being especially interested in their musical aspects. See also Harry Levin, “Portrait of a Homeric scholar,” Classical J. 32, 259–266 (1937), with bibliography of Parry’s writings.
330 Various examples of that ability, which seems almost uncanny to us, are quoted by Solomon Gandz, “The dawn of literature,” Osiris 7, 304–308, 353, 384–385, 407 (1939). A few recent French examples are given by Sainte Beuve in his review of Grote’s Histoire de la Grèce (Nouveaux lundis 10, 61, original date 1865). An almost perfect Vaidika (i.e., one who knows the Vedas) is described in a letter to Max Müller dated Bombay 1883; Life and letters of Friedrich Max Miiller (London, 1902), vol. 2, p. 134.
By way of contrast, the following story illustrates the new point of view due to the diffusion of printing. An old “cantast6rie” of Naples was found out by his audience to be blind; he pretended to read the Orlando furioso of Ariosto but instead recited the poem. That discovery finished him in their esteem. See Marc Monnier, Les contes populaires en Italic (Paris, 1880), p. 78. The event occurred in the seventies of the last century.
331 For the sake of comparison: the Chanson de Roland (XI–2) was completed some three centuries after the events that inspired its creation.
332 Iliad, II, 494–779.
333 In terms of Egyptian chronology, the events described date from the Twentieth Dynasty (1200–1090) or the Twenty-first (1090–945); the poem dates from the Twenty second or Libyan Dynasty (945–745).
334 Iliad VI, 168–169; pempe de min Lyci nde , poren d’ ho ge s mata lygra grapsas en pinaci ptyct i thymophthora polla.
The word grapsas should not deceive us. The early meaning of graph was to scratch; later, much later, it was taken to mean delineate, draw (Herodotos, II, 41), or write (Herodotos I, 125 ). The word, anagign sc , meaning to know well, to recognize, was first used to mean reading by Pindar (c. 522–442), and epilegomai was first used with that same meaning by Herodotos (I, 124, 125, etc.). Before Pindar there was no word for reading. The Syrian word biblion was first used by Herodotos to mean paper, a letter, and by Aristotle to mean a book.
335 The earliest Western epic is also the largest. It contains 15,693 verses. Here are a few figures concerning other epics for the sake of comparison. The Odyssey contains 12,110 lines, the Aeneid 9,895, the Divina Commedia 14,233, Paradise Lost 10,565. “The man put on trial for love” or “tormented by love” ( Er tocritos ), composed probably in the first half of the sixteenth century and ascribed to Bitzentzos ho Cornaros (Vincenzo Comaro) of Sitia in Crete, extends to 11,400 political verses (verses of eight plus seven syllables). The two Yugoslavian epics mentioned above contain 13,000 and 12,000 lines. It is remarkable that all those poems are of the same order of magnitude, the longest being about 50 percent longer than the shortest. It is true, the Chanson de Roland (XI–2) and the Byzantine epic Digen s Acritas, prior to the fourteenth century are both somewhat shorter — less than 5,000 lines each. See Karl Krumbacher, Ceschichte der byzantintschen Literatur (Munich, ed. 2, 1897), pp. 827–832, 870–871; Henri Grégoire, Digenis Akritas (New York, 1942) [ Isis 34, 263 (1942–43)].
On the other hand, Eastern epics are considerably longer. The Mah bh rata measures c. 220,000 lines, the R m yana c. 48,000, the Sh hn ma of Firdawsi (XI–1) 80,000, the Mathnawl of Jal l al-d n-i-R m (XIII-2), 26,660 couplets. That is typical of Eastern extravagance. The size of the Western epics is more appropriate to the human size and to the length of human life.
336 The contrast between Greek and Latin literature is great in that respect. Homer appears at the beginning or before the beginning of the Greek age; Vergil on the contrary lived from 683 to 734 U.C. (70–19 B.C.). The Romans had reached political maturity and obtained considerable international power before they were able to boast a literature worthy of a great nation. By the end of the second Punic war (201 B.C.) their literary achievements were still of an inferior nature; it was only after the conquest of Greece half a century later that their literary ambition was fully awakened.
337 The idea that the Iliad and the Odyssey are of separate authorship is not by any means new. It goes back to early Hellenistic times, say to the third century B.C. when the scholars entertaining it were called hoi ch rizontes (the separators), yet their opinion was generally rejected.
338 For a detailed comparison see Carl Rothe, Die Odyssee als Dichtung und ihr Verhältnis zur Ilias. (370 pp.; Paderborn, 1914).
339 The Egyptians have left us short stories but no full-sized novel.
340 Werner Jaeger, Paideia, the ideals of Greek culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 1939), vol. 1, p. 28 [ Isis 32, 375–376 (1949)].
341 Ex arch s cath’ Hom ron epei memath casi pantes. Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin: Weidmann, ed. 5, 1934), vol. 1, p. 131, frag. 10.
342 Nemean II, 1–2. Hom ridai rhapt n epe n aoidoi.
343 The first canonic text of Homer was established when Peisistratos was dictator of Athens. After his death in 527, that text was lost or neglected. Yet the Homeric poems were kept alive, by public and private recitations, e.g., in the national festivals, Panathenaia, held every year, but chiefly in the musical contests of the Greater Panathenaia held every fifth year (these Homeric recitations had been introduced by Peisistratos). The existence of that early text is proved by the many quotations made by Herodotos, Plato, Xenophon, quotations that can be readily (if not always literally) identified in our editions. Two other Hellenic editions ( diorth seis ) are mentioned, the one prepared by the poet Antimachos of Claros (near Colophon, Ionia), who flourished toward the end of the Peloponnesian War, and the other prepared by Aristotle for Alexander the Great, who carried it with him in all his campaigns.
The scientific study of the text began only in the Hellenistic age, however. Zenodotos of Ephesos (III–I B.C.), first librarian of the Museum of Alexandria, has been described as the “first” editor (diorth t s); he is said to have produced before 274 the “first” edition of the Iliad and theOdyssey. Zenodotos was certainly not the first editor, but he was a better philologist than his predecessors. It is probable that the division of each epic into 24 books was due to him. The third and fourth librarians of the Museum, Aristophanes of Byzantium ( II–I B.C.) and Aristarchos of Samothracc (II–I B.C.), improved considerably Cenodotos’ methods; the text familiar to us was established by them. Yet Didymos of Alexandria (I–2 B.C.) corrected Aristarchos’ edition. And so on. The history of Homeric learning is a good cross section of the history of Greek scholarship.
344 Ho pat r epimelumenos hop s an r agathos genoim n , nancase me panta ta Hom ru ep mathein. Xenophon, Symposium, m, 5.
345 Republic, 606z.
346 W. Helbig, Das homerische Epos aus dem Denkmälern erläutert (362 pp., ill.; Leipzig, 1884; 2nd ed., 480 pp., Leipzig, 1887). Martin P. Nilsson, Homer and Mycenae (296 pp., 52 ills., 4 maps; London: Methuen, 1933). Helbig’s book was very imperfect especially because he mixed up Mycenaean antiquities with Greek and even Etruscan ones; Nilsson’s book contains many debatable points, but the main thesis is beyond question. H. L. Lorimer, Homer and the monuments (575 pp., ill.; New York: Macmillan, 1950).
347 ceanos apsorroos. Iliad, XVIII, 399; Odyssey, xx, 65.
348 Iliad, xxi, 195–197.
349 l tros gar an r poll n antaxios. all n. Iliad, XI, 514.
350 Iliad XVI, 28.
351 Odyssey, IV, 220–221.
352 The Latin word praecordia offers the same ambiguities.
353 Such mistakes are easily explainable. We are tempted to localize our emotions not in the brain where they originate but in the heart where we actually feel them. Indeed, emotions modify the heart beat and may even cause distressing palpitations.
354 Odyssey, XVII, 297.
355 Odyssey, XVII, 383–386.
356 The Olympiads were periods of four years separating the successive athletic festivals held in Olympia, Elis. The first Olympiad (776–773) was reckoned from the victory of Coroibos of Elis in the footrace of 776. The dating by Olympiads was not systematized until much later, by Timaios of Tauromenium in Sicily (III–1 B.C.).
357 Iliad , XVIII, 590.
358 Unless some prophets of the Old Testament –Amos, Hosea, Micah, and Isaiah–anticipate Homer, but that is doubtful even in the case of Amos.
359 There are not simply references to the rhapsodists in the papyri but actual Homeric texts, many of them. For example, see Paul Collart, “Les papyrus de l‘Iliade” in Pierre Chantraine, P. Collart and René Langumier, Introduction à l’Iliade (304 pp.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1942). Three hundred seventy-two papyri containing fragments of the Iliad are known, plus 35 containing commentaries, scholia, paraphrases; these 407 papyri date from the third century B.C. to the seventh after Christ. Their number increases to the third century after Christ, then decreases together with Egyptian Hellenism. See Chronique d’Egypte, No. 36 (1943), p. 315.
360 The Iliad was translated into Arabic only in very recent times by Sulaym n al-Bust n and first printed in Cairo in 1904. That is a curiosity of Arabic literature of no interest for the study of Homeric tradition.
361 To be sure, the Vergilian tradition continued the Homeric one; our statement refers to Homer independently of Vergil.
362 Télémaque was composed probably in 1693–94; its first publication in 1699 was due to the indiscretion of a copyist. The first approved edition, not essentially different from the many previous ones, was published only in 1717, two years after the death of the Archbishop of Cambrai, by the care of a collateral descendant, the marquis de Fénelon.
363 In the nineteenth century Télémaque had long ceased to be considered a liberal book and had become on the contrary very conservative and gradually even out of date. May I be permitted to tell the following anecdote? My paternal grandmother, who had been educated in a French conventual school, often told me that Télémaque was one of her main textbooks. The nuns had led her to believe that Télémaque contained every (proper) word in the French language! The main point is this, that white the Abrégé de l’histoire sainte (or some other such book) taught her the Hebrew and Christian traditions, Télémaque inculcated in her mind the Homeric and Greek ones.
Télémaque was translated into Japanese from the English in 1879, under the title Heneromu monogatari. It was written in the style of the ancient Japanese romances, a metrical prose with Chinese flavor. G. B. Sansom, The Western world and Japan (New York: Knopf 1950), pp. 400, 403 [Isis 42, 163 (1951)]. Thus did Greek thought interpreted by a Frenchman of the seventeenth century reach the Far East two centuries later.
364 My dating of the Aethiopica is based on the discussion of R. M. Rattenbury in the edition of it published by the Association Guillaume Budé (2 vols.; Paris, 1935–1938); it is conjectural. The identification of the author with the bishop is not certain.
365 Aethiopica, III, 14.
366 More critical writers like Pausanias (II-2) in his Description of Greece, x, 24, 3, and Philostratos of Lemnos ( III–1 ) in his Hér icos, XVIII. 1–3, dealing with the Trojan war, preferred to admit their ignorance concerning Homer’s origin.
367 Published in 3 vols. (Ghent, 1806). We reproduce the programmatic title page from the copy kindly lent by the Library of Congress. The same title page appears in each of the three volumes. The last line of the subtitle reads: “Que les poètes Homère et Hésiode sont originaires de la Belgique, &.” For information on the author see the notice in vol. 1, pp. (9)–(16) and the article by Edm. De Busscher in Biographic nationale de Belgique (Brussels, 1876). vol. 5, pp. 114–127.
368 Olaus Rudbeck, Atlantica (1679–1689). New edition by Axel Nelson published by the Swedish History of Science Society (Uppsala, 1937, 1938, 1941) [ Isis 30, 114–119 (1939); 31, 175 (1939–40); 33, 71 (1941–42)].
369 We are remarkably well documented about the life and works of Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824). See Wilhelm Körte, Leben und Schriften Friedr. Aug. Wolf’s, des Philologen (2 vols.; Essen, 1833); J. F. J. Amoldt, Fr. Aug. Wolf in seinem Verhältnisse zum Schulwesen und zur Paedagogik (2 vols.; Brunswick, 1861-62); Victor Bérard, Un mensonge de la science allemande (300 p.; Paris, 1917); Siegfried Reiter, F. A. Wolf. Ein Leben in Briefen (3 vols.; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1935), including autobiographical fragment (vol. 2, pp. 337–345).
370 “Ignorance” is written from the philologists’ point of view. Schliemann was not a well-trained scholar but a self-taught amateur. Yet he knew Homer by heart; he knew the words and the things that they signified to Greek imagination. He had taken the trouble of mastering modern Greek and could discuss native lore unceasingly with his Greek wife (since 1869) and friends, with Greek schoolmasters, sailors, and shepherds, with the most learned men of Hellas as well as with the humblest. In these respects his equipment was immeasurably superior to that of the average philologist.
371 He had to stand much criticism not only from the armchair philologists but also from archaeologists finding fault with his methods from the point of view of later improvements. For a fair appreciation by a professional archaeologist, see Stanley Casson (1889–1944), The discovery of man(London: Harper, pp. 226–227 [ Isis 33, 302–303 (1941–42)].
372 Paroimia, Cata ten paroimian - as the saying goes (Plato). A list of Greek proverbs will be found in Hermann Bonitz, Index aristotelicus (Berlin, 1870), p. 570.
373 Ei caca tis speirai, caca cerdea c’améseien. Hesiod, fragment in Loeb Classical Library ed., p. 74.
374 Ego de ce ... et tyma myth saim n. Works and days, line 10.
375 According to Thucydides, III, 96, the murder took place near the temple of Zeus in Nemea, Argolis, but this may be due to a misunderstanding. The memory of Hesiod’s death is preserved in the following graceful lines written by Alcaios of Messena c. 200 a.c. “When in the shady Locrian grove Hesiod lay dead, the Nymphs washed his body with water from their own springs, and heaped high his grave: and thereon the goat-herds sprinkled offerings of milk mingled with yellow-honey: such was the utterance of the nine Muses that he breathed forth, that old man who had tasted of their pure springs.” The first line of the Greek text ( Anthologia graeca, VII, 55) is
Locridos en nemeï scier necyn H siodoio.
The word to nemos (nemus) means a wooded pasture, a glade; the proper name Nemea is derived from it. Thucydides may have confused a common name with a proper one.
376 The Boeotians were supposed to be dull and slowwitted and the Athenians liked to make fun of them. That bad reputation, whether deserved or not, is perpetuated by the English words Boeotia and Boeotian.
377 Works and days, lines 109–201.
378 Ibid ., lines 383–694.
379 bid ., lines 383–404, 582–596. The quotations are from the translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White in the Loeb Classical Library, pp. 31, 47 (1914).
380 The first editors of the Works and days realized this. Indeed the early editions included not only the Works and days but also the Idyls of Theocritos of Syracuse (fl. 285–270).
381 S. N. Kramer, Scientific American (New York, November 1951), pp. 54–55.
382 Works and days, lines 727–732:
383 Ibid.; Loeb, p. 65.
384 Descent of the Gods, lines 29–34.
385 Ibid ., Loeb, p. 81.
386 Iliad . 1, 70.
387 Eg eimi pan to gegonos cai on cai eso-menon cai ton emon peplon udeis p thn tos apecalypsen. Plutarch, Isis and Osiris , 354 c.
388 Hesiod is mentioned by name in line 22 of the Theogony. This may be understood as a reference to the Hesiod who wrote the Works and days by the (different, later) author of the Theogony. Could it not be understood as well as a reference by the poet to himself?
389 According to the most recent calculations the dates of Hammurabi are now 1728 to 1686 and the other dates would have to be changed accordingly. The main point is that all those Babylonian kings were much anterior to Greek “historic” times.
390 For a comparison of the Assyrian codes with earlier codes and bibliography on the subject, see James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern texte (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950 pp. 159–223 [Isis 42, 75 (1951)].
391 Ashshur (or Ashur) on the upper Tigris, below Mawsul. The word Ashur appears in the names of many Assyrian kings and our word Assyrian is itself derived from it. The term “Assyriolo-gist” is used to designate students not only of Assyrian antiquities, but also of Mesopotamian antiquities in general. This is due to the accident that Assyrian monuments and documents were the first to he discovered and investigated.
392 There is, of course, a confusion between the real woman and the legendary one and, as always happens, all kinds of legends clustered around the mythical person. The name became proverbial. Margrete of Denmark ( 1353–1412), who ruled the three Scandinavian kingdoms, was called the Semiramis of the North (Introduction, vol. 3, p. 1021 and the same epithet was bestowed upon Catherine II of Russia (1729–1796).
393 This is the Biblical Sargon. He is named Sargon II with reference to an earlier king of Assyria, Sharrukin I (2000–1982), not to the king of Accad, Sharrukin (2637–2582).
394 For general guidance see the histories of ancient art. Cyril John Gadd, The Assyrian sculptures (78 pp., 18 pis.; London: British Museum, 1934). Gorges Contenau, Les antiquités orlentales au Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1928), pls. 5–20.
395 The sexuality of phanerogams was clearly explained for the first time by Rudolf Jacob Camerarius in 1694. For the interpretation of the Assyrian bas-rellefs see G. Sarton, “The artificial fertilization of date palms in the time of Ashur-nasir-pal,” Isis 21, 8–13, (1934), 2 pls. Also S. Candz,Isis 23, 245–250 (1935); G. Sarton, Isis 26, 95–98 (1936). Nell Perrot, Les représentations de l‘arbre sacré sur les monuments de Mésopo-tamie et d’Elam (144 pp., 32 pis.; Paris: Geuthner, 1937) [Isis 30, 365 (1939)].
396 The majority of the clay tablets preserved in the world’s museums were dug out by natives for sale to dealers in antiquities; in many cases their exact provenience is unknown. This considerably decreases their value, unless their provenience and date can be determined from the text that they carry.
397 There are many tablets bearing the library mark of Ashur-bani-pal’s great grandfather Sargon, but Sergon’s library is lost. All the tablets of the royal library bore a label (just like books in our libraries). The simplest label read: “Palace of Ashur-bani-pal, King of the world, King of Assyria.” As the number of tablets grew and the text of the labels was lengthened, stamps were prepared by means of which the whole label could be printed at once. Among the historical documents is an autobiography of Ashur-bani-pal, the greater part of which is devoted to his education; that is the only autobiography of an Assyrian king. See A. T. Olmstead, History of Assyria (New York, 1923), pp. 489–503.
398 As quoted by Edward Chiera (1885–1933) in his excellent book, They wrote on clay (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938).
399 Except perhaps such a man as Seloucos the Babylonian (II–I B.C.)?
400 Or Nebuchadnezzar. He was the second king of that name; the first, who belonged to the Second Isin dynasty, ruled from 1146 to 1123.
401 Strabon called them Naburianos and Cidenas (Geography XVI, 1, 6).
402 To complete this history, Babylonia was gov-emed by the Parthians (Arsncid dynasty) from 171 B.C. to A.D. 226, then by the Sasanian dynasty, 226–641, which was dispossessed by the Muslims.
403 Introduction, vol, 1, 71.
404 At least one astronomer of the Seleucid period is known by name, Seleucos the Babylonian (II–1 B.C.), who is a good illustration of the chronological confusion caused by uncritical scholars. For this Babylonian was a follower of Aristarchos of Samos (III–1 B.C.). That is, far from being capable of influencing Greek science, he was himself influenced by an Hellenistic astronomer!
405 Pindar, Olympian ode , VII, 36.
406 The word is correct if one considers only its original meaning: miraculum, a wonderful or marvelous thing; it has become objectionable because of its use in the English Bible to designate a divine or prophetic sign ( oth, s meion ) or an act of divine power ( dynamis ).
407 John Burnet,?”Who was Javan?” a paper read 1912; Essays and addresses (London, 1929), pp. before the Classical Association of Scotland in 84–101.
408 The term physiologia has the same meaning as our phrase natural philosophy, or physics (in a broad sense). The names of our sciences have been derived from Greek in the most capricious way, and in many cases it is impossible to deduce their inteneted meaning from the etymology. Thus, geography is a science of the earth and geology is another, but astrology is a superstition. The meaning of physiology is now restricted to the study of the functions of living creatures, or even more so, to the study of the functions of the human body.
409 In extreme cases where no communications existed the oneness did not apply to the isolated parts, yet it existed potentially, for all men are built in the same way and have the same brains, the same passions, the same desires. For example. before 1492, the Americas were essentially cut out from the rest of the world and the Americans were then natural “isolationists.” It is of great interest to compare their solutions of many problems with the solutions attained in the rest of the world. Those solutions were different, but not essentially different, for the American mind was a human mind and the American problems were human problems. New solutions occurred when the data of the problems were new, for example, when the native Americans domesticated or used plants and animals that did not exist elsewhere.
410 The usual name for a prophet in the Old Testament is nabi , but the earlier name was roeh , or seer, as is explicitly stated in 1 Samuel 9:9, also hozeh , with the same meaning. The word always used in the New Testament is the same as ours, prophét s.
411 Doubts have been expressed concerning the reality of Lao Tz , or his date, and many scholars consider the “classic” ascribed to him, Tao tê ching , as a much later creation. The kernel of Taoism, however, dates back at least to the sixth century. See Homer H. Dubs [1941; Isis 34, 238, 423 (1942–43)] and Arthur Waley, The way and its power (London: Allen and Unwin, 1934).
412 First help in Introduction, vol. 1, pp. 66–70.
413 Details in Isis 21, 314 (1934).
414 The twelve main cities of Ionia, forming at times a confederation, were Miletos, Myos, Priene, Samos, Ephesos, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythrai, Chios, Clazomenai, and Phocnia. The first three were on the coast of Caria, the others on the coast of Lydia (north of Caria). Smyrna (of Aeolian, not Ionian, origin) was conquered by Colophon c. 688 and remained an Ionian city afterward.
415 It is one of the few towns mentioned by Homer ( Iliad n, 847 ) in “Crete of a hundred cities” ( Crete hecatompolis ) .
416 The importance of olive oil in the Mediterranean economy of that age can hardly be exaggerated. Oil took the place of butter with us, to some extent that of soap, and it was used for lighting.
417 Croesus (Croisos), son of Alyattes, was the last independent king of Lydia; he ruled from 560 to 546, when he was vanquished by Cyros. We still use his name to designate a very rich man, and his life, to illustrate an old adage, quoted to him by Solon, that no man should be deemed happy until his life is happily ended. Croesus was allowed to live by his conqueror, actually survived him, and accompanied the latter’s son, Cambyses, in the expedition to Egypt (525).
418 This explains why Miletos, so very important in the history of science of the sixth century, ceases to attract our attention later.
419 The criticism has been carried out almost to the limit by scholars such as Tannery, Burnet, Diels, etc. See bibliography at the end of this chapter.
420 For a brief account of ancient Miletos, see Adelaide Glynn Dunham. The history of Miletus down to the anabasis of Alexander (164 pp. 4 maps; London, 1915).
421 The earliest list is that given by Plato ( Protagoras, 343); it is the same as the most popular one, which we have quoted, except that the tyrant Periandros is replaced by Myson of Chenae, a hardly known person of an unknown place. It was said that Plato rejected Periandros because of his being a tyrant.
422 Barkowski, “Sieben Weise,” Pauly-Wissowa, ser. 2, vol. 4 (1923). pp. 2242–2264. Bruno Snell, Leben und Meinungen der Sieben Weisen (Tusculum Bücher; 182 pp.; München: Heimeran, 1938). Convenient collection of the traditions in Greek (or Latin) and German.
423 In an early edition in the Harvard Library, Septem sapientium et eorum qui cum its adnum-erantur apophtegmata, conasilia et praecepta (19 pp. in Greek only; Paris, 1554), I find a large number of sayings ascribed to the Seven Wise Men (list as quoted at the beginning of this section ) and three others — Anacharsis, Myson, and Pherecydes of Syros (one of the Cyclades). For example, the sayings credited to Thales cover two pages. Is that edition the Greek princeps? The princeps of a similar collection in Latin, Dicta septem sapientum Graeciae (8 leaves), was printed at Cologne by Johann Guldenschaff c. 1477–1487; see the Catalogue of books printed in the XVth century, now in the British Museum (London, 1908), vol. 1, p. 256, and Arnold C. Klebs, “Incunabula acienti8ca ct medica,” Osiris 4, 1–359 (1938), No. 905.
424 Herodotos, 1.
425 The stories of the Seven Wise Men (of Greece) should not be confused with those concerning the “seven sages” of Rome. The two cycles have points of contact but are not only independent but very different. The second is definitely of Oriental origin; its popularity East and West was considerable; witness the existence of versions in many languages. The literature on the subject is very large; the following items may suffice for general guidance. Killis Campbell, A study of the romance of the seven sages with special reference to the Middle English versions (108 pp.; Baltimore, 1898); The seven sages of Rome (332 pp.; Boston, 1907 edition of Middle English text with notes. Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 11, p. 383 (1905). Carra de Vaux, “Sindib d-n me, Syntipas,” Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 4, p. 435 (1927). Jean Misrahi, Le roman des sept sages (170 pp.; Paris: Droz, 1933), an early French text.
426 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 983B.
427 Herodotos, 1, 170.
428 Ibid, 1, 74.
429 De anima, 405A.
430 Osiris 2, 415–416 (1936).
431 Stephen Langdon, “The Babylonian conception of the logos,” J. Roy. Asiatic Soc. (1918), pp. 433–449 [ Isis 4, 423 (1921–22)].
432 Qur’ n 21:30.
433 Aristotle, Politics 1, 1259A.
434 It has always been the ambition of every noble minded son of Hellas that he might obtain enough money to help his people and be hailed and remembered as the benefactor ( everget s ) of his country or his village.
435 Similar observations were made by the Chinese at Yang-ch‘êng (modern Kao-ch’êng Chên, Honan) during the Chou dynasty (c. 1027–256), a tower being used as a gnomon; Isis 34, 68 (1942–43).
436 The diagram of Fig. 46 will refresh the reader’s knowledge. A gnomon is placed at O ; its maximum and minimum shadows OS 1 and OSs are cast at noon of the two solstices. The corresponding angles a 1 and a 2 are the zenith distances of the sun at those times. As the sun travels equal distances north and south of the equator, the average of the two zenith distances is the angle between the equator and the zenith; this is also the declination of the zenith at O , or the latitude at O . Thus φ = ½ (a 1 + a 2 ). The obliquity of the ecliptic ω is given by the equation ω = ½ (a 1 –a 2 ).
437 The geographic aspect of Anaximandros’ work has been over-emphasized by William Arthur Heidel, “Anaximandros’ book, the earliest known geographical treatise,” Proc. Am. Acad. Arts Sci. 56, 237–288 (1921).
438 According to Simplicios (VI–1), Anaximandros was the first to use the word arch with that meaning (preserved in English, as in archetype).
439 Holon ton cosmon pneuma cai a r periechei. Anaximenes, frag. 2.
440 The spirit of God, pneuma theu (Genesis 1:2). The Septuagint dates from the first half of the third century B.C. The word pneuma occurs frequently in the New Testament with the meanings of breath, spirit, ghost, life.
441 The experience is curious but deceiving, and Anaximenes’ conclusion was the opposite of the truth. As we know, adiabatic compression increases the temperature, while adiabatic dilatation decreases it.
442 In a fragment ( No. 34 ) of Democritos (V B.C.) we have anthr pos micros cosmos and he is said to have written treatises entitled megas cosmos and micros cosmos. The idea of microcosm and macrocosm was probably not uncommon after that, yet the terms were used by Latin writers rather than Greek ones. Microcosmos is listed in H. Stophanus, Thesaurua graecae linguae (Paris: Didot, no date), vol. 5, p. 1052 (orig. pub. Paris: Stophanus, 1572).
443 Natural history, 11, 6, 31.
444 The zodiac is generally conceived as a belt of about 16° of latitude, divided in two by the ecliptic. The exact width does not matter.
445 Our word signs or the Latin signa is a translation of the Greek s meia, meaning signs of the gods, omina. It is possible that Cleostratos was first to use that word in its technical zodiacal meaning, especially with reference to Aries and Sagittarius. The word zodiac, z diacos ( cyclos ) refers to the living signs; the usual Latin translation was signifer, “signifero in orbe qui Graeco z diacos dicitur” ( Cicero, De divinatione II, 42, 89). The term “signs of the zodiac” is ambiguous, for it may refer to twelve divisions of the zodiacal belt, extending to 30° of longitude each, or it may refer to the constellations characteristic of each division. In the absence of texts we cannot say which of these two ideas was foremost in Cleostratos’ mind. We cannot say whether he recognized twelve signs, or only two, or some.
446 Elea is south of Paestum; its modern name is Castellammare di Veglia (or della Bruca). The tradition of Xenophanes’ stay in Elea, not to mention his foundation of the Eleatic school, is very weak. He had a good reason for going to Elea, however, for a colony of Phocaeans had been established there ( c . 543, 536?) soon after the Persian conquest of Ionia. It would have been very tempting for him to go and see his country men, who were political refugees like himself.
447 Quoted after Arthur Stanley Pease, “Fossil fishes again,” Isis 33, 689–690 (1942). The reader should be warned that this extract is of relatively late tradition, being taken from that rich source of ancient knowledge, the Philosophical Subjects ( ta philosophumena ) of St. Hippolytos (III–1). The idea of a general flood belongs to the folklore of many nations; for the Greek people it was represented by the myths of Deucalion and Pyrrha, who were saved from destruction and became the original ancestors of the Hellenic race.
448 From that time on Aethiopia (or Abyssinia) was definitely separated from Egypt.
449 Hoplisthentas chalcõ. Herodotos, II, 152.
450 The fortified city of Pelusium, east of the eastemmost mouth of the Nile, was the key to Egypt on the northeast side.
451 The artistic masterpiece of the age is probably the head of a man with broken nose, in green basalt, now in the Berlin Museum and often reproduced. It makes one think of a monument of the Old Kingdom.
452 We hear echoes of this in the Old Testament: Jeremiah 46:1–12; 2 Kings 24:7.
453 the Branchidai were the descendents of Branchos, himself the son of Apollo and of a Milesian woman. They were hereditary priests administering the oracle of Apollo Didymaios at Didyma, near Miletos. Xerxes (king of Persia, 485–65) exiled them to Bactria or to Sogdiana, across the Oxos river.
454 Herodotos, 11, 158.
455 Ibid., IV, 42.
456 H. F. Tozer, History of ancient geography, ed. 2 by M. Cary (Cambridge: University Press, 1935), pp. 98-101. Tozer is unconvinced, however, and thinks that an ingenious storyteller might have deliberately invented that fact to give credence to his story. I can not believe that Herodotos and his informants were such sophisticated liars. For medieval stories of African circumnavigation see Introduction, vol. 2, p. 1062; vol. 3, pp. 803, 1892); those stories are less convincing than Herodotos’. Note that the medieval circumnavigations took place, if they took place at all, in the opposite direction. The same is true of the first turning around the Cape of Good Hope eastward by Bartholomeu Dias in 1488 and the first (almost complete) circumnavigation by Vasco da Gama in 1498.
457 There are no ruins to be seen today in Naucratis (nor in Sais), but Naucratis was excavated by Flinders Petrie and many small objects were brought to light. See his report, Naukratis (2 vols.; London, 1886–1888).
458 To Hell nion. It was perhaps more than a sanctuary, but the whole or a part of the Greek factory including temples to the Greek divinities, theoi Hell nioi.
459 Let me just indicate ( I cannot do more here, but must do that much), the evident Egyptian in-fiuences in the so-called Archaic Greek sculpture. The early curoi stand erect like Egyptians, with the characteristic thrusting forward of the left foot. Compare an album of Egyptian sculpture with Gisela M. A. Richter, Kouroi. A study of the development of the Greek kouros from the late seventh to the early fifth century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942).
460 The destruction of Miletos in 494 shocked the Greek people profoundly; it united and strengthened them. They defeated a Persian army in Marathon in 490, delayed another one at the pass of Thermopylae in 480, and won the naval victory of Salamis in the same year. The Persians were finally beaten on land at Plataea and their fleet at Mycale in 479. The naval victory of Mycale, so close to Miletos, was the best revenge of the sack of that city fifteen years previously.
461 This Demetrios of Phaleron (one of the harbors of Athens) was an orator who obtained such popularity that the Athenians erected 360 statues to him. Later they tired of him and condemned him to death. He fled to Egypt, where he helped the first Ptolemy to create the library of Alexandria; the second Ptolemy, Philadelphos (ruled 285—247) exiled him to Upper Egypt where he died of a snake-bite. His treatise on explanation ( peri herm neias ), whence our quotation is taken, may be the work of another Demetrios of Alexandria.
462 Müller, fragment 332 (1841). Hecataios Mil sios h de mytheitai; tade graph , h s moi al thea doceei einai; hoi gar Hell n n logoi polloi te cai geloioi, h s emoi phainontai, eisin.
463 This summary is derived from the fragments and from Herodotos iv, 36, assuming that the geographic views he makes fun of are Hecataian.
464 Müller, fragments 292-294.
465 Gel de hore n g s periodus grapsantas pollus h d ( Herodotos, iv, 36), “I laugh to see how many have drawn maps of the earth.” In this context periodos g s means map rather than verbal description, and graph , to draw rather than to write.
466 Herodotos, v, 49.
467 This Cleomenes was king of Sparta from 520 to 491; Aristagoras visited him before 499 (the Spartans refused to help him, but the Athenians did). Aristagoras obtained some temporary success and captured Sardis in 499, but after that the Persians had the upper hand. He fled to Thrace, where he was slain in 497, before the destruction of Miletos.
468 Herodotos, 11, 19–25.
469 Et siai anemoi, periodic winds blowing from the northwest during the summer; or, in the Aegean Sea, for 40 days from the rising of the Dog Star (Sirius). The word et siai in this context is equivalent to monsoon (Arabic mawsim, maw sim, season).
470 See the map, or Müller, fragment 278.
471 The true explanation was given by Aristotle (IV–2 B.C.). The inundation of Egypt is caused by tropical rains in the highlands of the Blue and White Nile, occurring in the spring and early summer. On this subject see Introduction, vol. 1, p. 136; vol. 3, p. 1844.
472 He is said to have introduced the religion of the Cretan goddess Rhea, wife of Cronos, mother of Zeus and other gods, later identified with the Phrygian “Great Mother.” One can easily imagine that that bold innovation scandalized and frightened the Scythians. Indeed, Anacharsis was smuggling in with Rhea — in potentia — the whole of Greek mythology.
473 Bellows were used in Egypt at least as early as the Eighteenth Dynasty, the potter’s wheel as early as the First Dynasty. See Alfred Lucas, Ancient Egyptian materials and industries (Lon don: Edward Arnold, ed. 3, 1948), p. 246 ( Isis 43); Flinders Petrie, Wisdom of the Egyptians(London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1940), p. 133 [ Isis 34 , 261 (1942–43)]. For the anchor, see F. M. Feldhaus, Die Technik (Leipzig, 1914), p. 930; Albert Neuburger, The technical arts and sciences of the ancients (London, 1930), p. 493.
