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Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne)

  • Jochen Althoff
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Tools, Techniques, and Technologies
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Abstract

For some years, scientific texts from antiquity have been investigated as texts in their own right, with consideration, for instance, of their style and intended public. Here, such consideration is given to Theophrastus’ short treatise On Fire (De igne). It lacks a little of the expressly didactic intentions that Aristotelian texts display. The careful structuring with introduction and summaries is also not as prominent in Theophrastus as it is in Aristotle’s writings. The use of Aristotelian terminology and concepts throughout could indicate an ongoing discussion within the Peripatos, meaning that Peripatetics are the primary public. The rhetorical tone, which can nevertheless be detected, seems to aim at a wider public but certainly one with a specific scientific interest. One of these groups or all of them seem to be the intended readership of this work.

Abstract

For some years, scientific texts from antiquity have been investigated as texts in their own right, with consideration, for instance, of their style and intended public. Here, such consideration is given to Theophrastus’ short treatise On Fire (De igne). It lacks a little of the expressly didactic intentions that Aristotelian texts display. The careful structuring with introduction and summaries is also not as prominent in Theophrastus as it is in Aristotle’s writings. The use of Aristotelian terminology and concepts throughout could indicate an ongoing discussion within the Peripatos, meaning that Peripatetics are the primary public. The rhetorical tone, which can nevertheless be detected, seems to aim at a wider public but certainly one with a specific scientific interest. One of these groups or all of them seem to be the intended readership of this work.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter 1
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Figures and Tables IX
  5. Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
  6. Introduction 5
  7. Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
  8. Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
  9. When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
  10. Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
  11. Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
  12. Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
  13. Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
  14. Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
  15. Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
  16. Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
  17. Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
  18. Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
  19. “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
  20. Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
  21. The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
  22. Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
  23. The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
  24. Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
  25. Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
  26. List of Contributors 317
  27. Bibliography
  28. Index
  29. Index Locorum
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111010632-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter 1
  2. Acknowledgements
  3. Contents VII
  4. List of Figures and Tables IX
  5. Prologue: of Friendship and Fishponds 1
  6. Introduction 5
  7. Part I: Historiography, Disciplinary Categories, and Anachronism
  8. Greco-Roman Histories of Astronomy, Their Genres, and Their Afterlives 15
  9. When was Cosmology? The Curious History of a Disciplinary Category 33
  10. Surmise or Certainty: Women in Science in Antiquity 51
  11. Deep Reading of Kepler’s New Astronomy: An Exercise in Computational History of Science 65
  12. Part II: Scientific Writing: Genres, Authority, Authorship, and Audiences
  13. Narrative Elements in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals 83
  14. Style and Intended Readership of Theophrastus’ On Fire (De igne) 95
  15. Strategies of Moralising in the Pseudo-Vergilian Aetna 115
  16. Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art? 131
  17. Faithful Marriages and Wild Unions: Palladius’ On Grafting 153
  18. Ancient Authority in Arabic-Islamic Scientific Writing and Practice 169
  19. “A Cabinet of Many Rare Secrets”: The Uses and Abuses of Aristotle’s Masterpiece 191
  20. Part III: Counting and Measuring: Tools, Diagrams, and Replicas
  21. The Various Uses of Numbers and Mathematics in Ancient Egypt 219
  22. Greek Sexagesimals and Zeros 231
  23. The Diagrams and Replicas of Richard of Wallingford’s Clock 253
  24. Measuring Magnetism: Retrospective on Theories and Instruments from Lucretius to Blackett and Bullard 279
  25. Ancients and Moderns in Tycho Brahe’s Astronomy 295
  26. List of Contributors 317
  27. Bibliography
  28. Index
  29. Index Locorum
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