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Dominant Traditions in Early Medieval Latin Science Author(s): William H. Stahl Source: Isis, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Jun., 1959), pp. 95-124 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/226732 Accessed: 07/10/2010 15:02
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Dominant

Traditions in Early Medieval Latin Science

By William H. Stahl *

tHEN historians and historians of science flatly state that Ptolemy's Almagest and Geographydominated the fields of astronomy and geography for fourteen centuries, they are apt to mislead unwary readers into supposing that Ptolemy was the supreme authority in Latin science during that period. Quite the contrary, his works might almost as well never have been written for all the influence they had in the Latin West until translations were produced from Greek or Arabic texts in Toledo and Sicily in the twelfth century.' If there was any dominant tradition of Latin science in the first thirteen centuries of the Christian Era, it was a stream of encyclopedic literature, the main course of which may be traced backwards through the Latin encyclopedist Varro and the Platonizing Stoic Posidonius; to trace sources beyond them is difficultindeed.2 In any case it is well to bear in mind that this stream of encyclopedic works skirts around Ptolemy without being appreciably influenced by him. We can trace its course through the extant writings of Pliny, Theon of Smyrna, Cleomedes, Geminus, and numerous others.3 It is true that after Ptolemy's lifetime his reputation in the fields of astronomy and geography was known to encyclopedists as being almost as preeminent as were the reputations of Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, but the post-classical and medieval encyclopedists have no clearer understanding of his theories and doctrines than has a miniaturist illuminating a medieval scientific manuscriptwith a group portrait of Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. Like the miniaturist, the encyclopedists often regard Ptolemy and Plato as contemporaries; and they often ascribe to Plato discoveries that were made
W

of the critics of his view. The relationshipsof the writers discussed in this paper seem to support the view that Posidonius did write a Tiiniacius commentary. A volume, "Roman Theoretical Science: origins, development,influence,"is in preparation. ; Reinhardt's cogent arguments in Poscidoniios, pp. 178-181, that Geminus belongs to tronomy," St-tdies int the History and Method of Science, ed. by C. Singer (Oxford, 1921), 2, an earlier period than Posidonius and that 108-109. the discrepancies between the two are more 2 It is generally assumed that a commentary marked than the similarities, do not diminish on Plato's Tiinaeus by Posidonius was a key the importance of Geminus in this encyclowork in the encyclopedic tradition. K. Rein- pedic tradition. It will be found that there are hardt, Pauly-Wissozwa,1953,22, 569, still holds numerous correspoiidences between Geminus to his early view, expressed in his Poseidonios and post-classical encyclopedists that are not (Munich, 1921), pp. 416-417, that Posidoiiius founid in Cleomnedes and Theon of Smyrna, did not write a Timaeius commentary,though two writers whose material to a large extent he does not effectively answer the arguments was drawn from Posidonius.

* Department of Classics and World Literature, Brooklyn College. This paper was read at a meeting of the History of Science Society in New York, 29 December 1956. 1 For details about the translationssee A. C. Crombie,Auigulstinie to Galileo (London, 1952), pp. 22, 30; J. L. E. Dreyer, "Medieval As-

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centuries later and that they read about in some commentary on the Timaeus. Hipparchus and Eratosthenes are also cited as authorities by encyclopedists who do not even know how to spell Eratosthenes' name. Modern historians who have supposed that Ptolemy had an influence upon these Latin writers have been deceived by such false citations of authorities. If historians of science will adopt the critical methods used by classical scholars in exposing the reprehensiblepractice of the encyclopedists, Ptolemy's influence upon Latin writers of science will be seen to be practically nil. During the last few generations many instances of false attribution of sources by classical and medieval encyclopedists have been pointed out by scholars, but it was not until 1943, when Pierre Courcelle4assembled the researches of his predecessors and added his own telling strokes, that the picture became clear. It was standard practice in late classical antiquity and in the Middle Ages for Latin compilers to excerpt or paraphrase their predecessors and to conceal their borrowingby false citations. The shoddy practices of the most notorious of the encyclopedists, Pliny the Elder, have in fact stood exposed for nearly 1900 years, though it must be admitted that Pliny's scholarship is on a distinctly higher level than that of most of his successors. Pliny's nephew, in a letter to Baebius Macer,5 records how his uncle compiled his prodigious library of works, how, even when he was being carried in a sedan-chair, he had a slave read to him and copy anything that Pliny thought worth preserving, how in cold weather he required the slave to wear gloves so that his efficiencywould not be impaired, how when Pliny was in the bath, only during the time of his immersion was there any respite from this reading and excerpting procedure and how the slave resumed while he was being dried, and how he rebuked a colleague for correcting a slave's pronunciation because ten lines were lost by the interruption. Pliny lists hundreds of authorities, Greek and Latin, at the beginning of his encyclopedic Natural History but there is reason to suspect that he was relying upon only a few authorities for large sections of his work.6 Courcelle has exposed the devious practices of the encyclopedists: they excerpt, paraphrase, garble, incorporate page after page of material closely translated or lifted verbatim, add comments of their own which are often impertinent or inane, lose sight of logical order and chronology, introducing the weirdest sort of anachronisms, and they almost always falsify their sources. They pretend to be drawing upon Plato and Aristotle, but in the intervening centuries of acrimony between the followers of the two masters their doctrines became so garbled that they could not have been recognized. Neoplatonist writers claim to draw their authority from Plotinus but, as Courcelle has pointed out, the "haute metaphysique" of that difficult philosopher would have been quite unintelligible to post-classical Latin writers and
4Les lettres grecques cn occideit, de Mac- corides and appears to use him as a main robe a Cassiodore (Paris, 1943). source but omits any reference to Dioscorides 5 Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.5. though he lists among his sources all nine 6 K. C. Bailey, The Elder Plinty's Chapters authorities cited by Dioscorides. Bailey fails on Chemical Suibjects (London: Edward Ar- to realize that Pliny is following the standard nold & Co., 1932), 2, 6-7, is perplexed to find proceduireof encyclopedists. See also J. 0. that Pliny, an honorable man in his opinion, Thomson, Historv of Ancientt Geography frequently parallels material found in Dios(Cambridge, 1948), p. 227.