474 Elaborate biography by Maurice Badolle, L’abbé Jean-Jacques Barthélemy (1716–95) et l’hellénisme en France dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle (414 pp.; Paris, 1927). Barthélemy was born in Cassis, Provence, but spent most of his life in Paris; he never visited Greece! He was not only a very distinguished Hellenist, but an Orientalist as well. He was one of the founders of numismatics (1750), deciphered a Palmyrene inscription (1754). and was the first interpreter of Phoenician (1758). He was a professional numismatist, being the director of the Cabinet Royal des Médailles, whose holdings were more than doubled during his administration. His popular fame is based exclusively upon the Voyage, to which half of his life was devoted; his scientific fame is based upon many memoirs published by the Académie des Inscriptions and upon the royal collection of coins and medals.
475 “Young Anacharsis” leaves Scythia in 363, and travels to Byzantium, Lesbos, and Thebes (in Boeotia), arriving in Athens a year later. He visits Athens and various parts of Greece, attends Olympic games, and so on. From 354 to 343 he travels in Egypt and Persia, then comes back to Mytilene, where he meets Aristotle. He then returns to Athens but after a while makes a new journey to Asia Minor and the Greek islands, attending the Delos festival. After the battle of Chaironea (338) he goes back to his native country.
476 Anacharsis’ fame at the end of the eighteenth century is illustrated by another amusing fact. The eccentric Baron de Clootz, born in the duchy of Cloves in 1755, a defender of Islam, a French revolutionary, “l’orateur du genre humain,” assumed Anacharsis’ name! This modern Anacharsis was guillotined in 1794. I do not know exactly when he assumed that name, whether it was before the publication of Barthélemy’s book or was a consequence of that publication.
477 Numismatic investigations are an excellent training for accuracy, and Barthélemy’s erudition was of sterling quality; that is, it was as good as it could be at that time, but his work was badly composed. It was too learned and oratorical for a novel, too irregular and chaotic in structure for a manual. It was neither fish nor fowl, yet the public liked it. The imposing display of erudition, gently placed within its reach, flattered its self-esteem.
478 The Greek fashion in France was largely due to a single author, Plutarch (1–2), who was read in French translations, the favorite being that of Jacques Amyot (1513–1593). The love of classical antiquity was partly due to a revulsion from the Middle Ages, and, at the time of the Revolution, to a revulsion from the “Ancien régime” and a return to nature, or to antiquity assumed to be closer to nature.
479 According to Herodotos, 111, 40–42, he had made the emerald ring which Polycrates of Samos threw into the sea in order to appease the gods who might be jealous of his good fortune; a few days later the ring was found in the belly of a fish and brought back to Polycrates. The data concerning Theodoros of Samos are collected in Pauly-Wissowa, ser. 2, vol. 10, pp. 1917–1920 (1934).
480 Ho diabetes. Curiously enough the same word was used by Aretaios (11–2) to name the disease diabetes which he was the first to describe.
481 Photographs of that Egyptian level and other tools may be examined in Somers Clarke and R. Engelbach, Ancient Egyptian masonry (Oxford, 1930), Figs. 263—267.
482 Artemis = Diana of the Romans. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians” (Acts 19:34). The Artemision was burnt by Herostratos of Ephesos, who hoped thereby to immortalize himself, on the very night that Alexander the Great was born (356); it was rebuilt on a magnificent scale. The foundations of the old Artemision were discovered by John Turtle Wood in 1869; Isis 28 , 376–384 (1938).
483 Their methods are described by Vitruvius (1–2 B.C.), De architectura, x, 11–12.
484 Herodotos, III, 60.
485 Remains of that tunnel can be examined today. The undertaking was recorded in an inscription which is now in the museum of Constantinople. The Siloam inscription is the oldest Hebrew inscription of any length. See also 2 Chronicles 32:30. Other tunnels were dug to tap subterranean supplies of water in Transjordan in a place like Shobek, and in Palestine, in places such as Megiddo, Lachish, Gezer. Some of these early tunnels are of great size and represent remarkable engineering feats. Nelson Glueck, The other side of the Jordan (New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1940), p. 17 [ Isis 33, 279–281 (1941–42)]. Glueck does not attempt to date these monuments, which are prehistoric.
486 In chapter 15 of that treatise. See edition of the Peri dioptras by Hermann Schöne in Heronis opera (vol. 3, Leipzig, 1903), pp. 239–241. Curt Merckel, Die Ingenieurtechnik im Altertum (Berlin, 1899), pp. 499–503, 619. Wilhelm Schmidt, “Nivellier-instrument und Tunnelbau im Alter-tume,” Bibliotheca Mathematica 4, 7–12 (1903). Neuburger, The technical arts and sciences of the ancients, pp. 416–417, 420–421.
The noun for tunnel is hyponomos and the verb diorussein.
487 Herodotos, IV, 87–89.
488 Herodotos, IV, 88. The word for bridge is schedia, the meaning of which is not quite clear -raft, float, pontoon, bridge of boats; it must have been some kind of floating bridge. Ed r sato pasi deca means a great gift, abundant gifts.
489 Cadmus Milesius in Charles Müller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris, 1848), (vol. 2, pp. 2–4). Eugeon Samius, ibid., p. 16.
490 In this case also Homer helped a lot. A line like
Zeu te pater cai Ath nal cai Apollon (Iliad, II, 371) put Zeus, Athene, and Apollo in the front line; a kind of superior trinity was constituted.
491 Comparisons with the Catholic religion help us to understand the vicissitudes of the Greek gods. Why was Santiago de Compostela gradually superseded by Loretto, and Loretto by Lourdes? As the cult of the Virgin Mary became more popular, there was a gradual tendency to single out particular shrines and to treat different apparitions of Our Lady almost as if they were different persons. The faithful would pray not to Our Lady, but to a madonna who was closer and presumably more accessible — such as Notre Dame de Hal or Notro Dame de Chartres, Nuestra Señora del Pilar or Nuestra Señora de Guadelupe. Or they would abstract a quality and pray to Notre Dame des Sept Douleurs, to the Madonna della Misericordia, the Madonna dell’ Umiltà, or the Immaculate Conception, even as the Greeks would have prayed for victory to Athene Salpinx, for health to Athene Hygieia, or for wisdom to Pallas Athene.
492 That belief was already established in the time of the poet Pindar (c. 518–442) but was probably earlier.
493 In English it is more common to speak of the Panathenaic games or festival; but in Greek usage Panathenaia often refers to everything — the festival, the games, the musical contest, the sacrifices. The same remarks apply to the Olympia (instead of Olympic games, etc.), the Pythia (instead of Pythian games, etc.), the Isthmia, the Nemeia.
494 Herbert William Parke, History of the Delphic oracle (465 pp., ill.; Oxford: Blackwell 1939) [Isis 35, 250 (1944)].
495 My own confidence in the intrinsic honesty of the average priest and diviner is largely due to the reading of Plutarch (1–2).
496 The word enthusiasm (enthusiasmos) is here used in its original sense. It is derived from en-theos, full of the god, inspired, possessed, and thus means divine inspiration.
497 It is after that very dragon that a group of snakes are named, the Pythonidae, including the largest species. The original Python had been produced from the mud left over after the flood; he lived in a cave of Mount Pamassos. Apollo’s slaying of the Python may symbolize the victory of good over evil, or of sunshine and spring over darkness and winter. One recognizes familiar patterns, occurring under different forms in the mythology of many nations.
498 The Pelasgi (Pelasgoi) were the earliest inhabitants of Greece, but there is no agreement as to their original location: northern Greece, Asia Minor, Crete? The Cabiri were their divinities. The adjective Pelasgic might be replaced by “prehistoric.”
499 The term Magna Graecia is used because it is more accurate than South Italy, but it was unknown in the sixth century. Magna Graecia or Graecia Major ( he megal Hellas ) referred to the Greek colonies of South Italy, never to the whole of that country. Polybios (II–1 B.C.) was the first to use the Greek term, and Livy (1–2 B.C.), the Latin one; Strabo (1–2 B.C.) extended it to the Greek colonies of Sicily. T. J. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks. The history of Sicily and South Italy from the foundation of the Greek colonies to 480 B.C. (518 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948) [Isis 40, 154 (1949)].
500 Speaking of the Egyptians, Herodotos remarks (n, 81), “Nothing of wool is brought into temples, or buried with them; that is forbidden. In this they follow the same rule as the ritual called Orphic and Bacchic, but which is in truth Egyptian and Pythagorean; for neither may those initiated into these rites be buried in woollen wrappings.” There was some truth in Herodotos’ confusion, for Orphism and Pythagoresnism had been mixed up long before his time. The “golden lamellae” found in tombs in Italy and Crete and believed to be Orphic are Pythagorean. F. Cumont, Lux perpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949), pp. 248, 406.
501 Herodotos, IV, 95. He writes Salmoxis but the spelling Zalmoxis is more usual; Zalmos is a Thracian word for skin.
502 The word Magi is the one used by Iamblichos. Magos (derived from Old Persian magush) designated at first the Iranian, Zoroastrian, priests and interpreters; later, Chaldean priests, and magicians. The word magic, by the way, is derived from the same root, h mageia, he magic techn , the science or art of the Magi. Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les mages hellénisés (2 vols.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1938) [Isis 31, 458–462 (1939–40)].
503 Croton (Crot n) or Crotona was then a Greek colony of old standing, having been founded by Achaians and Spartans c. 710. Metapontion was another Achaian colony in the same neighborhood. It is located near Tarentum at the bottom of the gulf, while Croton is at the southwest entrance to it.
504 He died in Metapontion c. 497. When Cicero visited that city c. 78 B.C. he was shown the house where Pythagoras died; De finibus, v, 2, 4.
505 The chronology is not unacceptable. If Pythagoras was 56 in 510, he was born in 566 and may well have known Thales, who lived until c. 548. This would leave very little time for his activities in Croton, however, for he is said to have died in 497. According to the Sicilian historian Timaios of Metapontion (III–1 B.C.), Pythagoras spent twenty years in Croton, the revolt against him and his school occurred in 510 or soon after, and it was then that he moved to Metapontion. He spent perhaps less time in Egypt and Babylonia than Iamblichos tells us.
506 Wool (as distinguished from linen) was taboo as being an animal product. That particular taboo was already referred to in footnote 2. It is interesting to note that while the Pythagorean mystics were forbidden to wear wool, the Muslim ones of a later age were invited to do so; the Arabic term süfi applied to them means woolly!
Some of the Pythagorean taboos are quoted by Plutarch in his life of Numa (ch. 14).
507 Those feelings still exist among us. As to the second, we recognize various animals in ourselves and in our neighbors. When we call one of them a lion or a lamb, a monkey or a fox, a bull or a pig, our meaning is clear and can be transmitted to others without ambiguity. To be sure, we do not press the comparison as far as our ancestors did.
508 That concept was called palingenesia or metensõmatõsis rather than metempsychõsis, much used in English writing. It was not by any means rare; many people shared it more or less–prim-tive people, Hindus and Buddhists, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Jews, Celts, and Teutons;Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 12 (1922), pp. 425–440. For a fuller discussion of Pythagoreanism in general than is possible here, see John Burnet, Ibid., vol. 10 (1919), pp. 520–530.
509 The very use of the word taboo implies an anthropological explanation which was not available until last century. The word taboo or tabu was introduced into English by Captain Cook (1728–1779), who had met with it, and the thing signified, at Tonga (South Pacific); the explanation of its meaning developed slowly during the nineteenth century. See article by R. R. Marett, Ibid., vol. 12 (1922), pp. 181–185.
510 Here are a few of the Pythagorean taboos: not to pick up what has fallen, not to touch a white cock, not to break bread, not to eat from a whole loaf, not to stir the fire with an iron poker, not to allow swallows to nest under one’s roof. We need not smile or feel superior about that, for other taboos, neither better nor worse, inhibit the lives of our contemporaries, if not our own lives.
511 As quoted by Sir Thomas Heath, History of Greek Mathematics (Oxford, 1921), vol. 1, p. 66, Pherecydes of Syros, son of Babys. “Wise man,” cosmologist or physiologist of the sixth century; sometimes quoted as Pythagoras’ teacher. Kurt von Fritz, Pauly-Wissowa, vol. 38, pp. 2025–2033 (1938).
512 In the Parthenon there are 8 columns at each end and 17 along each side, that Is, 46 in all.
513 Pythagoras knew that the fourth triangular number is ten. It was very tempting to develop the mystical consequences of that fact; how much of that elaboration was already due to him, how much to later Pythagoreans, it is impossible to say. The elaboration of Pythagorean arithmetic can be followed for a thousand years, glimpses of its maturity occurring in Nicomachos of Gerasa (I–2) and in Iamblichos (IV–1). In the latter’s arithmetical theology, Theologumena t s arithm tic s (note the title!), the sacredness of the tetractys is emphasized. The decad represents the universe; are there not 10 fingers, 10 toes, etc.? Martin Luther D’Ooge, Nicomachos (New York, 1926), notes on pp. 219, 267 [Isis 9, 120–123 (1927)]. The reference to the decimal basis of numeration was implicit; it is remarkable that no Pythagorean thought of making it explicit.
514 The same word gn m n was used previously to designate an astronomical instrument, the vertical index of a sundial. The new mathematical meaning was derived from the fact that the word was used for a carpenter’s square (Latin, norma ).
515 The earliest occurrence of them is in a Halicarnassian inscription of 450 B.C.; Heath, History of Creek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 32. They may have been used for humbler purposes before that, though the Greeks probably made all their computations with some kind of abacus or with pebbles. Whichever the method of reckoning, the Crook number words prove that the number baso and the abacus were decimal. The Greek word for pebble was ps phos. Horodotos uses the expression ps phois iogizesthai to mean “calculate” in the sentence, “The Greeks write and calculate by moving the hand from left to right” (n. 36). The verb ps phizo expresses the same idea. Compare our words “calculus,” “calculate,” derived from calculus, a pebble. For the abacus, see note 20 below. The use of pebbles is of course much older than that of the abacus; the abacus is a machine devised for a better utilization of the pebbles (or their equivalent).
516 Facsimile reproduction in Osiris 5, 138 (1938).
517 Johannes Tropfke, Geschichte der Elementar-Mathemallk (Berlin, ed. 3, 1930), vol. 1, p. 144. David Eugene Smith, History of Mathematics (Boston, 1925), vol. 2, p. 124 [Isis 8, 221–225 (1926)].
518 The best history of the abacus is in Smith, History of Mathematics, vol. 2, pp. 156–195. He distinguishes three different types of abacus — the dust board, the table with loose counters, and the table with counters fastened to lines. The word abacus derives from the Greek abax, which is clearly a foreign word, probably Semitic (the Hebrew abaq means dust). The first use of abax occurs in Aristotle (Atheniensium respublica, last chapter), where it refers to a reckoning board for counting votes. Sextos Empiricos (II–2) mentions in his treatise against mathematicians (IX, 282) an abax which is a board sprinkled with dust for drawing geometric diagrams. It is probable that some kind of abacus was already used by Babylonians and by early Chinese. No Greek monument has come down to us except the white marble abacus (1.49 × 0.75 m) found in the island of Salamis and kept in the Epigraphical Museum at Athens (Smith 2, 162–164). It is not datable and its large size suggests public, ceremonial (?) use. Heath has argued (1, 51–64, 1921) that the Greeks had little need of the abacus for calculations and shows how these could be made with Greek numerals. See also Carl B. Boyer, “Fundamental steps in the development of numeration,” Isis 35, 153–168 (1944). Heath’s and Boyer’s arguments fail to convince me.
519 The most blatant form of that confusion occurs with reference to the “lightning calculators” who give exhibitions of their prodigious ability. Newspaper reporters and other people will often speak of the “mathematical genius” of those calculators. It is mathematical, if you please, but of a relatively low order.
520 Euclid, 1, 47.
521 The pentagram is a concave polygon of five sides, a five-pointed star. The regular pentagram is easily derived from the regular pentagon by drawing the diagonals of the latter. In medieval and later times the pentagram was often called pen-taculum (pentacle) and pentalpha.
522 Lucian: A slip of the tongue in salutation ( Hyper tu en t prosagoreusei ptaismatos ). See Lucianus, ed. Carl Jacobitz (Leipzig, 1836), vol. 1, p. 448, or the English translation by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler (Oxford. 1905), vol. 2, p. 36. The figure is called to pentagrammon . The same chapter contains a reference to the Pythagorean quaternion ( h tetractys ) used as a sacred oath.
523 The diphthong ei counting for one letter.
524 As their Creek names implied; planaõ means to cause to wander, to mislead; plan t s is a wandering, erratic, misleading, body.
525 The conviction was arbitrary as far as the nature of the planetary motions was concerned. The Babylonian ephemerides, however, had proved that those motions were not erratic but predictable.
526 The distinction between celestial mechanics and sublunar mechanics was criticized by a few medieval thinkers, such as Buridan (XIV–1) and Oresme (XIV–2), but it was not completely invalidated except by Newton. Then it took another form, the distinction between theoretical and practical mechanics. One of the founders of thermodynamics, Rankine, found it necessary as late as 1855 to show the artificiality of that distinction ( Introduction , vol. 3, p. 1843).
527 Two stringed instruments are mentioned in Homer, the phorminx and the citharis (the form cithara is later). A third word, lyra , is post-Homeric. It is probable that these three words represented essentially the same kind of instrument. Terpandros of Lesbos, the “father of Greek music” (fl. c. 700-650), is said to have increased the number of strings up to seven, or to have canonized the heptachord and the musical system based upon its use. The great antiquity of those stringed instruments in Greek lands (not to speak of Babylonia and Egypt) is proved by the ascription of their invention to gods, the lyre to Apollo and the cithara to Hermes. Empty tortoise shells were primitively used to subtend the strings, or, being covered with skin, to function as a resonance box.
528 H diapas n ( h dia pas n chord n sym-ph nia ) , h dia pente, h dia tessar n.
529 Thus defined by Porphyry in his commontary on Ptolemy’s Harmonics. Diols: Vorsokratiker (1 ⁸ . p. 334). Compare Plato’s definition of the harmonic and arithmetical means in Timaeos (36 A). ).
530 Statement ascribed to Philolaos by Nicomachos (I–2) in his Introduction to arithmetic, II, 28, 2, Martin Luther D’Ooge’s editions (Now York 1926), p. 277.
531 The fact that there are seven planets and seven tones in the heptachord must have deeply impressed the early Pythagoreans and increased their faith in hebdomads. See next section.
532 Hippolytos, Philosophumena , 1, 2, 2. Plato, Republic, 617B (Myth of Er); Timaios, 325B Aristotle, Metaphysics, A 5, 986 A 1; De caelo, 290 B 12. Aristotle rofutos the theory.
533 Chalcidius commentary on Timaios, ch. 244, primus exsectionem aggredi est ausus, F. G. A. Mullach, Fragmenta philosophorum graecorum ( Paris, 1867), vol. 2, p. 233. Of course exsectio might refer to an anatomic dissection, but then why auaus? There was nothing venturesome in the dissection of a dead eye.
534 Aristotle, Problemata, 916 A 33. Tus anthr pus ph sin Alcmat n dia tuto apollysthai oti u dynantai ten arch n t telei prosapsai.
535 Atossa is the queen immortalized as the main character in Aischylos’ play The Persians, the action of which takes place in Susa, residence of the Persian kings.
536 Herodotos, III, 125, 129–138. Milon of Croton was one of the most famous athletes of ancient Greece, whose exploits became legendary. He was six times the champion wrestler in the Olympic games, and six times also in the Pythian ones. His countrymen admired him so much that they put him in command of the army that defeated the Sybarites in 511 and utterly destroyed their city. Sybaris was a Greek colony, in the Gulf of Tarentum, north of Croton. The Sybarites’ love of pleasure and luxury is immortalized in the English words sybarite and sybaritic.
537 According to W. H. Roscher; but Franz Boll would place it later, not before 450 ( Introduction, vol. 1, p. 97). W. H. S. Jones, Philosophy and medicine in ancient Greece (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1946), pp. 6–10 [ Isis 37, 233 (1947)]. ].
538 It is not mentioned in Hunain’s bibliography edited by Gotthelf Bergstrasser, Hunain ibn Ish q über die syrischen und arabischen Galen-übersetz-ungen (Leipzig, 1925) [ Isis 8, 685–724 (1926) ] but may have been translated by a member of Hunain’s school.
539 The words designating them are all ancient words: s t ria, lysis, apallag for salvation; catharsis, catharmos, lysis for purification.
540 We have to use two terms for one in Greek, the rein, used for the contemplation of a spectacle, such as the Olympic games, or the contemplation of truth; the r ma may mean a spectacle but also a speculation; the ria is a viewing or a theory. Our words theorem, theory, theoretical have lost the early concrete senses and preserved only the abstract ones.
541 One might say roughly that the Greek people with whom we are dealing in this volume were a mixture of Mediterranean men (Cretans, Achaians, etc.) with various invaders, chiefly the Dorian invaders who had come from the north. That question is very complicated and perhaps insolvable. Good summary by A. J. B. Wace in Companion to Greek studies (Cambridge, ed. 3, 1916), pp. 23–34.
542 Lack of space and the need of dramatic unity preclude an account of Achaimenian culture in this book. It will suffice to recall that the first of the Achaimenidai was Cyros (ruled 559–529) and the last, Darios III, defeated by Alexander the Great in 331. The dynasty lasted 228 years. One would have to speak of its achievements in a history of ancient art, and even in a history of ancient education (though Persian education as explained in Xenophon’s Cyrupaideia is largely fictional and utopian), but the historian of science may overlook it without loss, at any rate on the scale of this book. See the history written by the late Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead (1880–1945), History of the Persian empire (596 pp., ill.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).
543 Egypt was under Persian rule from 525 to 332.
544 G. Sarton, “The unity and diversity of the Mediterranean world,” Osiris 2, 406–463 (1936), chiofly pp. 422–423.
545 A Greek soldier ran from Marathon to Athens, to bring the happy tidings. In remem-branco of those heroic deeds (including the runner’s), long distance “marathon races” take place in many countries, for example, in Boston, every year. The distance is 26 miles 385 yards (Webster); this is supposed to be the distance of Marathon from Athens; I do not know how it was computed.
546 Introduction, vol. 3, p. 1188.
547 Curious remarks on the Athenian dialect are made in the Constitution of Athens, II, 8, an extremely interesting book formerly ascribed to Xenophon, but somewhat earlier (c. 431–24). Says the unknown author, “As they have opportun. ities of listening to many dialects, the Athenians have borrowed from each. Whereas the other Greek peoples have adopted each of them its own language, mode of living and dress, the Athenians use a mixed language the elements of which have been borrowed from other Greeks and barbarians.” See Greek-English edition of that text with commentary by Hartvig Frisch, Constitution of Athens (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1942).
548 Many satraps or kings of Pontos (northeast Asia Minor, south of the east end of the Black Sea) were called Mithridates, a name derived from that of the Iranian sungod Mithras. This particular one was Mithridates VII Eupator, or the Great, king of Pontos from his early youth c. 120 to 63, next to Hannibal the most dangerous enemy of the Romans, a cruel brute, yet interested in arts and letters.
549 Two marble omphaloi have actually been found in Delphi by the French archaeological mission. See article “Omphalos” by W. J. Woodhouse, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 9 (1917), p. 492. The idea that the navel of the earth ( omphalos t s g s ) is in one’s own city or territory is a form of naive egocentrism and parochialism not by any means exclusive to the Greeks. The people of Boston used to believe that Boston was the “hub of the universe.” The idea is the same though the metaphor is different. 1 prefer the “navel” image, which is organic, to the “hub” one, which is mechanical.
550 Pythia ( hiera ), priestess of Pythian Apollo. The Pythiae were probably women with exceptional mediumistic powers.
551 All this may seem very irrational, but we should bear in mind that the events of ancient history (for example, the political and military events) were largely dominated by faith in omens and oracles. Plutarch’s Parallel lives are full of references to divination; those references increased the popularity of his work in earlier times (down to the eighteenth century), and they are now probably one of the main causes of its unpopularity. No matter how foolish divination was, as long as people believed in its validity, they were influenced by it. The belief was wrong but the influence was real. As far as Delphi is concerned and the directive power of its Pythiae, see Auguste Bouché-Leclerc, Histoire de la divination dans l’antiquité (4 vols.; Paris, 1879–1882), chiefly vol. 2, pp. 39–207), and Herbert William Parke, History of the Delphic oracle (465 pp., ill.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1939) [Isis 35, 250 (1944)]. The Delphic revelations were generally cryptic, negative (Thou shalt not . . .) or restraining, conservative. Modern statesmen might sometimes wish to be able to justify their decisions or indecisions by reference to a divine oracle! This would provide them with unbeatable alibis.
552 This is witnessed by one of the fossils of our language: the word panegyric, meaning a laudatory speech or writing, is derived from pan gyris, meaning a national assembly, generally in the nature of a religious festival, such as those that met at Delphi and Delos. The festive orations were called pan gyricoi; as those orations became gradually more and more laudatory of the leaders, any oration in praise of a person was called panegyricus, as for example the Panegyricus of Pliny the Younger (61–114), a bombastic eulogy of the emperor Trajan (emperor, 98–117).
553 Hieron was tyrant of Syracuse from 478 to the time of his death in 467. He was an enlightened patron of letters, and welcomed at his court Aischylos, Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, and others.
554 Translation by John Sterling. For the Greek text see F. G. Schneidewin, Simonidis Cei car-minum reliquiae (Brunswick, 1835), p. 10.
555 Frederick G. Kenyon, The poems of Bacchylides from a papyrus in the British Museum (300 pp.; London, 1897). The British Museum published in the same year a complete facsimile of that papyrus. Various editions and translations of Bacchylides have appeared since in many countries. Thus 1897 is the date of Bacchylides’ rebirth.
556 His activity covers almost exactly the first half of the fifth century; his earliest extant poem dates from 502, the latest from 452.
557 Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, (x, 1, 61); Loeb Classical Library, vol. 4, p. 35. The “nine lyric poets” were, in chronologic order, Archilochos of Paros (720–676), Aleman of Sparta, born in Sardis (seventh century), Sappho of Lesbos (fl. 600), Ibycos of Rhegium (fl. Samos 540), Anacreon of Teos (583–478), Pindar, Bacchylides. Philotas of Cos (d. c. 280), Callimachos of Cyrene (fl. 260–240). Note their dispersion in time, eighth to third century, and in space. One only, the very greatest, came from the mainland–Pindar; four from the Aegaean islands–Archilocbos, Sappho, Bacchylides, Philetas; two from Asia–Aleman and Anacreon; one each from Graecia Magna–Ibycos–and Cyrene–Callimachos.
558 Pythian ode , vm; translation by Sir John Sandys (1844–1922) in the Locb edition of Pindaros’ Odes (1919), p. 269.
559 This is less extraordinary than may first appear. Poetry is essentially different from the everyday language; hence it is not strange that poets are led gradually to the use of a vocabulary and grammar of their own. Compare the use of Galician, which is closer to Portuguese than to Castilian, by the king of Castile, Alfonso X el Sabio ( Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 343–344).
560 Renan conceived it when he visited Athens in 1865; he rewrote it later and published it only in May 1876 ( Revue des Deux Mondes ); later, he included it in his Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse (1883).
Parthen n means the virgin’s chamber. It is the temple of Ath n Parthenos, the virgin goddess of wisdom.
561 A lesch is a place where people gather ( leg ) for conversation, generally a kind of arcade ( stoa ).
562 We know little about Thespis, but his name is preserved in our language: “Thespian art”, or “a Thespian” to mean, jocosely, an actor. It is said that he introduced an actor ( hypocrit s, hence our word hypocrite, one who plays a part) to answer ( hypocrinomai) the chorus. The invention of tragedy would then consist in adding individual action to the lyric chorus.
563 That idea was a commonplace of Greek poetry. It can be traced back to Homer, and is expressed by all the old tragedians, for example, by Sophocles in Antigone (1. 620). Most people remember it in its Latin form (late translation of a line ascribed to Euripides): Quem (or quos ) vult perdere Iupiter dementat prius.
564 Aristotle, Poetica, 25.
565 Archelaos, king of Macedonia from 413 to 399, was a patron of arts and letters. His palace was decorated by Zeuxis, one of the most famous painters of ancient Greece. The history of Macedonia is very complicated; Alexander the Great was the twelfth king (including four usurpers) after Archelaos.
566 Conversation with Eckermann, 3 May 1827.
567 With the exception of the satyr play, not a farce but a “playing tragedy,” paizusa trag dia. Poets competing for the Dionysia had to submit a group of four plays ( tetralogia ), to wit, three tragedies ( trilogia ) plus a satyrical drama ( satyricon drama ). The Cyclops of Euripides (derived from the Odyssey , IX) is a satyrical drama, the only one of his that has survived.
568 The differences between their birthyears are 30, 15, 32 years.
569 Sometimes too familiar to our taste. For example, he indulged in silly puns which are not as funny to us (even when the footnotes have made them clear) as they were to his contemporaries.
570 The Charites or Gratiae (the Graces) were three daughters of Zeus, named Euphrosyne (cheerfulness), Aglaia (brightness), and Thalia (bloom), whose mission it was to enhance the amenities of life. Would that the Charites were still with us today, for we need their aid more than ever.
571 The comparison with a tragedy is the more apposite because Sparta would not have won the war without the financial help she received from Persia. Thanks to Sparta’s treason, Persia, which had been completely defeated in 479, was able to dictate the peace in 404. Could a more tragic reversal of fortune be imagined? A more detailed history of the political background would reveal many minor tragedies which helped to create the supreme tragedy of the Athenian defeat. Two of the saviors of Greece, the Athenian Themistocles and the Spartan Pausanias, ended their lives as traitors and outcasts.
572 We are thinking chiefly of the Hebrew prophets whose utterances are collected in the Old Testament; they lived probably in the period extending from the ninth to the sixth century. There were many other “prophets” in Asia, first Zoroaster (VII B.C.?), whose thoughts percolated across Asia Minor and reached the Greek world through the Magi [J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les mages hellénisés (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1938)] then in India, the Buddha and Mah v ra, and in China, Confucius and Lao tz (all of them, strangely enough, in a single century, the sixth).
573 The doxographers were scholars who wrote histories of the philosophers and compiled extracts from their writings. The main ones were Aristotle and Theophrastos; doxographic books of the latter are known only indirectly through later extracts. Collections of philosophical opinions,Placita philosophorum , were ascribed to Plutarch (1–2), Stobaios (V–2), and others, but the outstanding collector was probably one Aëtios, of whom nothing is known, but who flourished probably at the end of the first century after Christ. Most opinions are known indirectly, and often through quotations made by adversaries such as the skeptics or Christian polemists who tried to discredit paganism. This very difficult subject has been cleared up as much as was possible by Hermann Diels (1848–1922), Doxographi graeci (Berlin, 1879; editio iterata, 864 pp., 1929). For a briefer statement of doxographic difficulties see P. Tannery, Pour l’histoire de la science hellène (1887; new ed., 1930), pp. 19–29 [Isis 15, 179–180 (1931)].
574 For the temple of Artemis (Diana) see G. Sarton and St. John Ervine, “John Turtle Wood, discoverer of the Artemision 1869,” Isis 28, 376-384 (1938), 4 figs. Ephesos was one of the sacred places of classical antiquity; it was later one of the earliest sanctuaries of Christendom. Remember St. Paul’s visit to it and his Epistle to the Ephesians.
575 Edition and translation of Heracleitos, On the universe , by W. H. S. Jones at the end of vol. 4 (1931) of Jones’ edition of Hippocrates in the Loeb Classical Library. That volume also includes a translation of Heracleitos’ life by Diogenes Laërtios (III-1).
576 Fragment 16.
577 “You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you” (fragment 41; see also fragment 81).
578 The invisible harmony is superior to the visible (fragment 47). The Greek original of that principle was very appropriately engraved upon the medal dedicated by the French Academy of Sciences to the memory of the great mathematician, Henri Poincaré (1854–1912). The medal was reproduced and described in Isis 9, 420–421 (1927). Compare also fragment 45: “They understand not how that which is at variance with itself agrees with itself. Harmony of the tension as in bow and harp,” and fragments 56, 59.
579 This is the beginning of fragment 36, but I should quote the rest of it to illustrate the enigmatic nature of his sayings: “But he [God] undergoes transformations, just as fire, when it is mixed with spices, is named after the savor of each.” What remains of his book On the whole is a collection of riddles.
580 Fragment 100.
581 Plutarch, Life of Pericles , v, v, vm; translations by Bemadotte Perrin, Loeb edition of the Lives , vol. 3, pp. 11, 21.
582 The best definition occurs in Hermeias, Christian critic of the pagan philosophers, who flourished in the fifth century or later. Hermeias, v ; Diels, Doxographi graeci , 1879, p. 652). “Intelligence (nus) is the principle, cause and ruler of all things, it gives order to the things which are out of order, motion to the things which are immobile, it separates the things which ore mixed, and makes a cosmos of the chaos.” Should we accept that definition, magnificent in the mouth of an adversary, we would be obliged to say that Anaxagoras was the father of philosophical dualism, but we are not as confident as was Hermeias. To go to another extreme, nus might be translated by energy, but it is better to keep the Greek term and to admit our ignorance of its exact meaning.
583 See fragments 15, 16 in Tannery, numbered 3, 6 in Diels. The seeds or spermata , we should repeat, are not simpler than the rest nor essentially different from it in composition. To use a modern image (which I admit is a dangerous procedure), the seeds are like points of initial (fortuitous?) “organization” which serve eventually as ferments for the general organization. Lucretius called those seeds homoiomeria (De rerum natura, 1, 830 ff.).
584 First in Diels and Tannery; it Was probably the beginning of Anaxagoras treatise.
585 The distinction between air (aër) and nether (aith r) is not quite clear. Anaxagoras was already aware of the corporality of air, which is somewhat like steam; aether is much subtler, somewhat like the substance of the shining blue heaven (the empyrean, empyros ). The word aith r derives from the verb aith , to light up, to bum or blaze. His idea seems to be that the universe is largely made up of two substances, one of which is rare (tenuous), the other much more so. Other forms of matter must be due to extraordinary condensations.
586 According to Pliny the Elder (1–2) in his Natural history (11, 149), Anaxagoras was enabled by his astronomical knowledge to prophecy that in a certain number of days a rock would fall from the sun, and that the fall occurred in the daytime ... That, of course, is nonsense, but Pliny adds that “the stone is still shown, it is of the size of a wagon-load and brown in color” (qui lapis etiamnunc ostenditur magnitudine vehis, colore adusto). Thus, the stone could still be seen in Pliny’s time (23–79).
