Startseite Altertumswissenschaften & Ägyptologie Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art?
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Leonides of Alexandria’s Isopsephic Epigrams: An Astronomical Art?

  • Max Leventhal
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Tools, Techniques, and Technologies
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Tools, Techniques, and Technologies

Abstract

This chapter examines the isopsephic poems of Leonides of Alexandria, who practised the isopsephic composition of epigrams, where letters of the Greek alphabet are read also according to their numerical value and where poems yield couplets of equal value. As I demonstrate in my recent monograph, Poetry and Number in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Leonides’ poems mobilise allusions to earlier poetry to positively characterise his counting compositions. Building on that work, I follow up here my suspicion about the connection Leonides intimates between isopsephy and astronomy. I first consider two iambic poems that evidence isopsephy in poetry being understood as connected to the study of the skies. I then turn to Leonides’ poems which make explicit and implicit references to astronomy. This analysis will reveal that Leonides presents his isopsephic poetry as a quintessentially “astronomical art” through self-reflexive references to his poems and their composition, as well as through learned literary allusion.

Abstract

This chapter examines the isopsephic poems of Leonides of Alexandria, who practised the isopsephic composition of epigrams, where letters of the Greek alphabet are read also according to their numerical value and where poems yield couplets of equal value. As I demonstrate in my recent monograph, Poetry and Number in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, Leonides’ poems mobilise allusions to earlier poetry to positively characterise his counting compositions. Building on that work, I follow up here my suspicion about the connection Leonides intimates between isopsephy and astronomy. I first consider two iambic poems that evidence isopsephy in poetry being understood as connected to the study of the skies. I then turn to Leonides’ poems which make explicit and implicit references to astronomy. This analysis will reveal that Leonides presents his isopsephic poetry as a quintessentially “astronomical art” through self-reflexive references to his poems and their composition, as well as through learned literary allusion.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  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/10.1515/9783111010632-010

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  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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