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Heraclides on the Rotation of the Earth: Texts, Contexts and Continuities, 2009
By: Fortenbaugh, William W. (Ed.), Pender, Elizabeth E. (Ed.), Todd, Robert B., Bowen, Alan C.

Title	Heraclides on the Rotation of the Earth: Texts, Contexts and Continuities
Type	Book Section
Language	English
Date	2009
Published in	Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion
Pages	155-183
Categories	no categories
Author(s)	Todd, Robert B. , Bowen, Alan C.
Editor(s)	Fortenbaugh, William W. , Pender, Elizabeth E.
Translator(s)

This chapter will present annotated translations of the texts and contexts that constitute the evidence for Heraclides’ most celebrated legacy—the theory that the Earth rotates daily on its axis from west to east. Its movement was inferred from the observable motions of the fixed stars, with these being explained as the apparent motions of an immobile celestial sphere. (Evidence for Heraclides’ special theories of the motions of Mercury and Venus will be discussed in the next two chapters: first by Alan C. Bowen and Robert B. Todd, and then by Paul Keyser.) The passages translated here (T1–6) go well beyond the brief reports found in the relevant “fragments” of modern editions (65C, 66–69, and 71 in volume XIV = 104–108 and 110 W). These fragments, drawn from secondary reports, consist only of the immediate context of passages in which Heraclides is named, in line with a practice probably best known from Edelstein’s and Kidd’s edition of Posidonius’ fragments. But such limited parcels of evidence (enclosed in our translations by //...// ) cannot indicate why Heraclides was mentioned within larger expositions. To be sure, such collections of source material are useful, but they have to be selective for pragmatic reasons and therefore also need to be complemented by the sort of project undertaken here, particularly where the focus is on one of antiquity’s most famous anticipations of modern cosmology, and where the contexts for the earliest references to it reveal the historical and theoretical framework within which it was received. To the authors in question, Heraclides may have been just a footnote, but the texts to which his theory was attached amply repay careful study. Information on this theory of the Earth’s rotation first appears in a lost treatise of the Stoic Posidonius (1st c. B.C.) (T2), which is roughly contemporary with a doxographical report (T1) attributed to Aetius. What is known of the content and purpose of this theory is only as much as Posidonius and subsequent authors (Geminus [1st c. B.C.], who cites Posidonius, Alexander of Aphrodisias [fl. ca. 200 A.D.], who cites Geminus, and later Proclus [412–485 A.D.] and Simplicius [ca. 490–560 A.D.]) have allowed us to derive from the contexts into which they introduced it. Even the doxographical report is interpretive, since by implicitly marginalizing Heraclides as one of a group that deviated from the consensus that the Earth was immobile, it adopts the same general attitude found in all the other reports. Thus, the Posidonian report (T2), known from Simplicius’ citation from Alexander in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, dismisses Heraclides out of hand, while three reports in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo (T4–6), and one in Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (T3), occur within exegetical passages in which Heraclides serves only to identify an alternative and unacceptable position. In what follows, we shall first couple the Posidonian report with a vestigial version of it in Ptolemy’s Almagest (T2a), on which Simplicius (T5 and T6) later drew. There follow two closely related exegetical discussions of Plato’s description of the Earth at Timaeus 40B8–C3 by Proclus (T3) and Simplicius (T4), where Heraclides’ theory exemplifies the unorthodox view that this passage refers to a moving Earth. Finally, there are two reports by Simplicius (T5–6) appended to discussions of Aristotle’s account of the mobility and stability of the Earth in the De caelo. In an Afterword, we argue that since this body of evidence tells us virtually nothing about the original form and scope of Heraclides’ theory, it offers an insecure basis for reconstruction. Instead, what most significantly emerges—first in Posidonius and then in Ptolemy and Simplicius (especially T5 and T6)—is a methodological rationale for Heraclides’ theory as a hypothesis designed, to use a famous phrase found in several of these texts, “to save the phenomena.” Yet such a rationale should not be projected back to Heraclides: far from offering access to the thought of a theorist of the fourth century B.C., the contexts for the evidence for Heraclides’ theory of the Earth’s motion primarily reveal philosophical preoccupations about science and its relation to philosophy that became pressing only in the first century B.C. and were still at issue in the sixth century A.D. The sheer oddity of Heraclides’ theory made it a welcome, though peripheral, device for articulating these preoccupations. So, whatever its attraction to modern historians of science taking a longer view, Heraclides’ theory of a rotating Earth primarily helped later ancient science address issues involving the status of scientific theory and, in particular, the problems raised by an awareness that astronomical phenomena could be explained in a variety of ways. [conclusion p. 155-158]