587 The story is plausible, but we have it from a very late witness, Vitruvius (1–2 B.C.), in the preface to book v , “Interior decoration,” of his Architecture . Vitruvius ascribes mathematical writings on perspective to Democritos as well as to Anaxagoras, and what he says applies equally to both. The first idea of scenography he ascribes to Agatharchos of Samos (V B.C.), one of their contemporaries.
588 H. F. Tozor, History of ancient geography (Cambridge: The University Press, 1935), p. 63, app. xi.
589 The people called him in derision ho nus (the mind), as is recalled by Plutarch in the text quoted above. This was typical enough. Anaxagoras’ references to “intelligence” rather than to the gods of the city was to them the proof of his impiety.
590 This is suggested by A. T. Olmstead in his History of Persia (Chicago: Univenity of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 328.
591 There is a curious reference to Melissos in the Hippocratic treatise on Nature of man, 1. “In my opinion such men [philosophers] by their lack of understanding overthrow themselves in the words of their very discussions, and establish the theory of Melissos”; ... ton de Melissu logon orthun .
592 Comparisons with the Hindu ideas represented by the Sanskrit words m y and avidya suggest themselves. but we cannot do more here than indicate them. M y means illusion, unreality; avidya, spiritual ignorance, ignorance combined with nonexistence, illusion (personified as M y ). The terms are used by Buddhists as well as by Hindus.
593 There is no reason to believe that the atomic hypothesis had occurred to Empedocles or that he even heard of it. The first atomist known to us was Leucippos, whom we place about the middle of the century or later (see below).
594 The crystallization of Greek and Western fancies around the number four is the more curious when one compares it with Chine e physiological views based on five [Isis 22, 270 (1934–35)], and with the Hindu ones based on three [tridosa; Isis 34, 174–177 (1942–43)]. These classifications might be used to symbolize three outstanding cultural patterns — triangular (India), quadrilateral (Europe and Islamic Asia), pentagonal (Far East).
595 See A. Pogo, “Egyptian water clocks,” Isis 25, 403–425 (1936), ill. For Babylonian clepsy-dras, see p. 75. According to Diogenes Laërtios, IX, 46, one of Democritos’ “mathematical” works was entitled Conflict of the water-clock (and the heaven) , but the book is lost and the title unclear.
596 Similar discussions were indulged in by Hindus of the Ny ya school of philosophy. It is not necessary to assume that those ideas, preserved in Sanskrit texts, influenced the Greek thinkers, or vice versa; on account of the impossibility of dating those texts (say within a few centuries), neither assumption could be proved. D. N. Malik, Optical theories (Cambridge, 1917), pp. 1–2.
597 I. Bernard Cohen, “Roemer and the first determination of the speed of light, 1676,” Isis 31, 326–379 (1940), ill.
598 De sensu , 446A29–B2; De anima , 418B 21–23.
599 The four elements became the four qualities, the four humors, the four temperaments, but it was always the same Empedoclean conceit masquerading under those disguises; Isis 34, 205–208 (1943).
600 The idea of metempsychosis was also ascribed to the Pythagoreans and the Orphics. It was probably of Oriental origin. The Hindu sam-s ra may have reached Greece via Persia, and it may have been confirmed by similar ideas coming from or through Egypt. Cumont, Lux perpetua, pp. 197–200, 408.
601 Joseph Bidez, Biographie d’Empédocle (176 pp.; Gand, 1894).
602 The best general account is that of Cyril Bailey, The Greek atomisis and Epicuros (630 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928) [ Isis 13, 123–125 (1929–30)].
603 The Greek is clearer: Uden chrêma mat n ginetai, alla panta ec logu te cai hyp’ anagc s .
604 There is an abundant literature on Democritos, because the endless discussions on “atomism” and “materialism,” reoccuring every century in a new shape, always rebounded on him. For example, Karl Marx (1818–1883) wrote in his youth a thesis on the differences between Democritos and Epicuros (1841); hence a deep Russian interest in Democritos! See Isis 26, 456–457 (1936).
605 One made jokes about the stupidity of the Abderites as one did about the Boeotians, just as the French do about the people of Pontoise and Charenton, and the Americans about the denizens of Brooklyn or Kalamazoo.
606 Anaxarchos was said to be a member of the school of Democritos, which would suggest that that school continued for some time after its founders’ deaths. He was a companion of Alexander in Asia, and after Alexander’s death (323) was executed by the king of Salamis in Cypros. Anaxarchos was called “the optimist” ( ho eudai-monicos ), which confirms Democritan affiliations.
607 The list of his writings has been transmitted to us by Diogenes Laërtios, IX, 46; he remarks that their grouping in tetralogies had been done by one Thrasylos, who had done the same for the works of Plato (grouping preserved in most editions of the latter’s works). That habit was probably connected with the old traditions of the Athenian stage. A dramatist was supposed to offer four plays at a time, either four tragedies, or three tragedies plus a satyric play.
608 A peace with Persia had been negotiated in 449 by Callias son of Hipponicos; see Olmstead, History of Persia, p. 332.
609 Armand Delatte, Les conceptions de l’enthousiasme chez les philosophes présocratiques (79 pp.; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1934); Joseph Bidez, Eos (Brussels: Hayez, 1945), pp. 136 ff [ Isis 37, 185 (1947)].
610 This saying and the following are quoted as translated by Cyril Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus, pp. 187–213 [ Isis 13, 123 (1929–30)]. Bailey also gives the Greek text, which naturally rings better than the English, for the Greek is genuine, while the English is only a pale copy.
611 Hence, he was an older contemporary of Plato, who was influenced by him, yet never named him. J. Bidez, Eos (Brussels: Hayez, 1945), p. 134.
612 Aristotle, Metaphysica, 985B14: “These differences, they say, are three–shape ( sch ma ) , order ( taxis ) , and position ( thesis ) . For they [the atomists] say the real is differentiated only by “rhythm” ( rhysmos = rhythmos ), intercontact ( diatig ) and turning ( trop ); and of these rhythm is shape, intercontact is order, and turning is position; for A differs from N in shape, AN from NA in order, H from H in position. The question of movement–whence or how it is to belong to things–these thinkers, like the others, lazily neglected.”
613 Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus, p. 185.
614 See the elaborate discussion of this by Arthur Berriedale Keith, Indian logic and atomism. An exposition of the Ny ya and Vaiçesika systems (291 pp.; Oxford, 1921) [ Isis 4, 535-536 (1921–22)].
615 Many Greek ideas in science and philosophy are duplicated in India. It is very interesting to compare those duplications, though it is seldom (if ever) possible to establish the precedence of one or the other or to prove the dependence of one upon the other. The duplications help to prove the essential identity of the human mind. Given definite problems that admit of only a few solutions, it is not astonishing that wise men of Greece, India, China, etc., hit independently upon the same solution.
616 Also called Herennios Byblios, a Roman grammarian, who flourished in Byblos, Phoenicia, under Vespasian (emperor, 70–79). His writings are lost,
617 Legendary queen of Assyria, probably identical with Sammuramat, wife of Shamshi Adad V (824–812).
618 Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus, pp. 64-65. Georges Contenau, Manuel d’archéologie orientale (Paris, 1927), vol. 1, pp. 316–319 [Isis 20, 474–478 (1933–34)]. Per Collinder, Historical origins of atomism (Lund: Observatory, 1938) [ Isis 32, 448 (1947–49)].
619 the Gorgias (against rhetoric) and the Protagoras (against the sophists), both dating from Plato’s maturity.
620 Pierre Maxime Schuhl, Essai sur la formation de la pensée grecque (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1949), p. 368 [ Isis 41, 227 (1950)].
621 This is the first recorded example of a burning of the books, the date being 411 B.C. It suggests that there was already an established book trade in Athens at that time. There have been many other outrages of the same kind ever since in many countries. It will suffice to mention two infamous examples, the Burning of the Books ordered by the First Emperor, Shih Huang-ti (III–2 B.C.), and at the other end of the chronologic scale the one ordered by Hitler on 10 May 1933.
622 We might have written the “birth of grammar,” for Greek grammar was probably the first grammar to be born and constituted, the only possible rival being Sanskrit. We do not know the beginnings of grammatical consciousness in India, but the first Sanskrit grammarian was P nini (IV–1 B.C.), who flourished before the existence of any full-fledged Greek grammarian. On the grammatical proclivities of Protagoras see Gilbert Murray, Greek studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), pp. 176–178 [ Isis 38, 3 (1947–48)].
623 He was the most ancient of the ten Attic orators listed in the Alexandrian canon. The ten orators are in chronological order (the dates following each name are sometimes approximate): Antiphon (480–411), Lysias of Athens (459–378), Andocides (440; after 390), Isocrates of Athens (438–338), Isaios (420–348), Hyper- eidos (400–322), Lycurgos of Athens (396–323), Aischines (389–314), Demosthenes (385–322), Deinarchos of Corinth (361, d. very old). Their lives cover two centuries, the fifth and the fourth.
624 He was not the first rhetorician. The first was the Sicilian, Corax, who became the leading man in Syracuse after the expulsion of the tyrant Thrasybulos in 467. He wrote the earliest treatise on rhetoric (entitled Techn , the art), a book mentioned by Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian.
625 Joshua Loth Liebman (1907–1948), American rabbi, author of a best seller called Peace of mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946).
626 Ho cacodaim n S crat s (Clouds, 104). Socrates is one of the dramatis personae in that play.
627 Mete rosophist s; Clouds, 380.
628 George Sarton, Portraits of ancient men of science (Uppsala: Lychnos, 1945), p. 254.
629 See extract from Phaid n, quoted below.
630 We can trust only the early Platonic dialogues; later on, Plato introduced Socrates only as his own mouthpiece. As explained in Chapter XVI, this was a real betrayal.
631 Xenophon, Memorabilia, I, I, 10–17. Translation by Edgar Cardew Marchant, Loeb Classical Library (1923), p. 7.
632 For other examples, see A. J. Festugière, “Trois rencontres entre la Grèce et l’Inde,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 125, 32–57 (1942).
633 Plato, Alcibiades 1, 133c.
634 Bidez, Eos, p. 122.
635 Memorabilia, III, XI,
636 The semantic point of view, in its relation to common speech, is beautifully illustrated by S. I. Hayakawa, Language in action. A guide to accurate thinking, reading, and writing (250 pp.; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941) [ Isis 34, 84 (1942–43)]. Socrates would have loved that book.
637 A propos of this, it would be interesting to discuss Socrates’ belief in his daemon ( to daimonion ) who guided him, or as we would put it, in his divine inspiration. He was a believer and an enthusiast. One should also consider his faith in divination (mantic ), which he shared with all the ancients, but that would carry us much too far.
638 Anytos was the most important of Socrates’ three accusers, bitterly hostile to the sophists. The part he bad just taken in expelling the Thirty Tyrants had increased his authority. Horace called Socrates “Anyti reus” ( Satirae , II, IV, 3).
639 Plato’s Apology of Socrates (30A). Translation by Harold North Fowler (Loeb Classical Library) .
640 “Theages, or on wisdom: obstetric” was not written by Plato, however. It is a relatively late production (say II B.C.); yet it found its way to the library of Alexandria and was included in the earliest Platonic canon, compiled by the astrologer, Thrasyllos of Alexandria (d. A.D. 36), and therefore in many editions of Plato’s works (Stephanus, pp. 121–131; Loeb, vol. 8).
641 The condemnation of Socrates was very probably political. At the close of the Peloponnesian War he was accused of educating the people who had betrayed democracy and who had conspired with the enemy to bring about the downfall of Athens. It will suffice to recall the names of the treacherous oligarchs Alcibiades, Critias, and Charmides, all of whom were his disciples. According to Popper, Socrates had only one worthy successor, Antisthenes; see K. P. Popper, The open society, (London: Routledge, 1945), vol. 1, pp. 168, 171.
For a discussion of Socrates’ trial from the legal point of view, see Sir John Macdonell, Historical trials(Oxford. 1927), pp. 1–18.
642 Could one imagine any one of the modern dictators showing such magnanimity to his victims ? He would do the very opposite and put them in solitary confinement, or perhaps cause them to be afflicted and “questioned” under torture. This shows how much we have progressed since 399 B.C.!
643 Four Platonic dialogues deal with the trial and death of Socrates, to wit, Euthyphron (on holiness), the Apology, or the Defense of Socrates at his Trial, Criton, and Phaidon.
644 translation by Harold North Fowler taken from the Loeb edition of Plato, vol. 1, pp. 395–403.
645 This is the final paragraph of the Memorabilia as translated by E. C. Marchant ( Loeb Classical Library, 1923), p. 357.
646 I owe them to the kindness of my friend, Dr. Chauncey D. Leake, pharmacologist and dean of the School of Medicine, University of Texas, Galveston (his letter of 22 October 1945).
647 Percy Gardner, Sculptured tombs of Hellas (278 pp., 30 pls.; London, 1896). Maxime Collignon, Les statues funéraires dans l’art grec (412 pp., ill.; Paris, 1911). Alexander Conze, 1831–1914), Die attischen Grabreliefs (4 vols., atlas; Berlin, 1893–1922). The first two volumes are very readable and well-illustrated accounts of Greek tombs in general; Conze’s work is a corpus of Attic sepulchral monuments. The reader’s needs will be satisfied best by reading the relevant chapters in Gardner or Collignon.
648 This Cebes is not the author of the Tablet (Pinax), a curious allegory of human life, as was formerly believed. The Pinax was written by a namesake who lived much later and was acquainted with Peripatetic and Stoic, as well as Pythagorean, doctrines. The first Greek writer who referred to the Pinax is Lucian of Samosata (c. 125-90), who believed it to be ancient, though it was probably not much prior to his own time.
649 Olmstead, History of Persia, p. 446.
650 Ho calumenos hypo tõn sophistõn cosmos, Memorabilia, quoted above.
651 The Confucian tradition is based upon the Five Classics (wu ching) and the Four Books (ss shu). (The numbers between parentheses in the following list indicate the pages of my Introduction, vol. 3, where the Chinese characters will be found, also references to the pages of theIntroduction where more information concerning each is available.) The Five Classics are: 1. I-ching, Book of changes (2117); 2. Shu-ching, Book of history (2129); 3. Shih-ching, Book of poetry (2128); 4. Li-chi, Record of rites (2121); 5. Ch’un-ch’iu, Spring and autumn (2110). The Four Books are: 1. Ta hsüeh, Great learning (2131); 2. Chung yung, Doctrine of the mean (2110); 3. Lun-yü, Confucian analects (2123); 4. Mêng-tz , Mencius (2123).
The Ta hsüeh and the Chung yung are parts of the Li chi and edited with it by Legge, Sacred books of the East (Oxford, 1885), vols. 27–28. Chinese-Latin-French edition of both by Seraphin Couvreur, Les quatre livres (Ho Kien Fou: Mission Catholique, 1910).
652 The folktale upon which the Book of Job is based is, of course, of much greater antiquity; that is, Job may be a thousand years older than the Book of Job!
653 The Edomites or Idumaeans were the descendants of Esau or Edom, brother of Jacob. They were a separate Hebrew tribe which had remained nomadic and was on a lower cultural level than the Israelites. The land of Edom is south of the Dead Sea.
654 There is a “Babylonian Job,” for which see Robert William Rogers (1884–1930), Cuneiform parallels to the Old Testament (New York, 1912), pp. 164–169.
655 In my study of it, I was much helped by Robert H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper, 1941), pp. 660-707 [Isis 34, 38 (1942–43)], a thorough analysis with full bibliography.
656 This is discussed fully by Pfeiffer (pp. 667–675). The Book of Job includes inconsistencies which may be due to disarrangements, omissions, and interpolations. For example, the tendency of recent criticism is to regard the magnificent poem on divine wisdom (chapter 28, out of 42) as an interpolation. We cannot go into that and must take the Book as it is, assuming its integrity.
657 I do not know Hebrew well enough to appreciate the original style and must base my judgment upon the English translations. Remember such phrases as these: I know that my Redeemer liveth (19:25); the eyelids of the dawn (3:9); when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy (38:7). The author used the largest vocabulary of any Hebrew writer, being in this sense (says Pfeiffer), the Shakespeare of the Old Testament. No poet of the Old Testament had a keener appreciation of nature.
658 Zenon is one of the dramatis personae in Plato’s Parmenides. Plato does not discuss Zenon’s mathematical paradoxes, however, but only his arguments against plurality; he tends to belittle Zenon as compared with Parmenides. In Phaidros, 261D, Plato remarked that Zenon understood how to make one and the same thing appear like and unlike. one and many, at rest and in motion.
659 Florian Cajori, “The purpose of Zeno’s arguments on motion,” Isis 3 , 7–20 (1920). The article summarizes the controversy up to and including Tannery, whose conclusions Cajori shares. According to Tannery, Zenon opposed the idea that a point was unity in position. Sec also Philip E. B. Jourdain. “The flying arrow. An anachronism,” Mind 25, 42–55 (Aberdeen, 1916) [Isis 3, 277–278 (1920)]. T. L. Heath, History of Greek mathematics (Oxford, 1921), vol. 1, pp. 271–283 [Isis 4, 532–535 (1921–22)], including many quotations from Bertrand Russell, who greatly admires Zenon.
660 Aristotle’s praise of Democritos occurs in De generatione et corruptione, 315A 34 ff.; Archimedes’, in his Met .od. The relevant text is quoted by Heath, Manual of Greek mathematics (Oxford, 1931), p. 283.
661 The verb hippocrateõ means to be superior in horse; Hippocrat s might thus be a suitable name for a cavalry officer!
662 Chios is about 335 mi ² ; it gave birth not only to one of the greatest mathematicians of antiquity but also to another great one, Oinopides, to the historian Theopompos (378-after 305) and, so the people of the island claim, to Homer. Fustel de Coulanges in his “Mémoire sur l’ile de Chio,”Arch. Missions scientifiques 5, 481 (1856), reprinted in his Questions historiques (Paris, 1893), pp. 213–339, provides a lot of information but makes the following blunder (p. 318): “Un certain Hippocrate de Chio eat cité souvent par les anciens comme mathématicien, astronome et géomètre.” This shows that “un certain Fustel de Coulanges,” however distinguished in other ways, was not a mathe-magician, nor a historian of science.
Cos, south of Chios, is much smaller, very small indeed (111 mi²). It gave birth to only one illustrious man, the father of medicine.
663 Aristotle, Eudemian ethics, VII, 14, 1247A.
664 Constantine C. Yavis, Greek altars (Saint Louis: Saint Louis University Press, 1949), pp. 169-170, 245), mentions altars that are almost cubical, not in Delos, however, but in Cypros. Two in the Vouni Palace may date from the fifth century; the dimensions of their bases are 1.95 × 1.70 m and 2.70 × 1.54 m — very far from square.
665 In 1767, Johann Heinrich Lambert proved that π is irrational; in 1794, Legendre proved that π ² is also irrational; in 1882, Ferdinand Lindemann proved that π is transcendental; see Osiris 1, 532 (1936). The three problems were investigated in the light of modern mathematics by Felix Klein (1849–1925), Vorträge über ausgewählte Fragen der Elementarmathematik ( Leipzig, 1895; English trans., Boston. 1897; revised, New York, 1930) [Isis 16, 547 (1931)1.
666 Euclid, XII, 2.
667 It was included in the history of geometry by Eudemos (IV–2 B.C.) preserved in the commentary on Aristotelian physics by Simplicios (VI–1). Almost a millennium elapsed between the latter and Hippocrates! The text is easily available in a Greek-French edition by Paul Tannery, Mém. Soc. sci. Bordeaux 5, 217–237 (1883); reprinted in his Mémoires scientifiques (Toulouse, 1912), vol. 1, pp. 339–370. Creek-German edition by Ferdinand Rudio (194 pp.; Leipzig, 1907).
668 The Pythagorean pentagon bearing the letters hygieia (p. 211) is probably older than Hippocrates, but the use of lettered figures to facilitate geometric discourse is a very different matter from the use of letters for a symbolic purpose.
669 Elaborate account by K. von Fritz in Pauly Wissowa (1937), vol. 34, pp. 2258–2272.
670 Pyrrhon (IV–2 B.C.), founder of the Skeptical school, also hailed from Elis.
671 We say the mathematician Theodoros, bo-cause the words Theodoros of Cyrene evoke in the minds of most men (mathematicians excepted) another man, more famous, sometimes called Theodoros the Atheist, disciple of Aristippos of Cyrene, who was himself a disciple of Socrates. Theodoros the Atheist, was banished from Cyrene and flourished for a time in Alexandria; toward the end of his life he was permitted to return to his native city where he died, probably at the end of the fourth century. In short, the two Theo-doroses of Cyrene were not contemporaries; the mathematician belongs to the second half of the fifth century, the philosopher to the second half of the fourth century. Cyrene, main city of Cyre-nnica, was an important cultural center. It gave birth not only to Aristippos and the two Theo-doroses, but also to the poet Callimachos (d. c . 240) and the bishop Symesios (V–1).
672 The dialogue is supposed to have taken place in the year of Socrates’ death, 399, but it was written only some thirty years later, in 368-67.
673 No article was devoted to him in my Introduction, because his floruit is too uncertain. He might belong to the sixth century as well as to the fifth. I call him Hippasos of Metapontum, but two other birthplaces are ascribed to him, Sybaris and Croton. Those three places are in the same region, however, around the Gulf of Taranto, the “shank” of Italy.
674 To refresh the reader’s memory: the number b is the arithmetic mean of a and c if b = ( a + c )/2; it is their geometric mean if alb = b / c ; it is their harmonic mean if a / c = ( a − b )/( b − c ) or 1/ c − 1/ b = 1/ b − 1/ a . The three numbers a, b, c are said to be respectively in arithmetic, geometric, or harmonic progression.
675 Aristotle, Analytica priora, 41a, 26–30.
676 Kurt von Fritz, “The discovery of incommensurability by Hippasus of Metapontum,” Ann. Math. 46, 242-264 (1945). Our figure is borrowed with kind permission from his paper.
677 Even by Democritos, for one of his treatises dealt with irrational quantities and solids (atoms?), Peri alog n gramm n cai nast n, but we must not forget that he lived until late in the fourth century. The title is enigmatic. Did he try to connect irrationals with atoms?
678 Not to be confused, as he has often been, with his contemporary, Antiphon the Orator, who flourished also in Athens ( c . 480–411), and is more important in literary and political history, but does not concern the historian of science at all.
679 For a general introduction see the article on divination by Arthur Leslie Pease in the Oxford classical dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), pp. 292–293, with long bibliography. The many articles in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics permit a comparative study of divination in many countries; see vol. 4 (1912), pp. 775–830.
680 Not to be confused with another Bryson of a much later date, Bryson the Neo-Pythagorean, who flourished probably in Alexandria or Rome in the first or second century after Christ. His Economics has been edited by Martin Plessner in 1928; see Isis 13, 529 (1929–30).
681 There were many Greek cities in Europe and Asia named Heraclea, but this particular one, Hereclea Pontica, was situated on the southwestern shore of the Black Sea, in Bithynia. It was the native city of Heracleides of Pontos (IV–2 B.C.) and perhaps also of the painter Zeuxis (born c.445).
682 Ferdinand Rudio (1856–1929) Das Bericht des Simplicius über die Quadraturen des Antiphon und des Hippokrates (194 pp.; Leipzig, 1907; contains all the relevant texts in Greek and German.
683 Born c. 430, he was still alive in 360.
684 Plato, Republic, VII, 530.
685 I use the word round to represent the Greek term strongylos, opposed to platys. flat, and to euthys, straight. The word is less precise than the word spherical, but the general idea is the same.
686 These views were at least in part of Oriental origin: Mazdean, Babylonian, perhaps even Egyptian. Louis Rougier, L’origine astronomique de la croyance pythagoricienne en l’immortalité céleste des âmes (152 pp.; Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1933) [ Isis 26, 491 (1936)].
687 What we know of him is largely derived from the Peri arescont n ( De placitis ) of Aëtios, edited by Hermann Diels, Doxographi graeci (Berlin, 1879), pp. 45–89, 178–215, 267–444. Diels prints in parallel columns the Placita of Aëtios and the Eclogae of Stobaios (V–2). The date of Aëtios is very uncertain; his Placita were ascribed to Plutarch (1–2) and are probably a little later; we might place him tentatively at the end of the first century or in II(1). See note 2, p. 239.
688 Simmias and Cebes, both Thebans, were warm friends of Socrates. They are the main speakers, besides Socrates himself, in the Phaidon; they are both mentioned in Criton and Simmias alone in Phaidros. Cebes is not the author of the Pinax bearing his name ( Ceb tos Thebaiu pinax ) .
689 It is not certain, however, that Philolaos was aware of that implication. For example, the Moon always turns the same face to us and the ancients considered that it did not rotate around its axis; they did not realize the contradiction that this involved.
³²a According to Burch, the counterearth could be interpreted as the antipodes. George Bosworth Burch, “The munter-earth” (to be published in Osiris 11, 1953).
690 Otto Neugebauer, “The alleged Babylonian discovery of the precession of the equinoxes,” J , Am. Oriental Soc. 70, 1–8 (1950). The Babylonian discovery was supposed to have been made by Kidinnu (Cidonas) c. 343 B.C., which is a century later than Philolaos anyhow. Paul Schnabel, “Kidenas, Hipparch und die Entdeckung der Präzession,” Z. Assyriologte 3 . 1–60 (1926) [ Isis 10 , 107 (1928)].
691 Aëtios’ text translated into English by T. L. Heath, Greek astronomy (London: Dent, 1932), p. 32–33 [ Isis 22, 585 (1934–35)].
692 Academicorum priorum liber II, 39, 123. Edition by James S. Reid (London, 1885), p. 322, translation by the same (London, 1885), p. 81.
693 Placita, m, 13, 3.
694 In my Introduction I placed Ecphantos in IV–1 B.C. and Heracleides in IV–2 B.C. That was somewhat arbitrary. Heracleides flourished in the middle of the century; Ecphantos probably flourished at the same time, perhaps a little earlier.
695 St. Hippolytos (III–1) in his Philosophumena I, 11; translation by F. Legge, Philosophumena (London. 1921), vol. 1, p. 48. I left the last sentence in the quotation in spite of its irrelevancy to the rest, because it reechoes the old tradition describing Democritos as the laughing philosopher in contrast with the sad Heracleitos.
696 Vitruvius, IX, 4.
697 For details on the Babylonian origin of Democritos’ astronomy see A. T. Olmstead, History of Persia, pp. 333—341.
698 Heath, Greek astronomy, p. 38.
699 The tradition of Aratos may be summarized as follows: Hipparchos (11–2 B.C.), Cicero (1-1 B.C.) Achilles Tatios (III-1), Theon of Alexandria (IV–2), Avienus (IV-2), Sahl ibn Bishr (IX–1). Apropos of the latter, see Ernest Honigmann, Isis 41, 30–31 (1950).
700 Euclid, Elements, IV, 6.
701 Proclos as quoted by Heath in Euclid’s elements (Cambridge, 1926), vol. 2, p. 111; 24 × 15 = 360.
702 730, not 729 as Philolaos (and Plato) implied when they said that the cube of 9 equals the number of months of the Great Year (9 ³ = 729). Such numerical coincidences were very pleasant to Pythagorean minds.
703 We have a Babylonian calendar of 425 B.C. that is remarkably accurate, a “modern almanac.” Richard A. Parker and Waldo H. Dubberstein, Babylonian chronology 626 B.C. to A.D. 45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942) [ Isis 34, 442 (1942–43); 39, 174 (1948)]. Olmstead,History of Persia, p. 329.
704 For the value of Philolaos’ determinations as calculated by Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, I precursori di Copemico nell’antichità (Milan, 1873), p. 8, see Heath, Aristarchus (Oxford, 1913). p. 102; see also p. 132.
705 The literature concerning the calendar is very considerable The standard work is still Friedrich Karl Ginzel (1850–1926), Handbuch der mathematischen und technischen Chronologie (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1906–1914). vol. 2 (1911) deals with the Greek calendar. Summary in Heath, Aristarchus, pp. 284–297. William Kendrick Pritchett and Otto Neugebauer, The calendars of Athens (127 pp.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1947) [Isis 39, 261 (1948)].
706 The Athos Peninsula is the easternmost of the three peninsulas, the three-pronged fork, of the Chalcidice. Xerxes’ canal was at the top of it; it runs north and south (not east and west). It was on that Peninsula lower down that the Mount Athos monasteries were established in Byzantine times; it then became the Holy Mountain.
707 Herodotos, VII, 22 ff., 117.
708 As quoted in W. W. How and J. Wells, Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford, 1912), vol. 2, p. 135. They add that the work was relatively easy, hence Stein’s comparison with the Corinth canal, where there is a mile of rock and the land rises 255 ft above the sea, is misleading. The remains of the canal are now called Provlaka (derived from proaulax ). Nearby is a tumulus that is probably the tomb of Artachaics built by order of Xerxes. H. F. Tozer, Researches in the highlands of Turkey (London, 1869), vol. 1, p. 128.
709 J. Six, “Agatharchos,” J. Hellenic Studies 40 , 180–189 (1920) [ Isis 5, 204 (1923)].
710 Aristotle, Politica, II, 8; pp. 1267B–1269B). Pierre Bise, “Hippodamos,” Arch. Geschichte Philosophie 35, 13–42 (1923) [ Isis 7, 175 (1925)].
711 His planning of the Peiraieus and of Thurii was done under the auspices of Pericles. Thurii was built near the site of the ancient Sybaris (on the Gulf of Tarentum, Lucania), which had been destroyed. I call it an Athenian colony because it was initiated by Pericles, but its purpose was Panhellenic. The early colonists included Herodotos, the orator Lysias, and his brothers. Thurii (or Thurium) grew rapidly and attained a high degree of prosperity; its location was marvelous. It was typical of the Greek spirit that the early colonists took a town planner with them. The Pilgrim Fathers who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 (2063 years laterl ) to establish a colony in America did not think of town planning.
712 Aristotle, Politica II, 8 p. 1267B.
713 Philip Boardman, Patrick Geddes, maker of the future (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1944) [Isis 37, 91–92 (1947)].
714 Elaborate account by Edouard Ardaillon, Les mines du Laurion dans l’antiquité (Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 77, 218 pp., ill., map; Paris, 1897). Oliver Davies, Roman mines in Europe (Oxford,: Clarendon Press, 1935), pp. 246–252 [Isis 25, 251 (1936)].
715 It was farmed out to contractors who used slave labor. The slaves were not state slaves.
716 Xenophon, On the means of improving the revenues of Athens, IV, 3–4, a book written in his old age, c. 353. The quotation is taken from Davies, Roman mines in Europe, p. 249.
717 Job 28:1–3.
718 Good introduction to mining folklore by A. E. Crawley, “Metals and minerals,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 8 (1916), pp. 588–592.
719 Henry Fanshawe Tozer (1829–1916), History of ancient geography (1897); second edition with notes by M. Cary (Cambridge; University Press, 1935) [ Isis 26, 537 (1936)]. E. H. Warmington, Greek geography (London: Dent, 1934) [ Isis 35, 250 (1944)], anthology of Greek and Latin extracts translated into English. J. Oliver Thomson, History of ancient geography (Cambridge: University Press, 1948) [Isis 41, 244 (1950)].
720 Plus of course two of the historians, Herodotos and Ctesias, whose works are full of geographic information.
721 Herodotos IV, 44. We quote the whole chapter from A. D. Godley’s translation (Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2, p. 243), because it is a good illustration of Herodotos as well as our only source concerning Scylax. Pactyica was west of the Indus, the country around Jal l b d in northeastern Afgh nist n. Scylax could not sail down the Indus “toward the East,” because the general direction of the river flow is southwest. Herodotos’ geography was generally vague; would our own idea of distant countries be much clearer if we had no maps? The “Phoenicians afore-mentioned” is a reference to Necho, who was not a Phoenician and was later than Scylax, but Herodotos’ chronology was often incorrect; he had no chronologic table on his desk.
722 In Caria, the southwest corner of Asia Minor. Caryanda was on a little island not far from Halicarnassos, Herodotos’ birthplace. Herodotos may have heard local traditions concerning Scylax.
723 Knowledge of the monsoons was not really available until the time of Hippalos, who flourished in the first century before or after Christ; Thomson, History of ancient geography, pp. 176, 298.
724 Dhow or dow; see Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson. A glossary of colloquial Anglo-Indian words and phrases (new ed. by William Crooke, London, 1903), p. 314. Dhow navigation as practiced today has been beautifully described by Alan Villiers, Sons of Sinbad (New York: Scribner, 1940). See also Richard LeBaron Bowen, Jr., Arab dhows of Eastern Arabia (64 pp., 37 ills.; Rehoboth, Massachusetts: Privately printed, 1949) [Isis 42; 357 (1951)])
725 Claude Bourdon, Anciens canaux, anciens sites et ports de Suez (Cairo, 1925), pp. 12–30, pl. 1. Darios’ inscription is on the stela of al-Kabrit now in the gardens of the Suez Canal Co. in Ismailia.
726 Probably Cape Cantin, 32°36’ N, Arabic R s al-hudik(?), a promontory on the Moroccan coast about the latitude of the Madeira Islands (32°40’ N).
727 Herodotos, IV, 43, as translated by A. D. Godley in the Loeb edition (vol. 2, p. 241).
728 The latitude of the Cape of Good Hope is 34°22’ S. Even Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) could not imagine the size of Africa, and he believed that the ancients had managed to circumnavigate it.
729 The Carthaginians had sent an armed expedition commanded by Hamilcar to Sicily. The expedition was defeated and Hamilcar killed in 480. It was first assumed that our Hannon was the son of Hamilcar, and on that basis his own expeditlon was dated c. 470. That assumption was gratuitous; Annon (Ann n) was a common name in Carthage. It is better to stick to the synchronism of the two expeditions (Hannon’s and Himilcon’s); Himilcon’s took place at the beginning of the century.
730 “Suffete” is a Punic (Carthaginian) term designating a high magistrate; cf. the Hebrew word shophet. Punic is a dialect of Phoenician; Phoenician and Hebrew are sister languages.
731 The two figures 60 and 30 ,000 do not tally, for the penteconters (50-oared galleys) could not carry 500 people each.
732 The same method was continued by the European nations at the beginning of the colonization period, the example being given by Portugal. The Portuguese empire in Asia in the sixteenth century was hardly more than a collection of trading stations, scattered along the coasts of India, Further Asia, China, and the islands.
733 Richard Hakluyt (1552—1616), English historian of navigation; see Isis 38, 130 (1947—48).
734 Pliny, Natural history, VII, 197.
735 Tartessos, Phoenician colony near the mouth of the Guadalquivir in Andalusia; perhaps equivalent to Tarshish (Ezekiel 27:12, Jeremiah 10:9). It was a very prosperous colony until its de- struction c. 500, and was superseded by another Phoenician colony in the same region, Cades (Cadiz).