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they were in fact drawing upon Porphyry or some Latin intermediary. Courcelle has demonstrated that the regular procedure is to plunder the work of some compiler, preferably contemporary or recent, without acknowledging the borrowing, and to avow instead the authority of an early master of high repute. The sources and influences of classical and medieval Latin writers on science must be reconsidered in the light of our present knowledge of the encyclopedists' habits. To put any reliance upon their citations is nearly always a mistake. Duhem, along with most scholars of past generations who have traced sources and influences, was not fully aware of this fact and in his Le Systenme du Monde frequently assumed direct sources and influences when in fact intermediaries had been garbling transmitted doctrines. If we are to avoid being deceived ourselves, we must, when handling such encyclopedists (1) put no reliance upon their citations; (2) seek to find the encyclopedists' sources first among contemporariesor recent predecessors; (3) base our conclusions upon close textual comparisons; deliberate textual discrepancies can be of decisive significance here;7 and (4) allow for the possibility that one or more intermediaries may have existed whose works are lost. To indicate the problem more clearly, let us look at a hypothetical example. A modern authority assumes that a tenth-century geographical writer drew his doctrines from Pliny. Instead the writer may have drawn his statements from Isidore, who in turn may have drawn from Martianus Capella, who in turn may have drawn from Solinus, who in turn may have drawn from Plinywithout considering the possibility of still more intermediaries, lost or overlooked. If all the pertinent statements of the tenth-century writer are found in Isidore, the Quellenforschungmay end abruptly here. Or perhaps all his statements may be found in Capella, or Solinus. Either of these, and not Pliny, may have been the source. On the other hand, Pliny must not be ruled out as a possible direct source because some library catalogues of the tenth century show a greater number of Pliny manuscripts than those of Solinus and Isidore. Where, in medieval scholarship, do we not find a continuation of the shoddy practices of the classical and post-classical compilers of handbooks? Boethius, in a chapter (2.7) of his Consolation of Philosophy, sets forth unmistakable doctrines of Cicero's Dream of Scipio and attributes them to Ptolemy. Such knavery, compounded over the centuries, can produce rather amusing results. John of Salisbury in his Policraticus drew his doctrines about suicide from Cicero and Macrobius but attributed the views to Pythagoras and Plotinus.8 John did not know that Macrobius too was falsely attributing those doctrines to Plotinus and that he had in fact obtained them from Porphyry. The earliest medieval compiler that I have found, in my restricted researches, to be scrupulous in citing authorities is Vincent de Beauvais. When Ptolemy's influence in the Latin West is seen to be reduced almost
7Discrepancies resulting from copyists' errors are a different matter. Sometimes the manuscriptsof a later compiler are better than those of the compiler he has been pillaging and it has been possible to use the manuscripts of the former to emend those of the latter, as Mommsen did in working on the manuscripts of Solinus. 8 Policraticuts 2.27.471c,quoting Pythagoras and Plotinus while drawing from Cicero De senectute 73 and Macrobius Comnmentary 1.13.9-20.

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to the vanishing point, is there any discernible tradition that may be regarded as a dominant one? The clearest tradition of Latin science seems to have been an encyclopedic one that was largely molded from Greek scientific writings of the second and third centuries B.C. and that was transmitted to the Latin world by Posidonius and Varro above all others. To show the nature of this tradition I have picked out of the encyclopedic stream three Neoplatonists, almost contemporaries,to serve as my examples, because they have been accorded a dominant position by leading authorities of medieval science.9 Through a digest of their doctrines and a glance backwards to their sources and forwards to their influence we may get a clear picture in smaller compass than if we were to attempt to trace the encyclopedic tradition from its sources, a subject that would require a stout volume. In selecting Martianus Capella, Macrobius, and Chalcidius as my examples, I am aware that nearly all the present attributions of their sources and influence have not been subjected to critical scrutiny and should be regarded as tentative. Each of these authors seems to have had a different motive in writing his work. Martianus Capella wanted to produce an encyclopedia in the Varronian tradition and, by excluding two of Varro's disciplines, medicine and architecture, laid the foundation of the medieval trivia and quadrivia. Macrobius, a zealous Neoplatonist, followed a popular Neoplatonic practice of epitomizing that philosophy in a commentary. Chalcidius wished to make Plato's Timaeus known to Latin readers; so he translated it and wrote a commentary on it. All three became popular authorities in medieval science because a knowledge of astronomy was necessary in reckoning dates in religious calendars and because civil calendars were in an almost hopeless state of confusion, varying from country to country and even from locality to locality. Astronomical sections of the works of these encyclopedists are often found in collections of manuscripts bound together with treatises on calendar reckoning, bearing some such title as De computo. The computing tables provided the practical means, and excerpts from the encyclopedists the necessary background, for setting dates. Of the three, Martianus Capella offers the best account of encyclopedic science and will be discussed first. He seems to have flourished in the first half of the fifth century.'? His work, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury,
9 P. Duhem, Le syst?inze du inonde (Paris,

1913-17), 2, 411, 3, 110; G. Sarton, Introduiction to the History of Scien?ce (Baltimore,

1927), 1, 385; L. Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimnental Scieniee (New York, 1923), 1, 544; J. L. E. Dreyer, A Ihistory of the Planetary Syste11ns from1i Thales to Kepler

The Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crutsades (New York, 1925), pp. 9, 11, 121-

122, 160, 366-367,386; G. H. T. Kimble, Geographty in the Middle Ages (London, 1938), pp. 8-9, 11, 24; C. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modcrit Geography (London, 1897), 1, 343; J. 0.

(Cambridge, 1906, New York, 1953), pp. 207,

227; Studies in the History kins, Studies in the IIistor! and Method of of Mediaeval Sci-

Thomson, op. cit., pp. 203, 374, 383. I According to M. Schanz, Geschichte der
r6inischen Literattir (Munich, 1920), 4, 169,

Science, ed. by C. Singer, 2, 103; C. H. Hasence (Cambridge, Mass., 1924), p. 88; R. T. Gunther, Early Science itt Oxford (Oxford,
1923), 2, 24; The Cambridge Mediacval His-

the usually accepted dates are 410-439; Wessner, Paild-Wissoua, A History 1930, 14, 2004, places him (Cam-

at the end of the fourth century; J. E. Sandys,

of Classical Scholarship

tory (Cambridge, 1926), 5, 790; J. K. Wright,

bridge, 1906), 1, 241-242, assigns the dates 410-427; Beazley, op. cit., 1, 341, thinks that