Online Resources

https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/2YB813ju2mFR0oM

Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion, 2009
By: Fortenbaugh, William W. (Ed.), Pender, Elizabeth E. (Ed.)

Title	Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion
Type	Edited Book
Language	English
Date	2009
Publication Place	London - New York
Publisher	Routledge
Series	Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities
Volume	15
Categories	no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s)	Fortenbaugh, William W. , Pender, Elizabeth E.
Translator(s)

Heraclides of Pontus hailed from the shores of the Black Sea. He studied with Aristotle in Plato's Academy, and became a respected member of that school. During Plato's third trip to Sicily, Heraclides served as head of the Academy and was almost elected its head on the death of Speusippus.Heraclides' interests were diverse. He wrote on the movements of the planets and the basic matter of the universe. He adopted a materialistic theory of soul, which he considered immortal and subject to reincarnation. He discussed pleasure, and like Aristotle, he commented on the Homeric poems. In addition, he concerned himself with religion, music and medical issues. None of Heraclides' works have survived intact, but in antiquity his dialogues were much admired and often pillaged for sententiae and the like.The contributions presented here comment on Heraclides' life and thought. They include La Tradizione Papirologica di Eraclide Pontico by Tiziano Dorandi, Heraclides' Intellectual Context by Jorgen Mejer, and Heraclides of Pontus and the Philosophical Dialogue by Matthew Fox. There is also discussion of Heraclides' understanding of pleasure and of the human soul: Heraclides on Pleasure by Eckart Schutrumpf and Heraclides on the Soul and Its Ancient Readers by Inna Kupreeva. In addition, there are essays that address Heraclides' physics and astronomical theories: Unjointed Masses: A Note on Heraclides Physical Theory by Robert W. Sharples; Heliocentrism in or out of Heraclides by Paul T. Keyser, The Reception of Heraclides' Theory of the Rotation of the Earth from Posidonius to Simplicius: Texts, Contexts and Continuities by Robert B. Todd and Alan C. Bowen, and Heraclides of Pontus on the Motions of Venus and Mercury by Alan C. Bowen and Robert B. Todd. Finally, there are essays that view Heraclides from the stand point of ancient medicine, literary criticism and musical theory: Heraclides on Diseases and on the Woman Who Did Not Breathe by [author's abstract]

Online Resources

https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/M1J1UpbWT682j4V

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Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion, 2009
By: Fortenbaugh, William W. (Ed.), Pender, Elizabeth E. (Ed.)

Title	Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion
Type	Edited Book
Language	English
Date	2009
Publication Place	London - New York
Publisher	Routledge
Series	Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities
Volume	15
Categories	no categories
Author(s)
Editor(s)	Fortenbaugh, William W. , Pender, Elizabeth E.
Translator(s)

Online Resources

https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/M1J1UpbWT682j4V

Heraclides on the Rotation of the Earth: Texts, Contexts and Continuities, 2009
By: Fortenbaugh, William W. (Ed.), Pender, Elizabeth E. (Ed.), Todd, Robert B., Bowen, Alan C.