736 The details of the Phoenician tin trade are very obscure, largely because the Phoenicians wanted to hide their business. The location of the Tin Islands (Cassiterides nésoi, Cassiterides in-rulae) is highly problematic: some of the British Isles? or some other islands of the Atlantic coast?
737 R. F. Avienus (IV–2), in his poem “Ora maritima,” line 120.
738 The Sargasso Sea occupies the region between lat. 20° and 35° N, long. 40° and 70° W. It is surrounded by currents turning clockwise. The Bermuda Islands are located near its western end, the Azores at some distance from the northeastern corner.
739 Fortunatorum insulae (ai t n macar n n soi); the Islands of the Blessed. These were the Canary or the Madeira islands.
740 What makes me hesitate in my denial is a similar reference in the pseudo-Aristotelian Mirabilia (136, end of 844A). However, both Aristotle and Avienus refer to a place where the sea bed is scarcely covered over by the shallow water, and this cannot be the Sargasso Sea.
741 This geographic section might include a discussion of the early ideas concerning the floods of the Nile, but this topic has already been dealt with in our section on Anaxagoras.
742 The Ten Thousand were Greek mercenaries who had been hired by the Younger Cyros, a Persian satrap who plotted against his brother and King Artaxerxes Mnemon (ruled 405–359). He set out from Sardis in the spring of 401 and was defeated and killed by Artaxerxes in the plain of Cunaxa, north of Babylon, between the two rivers. The Greek mercenaries, having obtained a safe-conduct from Artaxerxes, marched to the Tigris and followed its left bank until they reached its tributary, the Greater Zab. There their general and other officers were treacherously seized, and they found themselves without chief and guide. Xenophon was elected as their general and guided most of them to safety and home. The title of the book, Anabasis, is a bit misleading, for there was much going down as well as up, and the final march down to the Black Ses was very long.
The Anabasis has been discussed by travelers who tried to follow Xenophon’s footsteps, the Englishman, H. F. Tozer (1881), and the German, Eduard von Hoffmeistei ( 1911 ), and by the French “armchair traveler,” Arthur Boucher (1913). Dates refer to their publications; see Introduction, vol. 1, p. 123.
743 It has been objected that Xenophon’s description is not accurate enough to enable one to draw his itinerary exactly on a map. That is hardly fair, because travel in a difficult country like the mountains of Armenia cannot be described with great precision in the absence of very definite (human) landmarks. Moreover, Xenophon describes well enough the region that he and his army traversed, if not the very paths. One cannot draw his itinerary on a very large map, but one can draw it on a small one, and this has been done repeatedly.
744 The name of Halicamsasos is familiar to most readers because of the mausoleum of Halicarnassos. This was the splendid monument built by Artemisia II to immortalize the memory of her brother and husband Mausolos, satrap of Caria from 377 to 353. The city was destroyed by Alexander in 334; remains of the monument, discovered by Sir Charles Newton in 1857, are preserved in the British Museurr, Though the monument was destroyed, Artemisia succeeded in her purpose, as the word “mausoleum” has become a common word to designate a magnificent tomb. Each time that we use the word, we pay tribute to Mausolos and to herself.
Halicarnassos was the birthplace of two historiens, Herodotos and Dionysios (1–2 B.C.).
745 He does not mention Philae, the so-called pearl of Egypt, because Its oldest monuments date only from c. 370.
746 De legibus 1, end of 1: “quamquam et apud Herodotum, patrem historiae, et apud Theopom-pum sunt innumerabiles fabulae,” Theopompos of Chios (IV–2 B.C.) has sometimes been called the founder of psychologic history, the Greek predecessor of Tacitus (1–2).
747 It is interesting to note the lateness of the first masterpiece in prose as compared with the masterpieces in verse; the date of the Iliad is uncertain, but parts of it existed three or four centuries before Herodotos’ history.
748 Sestos, the best harbor in the Dardanelles, on the northern (European) side. It was there that Xerxes had moved his army, from Asia to Europe, on a bridge of boats; it was the first town to be freed from Persia by the Athenian fleet in 479. Thucydides began his own retrospective account(ta meta ta M dica) at that time.
749 My references to Herodotos are always to book and chapter (say VII, 103), which will permit the reader to use almost any edition or translation.
750 The word logos , story or history, tallies with the word logographos applied to the earlier chroniclers.
751 The Greek word barbaros has not necessarily the evil connotation of our word “barbarian” derived from it. Barbaroi was the Greek equivalent of “foreigner” in English, or g yim in Hebrew, gentiles in Latin. In the case of uneducated or narrow-minded people, all these words have bad meanings; foreigners are enemies and barbarians. Herodotos used the word barbaros as a civilized American uses the word “foreigner,” without malice.
752 The names of Herodotos’ parents, as given by Suidas (X-2), are very strange — Lyxes and Dryo. These names are unique in my experience. They might be Oriental names more or less Hellenized. If so, Herodotos would be himself a barbaros, at least in part. We should remember that “pure” Greeks must have been relatively rare in Asia.
753 Herodotos, VII, 99; VIII, 103.
754 Interesting commentary on Herodotos’ toleration and generosity by Theodore Johannes Haarhoff, The stranger at the gate (Oxford: Blackwell, 1938, 1948). pp. 20, 22 [ Isis 41 , 75 (1950)]. Haarhoff knows full well the implications of race prejudice, because he is a professor of classics in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
755 The three continents, or rather the three parts ( tria moria ) — Europe, Asia, Libya — were recognized at the beginning of the fifth century, if not before. Herodotos objected to this (II, 17), saying that one ought to add a fourth part, Egypt, otherwise, since the Nile divides Asia from Libya, Egypt would be half Asiatic and half Libyan. His ideas concerning the relative sizes of these parts were unavoidably wrong.
756 W. W. How and J. Wells, Commentary on Herodotos (Oxford, 1912), vol. 1, p. 17, give good reasons for believing that Herodotos was a merchant.
757 Herodotos, VII, 61–99.
758 Ibid, III, 8.
759 The “vicissitudes of fortune” was a commonplace of Greek literature. The metaphor of the wheel of fortune (trochos theu, rota fortunae ) occurs already in a fragment of Sophocles (No. 871, A. C. Pearson’s edition, vol. 3, p. 70). The idea of divine providence ( tu theu h pronoia ) was illustrated best by the name under which Athena was worshiped in Delphi, Pronoia Ath na.
760 John Dewar Denniston, Oxford classical dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 423.
761 Herodotos, n, 2.
762 Phrygia was the western part of the great central tableland of Asia Minor. Its ancient glory is symbolized by the legendary King Midas and by Midas II, who ruled from 738 to 696.
763 Herodotos, II, 3.
764 Ibid ., II, 123.
765 Ibid ., II, 82, 83.
766 Ibid ., II, 4.
767 Ibid ., I, 32.
768 Ibid ., VII, 37.
769 A “chemical” analysis of Herodotos’ work has been made by E. O. von Lippmmn, “Tech-nologisches und Kulturgeschichtliches aus Herodot,” Chem . Zeit ., Nos. 1, 7, 8/9 (1924). It is divided into: elements, mineral substances, metals, organic substances.
770 Herodotos, I, 193.
771 See Chap. vi, note 6.
772 The fertilization of high plants was first explained in scientific terms by Rudolf Jacob Camerarius in 1694. The first sufficient explanation of the caprification of figs was given only in 1820 by Giorgio Gallesio. Ira J. Conduit, The fig (Waltham: Chronica Botanica, 1947) [ Isis 40, 290 (1949)].
773 Hcrodotos, IV, 53.
774 C tea te megala anacantha ta antacaius caleusi ... D’Arcy W. Thompson, Greek fishes (London: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 16 [ Isis 38 , 254 (1947–48)]. For salted fish see Koehler, “Tarichos,” Mém. Acad. St. Pétersbourg (1832), pp. 347–488. Article “Salgama ( halmaia ) in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines (Paris, 1877–1919), vol. 4, p. 1014. The history of caviar remains to be written, though Koehler devotes a short chapter to it (pp. 410–417); according to him the only ancient author referring to caviar was Diphilos of Siphnos (fourth and third centuries), as related by Athenaios of Naucratis (III– ).
775 Herodotos, II, 5; II, 12.
776 Ibid ., II, 12.
777 Ibid ., VII, 129.
778 Ibid ., IV, 36, as translated in Eric Herbert Warmington, Greek geography , p. 229. This anthology contains long extracts from Herodotos, illustrating his views on the general outlines of the inhabited earth and the characteristics of various parts.
779 Herodotos, III, 115. The identification of the Eridanos and the Tin Islands is a good illustration of the haziness of ancient geography. The Eridanos has been identified with the rivers Po, Rhône, and Rhine; the Tin Islands ( Cassiterides insulae ) with the Scilly Islands, Cornwall, and islands off the coast of Brittany or of Spain.
780 For a summary of views concerning the great African rivers Nile, Niger, Senegal, even Congo, see Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 1158–1160, with bibliography.
781 Modern man has another advantage. It is possible from an airplane to follow the course of a river, say the Nile, from the beginnings to the end and to see it in its reality, immediately.
782 Herodotos, v, 52–53.
783 It is Herodotos who says 150 stadia to a day (v, 53). The length of a stadion varied from time to time and place to place. If we assume the lengths of 7.5 stadia and 10 stadia per mile, 150 stadia per day equal respectively 20 and 15 miles per day. For the length of the stadion, see Aubrey Diller, “The ancient measurements of the earth,” Isis 40 , 6–10 (1949).
784 Discussion of the road by H. F. Tozcr, History of ancient geography , pp. 90-91, XIV. For ancient and Oriental postal services see Introduction , vol. 3, p. 1786.
785 Herodotos, III, 95. 98, 100; IV, 44.
786 Ibid ., III, 106; VII, 65.
787 According to Isidic usage, I prefer to use the word ethnology for the study of the manners and customs of mankind, reserving the term anthropology for physical anthropology, the study of their anatomic and genetic differences.
788 Marriage by capture or by purchase, communal marriage, droit du seigneur , exogamy, polyandry, religious prostitution, prenuptial unchastity, etc.
789 Scythian was probably a form of Iranian, the northwestem branch of it. A. Meillet and Marcel Cohen, Les langues du monde (Paris, 1924), pp. 36, 42, 176, 285 [Isis 10, 298 (1928)].
790 Herodotos, IV, 74, 75. The plant Cannabis is causing much trouble in our own country today under the Mexican name marijuana .
791 Ferdinand Keller of Zurich (1800–1881); see Isis 26, 308–311 (1934), with portrait. The oldest lake dwellings date from the stono ago, but they continued to be used in successive prehistoric ages and even in historic times.
792 Herodotos, v, 16; Hippocrates, Airs, waters, places , 15. Both texts are given in English in my note on “The earliest representation of the remains of prehistorio pile dwellings apropos of Conrad Witz’s painting of 1444,” Isis 26, 449–451 (1936), 1 pl.; 32, 116 (1947–49). W. R. Halliday, “The first description of a lake-village,” Discovery 1 , 235–238 (1920) [ Isis 4 , 127 (1921–22)]. Robert Munro, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , vol. 7 (1915), pp. 773–784.
793 Herodotos, II, 32.
794 Paul Monceaux, “La légende des pygmées et nains de l’Afrique équatoriale,” Revue historique 47 , 1–64 (1891); Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 1227, 1860.
795 Herodotos, 1, 74.
796 P. J. Hamilton-Grierson, “Artificial brotherhood,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , vol. 2 (1910), pp. 857–871.
797 Herodotos, 11, 113.
798 Ibid ., n, 64–75.
799 The subject was cleared up by John Ferguson McLennan (1827–1881) and by James George Frazer (1854–1941), Totemism (Edinburgh, 1887), Totemism and exogamy (4 vols.; London, 1910). Note that Sir James died in 1941, and how close that is to ua.
800 For introduction on these topics see Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: Goblet d’Al-viella on animism, vol. 1 (1908), pp. 535–537; R. R. Marett on tabu, vol. 12 (1922), pp. 181–185; E. Sidney Hartland on totemism, vol. 12 (1922), pp. 393–407. These subjects, which were so controversial half a century ago, are now commonplaces in every textbook on ethnology.
801 Arnold Van Gennep, Religions , moeurs et légendes (Paris, 1909), vol. 2, p. 174.
802 Nicias (c. 470–13), Athenian aristocrat and general who labored for peace and finally obtained in 421 the conclusion of the peace named after him. He disapproved of the Sicilian expedition, but it was decided against him, and he was appointed the leader of it. He was executed by the Syracusans in 413.
803 Whether he owned property there or not, we cannot tell, but the exploitation of some of the mines had been farmed out to him. The mines were located in Scapt Hyl , on the Thracian coast, opposite the island of Thasos, a little to the west of it (modern Esld Kavala, or old Cavalla). Cavalla, we may recall, was the first European landing of St. Paul, and in 1769 the birthplace of Muhammad ‘All p sh , founder of modern Egypt; see Isis 31, 97 (1939–40).
804 Thucydides, v, 26.
805 Ibid .
806 Ibid ., I, 22.
807 Ibid ., v, 23.
808 Ibid ., v, 47.
809 Ibid ., II, 65.
810 Ibid ., II, 35–46.
811 Ibid ., II, 40.
812 Ibid ., II, 46.
813 Ibid ., m, 36.
814 Ibid ., m, 37.
815 Ibid ., I, 8.
816 Ibid ., I, 22.
817 The Peri stephánu (On the crown) is the most famous oration of the greatest of Athenian orators, Demosthenes (385–322). He delivered it in 330 in justification of his 14-year struggles against Philip II of Macedon. Philip won the battle of Chaeronea (in 338), which was the end of Greek independence; he died in 336. Demosthenes continued the fight against Alexander, but lost.
818 Thucydides, I, 22.
819 It is even possible now to record the speech as it was spoken and to preserve it for posterity, almost as if it were a living thing.
820 Thucydides, II, 41.
821 Ibid ., n, 47–49.
822 Introduction , vol. 3, p. 1656.
823 Isis 29, 406 (1938).
824 Isis 37, 124 (1947).
825 J. F. D. Shrewsbury, “The plague of Athens,” Bull. History of medicine 4 , 1–25 (1950); commentary by William MacArthur, ibid . 5, 214–215 (1950).
826 J. H. Finley, Jr., Thucydides (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942).
827 For ergotism see Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 1650, 1668, 1860, 1868; George Barger, Ergot and ergotism (London: Gurney & Jackson, 1931).
828 Lucretius, De rerum natura , VI, 1138—1286.
829 Thucydides, II, 94.
830 There are similar references in Herodotos, IX, 3; VI, 115, 121, 124, Xenophon, and other historians. Tozer, History of ancient geography , pp. 328-334. Wolfgang Riepl, Das Nachrichten-wesen des Altertums (492 pp.; Leipzig, 1913), deals chiefly with Roman times.
831 Thucydides, n, 28.
832 Ibid ., IV, 52.
833 Ibid ., VII, 50.
834 Cnidos is on a narrow peninsula at the southwestern corner of Asia Minor. It is very close to Halicarnassos and to Cos.
835 For the battle of Cunaxa in 401, see note 24. Xenophon and Ctesias were both present but in the opposite armies.
836 Cypros had been ruled by the Persians and the Phoenicians, but in 411 a Hellenic rebirth was led by Evagoras (435–374) of Salamis (Salamis was the principal Greek city in Cypros, on the east coast within sight of Syria). Many Greek refugees joined Evagoras, the most notable being the admiral Conon (444–392) of Athens, who reorganized the Persian fleet and destroyed the Spartan fleet at Cnidos in 394.
837 R. Henry, Ctesias , la Perse , l’Inde , les som-maires de Photius (Brussels: Office de Publicité, 1947) [ Isis 39, 242 (1948)].
838 The best edition of the Persica is by John Gilmore (London, 1888), in Greek only but well annotated and indexed. For the Indica , see the English translation of J. W. McCrindle (Calcutta, 1882), no Greek, but well annotated and indexed.
839 Diodoros of Sicily, II, 13. Behist n, modern B sut n [ Encyclopedia of Islam , vol. 1 (1912), p. 734], is in western Iran, near Kirm nsh h. The name used by Ctesias was to Bagistanon oros , which is derived from the old Persian B gast na, the place of the God (i.e., Mithras). The decipherment of the Babylonian cuneiform by Sir Henry Rawlinson (1847) was the foundation of Assyriology. Leonard William King and Reginald Campbell Thompson. The sculptures and inscription of Darius the Great (London, British Museum, 1907).
840 Diodoros of Sicily, ii, 12; translation by Charles Henry Oldfather in Loeb Classical Library.
841 Herodotos, I, 179.
842 Is (modern Hit) was at eight days’ distance from Babylon, near the Euphrates, west of it. It was the quarry for the bitumen used in the walls of Babylon.
843 In Ionian the word elleboros is spelled with smooth breathing, in Attic with rough breathing. This explains the two English orthographies, elle-bore and hellebore, the first of which is now obsolete. The dried rhizome and roots of various species of hellebore were much used by the Creeks and Romans as drugs; they contain various alkaloids acting as sedatives and repressants; also externally as insecticides. There are a good many references to hellebore in the Hippocratic corpus; see Littré , Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate , vol. 10, pp. 628–630; they are much fewer in Galen; see K. G. Kühn, Galeni opera omnia (20 vols.; Leipzig, 1821–1833); vol. 20, p. 296. Hippocratic physicians used it for a great variety of purposes.
844 Oribasios of Pergamon (IV–2), physician to Julian the Apostate. The text occurs in the Iatricai synag gai , VIII, 8. See the excellent edition of Bussemaker and Daremberg (6 8 vols.; Paris, 1851–1876), vol. 2 (1854), p, 182.
845 According to Strabon, XV, 1, 5; 2, 5.
846 Odyssey , IV, 227–232.
847 Herodotos, II, 84.
848 There are a good many references to Egypt in the Hippocratic corpus; see Littré, Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate (10 vols.; Paris, 1839–1961), vol. 10, p. 572.
849 Herodotos, III, 129, 132.
850 Heinrich Schäfer, “Die Widereinrichtung einer Ärzteschule in Sais unter König Darius I,” Z. aegyptische Sprache 37 , 72–74 (1899), quoting the text on the “naophore statue” in the Vatican, the only inscription of its kind in Egyptian archaeology.
851 Iliad , II, 731–732.
852 Emma J. Edelstein and Ludwig Edelstein, Asclepius , a collection and interpretation of the testimonies (2 vols.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945) [ Isis 37, 98 (1947)].
853 For serpent worship in general see Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , vol. 11 (1921), pp. 396–423. M. Oldfield Howey, The encircled serpent. A study of serpent symbolism in all countries and ages (422 pp., ill.; London, 1926). J. P Vogel, Indian serpent lore or the Nagas in Hindu legend and art (quarto, 332 pp., 30 pls.; London, 1926) [ Isis 10 , 234 (1928)].
854 The more superstitious people would not go to the Asclepieia but to the places where mysteries were celebrated or to such places as the temple of Amphiáraos near Oropos (near the frontier of Boeotia and Attica, close to the sea, facing Euboea) or the oracle of Trophonios in a cave of Lebadeia (in Boeotia).
855 Epidauros is on the shore of the Saronic gulf, northeast of the Peloponnesos.
856 The only reference I can think of is in the De decenti habitu, vi; Littré, vol. 9, p. 235.
857 This subject has been very beautifully investigated by Armand Delatte, Herbarius. Recherches sur le cérémonial usité chez les anciens pour la cueillette des simples et des plantes magiques (Brussels; Académie royale de Belgique, 1936) [ Isis 27, 531–532 (1937)]; rev. ed. (180 pp., 4 pls.; Liége: Université de Liége, 1938) [ Isis 30, 395 (1939)].
858 Agrigentum (Acragas in Greek, Girgenti in Italian), close to the middle of the southern coast of Sicily.
859 In my Introduction , vol. 1, p. 96, I wrote “Apollonia in Crete.” There were many places called Apollonia, and this one is more probably Apollonia in Phrygia. Crete was Dorian, and Diogenes wrote in Ionian; this does not prove that he was not a Cretan, but the Phrygian origin is more plausible. Or is it? I am beginning to doubt. See Pauly Wissowa, vol. 9 (1903), p. 763. At any rate, Diogenes is generally quoted as the last representative of Ionian philosophy.
860 None is mentioned in the Hippocratic corpus (Littré, index).
861 Selymbria is on the north shore of the sea of Marmara.
862 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 381–399.
863 Armand Delatte, “Les conceptions de l’enthousiasme chez les philosophes présocratiques (80 pp.; Paris, 1934), reprinted from L’antiquité Classique 3. There are no references to musical therapy in the Hippocratic corpus (Littré, index).
864 Cos is an island, while Cnidos is at the end of a very long promontory, which is almost the same for practical purposes as an island.
865 The following treatises may be considered to be Cnidian in various degrees: Diseases II, III, IV, Affections, Internal affections, Generation, Nature of the child, Diseases of women, Barrenness. The list is not exclusive. The text of all these treatises may be found in Littré, vols. 6 to 8.
866 A good many of the Hippocratic aphorisms deal with gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics. There arc abundant references to those subjects in other Hippocratic writings.
867 The mention of Eudoxos here is somewhat unexpected, for he was a mathematician and astronomer, whose fundamental work will be discussed in another chapter. Yet he had received some medical training from Philistion.
868 Aristotle speaks of her, Historia animalium, v, 15, p. 551B, but does not say when she lived.
869 The Coan dresses ( Coae vestes ) were famous in antiquity, but distinguished from the Chinese ones ( vestes sinicae ) made of Chinese silk. The difference between real silk, n ma s ri-con, metaxa (of Chinese origin) and wild silk (Indian origin?, Coan) is difficult to state. See F. Warre Cornish, ed., Concise dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1898), p. 574. Albert Neuburger, The technical arts and sciences of the ancients (London, 1930), pp. 165-167.
870 There is some piquancy in the fact that Cos and Cnidos were rivals in the worship of Aphrodite as well as in that of Asclepios: while the former boasted a painting of the goddess by Apelles, the second owned a statue by Praxiteles. Would that our American cities could foster rivalries of that kind.
871 It is perhaps safer to say that he died between 380 and 370. Sudhoff states that Hippocrates died in 390 at 70. All guesswork. See Ann. Medical History 2, 18 (1930).
872 Plato, Protagoras, 311B.
873 Plato, Phaidros, 270C–E.
874 Aristotle, Politica, 1326A.
875 Aristotle referred to the Nature of man but ascribed it to Polybos (IV–1 B.C.). The Phaidros might refer implicitly to the same work or to Ancient medicine. It is not possible to know which particular books Menon (IV–2 B.C.) had in mind.
876 Galen, xv, 456.
877 For Hindu medicine, see Isis 34, 174–177 (1942–43); 41, 120–123 (1950); for Chinese medicine, Isis 20, 480–482 (1933-34); 22, 267-272 (1934–35); 27, 341–343 (1937); 33, 277– 278 (1941–42); 41, 230 (1950); 42, 265–266 (1951).
878 The elements were called by Empedocles rhiz mata and later, by Plato, stoicheia; this second term prevailed and is preserved in our own terminology (stoichiology, stoichiometry).
The qualities (properties or powers) were called by Hippocrates or before him dynameis. That word remained popular for a long time in Greek and Latin (dinamidia); our word pharma-codynamics is a reminiscence of it.
The four qualities were discussed by the anatomist Quintos (Coïntos), who flourished in Rome under Hadrian (117–138) and founded a medical school to which Galen’s teachers belonged; he was banished and died in Pergamon in 148(?). Galen wrote a book criticizing Quintos’ view on the four qualities. See Isis 8, 699, no. 105 (1926); Introduction, vol. 1, 281.
879 Ancient medicine , XIV.
880 Sacred disease , XXI.
881 Sarton, “Remarks on the theory of temperaments,” Isis 34 , 205–207 (1942–43).
882 Differences of temperament or constitution due to climate or race were clearly recognized in the Hippocratic treatise Airs waters places, but there was no question of four temperaments. The Greek word for temperament is crasis (mixing), for any temperament is caused by a particular blending of the four elements, qualities, and humors. Galen’s treatise is entitled Peri crase n, De temperamentis; see K. G. Kühn, Galeni opera omnia, vol. 1, pp. 509–694.
883 Aphorisms, VII, 85.
884 Prognostic, xx. Epidemics 1, XXVI.
885 James Henry Breasted, The Edwin Smith surgical papyrus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), vol. 1 [ Isis 15, 355–367 (1931)].
886 Nutriment, xlviii.
887 There is no mention of “pouls” or “sphyg-mologie” in Littré’s index, but look under “battements” (violent pulsations of the temples, etc). On the other hand, the index to Kühn’s edition of Galen devotes a very large amount of space (20, 506-516) to pulses and all their varieties. This helps us to measure the medical progress made between the fifth century n.c. and the second after Christ.
888 Acgimios wrote a book on palpitations or pulsations, Peri palm n, to which Galen refers; he is otherwise unknown. See Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Aerzte aller Zeiten und Völker (ed. 2, 6 vols.; Berlin, 1929–1935), vol. 1, p. 37.
889 Emmet Field Horine, “Epitome of ancient pulse lore,” Bull. History of Medicine 10, 209–249 (1941).
890 Epidemics I, xxiv. Chapters xxv and xxvi, which I have no space to quote, give additional information on the evolution of various fevers, such as the critical days.
891 W. H. S. Jones, Malaria, a neglected factor in the history of Greece and Rome (114 pp.; Cambridge, 1907); Malaria and Greek history (184 pp.; Manchester, 1909) [ Isis 6, 48 (1924–25)]. Jones claims that the decadence and fall of Greece and later of Rome were largely due to malaria. His thesis cannot be completely proved, but he certainly helped us to realize the tremendous importance of malaria in ancient history. That disease is still dominating the stage in many parts of the world and is the main cause of the backwardness of some Oriental countries; see Isis 41, 380 (1950). A short and good account of the history of malaria and of the ominous nature of that disease to this day may be found in Norman Taylor, Cinchona in Java (New York: Greenberg, 1945) [ Isis 36 , 230 (1946)].
892 Jones, Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 1, p. lv.
893 Of course, the Hippocratic physicians could not understand the essential nature of malarial diseases, nor could they know the specific drug, cinchona, a South American plant, the marvelous efficacy of which was revealed to the world by Peruvian Indians in the seventeenth century. Quinine was extracted from cinchona by Pelletier and Caventou in 1820. The beginnings of the scientific knowledge of malaria are summarized by the following facts. In 1880, Laveran found protozoans of the genus Plasmodium in red corpuscles of malarial patients; in 1897 Sir Ronald Ross found Plasmodium in the stomachs of mosquitos; in 1898 Giovanni Battista Grassi showed that only the Anopheles mosquito carries the parasite of malaria. Note that these fundamental discoveries wore made, Laveran’s in Constantine, Algeria; Ross’s at Begumpet, Secunderabad, near Hyderabad; Grassi’s in Rome. The story of quinine, on the other hand, ranges from Peru to Java, All of which is very far away from Cos in space and time.
894 For bloodletting, see Introduction , vol. 2, p. 76. Hippocrates practiced venesection and cupping, but did not use leeches. The only mention of leeches ( bdella ) in the Hippocratic corpus is Prorrhetic , n, 17, and it is casual; it is remarked that when the throat often fills with blood this may be due to a hidden leech. This suggests that the early physicians did not discover leeches; it was rather the leeches that discovered them. In places where leeches occur naturally, they are a great nuisance; some physicians of genius realized that the nuisance might be turned to advantage. There are many references to leeches in Galen; see index to Kühn’s edition s.o. hirudines.
895 Edmund O. von Lippmann, Geschichte des Zuckers (Berlin. 1929) [ Isis 13 , 393-395 (1929–30)]. Sugar cane was hardly known west of India before the early Islamic conquests (VII–1); see Introduction, vol. 1, p. 465. It appeared in Egypt in 643, in Syria (Damascus) in 680, in Cypros in 700, in Spain in 714, in Provence in 750, in Crete in 818, in Sicily in 827.
896 For a history of that idea see Max Neuburger, “The doctrine of the healing power of nature throughout the course of time” (184 pp.), J. Am. Inst. Homeopathy (New York, 1932). The vis medicatrix naturae might be considered the first example of the idea of automatic regulation in living organisms. Cf. the milieu intérieur of Claude Bernard and the wider concept of homeostasis of Walter Bradford Cannon (1871–1945), Isis 36, 258–260 (1946). It might even be connected with the general law stated by Henri Le Châtelier (1850–1936) in 1887: the equilibrium of a system, when displaced by a stress, is displaced in such a way as to tend to relieve the stress.
897 This is fully recognized, of course, in the case of at least one disease, tuberculosis.
898 Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 286, 1240.
899 It It is typical that the third Janus (1896–1941) bore as subtitle Archives internationales pour l’histoire de la médecine et la géographie médicale.
900 This qualification is added in remembrance of the best Egyptian medicine which has been described in Chapter II.
901 Ancient medicine .
902 Plato, Charmides , 156.
903 Max Meyerhof, “Thirty-three clinical observations by Rhazes, c. 900 A.D.,” Isis 23, 321–372 (1935), including Arabic text, 14 pp. Meyerhof published separately two pages of errata to that text, copies of which may be obtained from G. Sarton. For regimina and consilia, seeIntroduction, vol. 3, pp. 285–286, 1238–1240. As to Benivieni, his little but famous book De abditis nonnullis ac mirandis morborum et sanationum causis (Florence, 1507; other editions, 1521, 1528, 1529, 1581) contains a record of 20 autopsies and a number of clinical cases.
904 Epidemics III , case 15.
905 John Cheyne (1777–1836) described that kind of breathing in the Dublin Hospital Reports 2, 216 (1818). William Stokes (1804–78) described more cases in 1846.
906 Isis 34, 206 (1942–43).
907 See articles Guilds by A. E. Crawley and J. S. Reid, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 6 (1914), pp. 214–221; seo also Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 152-156.
908 W. H. S. Jones, “Secret societies and the Hippocratic writings,” Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 2 (1923), pp. 333-336.
909 Emile Littré (1801–1881), Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate (10 vols.; Paris, 1839–1861). Léon Guinet, “Emile Littré,” Isis 8, 77–102 (1926), with portrait; p. 87 enumerates the contents of Littré’s edition of Hippocrates, volume by volume.
910 Jones edited vols. 1–2 (1923) [ Isis 6, 47 (1923–24); 7, 175 (1925)] and vol. 4 (1931). Withington edited the surgical writings in vol. 3 (1927) [ Isis 11 , 408 (1928)].
911 A Greek-English lexicon, by Henry George Liddell (1811–1898) and Robert Scott (1811–1887); new edition revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones (2160 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925–1940). Withington read for lexicographic purposes the whole of the extant remains of Greek medical literature; see Isis 8, 200–202 (1926).
912 As distinguished from a purely literary text, the form of which, whether in prose or verse, would be appreciated and respected.
913 Compare the use of Galician by Spanish poets of the Middle Ages (Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 337, 344); the use of Latin by French doctors of the seventeenth century; and the use of Anglo-Norman words in the legal jargon to this very day.
914 Says W. H. S. Jones, Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 2, p. liv: “We cannot hope to restore the text beyond reaching the best textual tradition current in the time of Galen. Occasionally even this aim cannot be reached. It is futile to attempt to restore the exact dialect actually written by the authors. They probably did not all write exactly the same kind of Ionic, as it was a literary and not a spoken dialect as far as medicine and science generally are concerned. It is more than futile to think that we know whether the author wrote, e.g., tois, toisi or toisin.”
915 Tanagra in Boeotia, a place famous for its business, its fighting cocks, and above all the lovely terra-cotta figurines excavated from its necropolis in 1873 and later.
916 Bacchios and Philinos were not included in my Introduction, because of the loss of their works and of uncertainties concerning their personalities. For Bacchios, see M. Wellmann, Pauly-Wissowa, vol. 4 (1896). p. 2790; for Philinos, see Diller, ibid., vol. 38 (1938). pp. 2193–94, and K. Deichgräber, Die griechische Empiriker-schule (Berlin, 1930). Jones has compiled a very instructive list of the Hippocratic writings known respectively to Bacchios, Celsus, and Erotianos; Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 1, pp. xxxviii-xxxix.
917 Celsus is not a commentator, but his Latin treatise De re medicina is full of Hippocratic memories. See in W. G. Spencer’s edition a list of the parallel passages in Hippocrates and Celsus; (Loeb Classical Library), vol. 3 (1938), pp. 624–627. Celsus appeared in print as early as 1478, before Hippocrates and Galen.
918 Erotianos compiled a Hippocratic glossary which is very precious; other glosses were collected by Herodotos or can be deduced from Galen’s commentaries.
J. G. F. Franz, ed., Erotiani Galeni et Hero-doti glossaria in Hippocratem ex recensione Henrici Stephani (Leipzig, 1780); modern edition of Erotianos’ glossary by Ernst Nachmanson (Uppsala, 1918).
919 Is the Peri t n gn si n Hippocratis syn-grammat n really lost? It is not included in Kühn’s edition. In Hunain’s list it is No. 104. See Bergsträsser’s edition (1925) or Meyerhof, Isis 8, 699 (1926).
920 Abü-I-Hasan ’All ibn Ya y (d. 888) was the son of Ya y al-munajjim (= the astrologer). Ya y had been converted to Isl m and was in the service of the caliph al-Ma’m n. The son ’Al was secretary to the caliph al-Mutawakkil and was a great collector of books and a lover of science; many of the Arabic translations of Galen were made for him or under his patronage; see Isis 8, 714 (1926). ‘ s ibn Ya y was presumably a brother of ‘Al .
921 Introduction, vol. 1, p. 480. This section must be corrected in two ways. John the Grammarian (VII–1) should be identified with John Philoponos (VI–1), and the second date (VI–1) is the correct one. The medical writings ascribed to John are apocryphal. The Byzantine Hippocratic collection cannot be dated, for no early manuscript is extant; it may be that the earliest Byzantine collection was simply a copy of the Alexandrian one.
922 Lists edited by I. L. Heiberg in “Hippocratis indices librorum,” Corpus medicorum graecorum, vol. 1 (1927), 1, pp. 1–3 [ Isis 11 , 154
923 Klebs, 116. This refers to No. 116 in Arnold C. Klebs. “Incunabula scientifica et medica,” Osiris 4, 1–359 (1938), a carefully ordered list of all the fifteenth-century printed books dealing with science or medicine. The same abbreviation will be used repeatedly without further explanation.
924 The numbers of incunabula ascribed to each are 151 for Albert the Great (XIII–2), 98 for Aristotle, 52 for Hippocrates, apocryphal items being counted together with the genuine ones; see Osiris 5, 183, 186 (1938).
925 G. Sarton, “J. A. Van der Linden,” Singer Festschrift (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952). The early editions including Van der Linden’s (1665) and perhaps even later ones were not prepared for philologists and historians but for physicians and medical students.