TRADITIONS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN SCIENCE

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presents in a curious allegorical setting" a handbook of the seven liberal arts, Book VI dealing with geography and Book VIII with astronomy. For his geography he names as his authorities Dicearchus, Archimedes, Anaxagoras, Pytheas, Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, and Artemidorus, and for astronomy Eratosthenes, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, Pythagoras, and Archimedes. Capella obviously knew how to select authorities but there is no reason to suppose that he had more than the vaguest notions about the contributions of any of these men.'2 It is clear that Capella instead plundered his geographical material directly or indirectly from Solinus and Pliny, but does not mention their names. Solinus in turn plagiarized Pliny and also Mela,"3but mentions neither. Pliny and Mela are thought to have drawn their material mainly from Varro. Capella's astronomy is believed to have been derived indirectly from Varro.'4 Like Macrobius, Capella calls upon the authority of the ancient Egyptians as men of great learning." Capella's book dealing with astronomy is quite systematic and, considering the age in which it was written, may be regarded as a fairly satisfactory compendium of handbook information. His discussion is hard to understand because of his notoriously difficult style and his extreme conciseness.'" Capella offers the conventional encyclopedic information about the ten celestial circles, defining first the parallels, going latitudinally, next the colures, going longitudinally, then the oblique circles, and lastly the horizon. The arctic circle touches the northern horizon and is always entirely visible; the tropics mark the northern and southern limits of the sun's annual course; the equator is equidistant from the tropics and marks the point where days and nights are of equal duration; the antarctic circle touches the southern horizon and is always entirely invisible (817-822).'7 The colures are two great circles passing through the celestial poles, one originating in the 8th degree of Aries and the other in the 8th degree of Cancer. Here Capella avows
he was a Latin lawyer, resident at Carthage before the Vandal invasion of 439; A. Dick, editor of the Teubner ed. of 1925, accepts an early view of Eyssenhardt, later discarded by him, that Capella belonged to the beginning of the fourth century. Dick's reliance upon the words quanidin vigutit to indicate that Rome had not yet been sacked by Alaric is far-fetched,as Courcelle, op. cit., p. 198, points out. Courcelle feels that Capella's African
origin is certain. 11 S. Dill, Romant Society in the Last Century of the Western Emlpire (London, 1896),

largely compiled from Pliny and Solinus and that Book VIII gives strong indications of Varro as the source but no indication of direct use of Varro. 15 Capella 812; Macrobius Commentary 1.19.2, 5. Such veneration of the Egyptians,instead of stemming from a confusion between the scientists of Pharaonic Egypt and Hellenistic scientists at Alexandria, as Sir Thomas
Heath, Aristarchuts of Samnos (Oxford, 1913),

pp. 412-414,gives a good descriptionof the setting. 12 How remote Capella is from his alleged sources may be judged from his naming (906) two mythological characters, Orpheus and Amphion, and the legendary Arion as authorities for his book on music. 13 See the Mommsen ed. (Berlin, 1895) of Solinus Collectanea,pp. 238-243, and the footnotes to the text of the Dick edition of Capella.
14

p. 259, thought, may have originated in a passage (22b) in Plato's Timaeus and result from a mingling of traditions of encyclopedists
and Timiiaeits commentators.
16 The survival of three medieval commentaries on Capella's work, by Dunchad, Remigius of Auxerre, and Johannes Scottus, is an indication of the difficulty readers had in understanding him. His compendium of astronomy is compressedinto 27 Teubner pages.
17 Cf. Geminus Eleinetta astronomiae 5.111; Theon of Smyrna Expositio rerum matheintaticarurn, ed. by E. Hiller (Leipzig, 1878), 129-130; Macrobius Commentary 1.15.13.

Wessner, Paulyi-Wissozwa, 1930, 14, 2010-

2011, thinks that Book VI of Capella was

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that he is following the authority of Hipparchus (823-824).1S The two oblique great circles, the zodiac and the Milky Way, have breadth and are not mere mathematical lines. The zodiac, a belt 120 wide, stretches from one tropic to the other, bisecting the celestial equator, and marks the path of the sun, moon, and five planets. It has 12 divisions or signs, each a segment of 300 of arc. The sun (sol) is the only (solus) celestial body whose course is borne along the ecliptic (825, 834.)19 The Milky Way is the only visible great circle; some do not recognize it as a circle.2" Its circuit is much greater than that of the others since it stretches from one arctic circle to the other and thus traverses almost the entire heavens (!). It varies in breadth, thinning out from Cassiopeia to the sting of Scorpio (826, 835).21 Lastly there is the celestial horizon, separating the visible from the invisible celestial horizon at any given time or location. Since the horizon constantly changes with the rotation of the celestial sphere, it cannot be defined by constellations (836).22 To assist in fixing the location of the celestial circles Capella traces thenm through precise parts of constellations, e.g., the arctic circle from the head of Draco to the right foot of Hercules, through the breast of Cepheus, to the front feet of Ursa Major, back to the head of Draco.2 Capella's tracing of the tropics and equator correspondsalmost exactly with that found in Aratus' Phaenomena.24Aratus was a celebrated authority in antiquity and data from his work crop up frequently in the handbook tradition. When Capella takes up the antarctic circle he shows himself to be a medieval man. He could tell what constellations that circle passes through, for no part of the celestial sphere is unknown to him, but he prefers to avoid the appearance of introducing false statements (831).25 Next he traces the location of the colures by constellations, something which Aratus omits but which is found in Manilius' Astronoinicon. However, there is very little correspondence in the constellations of the two authors.26 Capella also fixes the location of the celestial parallels mathematically, by dividing a meridian into 36 intervals and marking the intersections of the parallels along the meridian: the arctic circle 8 intervals from the pole; the Tropic of Cancer 6 intervals below that; the equator 4 intervals below the tropic. Correspondingintervals mark the parallels of the southern hemisphere (837). Macrobius' figures for these intervals are 6, 5, 4, 4, 5, 6, totaling 30.27 Thus Capella's intervals comprise 50 of arc and Macrobius' 60.
18 Cf. Geminus 5.50; Theon 132; Macrobius Comtnenatry 1.15.14. This tracitng of the colures is probably pre-Hipparchan. 19 Cf. Theon 130; Gemninus 5.51-53; Cleomedes De 1ntotiGcircullri corporizm c(zalestium-i, ed. by H. Ziegler (Leipzig, 1891), 1.18; Macrobius Commteiztary 1.15.8-12. 20 Theon does not list it. 21 Cf. Gemninus5.11, 69; Macrobius 1.15.2-7. 22 Cf. Theon 131. Gerninus 5.56 distinguishes between- the theoretical (celestial) horizon and the visible horizon. AMacrobius 1.15.17-18 commits the blunder of includinig the visible horizon in his list of celestial circles. 23 Geminus 5.3 fixes the arctic circle only by the front feet of Ursa Major. Cf. Hyginus

