>>Thank you for joining me in the History
of Science Collections of the University of
Oklahoma Libraries. Let's look at a few treasures
from the vault that throw light on the story
of science in the Roman Empire up through
the second century CE. The Roman Empire was
bilingual with Latin spoken in the west and
Greek spoken in the east. Let's consider three
Greek and three Latin writers to represent
early Roman science: Hero of Alexandria, Cicero,
and Lucretius in the 1st century BCE, Pliny
the Elder in the 1st century CE, and we'll
conclude with Galen and Ptolemy in the 2nd
century CE.
Hero of Alexandria can represent Roman accomplishments
in physics and technology. Hero fashioned
all sorts of marvelous machines or "miraculous"
devices using steam, air pressure, hydraulics,
and falling weights. For example, once an
altar would be lighted, the temple doors would
open automatically. That's a really cool stage
trick. Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods
was one of the most important works of Roman
natural philosophy. In this book, fictional
representatives of Stoic, Epicurean, and Neoplatonic
philosophical schools engage in a dialogue
on natural order, religion, and the gods.
Cicero's own Stoic natural philosophy became
one of the most influential schools of science
for the development of science in later centuries.
Stoic natural philosophy rejected Aristotle's
dichotomy between the heavens and the sublunar
realms, asserting instead that the same reason
and laws govern all of the universe. The heavens
were no longer made of a fifth element, but
Aether became understood rather as a more
pure form of the fourth element, fire, which
circulates between the heavens and the sublunar
regions. Consequently Stoics believed the
celestial spheres are fluid, not solid, made
of fire, not a crystalline fifth element.
Therefore, the fixed stars and planets swim
through the Aether as fish swim through the
sea.
This is On the Nature of Things by the poet
Lucretius, in the edition published by Aldus
in 1515. Lucretius fused the atomic theory
of Democritus and Leucippus with the philosophy
of Epicurus in order to argue against the
existence of the gods. While ordinary humans
might fear the thunderbolts of Jove or torments
in the underworld after death, Lucretius advised
his readers to take courage in the knowledge
that death is merely a dissolution of the
body, as atoms combine and reassemble according
to chance as they move through the void. On
the Nature of Things was frequently reprinted.
Against the Stoics, Aristotelians, and Neoplatonists,
Lucretius argued for a mechanistic universe
governed by chance. He also argued for a plurality
of worlds and contended that planets, like
the Earth, need not be spherical. Lucretius's
work was almost universally admired as a masterful
example of Latin style even by those who rejected
his arguments.
Pliny the Elder's Natural History defined
the scope and breadth of the field of natural
history. Natural history means the description
(or "historia") of nature, as opposed to explaining
its causes. To explain the causes would be
natural philosophy. Pliny died in 79 CE while
investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
that buried Pompeii.
Ptolemy and Galen represent the culmination
of ancient mathematical astronomy and ancient
anatomy and medicine. Galen brought together
the ideas in anatomy and physiology of Hippocrates,
Herophilus, and Erasistratos and cast medicine
as an endeavor of natural philosophy. He drew
upon his own experience in the dissection
and vivisection of animals and encouraged
his readers to gain similar experience for
themselves. Because the earlier Alexandrian
physicians had vivisected humans, the Romans
prohibited human dissection out of ethical
concern. Galen did the next best thing for
medical education, perhaps, by becoming a
physician to the gladiators. Galen's writings
were to ancient medicine what Ptolemy's Almagest
became to ancient astronomy: a synthesis so
comprehensive and compelling that many of
the sources he drew upon ceased to be read
and did not survive.
Claudius Ptolemy worked in Alexandria in the
second century. Although best known for his
astronomy, Ptolemy brought the same mathematical
methods to bear on various topics in optics,
geography, and astrology. This is the first
printed edition of Ptolemy's geography, which
established mathematical methods in cartography.
This is the first edition of Ptolemy's Almagest
which synthesized and extended the accomplishments
of ancient Greek and Babylonian mathematical
astronomy. Ptolemy's book was titled Almagest,
which means the greatest, by its Arabic translators.
Ptolemy's Almagest was the culmination of
ancient mathematical astronomy, achieving
an unparalleled degree of accuracy in quantitative
predictions of the positions of the planets.
This little treatise by Ptolemy, the Tetrabiblos
or Quadripartitum, was the most popular work
of astrology in antiquity. The Tetrabiblos
is of immense significance because astrology
provided the context in which mathematical
astronomy was pursued in antiquity up through
the early modern period. This edition made
use of a previously unknown manuscript and
was issued by a printer associated with Kepler
at the time when Kepler was serving in Prague
as the court astrologer to Rudolph II.
Far from being merely an exercise in calculation,
the exacting discipline of mathematical astronomy
was a religious enterprise. Ptolemy wrote,
"I know that I am mortal and living but a
day. Yet when I search the numerous turning
spirals of the stars, I no longer have my
feet on the Earth, but am beside Zeus himself,
filling myself with god-nurturing ambrosia."
Through astronomy, one might tune one's soul
to the harmony of the heavenly motions. Science
is a story. What stories do you want to hear
and tell about science in the early Roman
era?