926 Isis 11, 154 (1928).
927 Hippocratic works are best known under their Latin titles, which have international currency. For each work reference is made to the Littré, Loeb, and corpus medicorum graecorum ( CMG ) editions, as far as these are available. In the study of any work one should pay very special attention to the Galenic commentary. If such commentary was made by Galen and transmitted to us, its text will be found in the Greek-Latin edition by Karl Gottlob Kühn, Galeni opera omnia (20 vols.; Leipzig, 1821–1833); vol. 20 is the general index.
928 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 350–397; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 129–183.
929 For the sake of convenience I shall often use the word “Hippocrates” in these notes, meaning the author, whoever he was. We cannot reopen that discussion apropos of each item.
930 Similar ideas occur in ch. 21 of the same work and in ch. 22 of Airs waters places apropos of the Scythian disease, effeminacy of certain men. “But the truth is, as I said before, those affections arc neither more nor less divine than any others, and all and each are natural.” This would suggest that the same man wrote The sacred disease and Airs waters places.
931 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (1848–1931), Griechisches Lesebuch (2 vols. in 4; Berlin, 1902–1906); vol. 1, pp. 269–277; vol. 2, pp. 168–172. For Joseph Bidez (1867–1945), see Osiris 6 (1939). For a fuller treatment, see Os-wei Temkin, The falling sickness. A history of epilepsy from the Greeks to the beginnings of modern neurology (359 pp.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1945) [Isis 36, 275–278 (1946)].
932 Littré, vol. 2, pp. 110-191; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 1–56.
933 Littré, vol. 2, pp. 224–377; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 59–125.
934 Chap. XXIII.
935 Chap. v.
936 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 1–75.
937 Introduction , vol. 2, p. 76.
938 Littré, vol. 2, pp. 598–717; 24–149; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 141–287.
939 Chap. XII.
940 Chap. XIV.
941 Littré, vol. 5, pp. 3–429.
942 Epidemics VI , 3, 18.
943 Epidemics V , 56.
944 Epidemics VII , 112.
945 Karl Deichgräber, “Die Epidemien und das Corpus Hippocraticum. Voruntersuchungen zu einer Geschichte der Koischen Ärzteschule,” Abhandl. Preuss. Akad ., Philos. Kl., nr. 3 (172 pp., quarto; Berlin, 1933).
946 Perinthos, on the north shore of the Propontis, in Thrace, near Selymbria. In the fourth century it was a more important place than Byzantium.
947 Epidemics VI , 7, 1, etc.; also Epidemics II, IV .
948 Aphorisms , 4, 33.
949 Epidemics VI , 32; Littré, vol. 5, p. 357.
950 Epidemics II is divided into 6 sections, a total of 116 items; Epidemics VI into 8 sections, a total of 160 items; Epidemics IV, V, VII contain respectively 61, 106, and 124 items; grand total, 567. Each item deals generally with one story or one medical note or aphorism. Some items deal with more than one, such as the one just quoted, which combines two cases of the same kind.
951 Withington, in Loeb, vol. 3. p. xii.
952 Littré, vol. 3, pp. 182–261; Loeb, vol. 3, pp. 2–51.
953 Littré, vol. 3, pp. 262–337; Loeb, vol. 3, pp. 54–81.
954 Littré, vol. 3, pp. 338–563; vol. 4, pp. i–xx, 1-395; Loeb, vol. 3, pp. 84–455.
955 Galen, xv, 456.
956 For the history of massage, see Introduction , vol. 3, p. 288.
957 Cition was one of the nine chief towns in Cypros. Apollonios flourished in Alexandria. For the story of the illustrations to Apollonios’ commentary see Introduction , vol. 1, p. 216. These illustrations were beautifully reproduced by Hermann Schöne, Illustrierter Kommentar zu peri arthr n (75 pp., 31 pls.; Leipzig, 1896).
958 Codex Laurentianus, lXXIV, 7.
959 Littré, vol. 1, pp. 557–637; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 3–64; CMG, vol. 1, pp. 38–55.
960 Chap. VIII.
961 The author was the first to use the Greek word hypothesis , not as we use it, however, but with the meaning of unverifiable and irresponsible assumption. The theory of four qualities was such an assumption.
962 “Technical” is derived from the Greek word techn , which means art but also method and thus comes sometimes close to “science,” even as the English words technical and scientific may assume comparable meanings. The difference between the Greek words techn and epist m or math ma may be nothing more than the difference between practical and theoretical knowledge.
963 Chap. ix.
964 Jones’s translation in Loeb Hippocrates , vol. 1, pp. 13, 53. He uses the word “postulate” for the Greek word hypothesis in order to avoid misunderstandings, for we now restrict the meaning to “good, valuable, hypotheses” as distinguished from the unwarranted one. The tone of both extracts is astonishingly modern. The author speaks like a man of science of today, who repeats, “Do not generalize a priori; do not use concepts until their operational value has been tested.”
965 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 1–27; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 186–217; CMG, vol. 1, pp. 9–19.
966 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 29–69; Loeb, vol. 4, pp. 1–41.
967 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 70–87; Loeb, vol. 4, pp. 44–59.
968 The quotation occurs in Historia animalium (3, 3, p. 512 b ), and the passage quoted is taken from chapter XI of Nature of man , a confused description of the veins.
969 W. H. S. Jones, The medical writings of Anonymous Londinensis (Cambridge: University Press, 1947), p. 75 [ Isis 39 , 73 (1948)].
970 This form of speech is used rather than the one more natural to us, “how to lose or gain weight,” because there is no mention of weight. Nobody was ever weighed in antiquity.
971 Littré, vol. 5, pp. 470–503; Loeb, vol. 4, pp. 62–95.
972 Littré, vol. 2, pp. 12–93; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 66–137; CMG , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 56–78.
973 The chapter begins, “Moreover the great majority among the Scythians become impotent, do women’s work, live like women and converse accordingly. Such men they call Anaries ( An - arieis ).” Herodotos refers to the same people, giving them almost the same name, Enarees (I, 105; IV, 67). That was probably a Scythian word, equivalent to androgyne or homosexual.
974 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 94–121; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 337–361; CMG , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 79–84.
975 LV. Moisture the vehicle of nourishment.
976 Chap. XXXVI.
977 End of chap. XLIV.
978 Chaps. I, VIII, IX, and XLVIII are quoted, each complete.
979 The first Greek studies of pulse were made by Praxagoras of Cos (IV-2 B.C.) and by Herophilos of Chaleedon (III–1 B.C.), which takes us into the Hellenistic age. Hippocratic physicians recognized the excited palpitations occurring in fevers (throbs; see Littré’s index, s.v. “battements”). See section 4 above.
980 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 116–137; CMG , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 85—90.
981 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 462–663; Loeb, vol. 4, pp. 224-447.
982 Armand Delatte, Les harmonies dans l’embryologie hippocratique (Mélanges Paul Thomas, pp. 160-171, Bruges, 1930). Joseph Needham, A history of embryology (Cambridge: University Press, 1934), pp. 13–19 [ Isis 27, 98–102 (1937)].
983 Book II, LXI–LXVI.
984 End of LXXXVII.
985 Jones, Loeb Hippocrates , vol. 4, p. lii.
986 Littré, vol. 6, pp. 88–113; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 221–253; CMG, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 91–101.
987 Earthquakes being frequent in the Mediterranean area, early philosophers like Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Democritos had tried to give a rational explanation of them. According to Aristotle ( Meteorologica ), who discussed their views, earthquakes and volcanic phenomena are caused by underground winds. Archibald Geikie, Founders of geology (London, 1905), pp. 13-14.
988 J. Filliozat, La doctrine class que de la medecine indienne (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1949), pp. 161–190 [ Isis 42 , 353 (1951)],
989 Jones, Locb Hippocrates, vol. 2, p. xxviii.
990 Littré vol. 5, pp. 504-573.
991 Prorrhetic I, 16 - Coan prenotions , 95.
992 Aristotle, Historia animalia , VIII, 22, 604A, “Dogs suffer from three diseases: rabies, quinsy, and sore feet. Rabies drives the animal mad, and any animal whatever, excepting man, will take the disease if bitten by a dog so afflicted; the disease is fatal to the dog itself, and to any animal it may bite, man excepted.”
993 Littré, vol. 4, pp. 450–609; Loeb, vol. 4, pp. 98–221.
994 At least 140 manuscripts in Greek, 232 in Latin, 70 in Arabic, 40 in Hebrew; these total 482, and there are many others in other languages.
995 Section 1 contains the fewest (25), section 7 the most (87).
996 Aphorisms , I, 1.
997 Ibid., I, 3.
998 Ibid., I, 13; II, 10; VI, 17; VI, 46. The last is a short description of Pott’s disease, named after the English surgeon Percival Pott (1714-1788).
999 Littré, vol. 5, pp. 574–733.
1000 Littré, vol. 8, pp. 542–549; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 317-329.
1001 Littré, vol. 4, pp. 628–633; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 291–301; CMG, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 4–6.
1002 Aes pos, traditional author of the Greek fables, the history of which is inextricable. According to Herodotos (II, 134), Aesopos the story writer ( ho logopoios ) was a slave in Samos during the reign of Amasis (king of Egypt, 569–525). A biography of him was written by Maximos Planudes (XIII-2). Ben Edwin Perry, Studies in the text history of the life and fables of Aesop (256 pp., 6 pls.; Haverford, Pennsylvania: American Philological Association, 1936). Article “Fable,” Oxford Classical dictionary, p. 355.
1003 Littré, vol. 4, pp. 638–643; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 257–265; CMG, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 7–8.
1004 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 198–221; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 305-313, chap. I only; CMG , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 20–24.
1005 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 222–245; Loeb, vol. 2, pp. 269–301; CMG , vol. 1, part 1, pp. 25–29.
1006 Chap. v.
1007 Littré, vol. 9, pp. 246–273; Loeb, vol. 1, pp. 305–333; CMG, vol. 1, part 1, pp. 30-35.
1008 Introduction , vol. 3, p. 10.
1009 Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 247–248.
1010 These 17 works constitute, if not a canon, at least a definite group, each item of which might fall under the notice of any student of Galen. These works are: De officina medici, Prognosticum (Praenotiones), De diaeta in acutis, Prorrhetic (Praedicta), Epidemiorum libri, De fracturis, De articulis, De natura hominis, De humoribus, De alimento, Aphorismi, De salubri victus ratione (all these are in Kühn’s edition of Galen; all of them except the last are in Hunain’s list), De capitus vulneribus, De aëre aquis locis, Iusiuran- Jibril ibn Bakhtyash ’ tried to improve the translation but made it worse. Therefore, I have collated it with the Greek text, corrected it to the extent of making a new dum, De ulceribus, De natura pueri.
1011 It was published in Arabic and German by Gotthelf Bergsträsser (1886–1933). unain ibn Ish q iiber die syrischen und arabischen Galen-Uebersetzungen (Leipzig, 1925), and summarized by Max Meyerhof (1874–1945) in Isis 8, 685–724 (1926). My references to either edition are indicated thus: unain, No. x.
1012 The Arabic word maq la is used to translate the Greek tm ma (section); in Latin one used the word liber . These three words are equivalent yet different metaphors.
1013 Translated from Bergsträsser’s Arabic text ( unain, No. 88). Ayy b al Ruh wl al-Abrash (IX–1), Job of Edessa the Spotted, was a translator from Greek into Syriac; Jibr l ibn Bakhtyash ’ (IX–1), another translator from Greek into Syriac; A mad ibn Muhammad al-Mudabbir, a great administrator and patron of science; see Isis 8, 715 (1926). Muhammad ibn M s was one of the Ban M s , that is, one of the three sons of M s ibn Sh kir (IX–1); they patronized the translations into Arabic; Muhammad lived until 872/3.
1014 The orthodox point of view concerning Christology is that there are in Christ two natures (human and divine) but one person. The Nestorians claimed that there are two natures and two persons; they were condemned by the council of Ephesos in 431. The Monophysites went to the other extreme and claimed there is in Christ but one nature and one person; they were condemned by the council of Chalcedon in 451. The transmission of Greek science to the Islamic world was largely effected by these two (opposite) groups of Christian heretics, Nestorians and Monophysites. Those of Asia used the same language, Syriac, but two different scripts; Introduction, vol. 2, p. 501. There are thus two Greek-Syriac-Arabic traditions, duplicating or completing each other. We cannot go into the details of that; this is done in my Introduction.
1015 Henri Pognon, Une version syriaque des Aphorismes d’Hippocrate (2 vols.; Leipzig, 1903), Syriac-French edition. Pognon suggests that the Syriac text might have been written by Sergios and even earlier (vol. 1, p. xxx) but he does not prove it.
1016 Not dealt with in my Introduction. There is a copy of ‘Abd al-Ra m n’s commentary on the Aphorisms in the Escorial. See H. P. J. Renaud’s catalogue (Paris, 1941) No. 877 [Isis 34, 34-35 (1942-43)].
1017 So much so that Latin writers like Jean de Toumemire (XIV-2) called it Flores Galieni. For various editions in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin of the Fu l M s see Introduction, vol. 2, p. 377, No. 8, and Osiris 5, 109 (1938), Figs. 28-29. Maimonides’ collection was much larger than Hippocrates’, containing some 1500 aphorisms as compared with 412.
1018 The text of the Glosule amphorismorum secundum magistrum Maurum was edited by Salvatore de Renzi, Collectio salernitana (Naples, 1856), vol. 4, pp. 513-557.
1019 Introduction, vol. 2, p. 1099, note.
1020 There is a possibility that the commentary ascribed to Barhebraeus was written by another Christian, also called Ab -1-Faraj but less famous, Ab -1-Faraj Ya‘q b Ibn al-Quff of Karak (XIII–2). In Renaud’s catalogue of Escorial manuscripts, No. 878 is tentatively ascribed to Ibn al-Quff. Of course, it is possible that both men wrote a commentary.
1021 Introduction, vol. 2, p. 846.
1022 Ibid ., vol. 3, p. 248.
1023 Germaine Lafeuille is preparing a study of that French translation to appear in 1953–54.
1024 Klebs, 546.3–6.
1025 Introduction , vol. 3, p. 1195.
1026 Klebs, 476.
1027 Klebs, 1002. Dean Putnam Lockwood, Ugo Benzi (Chicego: University of Chicago Press, 1951) [Isis 43, 60–62 (1952)],
1028 Klebs, 116.1–6, 520.1–2.
1029 Littré, vol. 4, pp. 446–457.
1030 See index, under “Cos.”
1031 Epidemics II, XXIII.
1032 Prorrhetic I, XXXIV.
1033 De morbis internis, XXV and XXX.
1034 The wine of Cos was famous. Says Strabon, XIV, 2, 19, “Cos is everywhere well supplied with fruits, but like Chios and Lesbos it is best in respect to its wine.”
1035 Obsidian is a volcanic glass, very hard and very sharp, an excellent material for (Stone Age) tools.
1036 Hyali, from hyalos meaning rock crystal, glass; the island derived its name from its main source of wealth. The island is now called Istros.
1037 The earthquake of 413–12 was certainly not the first, and, as we shall see, it was not the last. The island’s bad reputation as an earthquake center is confirmed by mythology. Polybotes, one of the giants who fought against the gods, was pursued by Poseidon (Neptunus) across the sea as far as Cos. The god of the sea was infuriated, broke off part of the island, threw it at Polybotes, and buried him under it! The popular inventors of that myth did not choose Cos at random; they chose Cos because of its known instability.
1038 The tumults were much aggravated by the heterogeneity of the Coan people. They were philhellenes, but in a distant way, and we may be sure that Dorian sympathies were not extinguished and that many of them were pro-Spartan. This was fully proved by the Social War, which began in 357 and was mainly directed against the Athenian protectorate. Cos allied itself with Mausolos, king of Caria, 377–353, who was anti-Athenian as well as anti-Persian. They concluded a peace with Athens in 355. Cos remained in Carian power until 346. Soon afterward, it fell under the control of Alexander the Great. After Alexander’s death, Coan sympathies oscillated between Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt. The island obtained her main glory under the Ptolemies. In the first half of the third century she was graced by the presence of two poets, Philetas of Cos and his pupil, Theocritos of Syracuse. During the Roman period Cos enjoyed a kind of limited autonomy, being a libera civitas in the province of Asia. Claudius, emperor, 41–54, influenced by his physician Xenophon of Cos, granted various privileges to the island.
1039 C. Stertinius Xenophon is the same physician mentioned in footnote 9. He was archiater to Claudius and Agrippina and belonged to an old Asclepiad family. The first Xenophon of Cos was a pupil of Praxagoras of Cos (IV–2 B.C.); A. N. Modona, L’isola di Cos, p. 128. The stele bearing Xenophon’s dedication is reproduced in Modona, pl. 8.
1040 Strabon, Geographica, XIV, 2, 19.
1041 Many are reproduced in T. Meyer-Steineg und Karl Sudhoff, Geschichte der Medizin im Ueberblick (Jena, 1921; [ 1sts 4 , 368 (1921–22)]; ed. 2, 1922) [ Isis 5 , 188 (1923)]. William Henry Denham Rouse, Greek votive offerings (480 pp., ill.; Cambridge, 1902), or Rouse’s article inEncyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 12 (1922), p. 641.
1042 I assume that the Asclepieion of Cos was guided and restrained by the Asclepiads. Ancient but late witnesses made the opposite assumption: the physicians had obtained their initial knowledge from the temple. Thus, Strabon (I–2 B.C.): “It is said that the dietetics practiced by Hippocrates were derived mostly from the cures recorded on the votive tablets in Cos ( Geography , XIV, 2, 19). Pliny (I–2) makes a similar statement in Natural history, XXIX, 1(2), 4. They were very probably wrong, but I do not exclude the possibility of an exchange of good influences between temple and medical office.
1043 Abaton means the untrodden, inviolable (place), the holy of holies.
1044 The text is taken from Edelstein, Asclepius (vol. 1), § 423, Stele 1 of Epidauros, Nos. 1, 13, 17. That stele describes 20 cases; at the top of it is written: “God and Good Fortune. Cures of Apollo and Asclepios.”
1045 When the medical corps of the U. S. Army was organized, it chose as its emblem (embroidered upon uniforms, etc.) a wand with two serpents entwined around it. That was a mistake, for the caduceus was the staff of office not of Asclepios, the god of medicine, but of Hermes (Mercury), god of business and communications.
1046 A beautiful photograph of the tree forms the frontispiece to vol. 4 of the Loeb Hippocrates; it is described on p. lix.
1047 The story was told in 1844 by natives to the German archaeologist Ludwig Ross (1806–1859).
1048 Phryne, the most famous of the Athenian hetairai ( couriesans ), was born in Thespiai. Boeotia. She inspired not only the sculptor Praxiteles but also the painter Apelles. It is said that after Alexander had destroyed Thebes in 336, she offered to rebuild the walls on condition that an inscription would record the deed: “Alexander destroyed the walls but Phryne, the hetaira, rebuilt them.”
1049 Euclid’s teaching combined Eleatic philosophy with Socratic dialectics and ethics. The Megaric or Dialectic school existed rather ingloriously until the end of the fourth century.
1050 The fruits of his acquaintance with Archytas will be considered in the next chapter; those of his friendship with Dion must be tasted right now. That friendship was ominous, for himself, for Dion, and for Syracuse. Dion was a relative and minister of Dionysios I; being influenced by Plato and probably full of hopes and good intentions, he tried to educate the king and the latter’s son. When the son (Dionysios II) succeeded his father in 367, at the age of thirty, being like him a dilettante but weaker and irresolute, he played the part of a patron of letters and philosophy. Dion invited Plato to return to Syracuse; Dionysios II banished him, confiscated his property, and tried in vain to retain Plato.
Dion lived for a time in Athens, attending the Academy. In 357, helped by other members of that school, he reentered Syracuse by force and expelled Dionysios II. He became of necessity a tyrant in his turn and was murdered a few years later. Many of these facts are known from Plato’s letter 7 (the genuineness of which is uncertain), addressed in his old age to Dion’s partisans after the latter’s death, and urging them to he moderate. The letter proves that Plato himself and other members of the Academy had been deeply mixed up in the intrigues and crimes of Syracusan politics. With regard to the letter ascribed to Plato, see Isis 43, 68 (1952).
1051 According to a letter kindly sent to me by Prof. Michael Stephanides (Athens 23 July 1950), the place is now a popular quarter of Athens, vulgarly called Astryphos ( Hagios Tryph n ) but also called Acad mia. The location is open to visitors, but there is no memorial monument.
1052 Academos it was who revealed to the Dioscuroi (Castor and Pollux) the place where their sister, Helen of Sparta, had been hidden away. Therefore, when the Lacedaemonians invaded Attica, they spared the Academy.
1053 The successive meanings of academy (and its variants in other European languages) are, briefly: (1) the school founded by Plato; (2) college of higher learning; (3) secondary school; (4) special school (academy of music, naval academy, etc.); (5) place of education or training in general; (6) society of learned men.
It was felt early that “academy” was an honorable term, a “glamour” word; its further use increased the glamour (Académie des sciences); it was also misused. There are in the world too many worthless academies. For any humanist who remembers Plato, “academy” is a sacred word.
1054 The privacy was perhaps a necessity suggested by the condemnation of Socrates. Such teaching as Plato had in mind could not be made in public without danger; it was more prudent to teach privately, if not secretly, in a secluded place.
1055 Long article on Crantor by von Amim in Pauly-Wissowa, vol. 22 (1922), pp. 1585–1588.
1056 Proclos of Byzantion is counted among the Asiatics, though Byzantion is on the western (European) side of the Bosporos.
1057 Timaios, 22B.
1058 Solon ( c . 638– c . 558), the illustrious Athenian lawgiver, one of the Seven Wise Men. After he had completed his code of laws, he absented himself from Athens for ten years, visiting Egypt, Cypros, and Lydia, where he had his famous interview with Croesos. Shortly after his return, supreme power was seized by Peisistratos, his constitution was revoked and he died two years later, c . 558.
1059 Republic , x, 616.
1060 Ibid ., 414.
1061 In Alcibiades I (121E–122A), of doubtful genuineness. At the age of 14 the young Persian was taught the magianism of “Zoroaster son of Horomazos.”
1062 When Platonic Ideas are meant the word is capitalized to distinguish this very particular and exalted acceptation from the common ones.
1063 As in the parable at the beginning of Republic VII, 514 ff. We are like prisoners in a cave who are aware of outside events only because of the shadows projected upon the inside walls,
1064 The terms used by Plato are h idea (idea) and to oidos (form, shape). The second term is semantically curious, for its original meaning is “that which is seen” and the Idea cannot be seen. All our abstract terms have necessarily concrete origins.
1065 Like many other translators of Plato, Shelley, from whose translation this passage is taken, hides the fact, clear enough in the Greek text, that the “lovely persons” are not women, but beautiful boys and striplings. Platonism leads easily to hypocrisy.
1066 From the translation of the Symposium (211) by Shelley reprinted in Five dialogues of Plato bearing on poetic inspiration (Everyman’s Library).
1067 Virtue is the condition of happiness, wickedness or sin is a wrong calculation. The truly virtuous man, in the Platonic sense, is the dialectician who knows the Idea of good.
1068 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 991.
1069 Introduction , vol. 3, pp. 81–83, 549–557.
1070 For a definition of oporationism see Dagobert D. Runes, Dictionary of philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library, 1942), p. 219 [ Isis 39 ,
1071 The weasel word idealist is sometimes understood as the opposite of realist.
1072 In my appreciation of Plato’s politics, I have been much helped by Warner Fite, The Platonic legend (340 pp.; New York: Scribner, 1934); Benjamin Farrington, Science and politics in the ancient world (243 pp.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1940) [ Isis 33 , 270–273 (1941–42)], and above all by Karl R. Popper, The open society and its enemies (2 vols.; London: Routledge, 1945; new ed. in 1 vol., 744 pp.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950). My references are to the first edition.
1073 In Jowett’s translation the Republic covers 338 pp., the Statesman 68, the Laws 361, total 767 pp. No other work covers as much as 100 pp.
1074 To make the comparison more precise, imagine that we had been beaten by the Germans, because we had begun our preparations too late or because they had built an atomic bomb ahead of us, and that a professor of government in Harvard University started to praise and preach Nazi doctrines . . .
1075 The original title is Politeia peri dicaiu, Polity or concerning justice. The first word might be englished “polity”; the translation “republic” is somewhat misleading but too well established to be modified. “Republic” is to be taken in its original sense– res publica.
1076 The question of slavery need not be discussed here. Slaves were originally prisoners of war whose life was forfeited, and who chose servitude as a lesser evil than death. Slavery was accepted as a natural institution, not only by Plato and Aristotle, but also sixteen centuries later by such a man as St. Thomas Aquinas (XIII–2). See Introduction, vol. 2, p. 916. From Plato’s point of view, the masses were on the same spiritual level as the slaves.
1077 Nus, thymos, epithymia . These three “souls” correspond, respectively, to the three pneumata of Galenic physiology–psychic, vital, and natural spirits–which formed the basis of physiology until the time of Harvey and even later. The comparison of the whole state with the body of a single person is typical of Platonic philosophy.
1078 Plato describes Egyptian castes in Timaios 24. For comparison with Hindu castes, see E. Senart (1847–1928), Les castes dans l’Inde (Paris, 1896, 1927) [ Isis 11 , 505 (1928)] and J. H. Hutton, Caste in India (Cambridge: University Press, 1946) [ Isis 39 , 107 (1948)].
1079 Doxa al th s . Having good opinions, that is, being orthodox, right-minded, is simply a deeper form of obedience.
1080 Cf. the story of Pasion (p. 395), the ex-slave who had become the richest man of Athens and had bought high honors with his benefactions.
1081 It would be better to say that Plato was the first theorist of eugenics. Eugenic views had been expressed two centuries before by the aristocratic poet Theognis (fl. 544–541). M. F. Ashley Montagu, “Theognis, Darwin and social selection,” Isis 37, 24–26 (1947).
1082 The “musical man” ( musicos anër ) was what we would call a humanist, but Plato’s humanist was belittled and debased, for his freedom of thought was very restricted.
1083 Republic , 398A.
1084 Aristotle, Politics, 1265A, 14.
1085 Laws , 737 limits the number of citizens (i.e., the whole elite) to 5,040 (not 5,000). The number was to be kept constant, and children would be produced only in sufficient quantity to keep the population stationary! The limit was determined by one of Plato’s numerologic fantasies: 5040 = 21 × 20 × 12 = 35 x 12 × 12. The number 5040 has as many as 59 divisors, including all the numbers from 1 to 12, except 11; it is almost divisible by 11 ( Laws , 738, 771). Had Plato known that 5040 = 71 his enthusiasm for that number would have been carried even higher.
1086 Laws, 694–698.
1087 Cf. the views of Walter Bradford Cannon (1871–1945) on homeostatic control of social conditions, Isis 36 , 260 (1946). In a way these views would have pleased Plato, for they introduced a new analogy between physiology and politics, between the microcosm and the macrocosm.
1088 Republic , 473. The same idea is expressed again and again, half a dozen times, in the Republic .
1089 Laws , 942. The quotation is from the standard English translation of Benjamin Jowett (1817–1893), master of Balliol, hereafter referred to as “Jowett.” This passage occurs in Stephanus’ edition (3. vols.; Paris: Henri Estienne, 1578), vol. 2, p. 942, and in Jowett (ed. 3), vol. 4, p. 330.
1090 Popper, The open society , vol. 1, chap. 7. John Stuart Mill had explained the necessity of constitutional checks in his System of logic (1843), and in The subjection of women (1869) he had remarked: “Who doubts that there may be great goodness and great happiness and great affection under the absolute government of a good man? Meanwhile, laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men but to bad.” “Who doubts?” asked Mill. Popper does, with good reason.
1091 Laws , 634D.
1092 Waldo Frank, Dawn in Russia (New York: Scribner, 1932), p. 163.
1093 Republic , 414B, 389B.
1094 Popper, The open society , vol. 1, p. 171.
1095 John Bagnell Bury (1861–1927), History of the freedom of thought (New York, 1913), p. 35.
1096 For details, see Popper, vol. 1, p. 87.
1097 Laws , 942, quoted above.
1098 Laws , 739; Jowett, vol. 5, p. 121. See also Republic, 462, and passim by means of Jowett’s index.
1099 Alcidamas of Elaia (Aeolis) condemned slavery as contrary to natural law. According to Lycophron, “law is only a convention, a surety to one another of justice and has no power to make the citizens good and just.” Aristotle, Politics, 1280s 10.
Antisthenes of Athens, founder of the Cynic school, was a disciple of Socrates, at whose death he was present. He taught at the Cynosarges, a gymnasium outside of the walls of Athens for the of Socrates, from the Socratic demand that the responsible statesman should not be dazzled by his own excellence, power, or
use of those who were not of pure Athenian blood. He was an “impure” Athenian himself, his mother being a Thracian. He died in Athens at the age of 70.
1100 The reader may object: How do you know that? Well, the real Socrates is the one about whom Plato and Xenophon agree, and whose genius is defined in the early Socratic dialogues of the former.
1101 J. Benda, Trahison des clercs (Paris, 1927).
1102 Popper, The open society, vol. 1, p. 137.
1103 There are innumerable editions of it. The English readers may use Jowett, vol. 3, or R. G. Bury’s edition (Greek-English) in the Loeb Plato, vol. 7 (1929), pp. 3–253, or the translation with running commentary by Francis Macdonald Cornford (1874–1943), Plato’s Cosmology (394 pp.; London: Kegan Paul, 1937) [Isis 34, 239 (1942–43 ) ]. Cornford’s is the most convenient for the historian of science. Heinrich Otto Schröder, Caleni in Platonis Timaeum commentarii fragmenta. Appendix II. Mosis Maimonidas Aphorismorum praefatio et excerpta a Paulo Kahle tractata(140 pp.; Corpus medicorum graecorum, Suppl. 1; Leipzig, 1934).
1104 Attempts were made to identify Timaios of Locris (Locri Epizephyrii, southeast Bruttium, Italy) with an old Pythagorean who would have been Plato’s teacher and who wrote in Doric dialect a treatise ( Peri psychas cosmu cai physios ) on the soul of the world and nature. This was taken by the Neoplatonists as a genuine work, but has been shown to be apocryphal, not earlier than the first Christian century. Far from being prior to the Timaios, it is a late summary of it.
1105 ( Timaios , 20E). The myth was related to Solon by an old priest of Sais in the Delta. We have already referred to their conversation (p. 401).
1106 Timaios, 42B.
1107 Republic, 546B; Timaios, 39D.
1108 The concepts of “great year” and of “microcosm vs. macrocosm” are probably also of Oriental, Babylonian, origin.
1109 Timaios , 31B ff.
1110 Timaios , 53c ff. The fantastic comparison of the elements with the Platonic solids was not translated by Chalcidius, whose version and commentary stopped just short of it.
1111 Littré’s edition of that treatise, Peri cardi s, vol. 9, pp. 76—93, is very insufficient. Better edition by Friedrich “Karl Unger (Utrecht thesis, 1923). G. Leboucq, “Une anatomic antique du cocur humain. Philistion de Locres et le Timée,” Revue des études grecques 57, 7—40 (1944). This includes a new edition of the Peri cardi s by Joseph Bidez.
1112 For the circulation of water in the earth ( perirrho ) see Phaidon, 111 D—E.
1113 Timaios , 81.
1114 Timaios , 82–84.
1115 Dhirendra Nath Ray, The principle of tridosa in yurveda (376 pp.; Calcutta: Banerjee, 1937) [ Isis 34, 174–177 (1942—43)]. Jean Filliozat: La doctrine classique de la médecine indienne (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1949) [ Isis 42 , 353, (1951)].
1116 Timaios, 24x.
1117 Wincenty Lutoslawski, Origin and growth of Plato’s logic, with an account of Plato’s style and of the chronology of his writings (565 pp.; London, 1897) see p. 484. In this book an effort was made to put Plato’s writings in chronologic order, on the basis of a systematic investigation of 500 peculiarities of his style.
1118 Timaios, 91c.
1119 Timaios, 56D.
1120 Timon of Phlius (northeast Peloponnesos) had studied philosophy at the school founded by Euclid in Megara; after many years of wandering, he spent the remainder of his life in Athens, where he died in very old age. He wrote mock poems called silli ( silloi ) and is therefore called Sillographos.
1121 It is significant that the only two works which Proclos would have preserved were both Oriental. Indeed, there is more Oriental lore in the Timaios than Greek wisdom.
1122 More exactly, Chalcidius’s incomplete translation of Timaios remained the only Platonic text available in Latin until the translation of Menon and Phaidon c. 1156. In Henri Eticnne’s edition the Timaios covers pp. 17 to 92 of vol. 3; Chalcidius’ translation and commentary stopped at 53D.
1123 See the last section of this chapter, outlining the medieval tradition of the Timaios,
1124 Laws , 782D.
1125 Timaios, 42.
1126 Timaios, 91; Loeb, vol. 7, p. 249.
1127 Timaios, 42B; Loeb, vol. 7, p. 91. Similar views concerning the transformation of men into women or into animals are again expressed at the end of the Timaios (91–92).
1128 Symposium, 211B.
1129 Memorabilia, 2, 2. Socrates reproves his eldest son, Lamprocles, for being out of humor with his mother and ungrateful to her.
1130 Just before Socrates drank the hemlock, his wife Xanthippe came in. “Sho cried out and said the kind of thing that women always do say: ’Oh Socrates, this is the last time now that your friends will speak to you or you to them.’ And Socrates glanced at Crito and said, ’Crito, let somebody take her home.’ And some of Crito’s people took her away wailing and beating her breast” ( Phaidon , 60). Then Socrates talks of something else. The whole story was quoted above. Socrates’ dismissal of his poor wife is unbelievably churlish and cruel in this account.
1131 Laws , 636c, 836c.
1132 Ganymedes became the nickname of boys prostituted to men. The word must have been used frequently in Roman times, because it wore out and was corrupted in Latin to catamitus (hence the English catamite).
1133 In 1950, politicians wishing to discredit the U. S. Department of State insinuated that many officers of that department were communists or homosexuals. Is it possible that those officers were simply Platonic gentlemen?
1134 3 vols.; London, 1865.
1135 That sentence is often quoted but few people could trace it to its source. It is taken from the life of Aristotle by Ammonios Saccas (III—1) edited in Greek and Latin by Ant. Westermann in Diogonis Laërtii vitae philosophorum (Paris: Didot, 1862), part 2, p. 10. Ammonios applied it to Socratos, not to Plato; yet the numerous quotations always read Amicus Plato.
1136 Galen devoted two commentaries. to the Timaios, the second of which, lost in Greek but preserved in Arabic, has recently boon edited by Paul Kraus and Richard Walzer, Galeni compendium Timaei Platonis aliorumque dialogorum synopsis quae extant fragmenta (130 pp. + 67 pp. in Arabic; London: Warburg Institute, 1951 ) [ Isis 43, 57 (1952)].