4.6. 2 Tropic of Cancer: Capella 828=Aratus 480-510; equator: Capella 829=Aratus 511524; Tropic of Capricorn: Capella 830= Aratus 501-510. However, Capella traces the equator throughl Aquila; Aratus says it has "lio share in Aquila." 2 Cf. 609. It would be unwarranted to suppose tlhat, beinig an African, Capella might have kniownlthe southern constellations. He is strictly a handbook scientist and in the handbooks the antarctic constellations are not named. 26 Cf. Capella 832 and Manilius 1.603-617; Capella 833 and Manilius 1.618-630. 27Macrobius' division of a meridian into
Astrontoinzicon

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Capella distinguishes between zodiacal constellations and those lying north or south of the zodiac. He prefers not to consider Capri and Haedi, Serpens, and Panthera as independent constellations but to identify them with the larger constellations Auriga, Ophiuchus, and Centaurus, which hold or support them. He lists 35 non-zodiacal constellations and concludes that there is no need to name the twelve signs of the zodiac, since that is common knowledge (838-840).28

To help identify the constellations he tells which constellations or parts of them are rising when others are setting (841-843).9 Constellations that rise vertically and set transversely require more time to rise than set. Cancer rises vertically in 2 '42 hours and sets transversely in 11%/i2. Then follow the hours and fractions of hours required for the rising and setting of each sign of the zodiac (844-845).3? When the sun enters those signs that rise slowly, days become longer, and when it enters those signs that rise quickly, nights become longer. So we see why there is a differencebetween the hours of day and night in the summer and winter, although there are always six zodiacal signs above and six below the horizon and the signs occupy an equal amount of space. Measurements by clepsydras prove the latter statement to be true (846847).31 Similarly, one may ask why the sun, traveling at uniform speed, requires varying amounts of time to traverse different signs of the zodiac. Capella's answer is that although the earth is at the center of the universe, it is eccentric to the sun's orbit. At times the sun is borne at a greater disance from the earth than at other times. When the sun is climbing upwards in Cancer and Gemini, in the steeper tracts of its course, it takes longer, lingering 32 days in Gemini; but it requires less time in the lower tracts, 28 days in Sagittarius, the elapsed time for the other signs varying between those extremes (848-849) .3 Capella next comes to the subject of planetary motions. He points out that the stars are fixed in the celestial sphere and so have only one motion, that of the diurnal rotation of the heavens. The planets, too, have this daily motion but in addition have a contrary independent motion. each planet requiring an amount of time proportionate to the distance it traverses in order to complete one orbit in the reverse direction. The moon in a month, the sun in a year, and Saturn in 30 years traverse in contrary direction as much space as they pass through in one diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere. Their reverse motion is oblique to the direction of the diurnal motion. The Peripatetics maintain that the planets are not really moving in a contrary motion but are unable to equal the speed of the celestial sphere and are being out30 intervals (2.6.3-6) or a great meridian circle into 60 intervals goes back ultimatelv to Eratosthenes. Strabo 2.1.13, 5.7 and Geminus 5.45-46, 16.7-8 also adopt the division into 60 intervals. 28 The lack of uniformity in identifying groups of stars or individual stars with certain constellations and the resultaiit discrepancies in the number of constellations in ancient lists perhaps indicate that the lists were compiled from ancient star charts that differed greatly in their diagrams representing imaginary creatures and objects. 29 Cf. Geminus 7.23-31. 30 Cf. Geminus 7.9-11. ?' Geminus 7.12-17 raises the same questiotn and gives the same explanation. The division of the zodiac into twelve equal parts was proved by a dioptra in his work, 1.4. 32 Geminus 1.22 raises the same question and 1.31-41 gives the same explanation. Macrobius 1.6.51 and Cleomedes 2.113 also speak of the steep ascent of Gemini.

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distanced, some rapidly, some slowly.33 Capella is unconcerned about which explanation the reader prefers. The independent motions of the seven errant bodies are alike in one respect, they are from west to east. The five planets undergo stations and retrogradations, the sun and moon go in direct courses. The latter bodies are eclipsed, the five planets do not suffer eclipses.34 The three superior planets, like the sun and moon, have orbits about the earth, but Venus and Mercury do not revolve about the earth (850-854). The orbits of all planets are eccentric to the earth.35 The universe rotates with one uniform motion but no planet rises at the same point from which it rose the day before. The sun describes 18336 circles, all parallel, in its course from the northern tropic to the southern tropic and returns over the same circles in its reverse course to the north. Mars descibes twice as many parallel circles as the sun, Jupiter 12 times as many, and Saturn 28 times as many. Venus and Mercury also have risings and settings that change daily, but their revolutions are about the sun and not the earth. Sometimes they are borne in their orbits above the sun, but most of the time they travel below the sun.3 When they are both above the sun, Mercury is closer to the earth; when they are below the sun, Venus, having the wider orbit, is closer to the earth. Capella is clearly a proponent of the Heraclidean theory and, as such, is one of the leading transmitters of this doctrine which was so important in keeping heliocentric views alive in the Middle Ages. In order of distance from the earth, the moon is closest. Some maintain that the orbits of Mercury and Venus come next, others locate the sun's orbit above the moon.38 Then follow the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn (855-858). It is possible to calculate the distances traversed by each planet by basing the calculations upon Eratosthenes' and Archimedes' estimate for the earth's circumference, 406,010 stades,39 and using the following procedure. The moon's dimensions are ascertained by measuring its shadow on earth during solar eclipses. Frequently a total eclipse in the latitude of Meroe is a partial one at Rhodes, and at the mouth of the Borysthenes the sun remains wholly illuminated.40From a knowledge of the distance of the latitude of Rhodes in
33Geminus 12.14-24 points out that the position of certain philosophers is untenable because the fixed stars mark parallel courses across the sky, and the planets, if they were merely lagging behind, would describe similar parallel courses. Instead, they go obliquely, with the belt of the zodiac, some crossing from one side of the zodiac to the other. Besides, the stations, retrogradations, and progressions of the planets indicate that they have independent motions. 34 Little or no mention is made of occultations of planets in the handbooks. 35 Cf. Theon 135. 36 Geminus 5.12 has 182. 37 Venus and Mercury would be half the time above and half the time below the sun. Capella's confusion may arise from the fact that when the planets are on the earth side of the sun, they are more conspicuous.
38 In a geocentric orientation there can of course be no fixed order for Venus and Mercury if they are assumed to have heliocentric orbits. The practice of assigning a definite order to Venus and Mercury, above or below the sun, was so firmly established that Capella admits the gross inconsistency into his system. 39We see how garbled and incorrect data are apt to become when transmitted by the Latin encyclopedists. Capella previously (596) gave the correct figure for Eratosthenes' estimate of the earth's circumference, 252,000 stades. Aristotle's recorded figure of 400,000 stades (De caelo 2.14.297b-298a) was reduced by Archimedes to 300,000 in his Arenarius (Opera, Heiberg ed., [Leipzig, 1913], 2, 221). 40 Cf. Theon 194. Cleomedes 2.95 has the sun totally eclipsed at the Hellespont and partially visible at Alexandria.

