Science, Technology, and Medicine

Conon of *Samos (first half of 3rd cent. bce), mathematician and astronomer. After observing star-risings and weather phenomena in Italy and Sicily, he became famous by his identification (c.245 bce) of a group of stars near the *constellation Leo as the ‘asterization’ (Πλόκαμος, ‘Coma Berenices’) of the lock of hair dedicated by Queen *Berenice (3) II to the victory of Ptolemy III (see ptolemy(1)). This flattery was celebrated by *Callimachus (3) (Aetia fr. 110) in a poem imitated by Catullus (Catull.66). The story that Conon compiled observations of solar eclipses is dubious. In mathematics he wrote on intersecting conics (Apollonius, Conics 4 pref.) and was a correspondent of *Archimedes, who respected him and regrets his early death (e.g. Quadratura parabolae, praefatio).

Celsus was a Latin encyclopaedist of the early Roman Empire. Only the eight medical books of his Artes survive, but agriculture, rhetoric, and military matters were also encompassed in his work. The overall enterprise was aimed at synthesising and ordering bodies of useful technical knowledge for a Roman elite audience, knowledge often with Greek origins. Celsus selected, adapted, and reorganised this learning, rendering it into Latin. The extant books follow the tradition division of the medical art into regimen, drugs, and surgery, and are prefaced by an important critical history of ancient medicine.

Aulus Cornelius Celsus was author, probably in the reign of the emperor Tiberius (14–37ce), of a Latin encyclopaedic work entitled Artes, comprising five books on agriculture, eight on medicine, seven on rhetoric, and an unknown number on military matters. He also wrote on philosophy, though whether this was within or beyond the borders of his encyclopaedic enterprise is uncertain. The sources are unclear and the fit of such texts into an overall project aimed at summarising useful bodies of knowledge for Roman gentlemen is debatable.

Inventor (fl. 270 bce), was the son of a barber in *Alexandria (1), and employed by *Ptolemy (1) II. He was the first to make devices employing ‘*pneumatics’, i.e. the action of air under pressure. His work on the subject is lost, but descriptions of some of his inventions are preserved by *Philon (2), *Vitruvius, and *Heron. These include the pump with plunger and valve (Vitr. 10. 7; Heron, Pneumatics 1. 28), the water-organ (Vitr. 10. 8), the first accurate water-clock (Vitr. 9. 8. 4 ff.; see clocks) and a war-catapult (Philon, Belopoeica43). No great theoretician, Ctesibius was a mechanical genius, some of whose inventions were of permanent value. It is probable that many of the basic ideas in the works of Philon and Heron on mechanical devices derive from him.

Cyranides, a Greek tract in five books, listing the magical and curative powers of stones, plants, and animals. Authorship, date, and title are uncertain, although the Cyranides bears affinity to works ‘by’ *Hermes Trismegistus, suggesting Egyptian—perhaps Coptic—origins in the 1st or 2nd cent. ce. The treatise says it is partly by Cyranus, king of Persia, and partly by Harpocration (the medical and astrological writer). Book 5 contains a number of parallel passages to *Dioscorides (2), indicating that both the Cyranides and Dioscorides drew from common and rather ancient traditions.

Damon (2) Athenian sophist, musicologist and children’s music-teacher, a member of *Pericles’ (1) circle of intellectuals, mentioned admiringly but perhaps ironically in *Plato (1)’s dialogues. He is credited with some musical innovations, but is best known for ideas about music’s social and political influence and the ethical effects of various rhythms, mentioned in Plato, Resp. 3 and 4. Despite the imaginative reconstructions of Lasserre and others, there is no reliable evidence that he analyzed the harmoniai, or that there was ever an identifiable school of ‘Damonians’ dedicated to an ‘ethos theory’ of music. There are only very fragile grounds for attributing to him the ‘ancient scales’ described in *Aristides Quintilanus, De mus. 1 or ideas found in De mus. 2.

Physician of the ‘school’ of *Herophilus. No Herophilean was more famous for his contributions to *pathology. In On Affections 1–12 and in Signs (or Semiotics) he discussed the symptoms and causes of numerous mental and physical disorders, including priapism, satyriasis, mania, hydrophobia, lethargy, cardiac disorders, phrenitis, dropsy, pneumonia, and pleurisy. Like Herophilus, he also had a strong interest in *gynaecology: he discussed the causes of difficult *childbirth (δυστοκία), inflammation of the uterus, and seven kinds of vaginal discharge. Displaying the scientific independence characteristic of the Herophilean school, he directly contradicted Herophilus by asserting that there are diseases peculiar to women. Therapeutics represent a further attested interest of Demetrius. Although also known from an anonymous papyrus, Demetrius is the only Herophilean whose views are transmitted mainly by Methodist sources (*Soranus, Caelius Aurelianus); this perhaps is an indication of the esteem in which his ‘practical’ contributions were held, also by non-Herophileans.

Author of significant writings on harmonics. (See music § 5.) His novel techniques on the monochord and his original, rather straightforward tetrachordal divisions are closely criticized by Ptolemy (Harm. 2. 13–14). *Porphyry quotes extensive passages (On Ptolemy's Harmonics 26. 6–29, 27. 17–28. 26) on distinctions between schools of harmonic theory, developed elaborately from the female musicologist *Ptolemaϊs, and cites Didymus as authority for a report known to Ptolemy (Harm. 1. 6), originating with *Archytas, about early Pythagorean procedures. Porphyry also alleges that Ptolemy took much of his material from Didymus without acknowledgement; this is no doubt an exaggeration, but there may be some truth in it, particularly as regards his information about Archytas and the Pythagorean theorists. He is perhaps the Suda's Didymus son of Heraclides, a grammarian and eminent musician of Neronian times.

Diocles (4), mathematician (c. 200 bce), wrote Περὶ πυρείων (On Burning-Mirrors), preserved in Arabic translation. This treats both spherical and parabolic mirrors (giving the first proof of the focal property of the parabola). The second part of the work is concerned with

(a) solving a problem of *Archimedes by means of intersecting conics;

(b) solving the problem of finding two mean proportionals (‘doubling the cube’) by intersecting conics;

(c) the same by means of a special curve (misnamed ‘cissoid’ in modern times).

Paraphrases of the last three are given by Eutocius (In Arch. 160 ff., 82 ff., 66 ff.).

Diodorus (4) of *Alexandria (1), mathematician and astronomer (1st cent. bce), wrote a work, Analemma, on the construction of plane sundials by methods of descriptive geometry. Only the section on the determination of the meridian from three shadow-lengths survives, in Latin and Arabic versions, but later treatments of the subject are found in *Vitruvius, *Heron, and *Ptolemy (4)'s Analemma (see mathematics). The work was important enough for *Pappus (see Collection 4. 246) to write a commentary on it. The Diodorus who commented on *Aratus (1)'s Phaenomena (see Aratea) may be the same man.