Greek Science of the Hellenistic Era by Georgia Irby-Massie and Paul Keyser,
Routledge, 拢17.99, ISBN 041523848X
CUTTING up the bodies of 鈥渨icked men鈥� awaiting execution while they鈥檙e still
alive isn鈥檛 something most would associate with Greek science. More familiar are
the endlessly retold stories, such as Archimedes shouting 鈥渉eureka!鈥� as he leapt
from the bath. But for the real stuff, try Georgia Irby-Massie and Paul Keyser鈥檚
refreshing counterweight to those often fictional retellings.
Aimed at historians of science鈥攁nd classicists with broad
horizons鈥擥reek Science of the Hellenistic Era covers an extraordinarly
rich period of discovery and exploration. Macedonia鈥檚 Alexander the Great
forcibly welded together thousands of poleis (loosely translated as city
states) into an empire. After his death, no single ruler controlled this vast
territory, but powerful kingdoms sprang up. People used Greek as a lingua
franca, and a rich exchange of ideas in art and science began under the
patronage of these kings and aristocrats.
Advertisement
There are some wonderful translated documents here, covering subjects from
maths and medicine to mechanics. You can even follow Heron of Alexandria鈥檚
instructions on how to build a robotic travelling theatre: with the aid of
pulleys, weights and non-stretch rope, Dionysus鈥檚 altar bursts into flames while
drums and cymbals sounded. Or travel from Massalia (Marseilles) to Britain,
Germany and the far north in the company of Pytheas*.
It鈥檚 tempting to judge these discoveries by how close they are to modern
science. That the world鈥檚 a globe, not flat, or how to work out longitude and
latitude, involves a familiar mixture of theory, models and observation, so
these ideas seem 鈥渞ight鈥� to us. It鈥檚 salutary to realise that astrology, a new
combination of Babylonian and Greek data, got its head start in ancient
Greece.
Vivisection on humans? Just last summer, the government of China was denying
testimony that it 鈥渉arvested鈥� organs from condemned prisoners while they were
still alive.
*Archaeologist Barry Cunliffe鈥檚 The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas
the Greek (Penguin, 2001) completes Pytheas鈥檚 extraordinary journey from the
scattered fragments written about his travels