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stades [north of the equator], it is estimated that the breadth of the moon's shadow is A8 of the measurementof the earth's circumference. By measurements of distances of latitudes to the right and left of the shadow, where the sun is partially eclipsed, it is calculated that the moon is 3 times as large as its shadow and consequently is ? as large as the earth (858-859).41 The angular diameter of the moon is ascertained by seeing how much water runs through a clepsydra during the time elapsing in one complete rotation of the celestial sphere. The moon's orbit is found to occupy 1/%oo part of the complete circuit of the heavens. If the moon's angular diameter is ?oo part of a great circle and the earth is 6 times larger than the moon, the moon's orbit is 100 times as large as the earth (860).42 Carrying the calculations further and assuming that the planets travel at the same speed, Capella estimates that the sun's orbit is 12 times as large as the moon's orbit. Consequently Mars' orbit will be 24 times, Jupiter's 144 times, and Saturn's orbit 336 times as great as the moon's orbit. If the moon's orbit is 100 times greater than the earth's circumference and Saturn's orbit is 336 times greater than the moon's orbit, Saturn's orbit will be calculated to be 33,600 times greater than the
earth's size (861).4

Next Capella takes up the individual motions of the sun, moon, and planets. An entire hemisphere of the moon is always illuminated by the sun, but because the illuminated side is turned away from us much of the time, the moon appears to be only partially illuminated. On the thirtieth day of the moon's course, the bright side is wholly turned away from us and we see no part of the orb. The moon's first appearance each month is crescent. At an
eastward elongation of 90? it appears as a half-moon. At 1350 it is at the

gibbous stage and at 1800 it is at the full. The same terms are applied to the correspondingphases during which the moon is returning to its conjunction with the sun. In the course of a day and a night the moon will advance 130 in the heavens, and Mars 12, Jupiter 'A2, and Saturn 'A8 of one degree (862864). The moon traverses the zodiac in 27% days, but overtakes the sun in 29? days because, during the time the moon is completing its orbit, the sun has moved into the next sign and sometimes into still another sign beyond. For if the sun and moon are in conjunction in the last degree of Libra, Scorpio, or Sagittarius, the moon will overtake the sun, not in the sign following, but in the second sign. The sun will sometimes pass through one of these signs unaccompanied,and conversely, in the signs diametrically opposite, the moon will sometimes overtake the sun twice. The sun takes thirty days in passing through some signs, 32 days in Gemini, and since the moon overtakes the sun in 29%2 days, it will sometimes join the sun twice in the same sign. The moon attains the full phase sometimes on the 14th, sometimes the 15th, and
41 Cf. Cleomedes 1.94-96.

The text of Capella omits the details of the use of the clepsydra but these may be supplied from Macrobius' clear statement of the Egyptians'procedurein marking off the twelve divisions of the zodiac (1.21.22). 43 Capella is unconcerned about whether diameter or circumference is meant when he
42

speaks of the earth's size. He bases his calculations upon a figure for the earth's circumference and obviously means that the moon's orbit is 100 times greater than the earth's circumference, but the calculations to ascertain the relative sizes of earth and moon involve diametric measurements, since it is the disc of the moon that is casting the shadow.

104

WILLIAM H. STAHL

more frequently on the 16th day, but if a greater number of days is consumed in the waxing stages, there will be fewer in the waning, so that the sum of days in a lunar cycle is always the same. A lunar year of 12 lunar cycles is completed in 354 days, 11 days less than a solar year. The discrepancy is made up by intercalations (865-866). The planets' motions in latitude vary, ranging from 30 for Saturn to 120 for the moon and Venus." The latter two thus range over the entire 120 breadth of the zodiac. The sun does not leave the ecliptic except in Libra, where it deflects its course 1/20 to the north or south. The moon moves at times 60 north of the ecliptic and at times 60 south of it. It crosses the ecliptic in sharp or wide angles, and the cycle of regression of lunar nodes is completed in 235 lunations, or in the 19th year. A 55-year cycle is required for the moon to return on the same day to the same position it formerly held with respect to the fixed stars and the lapse of a great year45is required for fixed stars and planets to return to their identical respective positions. Capella gives the four Greek terms designating the moon's motions as it moves north and south of the ecliptic away from or towards the ecliptic. If the moon happens to cross the ecliptic on the 30th day of its course, an eclipse of the sun occurs, and if the moon crosses the ecliptic on the 15th day, it suffers an eclipse. Eclipses cannot be repeated within 6 months (867-871). The sun's daily shifts in points of rising cause it to describe 183 parallel circles in passing from the upper tropic to the lower one; it goes over the same circles in its course back to the upper tropic. Although the northern and southern hemispheres correspond exactly, and although the distances north and south of the equator are the same, the sun consumes 185? days in its northwardcourse to the Tropic of Cancer and 180 days in its southwardcourse to the Tropic of Capricorn.46This discrepancy is due to the sun's orbit being eccentric to the earth; while in the upper hemisphere the sun is elevated to the upper reaches of its course and in the lower hemisphere it comes closer to the earth. In Cancer the sun brings summer, in Libra autumn, in Capricorn winter, and in Aries spring to the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere. For the antipodes these conditions are reversed (872-874). Summer days are exactly proportional in length to winter nights, and summer nights to winter days; and on the day of the equinox, twice a year, days are exactly equal to nights. The shortest day of the year, the winter solstice, has 8 hours; the longest day has 16 hours, although these amounts vary according to latitudes. There are 8 latitudes or climates. The one closest to the Tropic of Cancer is the climate of Meroe;` above it, in order, are the climates of Syene, Alexandria, Rhodes, Rome, Hellespont, Borysthenes,
in his discussioni of each planiet 44Later Capella gives its motion in latitude. His figures compare with those giveni by Theoni 135 and Cleomedes 2.125 as follows: Capella Cleomedes Theon 120 120 120 Moon 120 100 120 Venus 80 80 80 Mercury 50 50 50 Mars, Jupiter 30 20 30 or 20 Saturn 45 Cf. Macrobius 2.11.10; Chalcidius 118. For survivals of the notion of the great year in the Middle Ages see "magnus annus" in the inlexes of the volumes of L. Thornidike's History' of lloagic anzdExperimental Scicince. 4" Theon 153 has 187 days elapse in the northward course and 178? days in the southward course. 4 Syene is regularly recorded as the closest climate to the tropic. Capella again shows his carelessness in drawing data from earlier compilers.