Title	Heraclides on the Rotation of the Earth: Texts, Contexts and Continuities
Type	Book Section
Language	English
Date	2009
Published in	Heraclides of Pontus: Discussion
Pages	155-183
Categories	no categories
Author(s)	, Todd, Robert B. , Bowen, Alan C.
Editor(s)	Fortenbaugh, William W. , Pender, Elizabeth E.
Translator(s)

The passages translated here (T1–6) go well beyond the brief reports found in the relevant “fragments” of modern editions (65C, 66–69, and 71 in volume XIV = 104–108 and 110 W). These fragments, drawn from secondary reports, consist only of the immediate context of passages in which Heraclides is named, in line with a practice probably best known from Edelstein’s and Kidd’s edition of Posidonius’ fragments. But such limited parcels of evidence (enclosed in our translations by //...// ) cannot indicate why Heraclides was mentioned within larger expositions.

To be sure, such collections of source material are useful, but they have to be selective for pragmatic reasons and therefore also need to be complemented by the sort of project undertaken here, particularly where the focus is on one of antiquity’s most famous anticipations of modern cosmology, and where the contexts for the earliest references to it reveal the historical and theoretical framework within which it was received. To the authors in question, Heraclides may have been just a footnote, but the texts to which his theory was attached amply repay careful study.

Information on this theory of the Earth’s rotation first appears in a lost treatise of the Stoic Posidonius (1st c. B.C.) (T2), which is roughly contemporary with a doxographical report (T1) attributed to Aetius. What is known of the content and purpose of this theory is only as much as Posidonius and subsequent authors (Geminus [1st c. B.C.], who cites Posidonius, Alexander of Aphrodisias [fl. ca. 200 A.D.], who cites Geminus, and later Proclus [412–485 A.D.] and Simplicius [ca. 490–560 A.D.]) have allowed us to derive from the contexts into which they introduced it.

Even the doxographical report is interpretive, since by implicitly marginalizing Heraclides as one of a group that deviated from the consensus that the Earth was immobile, it adopts the same general attitude found in all the other reports. Thus, the Posidonian report (T2), known from Simplicius’ citation from Alexander in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, dismisses Heraclides out of hand, while three reports in Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo (T4–6), and one in Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (T3), occur within exegetical passages in which Heraclides serves only to identify an alternative and unacceptable position.

In what follows, we shall first couple the Posidonian report with a vestigial version of it in Ptolemy’s Almagest (T2a), on which Simplicius (T5 and T6) later drew. There follow two closely related exegetical discussions of Plato’s description of the Earth at Timaeus 40B8–C3 by Proclus (T3) and Simplicius (T4), where Heraclides’ theory exemplifies the unorthodox view that this passage refers to a moving Earth.

Finally, there are two reports by Simplicius (T5–6) appended to discussions of Aristotle’s account of the mobility and stability of the Earth in the De caelo.

In an Afterword, we argue that since this body of evidence tells us virtually nothing about the original form and scope of Heraclides’ theory, it offers an insecure basis for reconstruction. Instead, what most significantly emerges—first in Posidonius and then in Ptolemy and Simplicius (especially T5 and T6)—is a methodological rationale for Heraclides’ theory as a hypothesis designed, to use a famous phrase found in several of these texts, “to save the phenomena.”

Yet such a rationale should not be projected back to Heraclides: far from offering access to the thought of a theorist of the fourth century B.C., the contexts for the evidence for Heraclides’ theory of the Earth’s motion primarily reveal philosophical preoccupations about science and its relation to philosophy that became pressing only in the first century B.C. and were still at issue in the sixth century A.D. The sheer oddity of Heraclides’ theory made it a welcome, though peripheral, device for articulating these preoccupations.

So, whatever its attraction to modern historians of science taking a longer view, Heraclides’ theory of a rotating Earth primarily helped later ancient science address issues involving the status of scientific theory and, in particular, the problems raised by an awareness that astronomical phenomena could be explained in a variety of ways.
[conclusion p. 155-158]

Online Resources

https://uni-koeln.sciebo.de/s/2YB813ju2mFR0oM

PAGE 1 OF 1