Abstract
In the archaic world picture, the earth is flat and usually conceived of as a round disk. First of all, it is important to bear in mind that almost all the Presocratics, of which we have reports about what they are supposed to have said about the shape of the earth, believed that the earth is flat. It is reported by several sources that according to Anaxagoras, the earth is flat (πλατεῖα) (DK 59A1(8), DK 59A42(3), DK 59A47, and DK 59A87). Archelaos is said to have conceived of the earth as somewhat concave in the middle (μέσον δὲ κοίλην), but generally speaking he too may be considered to have conceived of the earth as flat (DK 60A4(4)). The ambiguous word στϱογγύλος in the doxographical report on Diogenes’ earth can here only mean circular, not spherical (DK 64A1). The earth is said to be drum-shaped (τυμπανοειδῆ) according to Leucippus, and the surface of the earth is said to be disk-shaped (δισκοειδῆ μὲν τῷ πλάτει) and concave in the middle (κοίλην δὲ τῷ μέσῳ) according to Democritus and Anaxagoras (DK 67A1(30), DK 67A26 and DK 68A94). The concavity of Democritus’ earth does not prevent Aristotle from calling it flat (πλατεῖα) (On the Heavens 294b15 = DK 59A88). Elsewhere, however, Democritus’ earth is said to be oblong (ἡμιόλος) (DK 68B15). Diels’ translation “nicht rund, sondern länglich” is tendentious because the words “nicht rund, sondern” are not in the Greek text. As will be explained in Chap. 6, and drawn in Figs. 6.1 and 6.2, I hold this rectangle to be the shape of the οἰκουμένη on an otherwise disk-shaped and flat earth.1 That Empedocles too conceived of the earth as flat may be concluded from a doxographical report, in which the earth is called “circular” (κυκλοτεϱής) (DK 31A56). Guthrie rightly remarks: “The word is κυκλοτεϱής, not the ambiguous στϱογγύλος” (1965: 192 n. 4). Against this simple evidence, Burkert’s argument that the idea (in DK 31A56) that the sun is the earth’s reflection implies the sphericity of the earth is not very convincing (1972: 305 n. 30).
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Notes
- 1.
See Heidel: “It is quite certain that the continental mass, not to speak of the οἰκουμένη, was not circular, though the map probably was in the earlier times” (1937: 12, note). Heidel argues that the frame of the ancient maps, such as Anaximander’s, was rectangular as concerns the inhabited earth (οἰκουμένη), but circular as concerns the surface of the earth as a whole (γῆ). More specifically on Democritus: Heidel 1937: 100.
- 2.
It is strange that O’Grady in her article “Thales” in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, section “The Earth Floats on Water”, nowhere mentions her own hypothesis that not “the earth”, but “earth” is meant.
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Couprie, D.L. (2011). The Shape of the Earth According to Thales. In: Heaven and Earth in Ancient Greek Cosmology. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 374. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8116-5_4
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