TRADITIONS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN SCIENCE

105

and lastly the climate above the Sea of Azov and below the Riphaean Mountains. The longest day at "y "y "y "y
"i "Y

Meroe Syene Rhodes Rome

has 13 equinoctialhours, the shortest 11 " " " " 10 " 14

"

"y "y Alexandria

14 15

"

"

"

"

10

"y "
" " "

" "
" " " "y

""

" 14 " 15
" "
"

" ""
" "
"

"
" "
"

"
" "
"

9 9
" "
"

"" Hellespont " Borysthenes y " Riphaean Mts.

16
16

8
8

As one approaches the north pole the days become increasingly long and the nights short; consequently, beneath the pole there is perpetual daylight (!). The increases in the amount of daylight within the climates are as follows: ? 2 of the total amount of increase from winter solstice to summer solstice is added in the first month, ? in the second month, ? in the third month, ? in the fourth month, ? in the fifth month, and 1,42 in the sixth month. The reason for the variation is that the zodiac bends around Cancer and Capricorn but cuts the equator almost directly (875-878). Mercury and Venus, as noted above, describe epicycles and do not have their orbits about the earth."8 Mercury has a motion in latitude of 80. Since its greatest elongation from the sun is 220, it cannot have acronychal risings.49 It does have risings and settings but appears above the horizon for only a short time. Mercury's occultations and visible risings recur in the fourth month, and these not always. Venus consumes over 300 days in its revolutions, moves through 120 in latitude, and its elongation does not exceed 460.5? At times it speeds by the sun, at times it lags behind and does not catch up with it, sometimes it moves above and sometimes below the sun and does not complete its orbit every year. When it is in retrograde motion it takes longer than a year and when it is in progression it sometimes completes its revolutions in 11 months. Rising before the sun it is known by the name Lucifer, and rising after is called Vesper. It is the only one of the five planets to cast a shadow. Venus frequently has morning risings of four months' duration and evening risings of not more than 20 days. Its appearances and occultations recur in 9 to 10 months (879-883).5' The three superior planets all have risings, settings, stations, and retrogradations, but each has its own altitude, first station, and absis. Mars completes its orbit, eccentric to the earth, in approximately two years and has a motion in latitude of 5?. Mars' altitude, that is, its point of highest elevation above the earth, is in Leo.52 Its first station is a peculiar one. Inasmuch as Mars' orbit lies close to the sun, it feels the effect of the sun's rays even from a position of quadrature and undergoes a station at 90? on either side of the
48 Capella made no mention above (857) of epicycles but simply said that Mercury and Venus revolve about the sun. Epicycles were not a part of Heraclides' theory but were foisted upon him by Chalcidius. 49 Defined by Capella as risings diametrically opposite the setting sun. Theon 137 de-

fines the term in the same way. Pliny Natural History 2.39 has a maximum elongation of 22?
and in 2.73 has 230. "OPliny 2.38 has 460; Theon 137 and Chalcidius 70 have 500.
51 52

Cf. Pliny 2.36-38. Cf. Pliny 2.64.

106 WILLIAM H. STAHL sun.53 Mars has its absis in the 29th degree of Capricorn (884).5 Jupiter completes its revolution in 12 years and has a motion in latitude of 5?. Its altitude is in Virgo and its absis in the 15th degree of Cancer.55 Its ascents and descents prove that its orbit is eccentric to the earth (885). Saturn completes its revolution in slightly less than 30 years and has a motion in latitude of 3 or even 2 degrees. Its altitude is in Scorpio and its absis in the 20th degree of Libra."5The risings of Saturn are like those of the two planets just below it, since the rays of the morning and evening sun do not obscure it beyond 120. First and second stations occur 1200 away from the sun on either side and evening risings occur 1800 away.5" The powerful rays of the sun are responsible for the differences in orbits in the aforementionedplanets and for their stations, retrogradations,and progressions. The rays strike the planets with force and elevate or depress them, or cause them to deviate in latitude or to retrogress (886-887). In Capella's work we see corrupted survivals of the salient features of early Hellenistic astronomy. Most of the astronomical learning represented in the encyclopedic tradition traces back to a period before Hipparchus. Once this body of knowledge passed over to the Latin encyclopedists it steadily deteriorated through transmission. Capella and Macrobius could not have had the faintest comprehension of the refinements of Hellenistic astronomy. Their inconsistencies reveal that they did not even grasp the rudiments of Greek astronomy and their disregard of accuracy in computing and recording figures57indicates the low state of science in the fifth century. At one point Capella clearly expounds the Heraclidean theory of heliocentric motions for Venus and Mercury and in the next paragraph subscribes to a fixed order for these planets above or below the sun. Later he refers to the epicyclic motions of Venus and Mercury, a concept which was not in Heraclides' mind. Macrobius, as we shall see, retains the faintest echo of the Heraclidean system without realizing what this involves, because he is everywhere else upholding the Platonic fixed order of the planets. Macrobius is also unaware of a number of other basic inconsistencies in his doctrines. Even Chalcidius, whose astronomy is on a distinctly higher level because it has been appropriated almost bodily from Theon's handbook, is unable to handle much of Theon's material and also involves himself in gross inconsistencies. 2 The derivation of Capella's geography is clearer. His sources, direct or indirect, were Pliny and Solinus. Solinus' sources were Pliny and Mela. The striking resemblances between Pliny and Mela suggest a common source, Varro. Varro may have derived his geographical material from Posidonius.
53Cf. Pliny 2.60. 54 Pliny 2.65 says the 28th degree. 55 Cf. Pliny 2.64, 65. 56 There is considerable similarity between the material here and that in Pliny 2.59. The likely explanation of the correspondencesbetween Pliny's and Capella's treatment of planetary motions is that they were both drawing from Varro here, Pliny directly and Capella indirectly. 57 Capella in one place (596) gives Eratosthenes' figure for the earth's circumferenceas 252,000 stades and in another (858) as 406,010 stades. Other inaccuracies and inconsistencies in Capella'sand Macrobius'use of figures will be noted below.

