Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives
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Nicholas Jardine
Abstract
This essay is inspired by Liba Taub’s work on Greco-Roman genres of writing about nature. Its focus is on histories of astronomy. First, I touch on the problems of anachronistic projection of our notions of astronomy, history, and genre onto ancient Greek and Roman works. There follows a survey of types of ancient writings in which past astronomical instruments, observations, and suppositions figure, including heurematography (writings about inventors and inventions), doxography (accounts, sometimes critical, of past opinions), and biography. I then consider some afterlives of these genres in the writings of early modern astronomers and mathematicians. The essay concludes with a note on significant breaks and links faced when we compare ancient and early modern with modern histories of astronomy.
Abstract
This essay is inspired by Liba Taub’s work on Greco-Roman genres of writing about nature. Its focus is on histories of astronomy. First, I touch on the problems of anachronistic projection of our notions of astronomy, history, and genre onto ancient Greek and Roman works. There follows a survey of types of ancient writings in which past astronomical instruments, observations, and suppositions figure, including heurematography (writings about inventors and inventions), doxography (accounts, sometimes critical, of past opinions), and biography. I then consider some afterlives of these genres in the writings of early modern astronomers and mathematicians. The essay concludes with a note on significant breaks and links faced when we compare ancient and early modern with modern histories of astronomy.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements
- Contents VII
- List of Figures and Tables IX
- Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
- Introduction 5
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Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
- Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
- When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
- Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
- Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
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Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
- Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
- Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
- Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
- Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
- Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
- Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
- “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
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Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
- The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
- Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
- The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
- Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
- Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
- List of Contributors 317
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index Locorum
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Acknowledgements
- Contents VII
- List of Figures and Tables IX
- Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
- Introduction 5
-
Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
- Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
- When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
- Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
- Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
-
Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
- Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
- Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
- Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
- Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
- Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
- Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
- “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
-
Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
- The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
- Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
- The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
- Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
- Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
- List of Contributors 317
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index Locorum
