Herakleides of Pontos

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Herakleides of Pontos ALAN C. BOWEN

Herakleides of Pontos was an intellectual of the fourth century BCE, known and admired in antiquity for his literary writings, specifically for his dialogues which, so far as one can tell, were replete with myths and miracles. None of these writings survives. Furthermore, little is known of his life: most of what survives is Hellenistic gossip. According to the ancients, at least, it does seem that during his years in Athens he moved freely between PLATO’s ACADEMY and ARISTOTLE’s Peripatos, and so it is in this context that the surviving traces of his philosophical and scientific views may be understood. In several texts dating from the second century CE and later, it is reported that Herakleides proposed a species of atomism in which matter is composed ultimately of “unjointed masses” (anarmoi onkoi) or “fragments” (thrausmata). However, it is not clear whether these items are the same or even whether the masses are called jointless because they are not properly joined together or because they lack internal joints (and so are “seamless”) or, again, because they lack the superficial irregularities that would enable them to join together. Attempts to interpret these reports by recourse to testimonia about ASKLEPIADES OF BITHYNIA, a medical writer of the second century BCE who is also said to have held a theory of unjointed masses, remain controversial. Too many modern histories of science still declare that Herakleides proposed that the Earth rotates about its own axis as it revolves about the Sun, and that the planets Mercury and Venus revolve about the Sun. Such histories often have Herakleides anticipating ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe. Yet it is clear in the ancient reports that Herakleides’ view of the Earth’s rotation was subsequently taken out of context by

ancient writers concerned to identify a physical theory validating the astronomical hypotheses needed to derive the heavenly motions then known, and that these writers used Herakleides as an example of an approach to this project that was totally unacceptable. Thus, given the anachronism in their presenting Herakleides as hypothesizing the rotation of the Earth in order to explain the (daily) motion of the Sun, if not of the heavens as a whole, it is impossible to know from them why Herakleides originally proposed that the Earth rotates or how this cohered with the other views about the cosmos and its extent that are attributed to him. There is no warrant for supposing that Herakleides actually maintained that the Earth really does rotate or for ascribing to him the view that it also revolves about the Sun. As for the motions of Venus and Mercury, a careful reading of Calcidius’ testimony shows only that Calcidius attributes to Herakleides the view that these planets and the Sun each move on their own homocentric circles about the Earth in a direction contrary to the diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere. PORPHYRY preserves a fragment of a Musical Introduction ascribed to a Herakleides of Pontos now thought to have lived in the first century CE and to have studied with Didymus of Alexandria (Creese 2008). SEE ALSO:

Atomism.

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS Bowen, A. C. and Todd, R. E. (2009) “Herakleides of Pontos on the motions of Venus and Mercury.” In Fortenbaugh and Pender: 185–204. Creese, D. (2008) “Herakleides of Herakleia Pontike, Junior.” In Keyser and Irby-Massie, eds.: 369. Fortenbaugh, W. W. and Pender, E. (2009) Herakleides of Pontos: discussion. New Brunswick. Gottschalk, H. B. (1980) Herakleides of Pontos. Oxford.

The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, First Edition. Edited by Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, and Sabine R. Huebner, print pages 3143–3144. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah21165

2 Keyser, P. T. and Irby-Massie, G., eds. (2008) The encyclopedia of ancient natural scientists: the Greek tradition and its many heirs. London. Schu¨trumpf, E., Stork, P., van Ophuijsen, J., and Prince, S. (2009) Herakleides of Pontos: texts and translation. New Brunswick.

Todd, R. B. and Bowen, A. C. (2009) “Herakleides on the rotation of the Earth: texts, context, and continuities.” In Fortenbaugh and Pender: 155–83.