TRADITIONS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN SCIENCE

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Pliny lists among his many authorities58both Varro and Posidonius. It is frequently suspected that in many areas Pliny, while crediting numerous authorities, was largely drawing upon two or three. Pliny's geography, as we shall see, is basically a periplus or coastal survey, a popular form of geography among Greek writers. He surveys the coasts of the northern and southern halves of the known world, introducing data for internal regions along the way. Varro wrote an Ora Maritima and a periplus by Posidonius is listed among Pliny's sources. For his internal geography Pliny relied heavily upon Marcus Agrippa's map of the Roman Empire. Varro appears to have been the key figure in molding both the astronomy and geography of Capella, yet Capella's astronomical book is vastly superior to his geographical book. The marked difference here is merely a reflection of the contrasting states of such knowledge in Hellenistic Greece. Theoretical astronomy, even before Hipparchus, had attained a high level of excellence. Geographicalknowledge, being of a more practical nature, had been woefully neglected by the Greeks. Even though Eratosthenes and Hipparchus had laid the foundations of scientific geography by pointing out that terrestrial positions ought to be ascertained from astronomical observations, practically no scientific observations had been accumulated by Ptolemy's time and only a few of Ptolemy's 8,000 precise co-ordinates were actually obtained by scientific methods. Precise geographicalknowledge among the Greeks was restricted for the most part to painstaking coastal surveys. Marcus Agrippa's elaborate mapping project of the Roman Empire, incorporating exact figures of mileages along the vast network of imperial highways and other reliable official data, could have served as a basis for sound geographical treatises. But instead we see that any attempts at collating and synthesizing Agrippa's information, such as are found in Pliny's geographical books and in the Peutinger Table, often result in a hopeless jumble of irreconcilable data. Pliny shows great respect for Agrippa's map and refers to its figures frequently. He must have had available much first-hand and documentary information on such areas as Germany, Spain, and Syria, where he campaigned or served as a high governmental official. Though his knowledge of Syria seems more extensive than that of some of his more scientific contemporaries and predecessors, his account of Spain is deplorably deficient and his knowledge of Germany seemingly little better than that of Herodotus. Bunbury is of the opinion that of all the areas of knowledge covered by Pliny, his geographical knowledge was weakest. As we observe Pliny's geography deterioratein transmissionto Solinus and Capella, we see clearly why Capella's geography does not approach the level of his astronomy.5" Adhering to the standard practice of encyclopedists, Capella observes two distinct divisions in his treatment of geography: (1) general geography-the shape of the earth; its zones with their seasons, celestial phenomena, and
58 For Books II-VI, Pliny lists 36 Roman and 86 foreign (nearly all Greek) sources. 59 All of Pliny's defects appear in Capella: lack of any scientific comprehensionof geography, mere listing of pages of place-names, rivers, tribes, mountains,the order being fairly well observed when he is following a periplus

but badly jumbled in interior regions, listing of towns long disappeared by Pliny's time, drawing from contradictory authorities without resolving differences, and omitting for the most part geographical features of countries and anthropological features of peoples covered.

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WILLIAM H. STAHL

habitations; and the dimensions and boundaries of the continents, and nature of the Ocean; (2) a regional survey, which, as in the case of Pliny, has the basic form of a periplus or periegesis. Capella draws his proofs of the spherical shape of the earth from Pliny: celestial phenomena differ according to the latitude of the observer (591593);60 the hour of occurrence of eclipses varies according to the longitude of observations; often eclipses visible in the east are not seen in the west, and vice versa (5%4);61 readings on sun dials vary noticeably with changes in latitude of 500 stades; at the summer solstice there are 121/2hours of daylight at Meroe, 17 in Britain, and at Ultima Thule there are 6 months of daylight (595).6 That the earth is located at the center of the universe is proved by the equal or correspondinghours of daylight and night during the different seasons of the year (601).63 The earth is divided into five zones: the torrid or middle zone scorches those who dwell within its confines; the zones lying beneath the poles have been abandoned for habitation because of the cold; the two zones lying between and girding the earth are temperate and afford habitation to living things over both the upper and lower hemispheres (602).64 The upper hemisphere begins at the point where the sun rises and the lower hemisphere at the point where it sets; the Ocean may also be regarded as the boundary between upper and lower hemispheres since it encircles the known world. There are four inhabited quarters: the known world occupies the northern temperate region of the upper hemisphere; the inhabitants of the corresponding southern region of the upper hemisphereare called antoikoi; those diametrically opposite the inhabitants of the known world, i.e., inhabitants of the southern lower hemisphere, are called antipodes; and those diametrically opposite the antoikoi are called antichthones. Seasons in Europe are contrary to those among the antoikoi. Again Capella commits an egregious blunder. He says that the inhabitants of the known world have common winters and summers with their antipodeans but contrary days and nights, and that the antoikoi and their antipodeans have their four seasons of the year in common but that only the antoikoi have a view of the south pole, deeply hidden from inhabitants of the northernhemisphere (603-606).65 To inhabitants of equatorial regions all days and nights are equal in length and all stars of the heavens are visible. They experience two summers and winters each year since the sun passes by them twice, upward and downward, in its course between solstices. In polar regions phenomena are quite different. The only celestial bodies having risings would be planets, and these would not pass overhead but would be seen for six months and then become invisible, the equator would coincide with the horizon, and only six signs of the zodiac would appear above
the horizon (607-608).66
G5 Vergil, Georgics 1.233-251, Manilius 1.242245 (Housmianed. ad loc.) are also confused. 62 Cf. Pliny 2.182, 186-187. The statement Elsewhere Capella is correct about the conabout Thule is incorrect. trariness of winter and summerin the northern 63 Cf. Pliny 2.176. Pliny's cosmology was and southern hemispheres. probablylargely derived from Posidonius. See 66 Capella derived the material digested in J. 0. Thomson, op. cit., p. 324. this paragraph from some other source than 64 Cf. Pliny 2.172. Pliny. Pliny 6.58 records that India has two

60

61 Cf. Pliny 2.180.

Cf. Pliny 2.177-178.