1137 No. 122 in G. Bergsträsser’s edition of the catalogue of unain’s translations (1925) [ Isis 8, 701 (1926)].
1138 See Carra de Vaux’s translation of al-Mas- ’ di, Le livre de l’avertissement (Paris, 1897), p. 223, and his article on Afl n, Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 1 (1908), pp. 173–175.
1139 There is a manuscript of the Arabic version of the Timaios in Aya Sofia, No. 2410. As far as I know, that text is still unpublished.
1140 So says Carra de Vaux, Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 1, p. 174, but this is not confirmed by Giuseppe Gabriel, “ unáyn ibn Is q,” Isis 6, 282–292 (1924).
1141 Plato, Republic , 525C-D; Paul Shorey’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library.
1142 For discussion of this see Heath: Greek mathematics (1, 287—88, 1921).
1143 According to Plutarch (I—2), who discussed the statement in his Quaestiones convivales, lib. VIII, 2: P s Plat n elege ton theon aei ge metrein.
1144 For the history of this tradition in Byzantine and Arabic letters see Introduction, vol. 3, facing p. 1019.
1145 Heath, History of Greek mathematics (Oxford, 1921 vol. 1, p. 288; Mathematics in Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949) [Isis 41, 329 (1950)].
1146 Timaios, 35—36.
1147 Henri Irénée Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique (Paris: Boccard, 1938) [Isis 41, 202–204 (1950)], chiefly pp. 211–275. According to a fragment of a lost treatise of Archytas of Tarentum (IV—1 B.C.), quoted below, Pythagorean mathematics were already divided into four branches: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. That division is exactly the same as that of the quadrivium.
1148 The term is Hellenistic. It is used by Dionysios of Halicarnassos (I—2 B.C.), also by Plutarch (I—2), etc.
1149 We call it the higher level of general education; in medieval times, the whole of general education was an introduction to professional studios, such as medicine and law, or to the highest studies, philosophy and theology.
1150 Timaios, 55—56.
1151 Timaios, 80c. Introduction, vol. 3, p. 148. Paul Friedländer, Structure and destruction of the atom according to Plato’s Timaeus (University of California publications in philosophy 16, 4 fig.; 1949), pp. 225—248 [Isis 41, 58 (1950)].
1152 Republic, VIII, 546B—D.
1153 Statesman, 270. James Adam, The Republic of Plato (Cambridge, 1902), vol. 2, pp. 201–209, 264—312. For the geometric number see also Introduction, vol. 1, p. 115; Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, pp. 305—308.
1154 A year of 360 days was shockingly obsolete in Plato’s time.
1155 H. V. Hilprecht, Mathematical, metrological and chronological tablets from the temple library of Nippur (Philadelphia, 1906), p. 31.
1156 Plato had the impudence to make a distinction between real knowledge (derived from Ideals) and opinions (what we would call scientific knowledge). The real distinction to be made is that between rational, demonstrable knowledge and pseudoknowledge (magic and nonsense). The geometric number, the obtention of which seemed to many infatuated Platonists the acme of wisdom, is absolutely meaningless and worthless.
1157 Julian Lowell Coolidge, The mathematics of great amateurs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949) [Isis 41, 234—236 (1950)]. The first chapter of that delightful book is rightly devoted to Plato (pp. 1–18).
1158 G. Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis elementorum commentarii (Greek text; Leipzig, 1873), p. 66, lines 8–14; Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 308.
1159 Terpsion of Megara, one of the disciples who attended Socrates’ death (Phaidon, 9c).
1160 Jowett, vol. 4, p. 195; Theait. 25, 143.
1161 The elaborate classification of nationals in Euclid x, of which Theaitetos laid thhe foundation, is difficult and, in spite of its accurancy, obsolete. According to Eudemos (IV—2 B.C.), Theaitetos associated these three particular kings of irrationals, medial, binomial, and apotome, respectively with the arithmetic, the geometric, and the harmonic means. As I do not like to use undefined terms, here are the definitions of these three kinds of irrationals (out of many more) according to Euclid x: Prop. 21. The rectangle contained by rational straight lines commensurable in square only is irrational, and the side of the square equal to it is irrational. Let the latter be called medial (mes ). Prop. 36. If two rational straight lines commensurable in square only be added together the whole is irrational; and let it be called binomial (ec duo anomat n). Prop. 73. If from a rational straight line there be subtracted a rational straight line commensurable with the whole in square only, the remainder is irrational; and let it be called an apotom .
1162 For discussion see Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, pp. 209–212; Euclid (Cambridge, ed. 2, 1926), vol. 3. A commentary of Pappos (111–2) on Book x of the Elements has come down to us only in the Arabic translation of Ab ‘Uthm n al–Dimishqi (X–1); the Arabic text was edited and translated by William Thomson (Cambridge, 1930) [Isis 16, 132–136 (1931)]. Gustav Junge added to that book a history (in German) of the theory of irrationals.
1163 This is told by a late witness, Suidas (X–2), but the tradition is plausible.
1164 Elements, Book xm, prop. 18.
1165 Gaston Darboux, Eloges académiques (Paris, 1912), p. 33. Another extension of the idea of regular solid leads to the conception of the so–called Archimedean solids. There are 13 such solids, each of which has its solid angles equal; the faces are regular polygons but not all of the same species.
1166 G. Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis elementorum commentarii (Leipzig, 1873), pp. 66, 211. Ver Eecke, Commentaires de Proclus sur le premier livre d’Euclide (Bruges: Desclée De Brouwer, 1948).
1167 Archytas’ fragments in Diels, Vorsokratiker, vol. 1 ⁴ , pp. 330–331; English translation by Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 11.
1168 Horace, Odes, 1, 28.
1169 Aristotle, Politics, 1340B; Jowett’s translation in the Oxford English Aristotle. This passage occurs in a discussion of the musical education of children. We cannot guarantee that the Archytas referred to by Aristotle is our Archytas of Tarentum. The name was not uncommon.
1170 Imprudent statement made in my Introduction, vol. 1, p. 116.
1171 He gave the numerical ratios representing the intervals of the tetrachord on three scales, the anharmonic, the chromatic and the diatonic; see Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 214.
1172 The duplication of the cube mentioned above. To understand his discovery of that extraordinary solution we must think of it very concretely, in mechanical terms.
1173 The climax of his activity is assumed to fall c. 367. George de Santillana, “Eudoxus and Plato, a study in chronology,” Isis 32, 248–262 (1940–49), would place it 10 years later. Students having no access to Diogenes Laërtios, VIII, 86–91, will find the relevant text in Santillana, p. 251.
1174 Agesilaos, king of Sparta from 398 to 361, Xenophon’s friend. Nectanabis (Nekht–har–hebi) was the first king of the Sebennite dynasty (c. 378–350), one of the native dynasties which reestablished in Egypt a precarious independence after the Persian conquest in 525 and before Alexander’s in 332. Nectanabis ruled from c. 378 to 364. Putting these facts together indicates that Eudoxos went to Egypt during the period 378–364, but remained there only 16 months.
1175 Mausolos was king of Caria from 377 to 353.
1176 The diagonal of a square was an irrational line; the diagonal of the square of side 1 was an irrational number √2.
1177 Friedlein’s edition, p. 67, 6.
1178 Euclid, II, 11; VI, 30. To refresh the reader’s memory, here is the problem as expressed by Euclid, II, 11: “To cut a given straight line so that the rectangle contained by the whole and one of the segments is equal to the square on the remaining segment.” Or in algebraic terms, given the line a, to divide it into two segments x and a–x in such a way that
a/x = x/(a–x).
The solution is easy (Fig. 85). Given the line AB equal to a, draw a perpendicular at B, equal to a, and use it as diameter of the circle C. Join AC, which cuts the circumference in D. The circle of radius AD cuts the line in E and divides the line AB in extreme and mean ratio. The demonstration is so simple that we need not quote it.
1179 G. Sarton, “Query no. 130. When did the term golden section or its equivalent in other languages originate?” Isis 42, 47 (1951).
1180 For a general discussion, see G. Sarton, “The principle of symmetry and its applications to science and to art,” Isis 4, 32–38 (1921).
1181 Euclid, XII, 2.
1182 Euclid, XII, 1.
1183 Said Archimedes in his Method (discovered only in 1906 by Heiberg), “It is of course easier, when we have previously acquired, by the method, some knowledge of the questions, to supply the proof than it is to find it without any previous knowledge. This is a reason why, in the case of the theorems the proof of which Eudoxos was the first to discover, namely that the cone is a third part of the cylinder, and the pyramid of the prism, having the same base and equal height, we should give no small share of the credit to Democritos who was the first to make the assertion with regard to the said figure though he did not prove it.” Translated by T. L. Heath, The Method of Archimedes , 152 pp.; Cambridge, 1912, p. 13.
1184 Almagest , VII, 1–2.
1185 It is shocking to realize, however, that Ptolemy’s determination of the equinoxes was 26 percent worse than Hipparchos’, though his basis was three centuries longer. Hipparchos was an observer of astounding precision, Ptolemy was a very poor one. Worse than that the “Catalogue of stars” of the Almagest was not based upon new observations, but was derived from the catalogue of Hipparchos, the longitudes being increased by the same constant. Thanks to Ptolemy’s wrong estimate of the precession, the true epoch of his “Catalogue” is A.D. 58, while his own observations extended from 127 to 151. Christian H. F. Peters and Edward Ball Knobel, Ptolemy’s Catalogue of stars (Washington, 1915) [ Isis 2, 401 (1914–19)].
1186 Almagest, IX, 7; XI, 7; Heiberg’s edition, vol. 1, part 2, pp. 268, 267, 419; Halma’s edition, vol. 2, pp. 171, 170, 288.
1187 The theory was defended by Paul Schnabel, “Kidenas, Hipparch und die Entdeckung der Präzession.” Z. Assyriologie 3, 1–60 (1926) [ Isis 10, 107 (1928)]. For Kidinnu or Cidenas ( Cid –nas ) , see Wilhelm Kroll, Catalogus codicum astrologorum graecorum, vol. 5, part 2, p. 128; Joseph Heeg, Ibid ., vol. 8, part 2, pp. 125–134; W. Kroll, Pauly–Wissowa, vol. 21 (1921), p. 379; according to this article, Cidenas, who flourished at the latest in the second century B.C., found the equation 251 synodic months = 269 anomalistic months. There are in the British Museum lunar tablets written in cuneiform on 22 December 103 B.C. after Cidenas. Kroll concludes that Cidenas may have been one of the Chaldean astronomers referred to by Ptolemy, but that would bring him only as early as 244 B.C., and the Cidenas who “discovered” the precession in 379 must then be another man.
1188 J. K. Fotheringham, “The indebtness of Greek to Chaldaean astronomy,” The Observatory 51, No. 653 (1928); reprinted in Quellen und Studien [B] 2, 28–44 (1932). A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 453–457. Otto Neugebauer, “The alleged Babylonian discovery of the precession,” J. Am. Oriental Soc. 70, 1–8 (1950).
1189 Almagest, VII, 1–2.
1190 For more details on the history of trepidation see my Introduction, passim; summarizes in vol. 2, pp. 18, 295, 749, 758; vol. 3, p. 1846.
1191 The true epoch of Ptolemy’s “Catalogue” is A.D. 58; Isis 2, 401 (1914–19); see footnote 45.
1192 The correct value of the procession is about 50”.26. Thus, 5026′′ = 84′ = 1°24′ per century; and this amounts to 21° in 15 centuries.
1193 It might be objected to this that as long as precession was not explained (as Newton did) one could not be certain of its indefinite continuation in the same direction: it might pile up for, say, 8°, or 80°, or 150° and then possibly stop or be reversed.
1194 Counterclockwise for an observer above the North Pole.
1195 Phaidon, 61D.
1196 Cercesura on the west bank of the Nile, at the point where the river is divided into its three principal branches, the east one, or Pelusiac, the central one, and the west one, or Canopic.
1197 The fragments of Eudoxos’ Periodos have been edited and explained by Friedrich Gisinger. Die Erdbeschreibung des Eudoxos von Knidos (Stoicheia 6, 142 pp.; Leipzig, 1921). For the oriental sources of Eudoxos, see J . Bidez , Eos Brussels: Hayez, 1945), pp. 24–37 [Isis 37, 185 (1947)].
1198 Text in Catalogus codicum astrologorum graecorum, vol. 7 (1908), ), pp. 183–187; see also vol. 8, part 3, p. 95.
1199 We know that theory and of its ascription to Eudoxos from Aristotle’s Metaphysics (1073 B 17–1074 A 15) and from the commentary of Simplicios (VI–1) on the De caelo.
1200 To explain the apparent trajectories of the fixed stars one sphere was needed; of the Sun and Moon, three spheres each; of the five Planets, four each; total: 27 spheres.
1201 The Phainomena as preserved by Aratos is the earliest Greek treatise on astronomy extant. Eudoxos’ description was partly derived from Democritos and, directly or indirectly, from the Babylonian astronomers.
1202 Diogenes Laërtios, VIII, 87.
1203 Laws, VII, 822.
1204 Republic, VII, 529.
1205 According to Sosigenes (Julius Caesar’s astronomer), Eudemos of Rhodes (IV–2 B.C.) declared that Plato set it as a problem for astronomers to find “which uniform and ordered movements must be assumed to account for the apparent movements of the planets” (Simplicios on De caelo, 488, 20–31 in Heiberg’s edition). Eudoxos solved that problem; it is highly probable that it was he, not Plato, who stated it.
1206 Timaios, 38D.
1207 This may have suggested to Heracleides of Pontos (IV–2 B.C.), the theory according to which Venus and Mercury rotate around the Sun.
1208 We may recall that the true periods are, in terms of the Earth’s period (that is of the Sun’s period if the Earth is in the center of the world): Mercury, 0.24; Venus, 0.62; Earth (Sun), 1; Mars, 1.88; Jupiter, 11.86.
1209 Timaios, 39.
1210 36,000 years is also the time of completion of the precession cycle on the (wrong) Ptolemaic assumption that the procession amounts to 1° in a century ( Almagest, VII, 2). This is a curious coincidence, for Plato had no knowledge of procession. 36,000 is a factor of the Geometric number.
1211 Laws, xu, 966–967. The speakers are the same, Megillos the Spartan, Cleinias the Cretan and an Athenian stranger who does almost all of the talking. Their conversation occurs in Crete, they had begun it on the previous day ( Laws, 1, 625) while walking from Cnossos to the temple of Zeus beneath Mount Ida in the center of the island.
1212 Philippos ho Opuntios. Opus is probably the place of that name in Locris Opuntia on the Euboic gulf. Philip of Opus has been identified with Philip of Mende, Mende being on the west coast of the Thermaic Gulf, Macedonia. He was probably born in Mende and later moved to Opus and to Athens. Elaborate article in Pauly–Wissowa, vol. 38 (1938), pp. 2351–2366.
1213 Franz Cumont (1868–1947), Astrology and religion among the Greeks and the Romans (New York, 1912), p. 51. A much amplified rewriting in French was posthumously published under the title Lux perpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949) [ Isis 41 , 371 (1950)].
1214 In Timaios the fifth solid was equated to the whole universe. In the Epinomis the elements are first named in the order fire, water, air, earth, aether, but later in a more “logical” order (from spirituality to grossness), fire, aether, air, water, earth (981, 984). It is curious that aether is given the second, not the first, place.
1215 One cannot help thinking of Kant’s statement, “Two things fill one’s conscience with ever–increasing wonder and awe, the stars in heaven and the moral law in oneself,” Critique of practical reason (Riga., 1788) [ Isis 6 , 479 (1924)], but the words of a rational mystic like Kant are incomparably more impressive than those of the irrational author of the Epinomis.
1216 Epinomis, 982.
1217 De natura deorum, n, 16. Cicero put it in the mouth of Gaius Aurelius Cotta, the Academic, at whose house the dialogue De natura deorum was supposed to have taken place, c. 77 B.C. (the dialogue was written c . 45 B.C.). “It is therefore likely that the stars possess surpassing intelligence, since they inhabit the ethereal region of the world and also are nourished by the moist vapours of sea and earth, rarefied in their passage through the wide intervening space. Again, the consciousness and intelligence of the stars is most clearly evinced by their order and regularity; for regular and rhythmical motion is impossible without design, which contains no trace of casual or accidental variation; now the order and eternal regularity of the constellations indicate neither a process of nature, for it is highly rational, nor chance, for chance loves variation and abhors regularity; it follows therefore that the stars move of their own free–will and because of their intelligence and divinity.” quoted from H. Rackham’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library.
1218 Epinomis , end of 977.
1219 The word h roscopos and cognate words were coined very late. It is used by Manilius (I–1), Sextos Empiricos (II–2), Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–220), but I cannot find any earlier use.
1220 The transmission of stellar power to the Earth was demonstrated by a dramatic experiment staged in Chicago on 27 May 1933. The illumination of the Century of Progress Exposition was turned on by light that had left the star Arcturus 40 years before, at the time of the Columbian World Fair! The light of Arcturus was picked up by telescopes at the Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wisconsin, and focused on photoelectric tubes; the current thus obtained was much amplified and directed to Chicago, Science News Letter 23, 307 (1933).
1221 The early history of that is obscure. Eudoxos of Cnidos declared that the Chaldeans who foretold the life of a man from his birthday should not be given any credence (Cicero, De divinatione, II, 42, 87), but we cannot conclude from that the Chaldean rules had been already Hellenicized. We are told that Panaitios of Rhodes (II–2 B.C.) rejected astrology, and we may assume that his contemporary Hipparchos (II–2 B.C.) did the same, but who invented the horoscopic rules? The earliest treatise on astrology extant is the Tetra–biblos ascribed to Ptolemy (II–1); that treatise is still used by astrologers of our own time! Isis 35, 181 (1944).
1222 Francis Henry Colson, The week, an essay on the origin and development of the seven–day cycle (133 pp.; Cambridge, 1926). The seven–day cycle was diffused unofficially through the Roman empire not long before Christ; its gradual diffusion throughout the world is the most remarkable instance of cultural convergence next to the decimal system. Nobody planned it; it just happened. See also Solomon Candz, “Origins of the planetary week or the planetary week in Hebrew literature,” Proc. Am. Acad, Jewish Research 18 , 213–254 (1949).
1223 Diogenes Laërtios, 11, 56.
1224 The Spartans, led by Agesilaos, defeated at Coroneia (Western Boeotia) in 394 a Greek coalition (Thebes, Corinth, Argos, and Athens) subsidized by Persian gold.
1225 His elder son Gryllos fell at the battle of Mantineia in 362; according to a legend, it was he who had given to Epaminondas, the Theban general, his mortal wound. In that battle the Athenians were allied with the Spartans and many other Greeks against Thebes. Epaminondas’ victory was indecisive.
1226 Xenophon has always been a favorite author and the manuscripts, editions, and translations of his works are very numerous. The princeps of the Greek opera was published by Luca Antonio Giunta in Venice, 1516 (again, 1527); complete Latin edition, Basel, 1534; Greek edition by Edgar Cardew Marchant (5 vols.; Oxford, 1900–1910). Xcnophon’s works are included in all the collections of classics such as the Budé and the Loeb series. Gustav Sauppe, Lexicologus Xenophonteus (156 pp.; Leipzig, 1869).
1227 See Chap. III, note 66. Courier’s translation of the Hippich has been improved by that of another French Hellenist and horseman, Edouard Delebecque, Xenophon . De l’art équestre , (195 pp.: Paris: Les belles lettres, 1950).
1228 Struthoi ai megalai; Anabasis , 1, 5, 2. The existence of ostriches in ancient Mesopotamia and ancient China is confirmed by monuments, and therefore their presence in Asia Minor is not surprising. When did they disappear? Their (natural) habitat is restricted to Arabia and Africa. Berthold Laufer, Ostrich egg–ahell cups of Mesopotamia and the ostrich in ancient and modern times (51 pp., ill.; Chicago, 1926) [ Isis 10, 278 (1928)].
1229 Anabasis , III, 4, 30.
1230 Ibid ., IV, 8, 20–21.
1231 Ibid ., v, 4, 32.
1232 Ibid ., v, 5, 1.
1233 Ibid ., VII, 5, 14. Xenophon refers to many written papyri found on the Thracian shore of the Black Sea ready to be shipped. Compare with another curious statement in Plato’s Apology, 26E. Books containing Anaxagoras’ views could be bought for a drachma in the orchestra.
1234 Considering the great importance of the role played by Xenophon in that epic retreat (according to his own account of it), it is very puzzling that Diodoros of Sicily (1–2 B.C.) could describe that event ( Bibl . hist ., XIV, 25–30) without even mentioning Xenophon!
1235 Examples in many languages are given in my Introduction, passim. The Cyropaedia was the prototype for Western peoples; earlier examples exist in Egyptian literature ( Introduction , vol. 3, p. 314) but remained unknown in the West until our own time.
1236 Cyropaedia, III, 1, 38.
1237 Ibid ., 1, 3, 10; 1, 3, 18.
1238 Ibid ., 1, 3, 5.
1239 Ibid ., 1, 2, 6.
1240 Ibid ., 1, 3, 14; 1, 4, 5. Compare with their equivalents in ancient and medieval times, Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 1189, 1470, 1859.
1241 Cyropaedia , VIII, 2, 20; VIII, 3, 46–47.
1242 Ibid ., VIII, 6, 17.
1243 Ibid ., III, 3, 19; VIII, 1, 2.
1244 Ibid ., VIII, 1, 31.
1245 Ibid ., VIII, 7, the final chapter of the original text. Chapter 8, describing the degeneracy of the “modern” Persians, i.e., those who were Xenophon’s contemporaries, seems to be a later addition.
1246 Xenophon’s Apology is much shorter than Plato’s (in the proportion 6:17) and less lofty. At the beginning Xenophon refers to other apologies (possibly by Lysias and Theodectes, not necessarily by Plato, for Plato’s might be later). The existence of so many apologies proves that Socrates’ condemnation to death was a great scandal. According to Xenophon, Socrates insisted upon the argument that it is better to die before the miseries and humiliations of old age. He reports Socrates’ answer to Apollodoros, who was shocked by the unjust condemnation: “Would you prefer to see me die guilty?”
1247 The Polity of the Lacedaimonians is possibly apocryphal; it may have been written by Antisthenes the Cynic. K. M. T. Chrimes, The Respublica Lacedaemoniorum ascribed to Xenophon (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1948) [Isis 42, 310 (1951)].
The Polity of the Athenians is certainly apocryphal. It was written during Xenophon’s childhood in the period 430–424, and is thus the oldest extant book in Attic prose. It is also the oldest treatise on political theory, or rather the oldest political pamphlet. The author cannot be named. It has been suggested that he might be identified with Critias, one of Socrates’ unworthy pupils, one of the Thirty Tyrants established by the Spartans in Athens in 404. Critias was a distinguished orator, but his authorship of this particular book cannot be proved. All that one can say is that the author was an Athenian oligarch.
Ernst Kalinka, Die pseudoxenophontische Ath nai n politeia (330 p.; Leipzig, 1913), Greek text, German translation, commentary.
1248 Well illustrated in Socrates’ dialogue with the handsome Euthydemos ( Memorabilia , IV). As to the book trade, see the Anabasis, VII, 5, 14.
1249 Armand Delatte, “La formation humaniste chez Xénophon,” Bull. Acad. Belgique (lettres, 35, fas. 10, 20 pp.; Brussels, 1949).
1250 Memorabilia, III 8. Translation by E. C. Marchant in the Loeb Classical Library.
1251 The best account of divination by an ancient writer is relatively late, Cicero’s De divinatione, but one may find the equivalent of it scattered in many Greek writings of much earlier crecy. Indeed it had become notorious that Socrates claimed to be guided by “the deity”: it was out of this claim, I think, that the charge of bringing in strange dei–date. There is a good introduction to that large field by Arthur Stanley Pease, Oxford Classical dictionary, pp. 292–293. For comparative studies of divination, see Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 4 (1912), pp. 771–830.
1252 Anabasis, VI, 4; also VII, 8, 20.
1253 Memorabilia 1, 1; IV, 3, 12; IV, 7, 10.
1254 Cyropaedia , 1, 6, 1; XVI, 44–46.
1255 A good example of rational understanding of omens was given by Homer ( Iliad , XII, 243): eis oi nos aristos, amynesthai peri patr s, the one best omen is to fight for one’s country. Every educated Greek would remember that. The omen is up to himself.
1256 Memorabilia , IV, 2, 4–5.
1257 Ho t s pole s iatricos . Compare references to a board of health, public physicians, and dispensary in the Cyropaedia, 1, 6, 15; vm, 2, 24. The necessary use of military surgeons may have inspired the appointment of town physicians.
1258 Introduction , vol. 3, p. 1244, 1861.
1259 A. Meillet and Marcel Cohen, Les langues du monde (Paris, 1924 pp. 47, 52 [ Isis 10 , 298 (1928)].
1260 Sixth, if Perdiccas I was the first, ninth if Caranos was. I follow the list given by A. M. H. J. Stokvis, Manuel d’histoire, de généalogie et de chronologie de tous les états du globe (3 vols.; Leiden, 1888–1893), vol. 2, pp. 448–450.
1261 It is curious, by the way, that dictators have frequently been outsiders, foreigners. Think of Philip the Macedonian, Napoleon the Corsican, Mehemet Ali the Albanian, Hitler the Austrian, Stalin the Georgian.
1262 These orations were called Philippica and the word “philippic” in various European languages is a reminiscence of them. That word is used to designate political discourses denouncing a particular leader and generally full of invective. In particular, it was used to designate Cicero’s many orations against Mark Antony. Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt have been the targets of many philippics.
1263 We would know more about him if the Philippica of his contemporary Theopompos of Chios (IV–2 B.C.) had survived. The Philippica (not to be confused with Demosthenes’ famous orations) was a history of Philip II and in fact of the whole of Greece, continuing Xenophon’s from 362 to 336. It was a monument of literary vanity, but Theopompos was well informed and outspoken. He was one of the founders of psychologic history, the forerunner of Tacitus (1–2). Though he considered Philip to be the greatest man the world had known, he did not flatter him but, on the contrary, gave a terrible picture of his weaknesses, of the dissolute living of his boon companions. R. H. Eyssonius Wichers, Theopompi Chii fragmenta (308 pp.; Leiden, 1829). For example, sec fragment 249 describing in avenging terms the corruption of Philip’s court.
1264 Chalcis is the main city of the island Euboca; it is located at the narrowest point of the Euripos, the strait that separates Euboen from Boeotia on the mainland. The strait is so narrow at Chalcis that it was bridged as early as 411 B.C.
1265 Demosthenes delivered his first Philippic in 351 and in 349–48 the three Olynthiac orations, in defense of Olynthos (in Chalcidice), threatened by Philip. Aristotle could not help being concerned with the fate of a city so close to his own birthplaces, but his upbringing put him in the Macedonian party. Demosthenes and Aristotle were exact contemporaries (384–322).
1266 Diogenes Laërtios, v, 2; translation of R. D. Hicks in Loeb Classical Library.
1267 Another story, more difficult to believe, yet possible, was told by me in Lychnos (Uppsala, 1945), p. 253.
1268 The sixth of Plato’s epistles is addressed to Hermeias, Erastos, and Coriscos. Edited and translated by R. G. Bury in Loeb Classical Library; Plato, vol. VIII (1929), pp. 456–461.
1269 Assos was in Hermeias’ territory. It was an impregnable citadel and harbor opposite Lesbos. Assos was the birthplace of Cleanthes the Stoic (III–1 B.C.).
1270 Diogenes Laërtios, v, 1.
1271 F. Studniczka, Das Bildnis des Aristoteles (35 pp., 3 pls.; Leipzig, 1908). Discussed by me in Lychnos (1945), pp. 249–256. Studniczka’s memoir is a monument of pedantic stupidity, but it fooled many philologists, including Jaeger, Aristotle , p. 322 (see note 16).
1272 Diogenes Laërtios, v, 11–16.
1273 We must repeat that the length of that time is difficult to determine. A man belongs to a school; for a time he is a devoted member of it; after a while his enthusiasm cools down and he attends fewer and fewer of its meetings, then ceases to come, and finally declares his opposition. How many stages of affection and disaffection must we recognize and when exactly does one pass from the one to the other?
1274 The pioneer student of the early Aristotle was Werner Jaeger whose bahnbrechend work appeared in Berlin 1923. When we refer to it, we refer to the English translation, Aristotle . Fundamentals of the history of his development (410 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934). Ettore Bignone, L’Aristotele perduto e la formazione filosofica di Epicuro (2 vols.; Florence: Nuova Italia, 1936). Joseph Bidez, Un singulier naufrage littéraire dans l’antiquité (70 pp.; Brussels: Office de Publicité, 1943) [Isis 36, 172 (1946)].
The fragments were edited by Valentin Rose: Aristotelis fragments qui ferebantur librorum (Leipzig 1886) and by Richard Walzer, Aristotelis dialogorum fragmenta in usum scholarum selegit (Florence: Sansoni, 1934).
1275 Cicero (I–1 B.C.) called them ex tericos in the letter to Atticus written in 700 U.C. = 54 B.C. Epistolae ad Atticum , IV, 16.
1276 Eudemos of Cypros, Plato’s disciple, was one of the Academicians whom Dion had enlisted for the insurrection against Dionysios the Younger. Eudemos was killed in one of the battles around Syracuse in 354. He is not to be confused with a younger man, Eudemos of Rhodes (IV–2 B.C.), who flourished c. 320, was Aristotle’s disciple and probably the editor of the Ethica Eudemia .
1277 Protrepticos eis philosophian , exhortation to (the study of) philosophy.
1278 Philip of Opus (IV–1 B.C.) was, like Aristotle, a pupil of Plato. He may have been younger than Aristotle or older. The Epinomis may have been composed soon after Protrepticos , or before.
1279 Hortensius is a Latin equivalent of protrepticos , but not used elsewhere; the common form is hortatorius .
1280 St. Augustine, Confessions , III, 4; vm, 7.
1281 We, the moderns of today, who can read the history of the philosophic vicissitudes of three millennia, cannot help thinking, as Aristotle did, when he was a modern, of the same cyclic repetitions.
1282 The technical term is endelecheia, meaning continuity, persistency, which has been confused by all the editors with entelecheia , full, complete reality. It does not occur in Bonitz’ Index aristotel – icust Bidez, Un singulier naufrage littéraire , pp. 33–37.
1283 Aristotle’s later views on the soul were very different from his early, Platonic ones. The souls, he finally concluded, being the “forms” of the material bodies, do not survive the latter any more than vision survives the loss of an eye. There is something in the individual soul, however, that comes from the outside and is a part of pure reason. When a man dies, that part of his soul goes back to the universal reason (God) which absorbs it. There is thus a kind of impersonal immortality.
1284 Fragment 10. Transmitted by Sextos Empiricos (II–2).
1285 Jaeger, Aristotle , p. 166.
1286 For example, Claude Bernard. Until very recently the education that future men of science received in the secondary schools was very largely humanistic. Hence, their juvenile ambition was fired by literary models and their scientific genius did not find its direction until later. They were very much in the same situation as Aristotle.
1287 Neleus was a disciple of Aristotle and Theophrastos. He was the son of Coriscos, who had been Aristotle’s friend and associate in Assos.
1288 The indications of volumes refer to the English edition; those of pages, to Bekker.
1289 De sensu et sensibili. De memoria et rem – iniscentia. De somno et vigilia. De somniis. De divinatione per somnum. De longitudine et brevi – tate vitae. De iuventute et senectute. De vita et morte. De respiratione .
1290 Frederick George Kenyon (1863–), Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens (British Museum, 1891, third and rev. ed., 295 pp., British Museum, 1892). A facsimile of the whole papyrus was published by the British Museum in 1891. Elaborate bibliography in Kenyon’s edition.
1291 Michael Stephanides, “Aristotle as a poet,” Practica of the Academy of Athens (1950), pp. 249–253, in Greek. Professor Stephanides says that the De mundo was written with particular elegance, and that the Alexander to whom it is addressed was probably Aristotle’s pupil, Alexander the Great. This does not tally with the conclusion of Wilhelm Capelle, Neue Jahrbücher 15 , 529–568 (1905), that the De mundo is founded on two works of Poseidonios (1–1 B.C.). It is amusing to reflect that the clearness of the De mundo was used as an argument against its authenticity by the famous Dutch philologist, Daniel Heinsius (1580–1655), “Le Traité en question n’offre nulle part cette majestueuse obscurité qui dans les ouvrages d’Aristote, repousse les ignorants” (as quoted by François Arngo in his eulogy of Gay–Lussac, Oeuvres , vol. 3, p. 53).
1292 Vols. 1–2 (1831), Greek text; vol. 3 (1831), Latin translations; vol. 4 (1846), Greek scholia; vol. 5 (1870), index.
1293 Unfortunately, the Oxford reprint of Bekker’s edition does not include the Bekker pagination. That is an almost incredible aberration.
1294 The best account is William Woodthorpe Tarn, Alexander the Great (2 vols.; Cambridge: University Press, 1948), based upon a minute and wise study of all the sources.
1295 The murder was ascribed to Persian intrigue; it was also ascribed to Olympias’ jealousy. Neither assumption can be proved; either or both may be true.
1296 The situation has often occurred, the tutor of a royal prince becoming in the course of the time the friend and counselor of a king. For example, Nicole Oresme (XIV–2), tutor of the dauphin Charles, became the adviser of Charles V (Introduction, vol. 3, p. 1486).
1297 Callisthenes of Olynthos (in the Chalcidic peninsula), who accompanied Alexander’s expedition as historian, and extolled Alexander’s Pan–hellenism. They fell out and Callisthenes was executed on a charge of treason.
1298 Issos in Cilicia at the end of the Gulf of Issos, which is the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. At Issos one is out of Asia Minor, and approaches Syria from its northern end.
1299 Perseus (who ruled from 179 to 168) was the forty–third and last king of Macedonia. He was not an undistinguished king, but the situation that he was facing was hopeless. The Macedonian kingdom had lasted 532 years.
1300 I borrow this remark from Tarn, who amplifies it (vol. 1, p. 9).
1301 Napoleon took that attitude, but not Hitler, whose purpose was definitely to enslave the non–Germans or to extirpate them.
1302 What about Aristotle? How Greek was he? And how much of a barbarian? It is impossible to know.
1303 Opis on the Tigris. When Alexander reached that place, his army was rebellious; he made a speech to explain his policy and succeeded in restoring their confidence in him; Tarn, Alexander the Great, vol. 1, p. 115. The capital of the Seleucid empire, Seleuceia, was built c. 312 near Opis, and became a great commercial center, being connected with the Euphrates by a canal, and an outpost of Greek culture in the East.
