Abstract
They have dethroned Zeus, and Vortex is King.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Aristophanes, The Clouds, 380–4. Translation in Santillana (1970) p. 39.
- 2.
Laertius s.d., I, 35; but the same Laertius, I, 135, also gives to the same story a far more tragic twist: Anaximenes, in a letter to Pythagoras, had written that Thales, going out to view the stars and “forgetting where he was, got to the edge of a steep slope and fell over. In this way the Milesians lost their astronomer.” The Thales story must have been popular in various forms throughout Antiquity; see e.g. Plato in his Theaetetus (Heath 1932, 1).
- 3.
Barrow 1986, 32. Their entire first chapter, devoted to Design Arguments at all epochs, is very relevant to the present History.
- 4.
Herodotus s.d., III, 104: “As it grows to the afternoon, the sun of India has the power of the morning sun in other lands.”
- 5.
Herodotus s.d. I, 74, see Laertius (s.d., I, p. 25) does not refer to any specific eclipse, but confirms that Thales “was the first to predict eclipses of the Sun… which gained him the admiration of Xenophanes and Herodotus.” This eclipse has been mentioned by Pliny and identified by Stephenson (Journal for the History of Astronomy, 28, 279, 1997); the date is May 28, 585 BC (i.e., −584 as reckoned by astronomers), and the track of totality covers Northern Greece and Asia Minor. I thank Patrick Rocher of the Bureau des Longitudes for providing me with a precise map: the track center passed exactly over Byzantium, and the time was less than an hour before sunset; both Medes and Lydians must have been impressed indeed. Thales, who was in his prime at the time and lived in Miletus, may have seen the eclipse himself but missed totality. Thanks to these modern studies, we know far more about that eclipse and battle timing than either Herodotus or Pliny.
- 6.
The Peripatetics are the followers of Aristotle, and the Stoics those of Zeno of Citium (3rd century BC).
- 7.
Diodorus s.d., I, 27. Is it possible to trust him for these surprisingly precise descriptions? Writing that sort of history is most difficult: Diodorus is believed to be quoting from Hecateus of Milesius (contemporary of Anaximenes, early Greek historian, whose works are lost), and Aetius from Theophrastus as usual. However, the views reported here are so close to those held by Epicurus and Lucretius that one fears the Diodorus-Aetius accounts may have become contaminated: Diodorus wrote a few years after Lucretius.
- 8.
Laertius s.d., I, 141. Herodotus (s.d. II, 10), in his description of Egypt invokes similar mechanisms: the Nile delta (and also the country around Ilion, Ephesius and the Meander plain) is just alluvial soil.
- 9.
From the French translation of Laertius by R. Genaille (1933, classiques Garnier, Paris), chapter Démocrite, 183. The Loeb English translation of R.D. Hicks is less striking “The qualities of things exist merely by convention; in nature there is nothing but atoms and void spaces.”
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
Santillana (1970), 289: “The Garden was not only a school: it was a sort of retreat or religious community, in which women, even slave women, took part freely. The atmosphere was one of almost romantic friendship and tenderness, such as was not to occur again for centuries, until the Christian agape. Epicurus was treated by his disciples as the Deliverer, and every word he said as a doctrine of salvation.” Hence, the immense and lasting success of Epicureanism was due in part to causes not unlike the ones that acted for Christianity, which was to treat it as archenemy.
- 13.
The proper but cumbersome philosophical term seems to be sensationalism.
- 14.
Equally well known is the Lucretian anticipation of modern genetics: “It may also happen at times that children take after their grandparents, or recall the features of their great-grandparents. This is because the parent’s bodies often preserve a quantity of latent seeds, grouped in many combinations, which derive from an ancestral stock handed down from generation to generation. From these, Venus evokes a random assortment of characters, reproducing ancestral traits of expression, voice or hair; for these characters are determined by specific seeds no less than our faces and bodily members.” (De Natura Rerum, 168).
- 15.
For a rationalistic and illuminating discussion by a scientist of the origin and achievements of religion, see Isaacs (1966).
- 16.
“The cemetery on this part obtain, / With Epicurus, all his followers, / Who with the body make the spirit die.” Dante Alighieri (1321?) Canto 10, Verses 14–16.
- 17.
As recalled in the Notes, many texts in various languages are now available in fac-simile and a large number in world-processor form) from Gallica.bnf.fr, and other WEB sites. They are indicated by ∗ for Gallica, ° for Google Books and + for others.
Bibliography
As recalled in the Notes, many texts in various languages are now available in fac-simile and a large number in world-processor form) from Gallica.bnf.fr, and other WEB sites. They are indicated by ∗ for Gallica, ° for Google Books and + for others.
Historians and Modern Authors
Barrow, J.D. & Tipler, F.J. (1986) The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, Oxford University Press.
°Dreyer, J.L.E. (1905) History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler, Cambridge University Press; reprint by Dover (1953).
Freeman, K. (1983a) Ancilla – To the Pre-Socratic Philosophers – A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, Harvard University Press; extracts available on http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/app/app18.htm (Xenophanes), http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/app/app54.htm (Anaxagoras), etc.
Freeman, K. (1983b), The Presocratic Philosophers, a companion to DIELS Fragmente, Blackwell, London.
Heath, T. (1932) Greek Astronomy, Dent, London; Dover (1991).
Regis, E., editor (1985) Extraterrestrials, Science and Alien Intelligence, Cambridge University Press.
Russell, B. (1946) A History of Western Philosophy, Unwin Paperbacks.
Santillana, G. de (1970) The Origins of Scientific Thought, New American Library.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Connes, P., Lequeux, J. (2020). From Anaximander to Lucretius: Plurality From Chance. In: Lequeux, J. (eds) History of the Plurality of Worlds. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41448-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41448-1_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-41447-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-41448-1
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)