1304 It has been suggested by Jaeger, Aristotle, p. 24 that Aristotle’s early dialogue on Alexander or Colonization may have dealt with Alexander’s racial policy and condemned it.
1305 Plutarch, Lives, Alexander, 14; translation by Bernadotte Perrin, Leeb Classical Library, vol. 7, p. 259.
1306 According to Tarn, vol. 2, p. 409, “there was no such thing.”
1307 According to Pliny (I–2), whose account of Alexander’s help ( Natural history, vm, 17) seems exaggerated; we shall quote from it in another chapter. Athenaios of Naucratis (III–1) writes that “the Stagirite received 800 talents from Alexander to further his research on animals” (Deipnosophistai, ix, 398E).
1308 A. Foucher, L’art gréco–bouddhique du Gandhãra (2 vols.; Paris, 1905–1918); The beginnings of Buddhist art (Paris, 1917). J. P Vogel, Buddhist art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936).
1309 To the Westernization of Oriental art that occurred in Gendh ra corresponded many centuries later in the Near East the Orientalization of Western art of which the late Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941) has given many examples. The parallelism is curious: early Buddhist art influenced by Western artists, early Christian art influenced by Eastern ones.
1310 Iskandar–n ma, Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. 2 (1921), p. 535. For the early legend of the pseudo–Callisthenes, see Tarn, Alexander the Great, vol. 2, by index.
1311 The river Hydaspes (or Jhelum), one of the tributaries of the Indus in the Punjab. Alexander founded the city of Bucephala in memory of his hone, near the spot where it died. According to Plutarchos (Life of Alexander 32), Alexander, “as long as he was riding about and marshalling some part of his phalanx, or exhorting or instructing or reviewing his men, spared Bucephalos, who was now past his prime, and used another horse; but whenever he was going into action, Bucephalos would be led up, and he would mount him and at once begin the attack.”
1312 The road to Kephissia and to Marathon. The present Byzantine Museum is close to the place where the Lyceum was.
1313 Aulus Gellius, XIII, 5.
1314 Diogenes Laërtios, v.
1315 Wilhelm Capelle would place the De mundo in the first half of the second century; Neue Jahrbücher 15, 529–568 (1905).
1316 For the Latin tradition see Amable Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur l’âge et l’origine des traductions latines d’Aristote (Paris, 1819; ed. 2, 1843). Alexandre Birkenmajer, “Classement des ouvrages attribués à Aristote par le Moyen âge latin” (Prolegomena in Aristotelem latinum consilio et impensis Academiae Polonae litterarum et scientiarum edita, 1, 21 pp.; Cracovie, 1932).
1317 Dante, Inferno, IV, 131.
1318 Under the influence of the Platonic mirage Plato’s tenderness is generally exaggerated. Some of the extravagances of the Republic and of the Laws show that he could be exceedingly cruel. His tenderness was of the dubious kind that dictators advertise.
1319 See the excellent study by Jeanne Croissant, Aristotle et les mystères (228 pp.; Liége: Université de Liége, 1932) [Isis 34, 239 (1942–43)].
1320 Compare Einstein’s saying quoted in my Introduction, vol. 3, p. v.
1321 Excellent discussion of teleology from the point of view of modern chemistry and physiology by Lawrence J. Henderson, The order of nature (240 pp.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917) [ Isis 3, 152 (1920–21)]. “As the German physiologist, Ernst Wilhelm von Bruecke, remarked, ’Teleology is a lady without whom no biologist can live. Yet he is ashamed to show himself with her in public’” Walter Bradford Cannon, The way of an investigator (New York: Norton, 1945), p. 108 [Isis 36, 259 (1946)].
1322 For further study of the classification of science and bibliography see Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 76–77.
1323 Popper remarks in The open society, vol. 2, p. 11: “Science does not develop by a gradual encyclopaedic accumulation of information, as Aristotle thought, but by a much more revolutionary method; it progresses by bold ideas, by the advancement of new and very strange theories (such as the theory that the earth is not flat, or that ’metrical space’ is not flat) and by the overthrow of the old ones.” True enough, but one had to begin as Aristotle did, and the encyclopedic approach was perfectible in many ways, in depth as well as in extension.
1324 To put it otherwise, the (Aristotelian) essence of a thing is the same as the final stage toward which it is developing. It is to be realized in the distant future, while the Platonic Form or Idea had been realized in the distant past.
1325 I am thinking of Alfred North Whitehead, whose fame as a philosopher was derived partly from his authorship (with Bertrand Russell) of the Principia mathematica (1910 ff. ) [ Isis 8, 226–231 (1926); 10, 513–519 (1928)] and the profound esoterism of that work.
1326 English versions of all the mathematical texts have been put together b Sir Thomas Heath, Mathematics in Aristotle 105 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949) [ Isis 41, 329 (1950)]. Heath’s posthumous boo is disappointing in that all the texts are published in the order of the books in which they appeared (Organon, Physics, De caelo, etc.), that is, helter – skelter instead of being classified by topics. The book is handy, however, and it illustrates the continuity of Aristotle’s mathematical thought throughout his life.
1327 Metaphysics, 982A, 25–28.
1328 Carl B. Boyer, The concepts of the calculus (352 pp.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1939; reprinted, Hafner, 1949) [ Isis 32 , 205–210 (1947–1949); 40, 87 (1949)].
1329 G. Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis elementorum commentarii (Leipzig, 1873), p. 67.
1330 Chalcedon in Bithynia at the entrance of the Bosporos, almost opposite Byzantion. It is thus on the Asiatic side of the strait, where Kadiköy, a suburb of Istanbul, is now.
1331 Iamblichos (IV–1), Life of Pythagoras, as translated by T. L. Heath, History of Greek mathematics (Oxford, 1921), vol. 1, p. 24.
1332 As quoted by Diogenes Laërtios, rv, 11–15.
1333 Plutarch, Quaestiones convivales, VIII, 9, 13, 733A.
1334 Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis, p. 67. Amyclas is probably a mistake for Amyntns; he came from Heraclon in Pontos. Nothing is known about him but what has just been quoted.
1335 The cone’s angle here is the total angle 2a, twice the angle a whose rotation generates the cone.
1336 Otto Nougebauer, “The astronomical origin of the theory of conic sections,” Proc. Am. Philosophical Soc. 92, 136–138 (1948) [ Isis 40, 124 (1949)].
1337 Stobaios (V–2), Anthologion, u, 13, 115; Englished by Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 1, p. 252.
1338 The Greek text (Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis, p. 67) is not quite clear, but there is no doubt as to the general meaning.
1339 Proclos; see Friedlein, Procli in primum Euclidis, p. 379; Ver Eecke, Commentaires de Proclus sur le premier livre d’Euclide (Bruges: Desclée De Brouwer, 1948), p. 324.
1340 With the possible exception of the historian of medicine Menon, another Peripatetic, of whom we shall speak later.
1341 When Otto Neugebauer and Raymond Clare Archibald founded a journal devoted to the history of mathematics and astronomy, they called it Eudemus, in homage to their earliest spiritual ancestor; only one number was published (Copenhagen, 1941) [Isis 34, 74 (1942–43)].
1342 I call him Aristaios the Elder after Pappos’ Collection, ed. by F. Hultsch (Berlin, 1876–78), beginning of VII, vol. 2, p. 634, but there was an older mathematician of the same name, to wit, Aristaios of Croton, son of Damophon, son–in–law of Pythagoras and his immediate successor (Pauly–Wissowa, vol. 2, p. 859). Pappos of Alexandria (III–2) flourished probably under Diocletian (emperor, 284–305), but his Mathematical collection was probably written by him late in life, after 320 [ Isis 19, 382 (1933)].
1343 Pappos.’ Collection, VII; Hultsch, vol. 2, pp. 674–679; Heath, History of Greek mathematics, vol. 2, pp. 116–119.
1344 Pappos’ Collection, Hultsch, vol. 1, p. 435. It was Hypsicles (II–1 B.C.) who ascribed that discovery to Aristaios in the so–called XIVth book of Euclid (prop. 2).
1345 Once must add Pontica, because many Greek cities had been named after the most popular hero of antiquity, Heracles (Hercules). Heracleia Pontica is on the southern shore of the Black Sea, in the western part, the coast of Bithynia. Its modern Turkish name is Ere li.
1346 “Somnium Scipionis” in book VI of Cicero’s De republica; the “Somnium” was often printed with the commentary by Macrobius (V–1), which was the main source of Platonism in the Latin west outside of the partial translation of Timaios by Chalcidíus (IV–1).
1347 Empedotimos of Syracuse. Note that the name Empedotimos is etymologically equivalent to Empedocles. J. Bidez, Eos (Brussels: Hayez, 1945), pp. 52–59 [ Isis 37 , 185 (1947)].
1348 The comparison of this with molecular attraction, suggested by Gomperz and later by Bidez, Eos, p. 56, is unwarranted.
1349 Heracleides’ views on the rotation of the Earth on its axis are reported by Aëtios and by Simplicios (VI–1 those on the motion of Mercury and Venus round the Sun by Vitruvius (I–2 B.C.), Chalcidius (IV–1), and Martianus Capella (V–2). English versions of their statements in Heath,Greek astronomy (London: Dent, 1932), pp. 93–95 [ Isis 22 , 585 (1934–35)].
1350 Charles W. Jones, “A note on concepts of the inferior planets in the carly Middle Ages,” Isis 24, 397–399 (1936).
1351 The Italian astronomer, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835–1910), claimed that Heracleides anticipated not only Tycho Brahe but also Copernicus. Such claims cannot be sustained; Introduction, vol. 1, p. 141.
1352 In short, according to Heracleides ( c . 350 B.C.), two planets revolve around the Sun; according to Tycho Brahe (1588), five; according to Riccioli (1651), three.
1353 By Simplicios (VI–1), in his Commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo (Heiberg ed., 1894), p. 505. Polemarchos wondered how the variations in brightness of the planets could be reconciled with the theory of homocentric spheres, for according to that theory the distance between the Earth and the planets is invariable; he seems to have rejected his own objection on the ground that the changes in brightness were too small to be taken into account.
1354 Simplicios’ Commentary on De caelo (Heiberg ed.), p. 493.
1355 Metaphysics, 1073B.
1356 For Callippos’ calendar see Geminos of Rhodes (I–1 B.C.), Creek edition with German translation by Karl Monitiua (Leipzig, 1898), pp. 120–122.
1357 The Metaphysics is certainly Aristotle’s work; we are less certain with regard to the Physics and the De caelo. The De caelo, as we have it, is a text prepared by Aristotle for teaching, and possibly amended by himself or disciples; its state of incompleteness is proved by many contradictions [Isis 32, 136 (1947–49)].
1358 Heath, Greek astronomy, p. xlviii [ Isis 22 , 585 (1934–35)].
1359 That argument was curiously reversed later, e.g., by Plutarch (I–2). The universe is infinite, hence it has no center and one cannot say that the Earth is in the center of it. This was repeated by all the medieval philosophers who believed in the infinity of the universe, for example, Nicolaus Cusanus (1401–1464).
1360 In the Loeb Classical Library edition and translation of the De caelo (1939) [ Isis 32 , 136 (1947–49)], W. K. C. Guthrie gives a list of Aristotelian passages ( a ) that exclude the transcendent mover, ( b ) that imply it.
1361 De caelo, 279A.
1362 De caelo , 298A, following J. L. Stocks’ translation in the Oxford Aristotle (1922).
1363 It is impossible to appreciate its precision without knowing the length of the stadium. Aubrey Diller, “Ancient measurements of the earth,” Isis 40, 6–9 (1949). The circumference of the Earth in thousands of stadia was for Aristotle 400; for Archimedes (III–2 B.C.), 300; for Eratosthenes (III–2 B.C.), 252; for Poseidonios (I–1 B.C.). 240, but also 180; for Ptolemy (II–1). 180. The trouble is that the stadia varied in length from place to place and from time to time. It is possible that the two Poseidonian values are really the same adjusted to two different lengths of stadia. The ratio of 10 stadia/mile to 7.5 stadia/mile = 4:3 = 240:180.
The Erastosthenian value was supposed to be the best in antiquity; Introduction, vol. 1, p. 172. If both Eratosthenes and Poseidonios used stadia of length ten to a mile, then their results came very close, for 252:240 = 21:20.
1364 Simplicios’ commentary (Heiberg ed.), p. 117, 25. With regard to Greek astronomy (Eudoxos, Callippos) Simplicios quoted many times Sosigenes the Peripatetic (Caesar’s astronomer), who had been able to use the lost history of astronomy by Eudemos of Rhodes; see Heiberg, p. 488, 20.
1365 This has been discussed repeatedly in my Introduction , see, e.g., vol. 2, p. 16; vol. 3, p. 484.
1366 Pitane was on the coast of Aeolis (Mysia, Asia Minor).
1367 Euclid, made use of Autolycos’ work in his Phainomena, though without naming him.
1368 Aristotheros was the teacher of Aratos of Soloi (III–1 B.C.), but is otherwise unknown. He is referred to by Simplicios, Heiberg, p. 504, 25. The same argument had been used also (independently?) by Polemarchos of Cyzicos (p. 508).
1369 Greek edition with Latin translation by Friedrich Hultsch (Leipzig, 1885). New Greek edition without translation by Joseph Mogenet, Autolycus de Pitane. Histoire du texte suivie de l’édition critique des traité de la sphère en mouvement et des levers et couchers (336 pp.; Louvain: Université de Louvain, 1950) [ Isis 42, 147 (1951)].
1370 Kitäb al–mutawassi ät , about which see Introduction, vol. 2, p. 1001. Mogenet’s edition of 1950 includes an elaborate study of the tradition of Autolycos, in Greek, Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. For the “Little astronomy,” see Mogenct, pp. 168, 172.
1371 In what follows I shall often use the adjective Aristotelian in a loose sense, for the sake of simplicity. Every statement of mine can be justified with quotations taken from the Aristotelian corpus, but one might claim that this or that quotation represents the thought not of Aristotle himself, but of Straton or of another philosopher, known or unknown. Thus, every statement might necessitate long discussions, out of place here.
1372 His most definite statement on that subject occurs, curiously enough, in the De respiratione, 471A, apropos of the breathing of fishes: “Anaxagoras says that when fishes discharge water though their gills, air is formed in the mouth, for there can be no vacuum.”
1373 Aristotle recognized two possible directions in a straight line, but only one in a circle. All the celestial motions known to him had the same direction; yet were motions in the opposite direction inconceivable?
1374 That Aristotelian prejudice is generally expressed in this form (Natura abhorret a vacuo, Nature abhors a vacuum), the exact origin of which I do not know; it is a medieval saying. For the history of the vacuum sec Cornelis Do Waard, L’expérience baromètrique (Thouars: Imprimerie nouvelle, 1936) (Isis 26, 212 (1936)].
1375 Brief analysis in Isis 6 , 138 (1924).
1376 Tycho Brahe, De mundi aetherii recentioribus phaenomenis liber secundus qui est de illustri stella caudata ... (Uraniborg, 1588). Though it is irrelevant to my immediate purpose, I cannot resist mentioning that Brahe concluded in that same treatise of 1588 that the orbit of the comet of 1577 was not circular but elliptic. This was the first time that an astronomer referred to an orbit which was neither a circle nor a combination of circles. Kepler’s discovery of elliptic trajectories was published in 1609.
C. Doris Hellman, The comet of 1577: its place in the history of astronomy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944) [Isis 36, 266–270 (1946)].
1377 Aydin M. Sayili, “The Aristotelian explanation of the rainbow,” Isis 30 , 65–83 (1939). Carl B. Boyer, “Aristotle’s physics,” Scientific American (May 1950), pp. 48–51.
1378 Isis 3, 279 (1920–21).
1379 Homoiomerous: consisting of similar parts, homogeneous. The contrary is heteromerous, heterogeneous. Aristotle uses the words homolomerès, anhomolomerès.
1380 To use a modern comparison, the forms of hydrogen and oxygen disappear when a proper number of molecules of these gases unite to become water. There is no more hydrogen in that water, except in potentia.
1381 Pierre La Ramée (1512–72), one of the victims of the St. Bartholomew purge.
1382 Cassendi (1592–1655) and Descartes (1596–1650) were almost exact contemporaries. They were antagonists and between them dominated the second quarter of their century.
1383 Consider the famous Traité de physique by Jacques Rohault (Paris, 1671), which remained for half a century the main textbook of Cartesian physics. It includes not only physics stricto sensu but cosmology, astronomy, meteorology, geography, physiology and medicine. G. Sarton, “The study of early scientific textbooks,” Isis 38, 137–148 (1947–48).
1384 For the ethical aspect of music in ancient Greece (and in ancient China), see Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 161–162.
1385 More exactly, the unknown author of the Problemata. The Problemata contain probably Aristotelian ingredients, to which other Peripatetic ones were gradually added. The work as we have it may be relatively late, say fifth or sixth century; Isis 11 , 155 (1928).
1386 Problemata, 919B, 5.
1387 Problemata, 918A, 35.
1388 Rayleigh, Nature 8, 319 (1873); Theory of sound (London: Macmillan, 1878; ed. 2, 1896; reprinted, 1926), vol. 2, p. 152.
1389 Lampros and Xenophilos are otherwise unknown. Their names are mentioned, because it is notable that Aristoxenos was educated by at least one Pythagorean. Lampros hailed from Erythrai, but there were many places of that name; this was possibly the Ionian one opposite Chios (one of the twelve Greek cities of Asia Minor), for many Ionians had taken refuge in Magna Graecia. He is not the Lampros mentioned by Plato, also a musician but of an earlier time (first half of the fifth century).
1390 This may be taken to mean that Aristoxenos came to Athens c. 336–333; it may also mean that he was about 40 in 336; and this would make him a little older than Theophrastos. Whether he was 40 years old or 50 at the time of Aristotle’s death (322), he had had time enough to prove his value and to be a worthy candidate for the mastership.
1391 Introduction, vol. 1, p. 142. Henry S. Macran, The Harmonics of Aristoxenos (Greek and English with notes, 303 pp.; Oxford, 1902 ). Louis Laloy, Aristoxène de Tarente et la musique de l’antiquité, (418 pp.; Paris, 1904), includes Aristoxenian lexicon; reprinted in 1924 [ Isis 8, 530 (1926)].
Léon Boutroux, “Sur l’harmonique aristoxén–ienne,” Revue générale des sci. 30, 265–274 (1919) [Isis 3, 317 (1920–21)]; mathematical comparison of the Pythagorean and Aristoxenian ideas derived from Ptolemy’s Harmonics.
1392 The word leimma, meaning remnant, residue, serves in music to designate the interval 256/243 left over when two tones (tonoi) of 9/8 are measured off from the fourth or tetrachord (dia tessarôn ): 9/8) x (9/8) x (256/243)–4/3. Plutarch misunderstood the interval 256/243 to mean 256 — 243, or 13, in De animae procreatione in Timaeo Platonis, 1017r.
1393 A claim to the invention of logarithms was made by modern Arabs on a similar ground, the musical theory of al–F r bi; Isis 26, 552 (1936). This is even less justifiable, for the Arabic idea was borrowed from the Greek, and the Greek idea itself was a curious coincidence, not an invention.
1394 The quadrivium originated in Greek lands, but its success was more complete in the West, beginning with Boetius (VI–1). There is no single Greek word corresponding to quadrivium. The treatise of Georgios Pachymeres (XIII–2) is entitled Syntagma t n tessar n math mat n (Stephanou edition; Rome, 1940) [Isis 34, 218–219 (1942–43)].
1395 Paul Henry Láng, Music in Western civilization (1124 pp., ill.; New York: Norton, 1941) [ Isis 34, 182–186 (1942–43)]. Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages, with an introduction on the music of ancient times (520 pp., 8 pls.; New York: Norton, 1940) [Isis 34, 182–186 (1942–43)].
1396 Roughly, Aristotle’s estimate of the circumference of the Earth was to the correct measurement in the ratio 8 to 5. In bulk, the Aristotelian Earth was about four times the size of the real one.
1397 The Jaxartes is one of the two rivers, the eastern one, emptying into the Aral Sea, the Oxus being the other. Many cities (at least nine ) were called Alexandria to honor the conqueror; one of them, called Alexandria Ultima, established on the Jaxartes, marked the limit of Alexander’s efforts in Sogdiana.
1398 The author of the Meteorologica gives much geographic information in Books I and II, information that seems to be derived from a geographic treatise or even from an atlas. One could put all that information on a map, but the result would be very unsatisfactory, full of holes. Moreover, we are always subdued by the same doubt; how much Aristotelian knowledge is there in the Meteorologica?
1399 Meteorology, 362–363.
1400 Meteorology, 363.
1401 For the history of zones, see Ernst Honigmann, Die sieben Klimata (Heidelberg: Winter, 1939) [Isis 14, 270–276 (1930)].
1402 The term Magna Graecia referred loosely to South Italy; it might or might not include Sicily. Greek colonies were restricted to a limited number of cities along the coasts. T. J. Dunbabin, The Western Greeks (518 pp.; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948) [ Isis 40, 154 (1949)]; a very elaborate story but, unfortunately, it stops at about 480 B.C.
1403 Phocaia, the northernmost of the Ionian cities on the west coast of Asia minor, between Lesbos and Chios, distinguished itself among other Ionian cities by founding the westernmost colonies, Massilia in Gaul and Mainaca in Andalusia (east of Malaga). Such colonies were challenging Phoenician efforts in the Western Mediterranean. When the Phocaians were colonizing Massilia (c. 600), they defeated the Carthaginians in a sea fight (Thucydides, I, 13). The naval and commercial rivalry between Massilia and Carthage remained intense.
1404 It is derived mainly from Geminos of Rhodes (I–1 B.C.), Strabon (1–2 B.C.), Diodoros of Sicily ( I–2 B.C.), and Pliny ( I–2 ).
1405 It would take considerable space to explain how the summary was pieced up from many sources. See H. F. Tozer, History of ancient geography (ed. 2, Cambridge: University Press, 1935). pp. 152–164, xx [Isis 26, 537 (1936)]. Gaston E. Broche, Pythéas le Massaliote , dé–couvreur de l’extrême occident et du nord de l’Europe (266 pp.; Paris: Société française d’imprimerie, 1935), with a map of Pythcas’ navigations. J. Oliver Thomson, History of ancient geography (Cambridge: University Press, 1948) (Isis 41, 244 (1950)].
1406 Ictis was almost certainly Saint Michael’s Mount, in the Bay of Penzance, Cornwall.
1407 In Strabon, II, 4, 1.
1408 The translators write the Tanais, but there is no article in Greek (apo Gadeir n he s Tan–aidos). However, in another passage, Strabon, II, 4, 5, used the article: “The Tanais flows from the summer rising of the sun” ( ho de Tanaïs rhei apo therin s anatol s ).
1409 Later geographers identified Thule or Ultima Thule with Iceland, but that does not prove that the first user of the name Thule, Pytheas, meant that island and naught else. See Ferrari and Baudrand, Novum lexicum geographicum (Patavii. 1697), vol. 2, p. 228.
1410 Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), In northern mists (2 vols.; London, 1911). This contains an enthusiastic chapter on Pytheas (vol. 1, pp. 43–73) ; the passage quoted above appears on p. 67. Vilhjalmur Stefannson in his book Greenland (New York: Doubleday, Doran. 1942), pp. 28–41 [Isis 34, 379 (1942–43)] is even more enthusiastic.
1411 It is clear that he could not venture his army into unknown regions without preliminary scouting. Otherwise, the army might have perished in deserts, marshes, or inaccessible mountains.
1412 Arrianos ( II–1 ) of Nicomedia in Bithynia, ‘better known as the editor of Epictetos (II–1).
1413 Alexander himself did not sail farther than the mouth of the Indus, whence he continued by land; Nearchos remained in charge of the fleet
1414 Amphipolis in Macedonia, so called because the river Strymon (Struma), which separates Macedonia from Thrace, flows around the town, encircling it almost completely. Amphipolis is on the lower course of the river, near the sea, just east of the Chalcidice.
1415 “According to Eratosthenes, the whole of the outer sea is confluent, so that both the Western Sea and the Red Sea are one” (Strabon, 1, 3, 13).
1416 They are now in relative decadence because of the competition of the native pearls produced by Japanese methods, of artificial pearls, and even more because of the increasing importance of oil in the Persian Gulf area and the growing industrialization of that area. There is more wealth in oil than in oysters, more in the earth than in the sea.
1417 Carolus Muller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris, 1848), vol. 2, pp. 225–268, Geographi graeci minores (Paris, 1882), vol. 1, pp. 97–110, 238–243. All the fragments are given in Greek with Latin translation and notes.
1418 Agathemeros wrote a geographic epitome the date of which is unknown except that it is later than Ptolemy (II–1).
1419 A passage of Theon of Smyrna (II–1) suggests that Dicaiarchos may have used a diopter (Hiller’s ed., pp. 124–125). That is not at all impossible; any intelligent person wishing to determine azimuths or other angles with precision would be bound to invent a kind of diopter or theodolite (without lenses, of course ) ; a simple type would be easy to construct and to use.
1420 Florian Cajori, “History of determinations of the heights of mountains,” Isis 12, 482–514 (1929).
1421 say the second Athenian residence, or Ly–ceum period (335–322).
1422 Many errors due to carelessness and ill arrangement tend to support the “notebook” hypothesis: the biologic books have come down to us not as the master wrote them himself but as students took them down. To this we offer two answers: (1) Aristotle remains the author, if not the editor, of his thoughts; (2) we must always bear in mind that ancient books were not submitted, like ours, to the long ordeal of final revision and proofreading. Any author knows the many differences obtaining between his final “personal” manuscript and the text that finally appears In print.
1423 G. Sarton, “D’Arcy Wontworth Thompson, 1860–1948,” Isis 41, 3–8 (1950), with portrait.
1424 Herbert Spencer lecture, Oxford, 1913; reprinted in Science and the classics (London: Oxford University Press, 1940) [Isis 33, 269–270 (1941–42)].
1425 There was even a reaction against Aristotelian logic, the essence of which had been accepted for more than 22 centuries! The attack against Aristotelian logic was led by the Polish philosopher, Alfred Habdank Korzybsld (1879—1950); Isis 30, 517 (1939); 41, 202 (1950).
1426 In the De generatione animalium, 782A 21, Aristotle calls his other book “The causes of the parts of the animals,” which is better than the title with which we are familiar.
1427 History of animals, 506A, 22; Parts of animals, 676B, 27.
1428 De anima, 412A, 28; translation by J. A. Smith in the Oxford Aristotle. Scholars should refer to the Greek text, which can ot be translated adequately. It is a good specimen of Aristotelian prose made heavy by excessive co densation.
1429 More briefly, there arc three kinds of soul: ( 1 ) vegetative or nutritive in all living beings, (2) animal or sensitive in all the animals, (3) rational in men only. (Thus men h ve the three kinds. ) That classification was generally accepted until modern times. Note that the Aristotelian idea of soul or psyche is not differentiated from mind. Vital spirit, soul, mind are all one.
1430 Compare Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”
1431 These remarks on internal versus external finality are suggested by Francis Hugh Adam Marshall in his foreword to the Loeb edition of the Parts, of animals (1937).
1432 Parts of animals, 691B, 4.
1433 Hans Driesch (1867–1941), The history and theory of vitalism (347 pp.; London, 1914) [Isis 3, 439–440 (1920–21)]; Mind and body (London, 1927).
1434 History of animals, 588B, 4; quoted from D’Arcy W. Thompson’s translation in the Oxford Aristotle. I extend the quotation beyond my immediate need to 589A, 9, because it illustrates the richness of Aristotle’s thought.
1435 Harry Beal Torrey and Frances Felin, “Was Aristotle an evolutionist?” Quart. Rev. Biol. 12, 1–18 (1937). After reviewing all the evidence they cannot answer yes or no.
1436 For details on Arabic, Persian, and Turkish documents on this subject see Introduction, vol. 3, pp. 211–213, 1170.
1437 As given by him in his article on “Greek biology” in Studies in the history and method of acience (Oxford, 1921), vol. 2, pp. 1–101; see pp. 16, 21.
1438 De generatione animalium, 783B, 9, quoted from the Loeb translation by A. L. Peck (1943).
1439 For example, hibernation, about which see M. A. Herzog, Aristoteles Anschauungen über die Lehre vom Winterschlaf (Festschrift fur Zschokke, No. 41, 28 pp.; Basel, 1920) [Isis 4, 128 (1921–22)]. Francis G. Benedict and Robert C. Lee, Hibernation and marmot physiology (250 pp., 2 pls., 11 figs. ; Washington: Carnegie Institution, 1938) [(Isis 30, 398 (1939)]. For the latest views see Charles P. Lyman and Paul 0. Chatfield, “Hibernation,” Scientific American (December 1950). The mechanism of hibernation is better understood, but the fundamental process is still a mystery.
1440 Sir Charles Sherrington, Man on his nature (Cambridge: University Press, 1940), p. 238 [ Isis 33, 544–545 (1941–42); 34, 48 (1942–43)]. “How came it,” asks Sir Charles, “that Aristotle, the father of psychology, missed the localization of the mind in the brain?”
1441 There are many references in Aristotle to the mathematician Hippocrates of Chios, but only one, insignificant, to the physician Hippocrates (Politica, 1326A, 15). Aristotle’s relative lack of interest in medicine is not so curious after all, but rather normal. The mathematical and the medical minds are, if not antagonistic, at least very different and sometimes poles asunder.
1442 Historia animalium, 620B, 18–29.
1443 Ibid., 568A. The account is not quoted verbatim but as abbreviated by Charles Singer in his Story of living things (New York: Harper, 1931), p. 18. Compare with similar observations made by the poet Henry David Thoreau in 1858, in his Journal (1906), vol. 10, pp. 483–484. Thoreau made his observations just as Aristotle had made them twenty–two centuries earlier, without any new equipment.
1444 Historia animalium, 535B, 13.
1445 For modern investigations on the sound–producing organs of fishes see Bashford Dean and Eugene Willis Gudger, Bibliography of fishes (New York, 1923), vol. 3, p. 594 [Isis 6, 456–459 (1924)]. During World War II it was discovered in the operation of underwater sound gear that many kinds of fish produce sounds. See, for instance, Donald P. Love and Don A. Proudfoot, “Underwater noise due to marine life,” l. Acoustical Soc. Am. 18, 446–449 (1946).
1446 Historia animalium, 497A, 32.
1447 Ibid., 510A, 30.
1448 Generation animalium, 746A, 14. We must remember, however, that the relative scarcity and expensiveness of papyrus did not enable Aristotle’s contemporaries to use it as recklessly as we use paper. There was, therefore, a tendency to avoid drawings and graphs rather than to multiply them as we do. Even when drawings were provided in the author’s original manuscript, it was so difficult and bothersome to reproduce them exactly that they were likely to be dropped by the copyists. No Aristotelian drawing has come down to us. The technical terms used by Aristotle for his drawings are schémata, diagraph , paradeigmata.
1449 George Henry Lewes ( 1817–1878), ArIstotle. A chapter from the history of science, including analyses of Aristotle’s scientific writings (414 pp.; London, 1864). Lewes is best known to most people as the devoted “husband” of George Eliot from 1854 to his death in 1878. R. E. Ockenden, “George Henry Lewes,” Isis 32, 70–86 (1947–49), with portrait.
1450 Lewes, Aristotle, p. 325.
1451 Joseph Needham, History of embryology (Cambridge: University Press, (1934) pp. 38–37 [Isis 27, 98–102 (1937)]. Another set of conclusions on Aristotle’s embryology was included by A. L. Peck in his introduction to the Generation of animals (Loeb Classical Library, 1943); these conclusions have been reprinted in Isis 35, 181 (1944).
1452 A part of this would be classified under “breeding habits” rather than “embryology,” but this does not matter, my main purpose being to illustrate Aristotle’s genius as a naturalist.
1453 Historia animalium, 565B, 2, D’Arcy W. Thompson’s translation in the Oxford Aristotle,.
1454 For details and illustrations, see D’Arcy Thompson and Singer. Wilhelm Haberling, “Der glatte Hai des Aristoteles. Briefe Johannes Müller über seine Wiederauffindung an Wilhelm Karl Hartwig Peters 1839–40,” Arch. Geachichte Math. Wiss. 10, 166–184 (1927).
1455 Historia animalium, 541B, 1; Generatio animalium, 720B, 25.
1456 It must be added, to Aristotle’s discredit, that he helped to spread a legend concerning the paper nautilus (Argonauta argo). “It rises up from deep water and swims on the surface; it rises with its shell down–turned in order that it may rise the more easily and swim with it empty, but after reaching the surface it shifts the position of the shell. In between its feelers it has a certain amount of web–growth, resembling the substance between the toes of web–footed birds; only that with these latter the substance is thick, while with the nautilus it is thin and like a spider’s web. It uses this structure, when a breeze is blowing, for a sail, and lets down some of its feelers alongside as rudder–oars. If it be frightened, it 811s its shell with water and sinks” (Historia animalium, 622B, 5–15). That amiable legend of the nautilus using its membrane as a sail and its arms as oars has been spread by later. writings and by illustrations (for example, Belon’s, 1551).
1457 For details, illustrations, and bibliography, see Singer, “Greek biology,” Studies, vol. 2, pp. 39–46.
1458 Historia animalium, 567B, 22.
1459 Generatio animalium, 755A, 33.
1460 Historia animalium, 571A, 3.
1461 William Yarrell (1784–1858), “Note on the foetal pouch of the male needle pipe–fish,” Proc. Zool. Soc. (1835), pp. 3, 183; History of British fishes (2 vols.; London, 1836). Eugene Willis Gudgor, “The breeding habits and the segmentation of the egg of the pipefish, Siphostoma Flori–dae,” Proc. U. S. National Museum 29, 447–499 (1906). 11 pls., including historical outline of our knowledge of the reproduction of Lophobranchii (pp. 449–462). D. W. Thompaon, Greek fishes, pp. 29–31.
1462 See Gudger, note 66.
1463 As Strabon (I–2 B.C.) called them; sea Osiris 2, 411 (1936).
1464 Historia animalium, 596B, 20.
1465 Ogle’s translation was first published in 1882. A revised edition of it is included in the Oxford Aristotle, vol. 5 (1911). For the copious biological notes it is necessary to refer to the original edition.
1466 Francis Darwin, The life and letters of Charles Darwin (ed. 2, London, 1887), vol. 3, p. 251.
1467 See p. 333. The best study is A. Delatte, Herbarius (Paris: Académie royale de Belgique, 1936) [ Isis 27, 531 (1937)]; ed. 2 (1938) [Isis 30, 295 (1939)]. Greek superstitions relating to herbs were continued in Roman days; examples of them can be found in the Latin writings as well as in the Greek ones, for example, in the Apologia of Apuleius ( II–2 ) or in that Vergilian cento the Medea of Hosidius Ceta, who flourished In Apuleius’ time or soon afterwards. Joseph J. Mooney, Hosidius Geta’ s tragedy Medea, text and metrical translation, with an outline of ancient Roman magic (96 pp.; Birmingham, 1919). Superstition is of necessity more conservative than science, because it is uncorrectible and un–and classification of plants. 5. Composition and products of plants. 6. Methods of propagation and fertilization. 7. Changes and progressive.
1468 Some 63 in Homer.
1469 Agnes Arber, The natural philosophy of plant form (first pages; Cambridge: University Press, 1950) [Isis 41, 322–323 (1950)].
1470 pages 815w–829a.
1471 The Latin text was edited by E. H. F. Meyer (Leipzig, 1846). It contains many Arabi–cisms. The Arabic text may still be found; if it were, its edition would enable one to clear various obscurities.
1472 Friedrich Wimmer began but did not complete a collections of Aristotle’s botanical fragments, Phytologiae Aristotelicae fragmenta (Breslau, 1838); not seen.
1473 The contents of De plantis, taken from the Oxford Aristotle (vol. 6), are quoted for the sake of comparison with the botanic books of Theophrastos, below.
1474 Terpandros belongs to the first half of the seventh century; Arion and Alcaios flourished respectively in 625 and 613; Sappho was born c. 612. Her name should be pronounced Sap–ph6.
1475 We have told above the story of Aristotle’s hesitation between Eudomos of Rhodes and Theophrastos and how he finally preferred the Lesbian wine to the Rhodian. According to another story, the original name of Aristotle’s favorite disciple was Tyrtamos, which he changed to Theophrastos (divine speaker). Se non è vero ... Yet a poor woman selling herbs in the market of Athens recognized at once from his accent that the “the divine speaker” was a provincial.
1476 Theophrastos’ stay in Athens was interrupted only for a short while in 318, when he was exiled because of an edict of Demetrios Poliorcetes, king of Macedonia, against schools of philosophy.
1477 Including Menandroa (342–291), the leading poet of the New Comedy. Menandros was the disciple and friend of both Theophrastos and Epicuros.
1478 Clark Emery, “ ’Sir’ John Hill versus the Royal Society,” Isis 34, 16–20 (1942–43). John Hill (1716?–1775), apothecary, quack, botanist, historian, was a queer individual. He called himself “Sir,” because he had been awarded the Swedish order of Vasa; Dictionary of NotionalBiography, vol. 28, pp. 397–401.
1479 Theophrastos, Loeb Classical Library. The word used by Theophrastos is deisidaimonia, which means fear of gods and has a good senso (piety) and a bad one (superstition).
1480 Jean de La Bruyère (Paris, 1645–1696). Les Caractères de Théophraste avec les Caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle (Paris, 1688).
1481 Free translation of fragment 96 in Friedrich Wimmer’s edition, p. 440. Theophrastos refers to the hearer (acroat s), not to the reader, because in his time more people listened to readings than read themselves.
1482 The word “apparently” is added because the matter is not quite clear to me. In his De sensibus Theophrastos discusses the views of Alcmaion, Anaxagoras, Democritos, and Diogenes of Apollonia, but does not express his own views with sufficient unambiguity.
1483 Fragments edited by Hermann Diels in his Doxographi Graeci (Berlin, 1879). The treatise on senses edited in Greek and English by G. M. Stratton (1917) is the largest of those fragments and does not give one a high idea of Theophrastos’ impartiality as a historian of thought. Such impartiality, or better, the ability to judge the views of other people in their integrity and in relation to their social background, was hardly understood until modern times; it has been achieved only by very few scholars.
1484 Celeberrimus autem omnium, verus rei herbariae parens Theophastus fuit Eresius . K. P. J. Sprengel (1766–1833), Historia nei herbariae (Amsterdam, 1807), vol. 1, p. 66.
1485 In Wimmer’s Greek–Latin edition (Paris, 1866), 155 pp. against 163. The first work is readily available in the Loeb Classical Library. two volumes translated by Sir Arthur Hort. Wimmer’s and Hort’s editions include glossaries of plant names, but Wimmer’s glossary covers both works.
1486 It is hardly necessary to recall that the idea of spontaneous generation continued to be accepted (for lower and lower forms of life) until the time of Pasteur, 1861, less than a century ago.
1487 Plants beginning with one seed leaf or with two. Theophrastos’ distinction between these two groups is well indicated by Singer, Story of living things p. 50. The word cotyl –done s occurs in Theophrastos, History of plants, IX, 13, 6, but with the meaning of suckers.
1488 History of plants , IX, 8.
1489 Ibid ., 11, 3.
1490 Ibid., I, 7, 3; IV, 11, 13; IX, 18, 9.
1491 The whole end of that chapter (IX, 18) was omitted by Hort in the Loeb edition. Such prudishness in a scientific book is truly shocking.
1492 Causes of plants, 11, 17.
1493 History of plants , end of 11.
1494 If we accept the Lyceum garden as the first botanic garden, we have to wait four hundred years for the second, to wit, the garden created in Rome by Antonius Castor. Pliny (1–2) visited that garden in which Antonius, though he had passed his hundredth year “cultivated vast numbers of plants with the greatest care”; Pliny, Natural history, xx, 100; xxv, 5.
1495 For example, History of plants, VII, 5; vm, 10; Causes of plants, IV.
1496 History of plants, VII, 5.
1497 History of plants, VIII, 10; vm, 11; IV, 14; v, 4; etc.
1498 The previous quotation and these identifications are borrowed from Melville H. Hatch, “ Theophrastos as economic entomologist,” J. New York Entomological Soc ., 46, 223–227 (1938). More identifications are suggested by F. S. Bodenheimer, Materialien zur Geschichte der Entomologie (Berlin, 1928), vol. 1, pp. 70–76 [Isis 3, 388–392 (1920–21)].
1499 Edward Lee Greene (1843–1915), Landmarks of botanical history prior to 1562 (Washington, 1909), pp. 140–142. The most recent studies of Theophrastos are due to the Swiss botanist, Gustav Senn–Bernoulli (1875–1945), Die Pflanzensystematik bei Theophrast (Bern, 1922) [Isis 6, 139 (1923–24)]; Die Entwicklung der biologischen Forschungsmethode in der Antike und ihre grundsädtzliche Förderung durch Theophrast (262 pp.; Aarau: Sauerländer, 1933) [ Isis 27, 68–69 (1937)].
1500 For example, Dante’s Inferno; see Introduction, vol. 3, p. 487, Fig. 8 . The ideas should not be confused with modern ideas on the constitution of the earth’s nucleus or on the foci of earthquakes, for the modern scientific ideas are absolutely independent of the ancient or medieval fancies.
1501 The Lydian Xanthos son of Candaules flourished in the time of the first Artaxerxes (ruled 464–424); he concerned himself with geology and botany.
1502 See, for example, the description of the gems on Aaron’s breastplate in Exodus 28.
1503 Isis 6, 138 (1924).
1504 The conception of winds imprisoned in underground caverns is not yet completely abandoned today. The fancy subsists in Persia; see anecdote told by E. G. Browne, A year among the Persians (Cambridge, ed. 2, 1926), p. 257.
1505 Aristotle’s geologic explanations have been already referred to, but his main work as a naturalist was done in zoölogy.
1506 In a long fragment (frag. 171) entitled De piscibus in sicco degentibus (Didot Greek–Latin edition, p. 455–58), On the fishes remaining in a dry condition — really on fossil fishes. This fragment is long enough to be called the first treatise on paleontology. Theophrastos was “first” in many fields.
1507 Sir Archibald Geikie, The founders of geology (London: Macmillan, ed. 2, 1905), p. 16.
1508 In par. 56; translation as given in M. R. Cohen and I. E. Drabkin, Source book in Greek Science (600 pp.; New York: MeGraw–Hill, 1948). p. 359. As Drabkin remarks in a footnote, the end product of that reaction is not necessarily lead carbonate (white lead, ceruse) but lead acetate; it would require plenty of carbonic acid to change the acetate into a carbonate.
1509 A recent English version of that book by Sydney H. Ball, A Roman book on precious stones (Los Angeles: Gemological Institute, 1950 [ Isis 42, 52 (1951)] is valuable because the author had a practical knowledge of the gems themselves.
1510 Isis 11, 155 (1928).
1511 Werner Jaeger, Diokles von Karystot. Die griechische Medizin und die Schule des Aristoteles (244 pp.; Berlin: Walter do Gruyter, 1938) [Isis 33, 86 (1941–42)]; “Vergessene Fragmente des Peripatetikers Diokles, nobst zwei Anhängen zur Chronologie der dogmatischen rzteschule,”Abhandl. Preuss. Akad., Phil, hist . Kl., No. 3 (46 pp.; 1938).
1512 The same thing happened in the late thirteenth century and in the fourteenth when Italian physicians, hypnotized by the expository methods of theologians and jurists, wrote medical books in a similar style; Introduction , vol. 2, p. 70; vol. 3, pp. 264, 1222.
1513 His Rhizotomicon may perhaps be called a treatise on botany, and it may be prior to Theophrastos. He and Theophrastos were close contemporaries, Diocles being probably a little younger. This does not exclude the possibility that Theophrastos used the botany of his younger colleague. Diocles ( this Diocles? ) is mentioned but once in Theophrastos’ writings, not in the botanical ones but in the book on stones (28), apropos of lyngurion (amber or tourmaline?).
1514 The error was excusable, because the elastic arteries empty themselves when the heart ceases to beat. It was accepted for centuries and was one of the causes of the long delay in the discovery of circulation, the whole circulation (Harvey, 1628).
1515 K. C. Kühn, Galeni opera omnia (Leipzig, 1821–1833), vol. 15, p. 25, “Galeni in Hippocratem de natura hominis commentarius.”
1516 The papyrus called Anonymus Londinensis is 12 ft long and includes 39 columns or portions of columns, each about 3 in. wide; in all, about 1900 lines. The text is acephalous. Paleographic considerations tally with a date such as (11–1).
1517 F. G. Kenyon, “A medical papyrus in the British Museum,” Classical Rev. 6, 237–240 (1892). The text was entirely transcribed by Kenyon but first edited by Hermann Diels, Supplementum Aristotelicum (Berlin, 1893), vol. 3, part 1; new edition by W. H. S. Jones, The medical writings of Anonymus Londinensis (176 pp.; Cambridge: University Press, 1947) [ Isis 39,73 (1948)].
1518 The original meanings of the words “ecology” and “economy” are almost equivalent. It would be silly to insist on the spelling “oncology ,” and not to spell the other word “oeconomy.” The words nomos and logos are frequently interchanged in our terminology; we call one science “geology” and another “astronomy,” while the word “astrology” is used to denote a set of superstitions. Every language is a mixture of reason and caprice.
1519 Historia animalium, 547b–548a.
1520 The old Greek spelling is pina or pin , with one n; we write pinna according to English usage, but pinot r s and pinophylax to follow the best Greek one. For pinna folklore, see Isis 33, 569 (1941–42).
1521 This is a reference to the jerboa (Dipus aegyptiacus).
1522 Historia animalium, 580 b 10.
1523 Charles Elton, Voles, mice and lemmings. Problems in population dynamics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942), p. 3 [ Isis 35, 82 (1944)].
1524 Ibid ., p. 158.
1525 Plato’s dialogues belong to a different category of books.
1526 1094 a –1251 b .
1527 There are many resemblances between the Nicomachcan and the Eudemian ethics, and Books IV, V, VI of the latter are equivalent to Books V, VI, VII of the former. It has been argued that these three books originally belonged to the Eudcmian ethics and were later interpolated into theNicomachean. Both treatises might have been written by the same person, though if Aristotle was that person, one does not see why, busy as he was, he should have rewritten one of his own works. The Magna moralia is certainly by another person, as is proved by differences in vocabulary and grammar; there are no less than 40 words in it that do not occur in the two others.
1528 the Nicomachean ethics covers 176 columns in the Bekker edition, the three others 144 (72, 66, 6).
1529 Strictly speaking, this last expression is wrong when applied to Aristotle, who placed the seat of reason in the heart itself, not in the brain. I use it for the sake of clearness.
1530 P. 1206 b 19.
1531 P. 1185b.
1532 Pp. 1343–1353.
1533 The Bekker edition and the Oxford translation include only the first two books (pp. 1343–1353). For the third book, see Franz Susemihl, Aristotelis quae teruntur Oeconomica (Leipzig, 1877).
1534 Politics, 1290 b 21–1291 b 13.
1535 As explained above, the Greek text of the Athenensium Respublica was discovered only in 1891 by Frederic G. Kenyon. English translation by Sir Frederic in vol. 10 of the Oxford Aristotle (1920). See the edition by Sir John Edwin Sandys ( London, first, 1893; second, 1912). All editions and translations are divided into chapters numbered 1 to 69 as by Kcnyon and no reference is made to pages in the Bekker style, for this treatise was not included in the Bekker edition.
1536 “Phaleas of Chalcedon, who was the first to affirm that the citizens of a state ought to have equal possessions,” Politics, 1266 a 40, 1274b9.
1537 Ibid ., 1253a2.
1538 It would be interesting to compare Aristotle’s concepts of those fundamental bonds, and more generelly his politics and sociology, with the Chinese concepts developed by Confucius (VI B.C.), Mo Ti (V B.C.), and Mencius ( IV–2 B.C.), but that would lead us too far astray. Mencius (372–289) was a younger contemporary of Aristotle.
1539 Books were numbered differently in various manuscripts and editions. Books IV to VIII were numbered also VI, VIII, VII, IV, V.
1540 Pp. 1301–1316.
1541 Politics , 1255 a l.
1542 Ibid. , 1255 a 31. So many slaves had proved their distinction and magnanimity that one could not claim that slaves were essentially different from other men. There was a loophole, however, as there always is; one could claim that those “good” slaves were not “real” or “natural” slaves, that they were free men who had become slaves by accident. Aristotle granted that if a slave had the soul of a freeman, he should be freed.
1543 Ibid ., 1256 b 20; see also 1255 b 39, 1333b38.
1544 Ibid ., 1258b8.
1545 This Dionysios was the tyrant of Syracuse, either the father, Dionysios the Elder (430–367), or the son, Dionysios the Younger, who succeeded his father in 367 and died obscurely in Corinth after 343. Both had befriended Plato.
1546 Politics, 1259 a 23.
1547 Ibid. , 1258 b 25.
1548 For the history of usury, see Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 12 (1922), pp. 548–558. Benjamin N. Nelson, The idea of usury. From tribal to universal brotherhood (280 pp.; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949) [ Isis 41 , 406 (1950)].
1549 Politics , 1263.
1550 He insisted that the state exists for the good of the citizen and not the citizen for the good of the state. This was one of the first declarations of the rights of man; Introduction, vol. 2, p. 915.
1551 Tois tas coinas historias pragmateusamenois. Translation of C. H. Oldfather in the Loeb Classical Library (1933).
1552 Godfrey Louis Barber, The hiatorian Ephoros (202 pp.; Cambridge: University Press, 1935) [ Isis 26 , 157–158 (1936)].
1553 Hesiod’s father had emigrated from Cyme to Boeotia. Cyme faces the open sea between Lesbos and Chios. Modern Turkish name, Sandakli.
1554 Compare the words at the beginning of Diodoros’ history quoted in footnote 34.
1555 Polybios, Histories, v, 33.
1556 We have already come across Mausolos. He was satrap of Caria from 377 to his death in 353, and had achieved almost complete independence from Persian rule. His palace and later his “mausoleum” were in Halicarnassos.
1557 Sallustius suggests Thucydides. To call Theopompos the founder of psychologic history, as I did ( Introd ., 1, 147), is perhaps unfair to Thucydides, who would seem to deserve that title.
1558 Three lectures delivered in Cambridge in 1928 on “Paracharaxis or the restamping of conventional coins.” Reprinted in his Greek studies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), pp. 149–170 [ Isis 38 , 3–11 (1947–48)].
1559 Tauta de egeneto men udepote, esti de aei. Salustios put it thus in his book concerning the gods and the universe. This Salustios was acquainted with Neoplatonism in the form given to it by Iamblichos (IV–1) and he was probably a friend of Julian the Apostate (IV–2). His book was probably written shortly before Julian’s death (363) and published sub rosa. See edition and translation of it by Arthur Darby Nock (Cambridge, 1926), p. 8.
1560 One might object that some grammatical ideas were discovered before Aristotle. Protagoras (V B.C.) has been called the first grammarian, but there was a very long distance between the beginning of grammatical consciousness and the establishment of the first rudimentary grammar. The interval between Protagoras and Crates is about two and a half centuries.
1561 All these names are already familiar to the reader except the last one. Theodectes ( c. 375–334) of Phaselis (Lycia) flourished mainly in Athens, studied under Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle, and became famous as an orator and playwright. His monument at Phaselis was honored by Alexander the Great.
1562 Rhetoric , 1414a. Translation by W. D. Ross in the Oxford Aristotle.
1563 Bernard Pyne Grenfell ( 1869–1928) and Arthur Surridge Hunt (1871–1934), famous English papyrologists.
1564 This and other quotations from the Poetics are taken from Ingram Bywater, Aristotle. on the art of poetry, Greek and English (434 pp.; Oxford, 1909); the translation was reprinted in the Oxford Aristotle (1924).
1565 Poetics, 1451 end of a.
1566 Ibid., 1449b.
1567 Ibid., 1451a16.
1568 “Tragedy endeavors to keep as far as possible within a single circuit of the sun, or something near that” (1449 b 13).
1569 The “rule of three unities” continued to bo accepted in France as a kind of dramatic ideal until the angry challenge of Victor Hugo in the preface to his Cromwell (Paris, December 1827), the manifesto of the Romantic school.
1570 Diogenes was born c. 412–400 at Sinope (about the middle of the south shore of the Black Sea); he died at Corinth in very old age, c. 325–323.
1571 My Harvard colleague, George H. Chase, kindly wrote to me (13 February 1951) that the translation “to falsify the coinage” seems the best one to him; paracharattein means to engrave falsely. “So I suspect that Diogenes’ father got into trouble by stamping coins of Sinope with other than the officially accepted design, rather than by restamping them.” The coinage might be considered “falsified,” however, by one party and not by another.
1572 It It is said that Crates was a pupil of Bryson before following Diogenes. Yes, but this was Bryson of Achaïa, not the mathematician Bryson of Heraclea.
1573 This Bryson is different from the two Brysons mentioned in the previous footnote. The name Bryson was not uncommon. In his Life of Pythagoras (par. 104), lamblichos (IV–1) speaks of an early disciple bearing it. A treatise on economics is ascribed to one Bryson; the author was a Neo–Pythagorean, who flourished in Alexandria, or Rome in the first or second century A.D.; that treatise was edited by Martin Plessner in 1928 [ Isis 13, 529 (1929–30)]. To return to the present Bryson, son of Stilpon, we wonder whether his father was the famous Stilpon, third head of the Megarian school? This Stilpon (c. 380–300) had been influenced by Diogenes of Sinope as well as by Eucleides of Megara; under his mastership the school of Megara obtained considerable popularity, but that was also the end of it.
1574 F. Charles–Roux, Bonaparte, gouverneur d’Egypte (Paris: Plon, 1935) [Isis 26, 465–470 (1936)].
1575 Timon, son of Timarchos of Phlius ( northeast Peloponnesos), came also from a poor family and started life as a dancer. He studied under Stilpon at Megara, then under Pyrrhon, who converted him. Having been obliged to leave Elis, he exercised the profession of sophist in the country around the Hellespont and the Propontis, then retired fortune faite to Athens, where he lived to a very old age. He is remembered chiefly because of his individual type of satirical poems ( silloi ).
1576 According to an old tradition, after Pyrrhon’s death he was asked “Are you dead, Pyrrhon?”, and he answered, “I don’t know.”
1577 Arcesilaos of Pitane ( Aiolis pupil of the mathematician Autolycos of Pitane; then went to Athens, where he sat at the feet of Theophrastos, Polemon, and Crantor; succeeded Crates as master of the Academy.
1578 Carneades of Cyrene introduced skepticism into Rome in 155, and Cato asked the Senate to send this dangerous seducer of Roman youth back to his own Athens.
1579 Ainesidemos of Cnossos, whose lost work is one of the main sources of Sextos Empiricos (II–2).
1580 Cassandros was regent of Macedonia from 316 to 306, king from 306 to 297. He was the founder of Thessalonica (Salonica).
1581 The word anticlerical is used advisedly; it designates a reaction that is bound to occur in every country where the clerics (the ministers of any religion ) tend to abuse their power and their privileges. The priests of innumerable temples and sanctuaries all over the Greek world wielded a great deal of power and, being human, they wanted more power and more wealth; they had vested interests to protect and to extend, and by so doing they could not help creating enemies.
1582 Diogenes Laërtios (Book x). Cyril Bailey, Epicurus, the extant remains (Greek and English, 432 pp.; Oxford, 1926); The Greek atomists and Epicurus (630 pp.; Oxford, 1928) [Isis 13, 123–125 (1929–30)].
Marie Jean Guyau (1854–88), La morale d’Epicure et ses rapports avec les doctrines contemporaines (285 pp.; Paris, 1878; ed. 7, 1927). Benjamin Farrington, Science and politics in the ancient world (244 pp.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1940) [Isis 33, 270–273 (1941–42 ) ], a book written to Epicuros’ glory.
1583 Nausiphanes of Teos had been trained by Pyrrhon of Elis, perhaps while they were taking part together in Alexander’s Asiatic campaign. Later, he became an atomist, but he differed from Democritos in that he insisted that the scholar should take part in public life.
1584 Neocles, Jr., Chairedemos, Aristobulos. I know of no other philosopher who counted three of his own brothers among his disciples.
1585 All of them natives or residents of Lampsacos.
1586 Or orchard (ho c pos).
1587 This Diogenes is called Diogenes of Oinoanda, date unknown. Oinoanda was a Cabalia, a district north of Lycia in southwest Asia Minor. His inscription was edited in the Teubner Library by Johannes William, Diogenis Oenoandensis fragmenta ( 151 pp.; Leipzig, 1907).
1588 The word distribute is here given the connotation familiar to the old printers; they separated the type that had been used to print a text and distributed it into the boxes of the type cases in order that it might be used to set up another text.
1589 This is a very obscure subject, which I do not claim to understand. See Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus, Appendix V, pp. 580–587, on the relation of the “nameless” element and the “mind.”
1590 A few centuries later the poet Ovid (43 B.C.–A.D. 18) could still repeat Bene qui latuit bene vizit (Tristium lib. III, cl. IV, 1, 25). This is still good advice today, but it was more urgent in the fourth century or in the first than it is today, at least in civilized countries.
1591 Diogenes Laërtios, x, 1.
1592 In his Journal under date of 21 March 1906, André Gide remarks, “Certainement le but secret de la mythologie était d’empêcher le développement de la science.” That is an exaggeration of the truth; the purpose of deceiving the people and of sidetracking them was more unconscious than deliberate. It is Epicuros’ main glory to have detected and fought the purpose.
1593 This very long letter is quoted in extenso by Diogenes Laërtios, x, 122–135; it is a very good summary of Epicurean ethics. We quote only the beginning, concerning the gods; after that he deals with the groundless fear of death, good and bad desires, pleasure, etc. Translation by R. D. Hicks in Loeb Classical Library, vol. 2 (1925).
1594 There is no evidence that the Epicureans did much to educate the poor and illiterate people, but nobody bothered about them in antiquity. Public education could be organized only by the state or by powerful bodies. The Epicureans understood the need of education but could not and did not implement it. The main weakness of their doctrines was the indifference and passivity that they induced. They lacked energy.
1595 Murray in his Greek studies (Oxford: Clar. endon Press, 1946), p. 85; Farrington in Science and politics in the ancient world, p. 159.
1596 Think of Pascal! Why do these men abandon mathematics? Is it because philosophy or religion appeals more to them, or because their mathematical work is done? They do not abandon mathematics, one might suggest, it is mathematics that abandons them.
1597 The Greek months mentioned in this paragraph correspond nearly: Gam li n to January, Poseide n to December, Metageitni n to August.
1598 Diogenes Laërtios, x, 16–21, as translated by R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library, 1925).
1599 Tho two Ptolemaioi, “the one black and the other white” (ho te melas cai ho leucos). If the word black is to be taken literally, the Black Ptolemalos was the first Negro philosopher (second century B.C.). That is quite plausible. The Epicureans were exceedingly human.
1600 Diogenes Laërtios, x, 25–26.
1601 Phaidros the Epicurean (140–70) was head of the Epicurean school in Rome. One of his books inspired Cicero’s De natura deorum; fragments of it were discovered in Herculaneum and edited by Christian Petersen ( 52 p.; Hamburg, 1833).
1602 See opening of Book v of De rerum natura: ... deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi, qui princeps vitac rationem invenit ... ( He was a god indeed, illustrious Memmius, he who discovered that rule of life ...) C. Memmius Gaius, to whom Lucretius dedicated his poem, was a Roman statesman and orator (fi 66–49).
1603 Probably but not certainly identical with Celso. ( II–2 who flourished in the Near East (Egypt?) and wrote the True word (Al th s logos) the first systematic criticism of Christianity, a work known only through the refutation of Origon (III–1).
1604 For abundant details see Franz Cumont (1868–1947), Lee religions orientales dans le paganism romain (Paris, 1929) [Isis 15, 271 (1931)].
1605 Cleomedes was placed too early ( I–1 B.C.) in my Introduction, vol. 1, p. 211. His date is very uncertain, he may be as early as the end of the first century B.C., and as late as the third century of our era. For Cleomedes’ reaction to Epicuros see Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950) [Isis 42, 266 (1951)].
1606 “Apiqoros” or “Epiqoros” has been used since Mishnaie times to mean “freethinker, un. believer, a man who makes fun of the rabbis and does not believe in the World Beyond.” See article by Bernard Heller, Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 6 (1930), pp. 686–688. My friend Gandz writes to me (15 February 1951 ) that in Hebrew literature the word “Epicurean” does not mean a bon vivant and sensualist, but just an unbeliever and an infidel. See also his remarks in Isis 43, 58, 1952.
1607 For example, with Ism ‘Ill doctrines in the Muslim East; Introduction, vol. 3, p. 149. The history of atomism, open and secret, is made exceedingly complex because the fundamental ideas were not simply Greek, but also Jains and Buddhist. Moreover, their very secrecy and deliberate elusiveness discourages the investigators and, what is worse, sidetracks them.
1608 G. Sarton, “Boyle and Bayle. The sceptical chemist and the sceptical historian,” Chymia 3, 155–189 ( Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1950).
1609 With regard to Mach, see Einstein’s statement in Isaac Benrubi, Les sources et les courants de la philosophie contemporaine (Paris: Alcan, 1933), p: 416, n. 3.
1610 Transmitted to us in the Herculaneum papyrus 176; translation by Cyril Bailey, The Greek atomists and Epicurus , p. 225.
1611 Pleum n or pneum n , the very word used by Pytheas (sea lungs). The word is far from clear, but the abusive intention is unmistakable.
1612 These two extracts are taken from Diogenes Laërtios, x, 15; x, 82, as translated by R. D. Hicks (Loeb Classical Library, 1925).
1613 Cition was on the site of Larnaca, the main harbor of Cypros, on the southeast coast. The Phoenician settlement was prehistoric. Even if Zenon had no Phoenician chromosomes in his cells, he may easily have been influenced by Phoenician (Semitic) examples during his youth. Yet to build an argument on the Semitic origin of Zenon and of Stoicism is unwarranted and foolish.
1614 In my Introduction, vol. 1, p. 137, I gave for Zenon’s birth and death the years c. 336, c. 264, thus assuming that he died at 72. By making various selections of the figures given by Diogenes Laërtios, VII, 25, and others, one can obtain many different dates of almost equal probability. It is safe to conclude that Stoicism was a fin de siècle product.
1615 Diogenos Laërtios, VII, 2.
1616 The Creck is torser: “nyn euploëca, ote nenauag ca”; Diogenes Laërtios, VII, 4.
1617 If he sat at the feet of Xenocrates he must have arrived in Athens before 315/14, because Xenocrates died in that year. Stilpon taught mainly in Megara and Diodoros Cronos of Iasos (Caria) in Alexandria under Ptolemaios Soter. Zenon may have met them in Athens, however.
1618 Diogenes Laërtios, VII, 25.
1619 All this should be read in Creek, for the original terms are amusing; I must resist the temptation of putting too much Greek in this volume, however; nor is this necessary, as it is easy enough to read Diogenes Laërtios in the Loeb edition (Book vn, 1–160). One of Diogenes’ remarks (VII, 32) puzzles me: “They say that Zenon was in the habit of swearing by capers just as Socrates used to swear by the dog.” Capers is the Mediterranean shrub bearing in Latin its original Greek name Capparis. That is a curious bit of folklore. Did the Greeks appreciate the capers’ buds?
My friend, A. Delatte, kindly wrote in answer to my enquiry (Liége, 26 March 1951) that Zenon, like Socrates and the Pythagoreans, did not like to swear by the gods (to use their names in vain); he preferred then to swear by something insignificant, the more insignificant the better.
1620 Diogenes Laërtios, VII, 28, Hicks’ translation. Niobe was written by the famous Athenian poet and musician Timotheos of Miletos (446–357), who increased the number of strings of the cithara. The line quoted from Niobe reads: erchomai; ti m’aueis?
1621 A. C. Pearson, The fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes (352 pp.; London, 1891), in Greek or Latin with English commentary. Zenon covers 181 pp.; Cleanthes, 95 pp. There are 202 fragments of Zenon, 114 of Cleanthes. Very convenient Greek glossary referring immediately to Zenon or Cleanthes.
1622 Note that all these men had some knowledge of foreign languages, Zenon came from Cypros (not to say Phoenicia), Chrysippos came from Cilicia, Diogenes flourished for a time in Rome, and Crates was the head of the library of Pergamon. Grammatical awakening is much facilitated by the comparison of one’s own language with others.
1623 For Stoic logic in general, see Antoinette Virieux–Reymond, La logique et l’épistémologie des Stoïciens, leurs rapports avec la logique d’Aristote, la logistique et la pensée contemporaine (338 pp.; Chambéry: Lire, 1949) [Isis 41, 316 (1950)].
1624 This is a later expression, aposparma tu theu (Epictetos, I. 14, 6; u, 8, 11), but the idea is as old as Zenon.
1625 A new form of the old myth of eternal return or eternal recurrence which was probably of Oriental origin but was popularized by Pythagoras and Plato and reappears periodically in the writings of philosophers and apocalyptic historians.
1626 Excellent discussion of this by William Woodthorpe Tarn, “Alexander the Great and the unity of mankind,” Proc. British Acad. 9, 46 pp. (1933). Tarn has shown, conclusively in my opinion, that Alexander’s idea of homonoia is prior to Stoicism and not a projection backward from Stoicism into the Alexandrian tradition. Tarn has reaffirmed these views in his recent book, Alexander the Great (Cambridge: University Press, 1948) [ Isis 40 , 357 (1949)].
1627 In English, “law of nature” or “natural law” means generally scientific laws (as distinguished from human laws). That is so at least since the creation of the Royal Society (Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 6, p. 115), or even since 1609, when Bacon wrote the Advancement of learning. According to French usage of about the same time (Pascal), “loi naturelle” meant the moral principles and ideas of justice which are independent of the written law and prior to it. The Greek conception of homonoia was of necessity closer to the French meaning of “natural law” than to the English, because the Greeks were more concerned with “moral laws” than with “scientific laws,” and knew no clear example of the latter.
1628 In order to illustrate the present–day fundamental conflict on that subject, consider on the one hand the ideal explained by Wendell Willkie in One world (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943) and on the other the fact that the word “cosmopolitan” has become a term of abuse in the Russian language. From the point of view of intransigent orthodoxy, tolerance is nothing but infidelity; from the Soviet point of view, cosmopolitanism is treason.
1629 Two other immediate disciples of Zenon must be named, Ariston of Chios and Herillos of Carthage. Ariston was a more thoroughgoing Cynic than his master and despised all forms of culture. He was one of the first to exaggerate ethics (in comparison with logic and physics); that exaggeration became typical of the whole school. On the contrary, Herillos attached much importance to knowledge (epist m ). About the middle of the third century, Ariston and Arcesilaos of the Academy were the outstanding philosophers in Athens.
1630 This Diogenes hailed from Seleucia on the Tigris. It was during his mastership that Crates of Mallos ( II–1 B.C.) wrote the first Greek grammar (lost). Crates was the first director, the founder of the library of Pergamon.
1631 This statement should be taken, I think, in a material rather than in a spiritual sense. Thanks to his abundant writings and his logical power, he was the main defender of the Stoa (against the Academy) and its organizer. He strengthened the Stoa in the same way that Theophrastos strengthened the Lyceum. The greatest headmasters are not so much the innovators as those who help to clarify and explain the new teachings.
1632 With the apparent exception of Herillos of Carthage. We do not know whence he came; his birthplace might be Carthage, but as he was an immediate disciple of Zenon of Cition, it is more probable that he came either from Greece or from Western Asia, like the others.
1633 Cilicia was the closest neighbor to the island of Cypros. It was much easier for Cilicians to sail to Cypros than to travel to most places inland, for these could not be reached without crossing the Tauros range. Cypros, the Cilician and the north Syrian coasts formed a geographic unit. Hence, we can say that the two Stoics, Zenon and Chrysippos, and even Poseidonios, came from the same region.
1634 This confirms the statement that Stoicism reached its maturity in Rome, not only in the Roman world but in the city of Rome. Marcus Aurelius was a son of that city; the Spaniard Seneca and the Phrygian Epictetos flourished in it.
1635 At that time Athens had become a provincial city, but it had remained a center of learning and of pagan wisdom. Rome was the metropolis of the empire, Athens the outstanding sanctuary.
1636 The same remark applies, of course, to Creek literature. The “New Comedy” of Menandros. (c. 343–c. 291) is as typical of this age as the Old Comedy of Aristophanes was of the end of the fifth century. Menandros was a friend of Epicuros and his influence upon the Hellenistic and Roman stage and letters was very great.
1637 Marcus Aurelius could hesitate between the two alternatives. See his autobiography. For example, “Death reduced to the same condition Alexander the Macedonian and his muleteer, for either they were taken back into the same Seminal Reason of the Universe or scattered alike into the atoms” (IV, 24). Marcus preferred the first alternative, but he was not dogmatic. The best discussion of Epicurean and Stoic ideas on the hereafter will be found in Franz Cumont, Lux parpetua (Paris: Geuthner, 1949), pp. 109–156 (Isis 41, 371 (1950)].
1638 William Henry Samuel Jones, Malaria and Greek history, with an appendix by Edward Theodore Withington (186 pp.; Manchester, 1909) [ Isis 6, 47 (1923–24)].
1639 The Greecks called it Alexandria near Egypt (Alexandreia h pros Aigypt , Alexandria ad Aegyptum).
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