TRADITIONS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN SCIENCE

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Capella correctly records Eratosthenes' estimate of the earth's circumference as 252,000 stades and is credited by modern scholars with being responsible, together with Macrobius, for the wide adoption of this figure in medieval geography.67 However, his account of the procedure used by Eratosthenes is incorrect in every detail (596-598)"8 and, as we noted above, in his astronomical book Capella gives Eratosthenes' figure as 406,010 stades and incorrectly attributes the same figure to Archimedes. Using a widely adopted Roman standard of 125 paces in one stade, Capella computes Eratosthenes' estimate to be equal to 31,500 miles. He also thinks it worth mentioning that Ptolemy's estimate was 180,000 stades, which would amount to 22,500 Roman miles (609-610).69 Capella next discusses the length and breadth of the known world, purporting to be drawing his figures from Artemidorus and Isidorus. He gives Artemidorus'figure for the length, from the far boundary of India to Cadiz, as 8,577 miles, and Isidorus' as 9,818, and in attempting to reconcile the two figures points out that Artemidorusadded to his figure the distance from Cadiz to Cape Finisterre, 991 miles. All this is copied from Pliny-or perhaps there was an intermediary, because the figures do not always agree (611-613).7? Capella's estimate of the breadth of the known world, from the shores of the Ethiopian Ocean to the mouth of the Don River, coincides with Pliny's (5,462 miles) and he repeats Pliny's list of stations used in computing that estimate. Isidorus, according to Pliny, added 1250 miles to that total, his estimate of the distance from the Don to the latitude of Ultima Thule, but Pliny regards this figure as pure conjecture. Capella repeats Pliny's figure and his skeptical attitude (614-616) ."' After this conventional introduction Capella is ready to take up his regional geography-a subject which in Pliny becomes a helter-skelter list of place72 with occasional remarks; but Capella reduces his list so drastically names that many countries receive an average of only a few dozen names, selected from Pliny or Solinus because they had some literary or startling association.
summersbut Capella'sdiscussion of the earth's habitations (not in Pliny) bears resemblancos to the treatment in Geminus XVI, Cleomedes I.ii, vii, and Macrobius2.5.32-33. 67 See J. K. Wright, op. cit., pp. 55, 155; G. H. T. Kimble, op. cit., pp. 8-9, 24. 68 Eratosthenes' method is correctly reported in Cleomedes 1.10. Eratosthenes found solstice in that the shadow cast at the summner a hemispherical bowl located at Alexandria he multiplied the measured distancc between Alexandria anid Syeiie by 50 to get his estiCapella remate of the earth's circumiferenice. ports that the shadow, multiplied 24 times, gave the measure of a "doublecircle" and that the observations were nmadeat Syenie and Meroe, at the equinox. Elsewhere (876) Capella incorrectly places Meroe onithe Tropic of Cancer and Syene at the first climate niorth of it. 69 The figure assigned to Ptolemy is correct but, since Capella's geographical data remeasured I/.!r of the bowl or Y3ioof a circle and

semble Pliny's, it is quite possible that Capella is reporting Posidonius' estimate of 180,000 stades (widely circulated in the handbooks) and attributing it to Ptolemy. 70 Pliny 2.243-244 records the stations oni two itineraries, giving some intermediate distances and the totals. The figures in the texts have become corrupted and Pliny's additions are not correct as they stand. Capella cop)ied the first itinerary carefully but his figures are still more corrupt. He abbreviatesPliny's seconid itinerary, omitting intermediate distances. an(l gets a different total from Pliny's. On
Pliny's errors see K. Miller, Mappaeminutdi

(Stuttgart, 1898), 6, 135-140. 71 Cf. Pliny 2.245-246. 72 An indication of the bad state of confusiotn in Pliny's lists may be drawn from the
jumbled names of towns, rivers, mountains, bays, promontories, straits, and harbors which Pliny 3.7 selects at random because "they arc worth mentioning or are easy to say in the Latin language."

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WILLIAM H. STAHL

Pliny follows the popular form of the periplus or coastal survey, with excursions into some interior countries along the way. It was a common practice for a periplus geographer to begin by offering proofs that the known world was surrounded by Ocean in order to give readers the impression that the periplus method would embrace all countries of the known quarter. So we find Capella repeating from Pliny the fabulous reports of Augustus sailing past Jutland into the frozen tracts of the Scythian Ocean, and of Macedonian sailors, under Seleucus and Antiochus, going from the Indian Ocean around the Eastern Ocean to the Caspian Gulf. We also read the popular reports of wrecks of Spanish ships in the Arabian Gulf and of the circumnavigations from Arabia and Ethiopia to Spain and from India to Germany (617621).73

The known world is divided into three continents-Europe, Asia, and Africa. The Atlantic Ocean bursts into the inland seas at the Straits of Cadiz and separates Europe from Africa. The Don River serves as the boundary between Europe and Asia74 and the Nile River is the line of demarcation between Asia and Africa. Capella shows his eclectic scholarship here, as elsewhere, by copying these divisions from Pliny and adding that very many regard the Sea of Marmora as the boundary between Europe and Asia, his "very many" in this case actually being Solinus (622-623).7 Capella's periplus begins, as does Pliny's, with the Pillars of Hercules and surveys first the northern Mediterranean coast as far as the Sea of Azov. Capella draws his material from Pliny throughout, with occasional gleanings of mirabilia from Solinus. Where Pliny gives fuller treatment to some countries because of first-hand knowledge (e.g., he served as procuratorof Spain), Capella also gives correspondingly disproportionate attention to those countries. Pliny deals with Spain twice, the eastern part at the beginning of his first periplus and the western part as he is returning from the Northern Ocean to Cadiz. Pliny's first account is five times as long as Capella's, but it is in the second account that we see the great difference. Pliny gives elaborate treatment to Western Spain. He had a reputation in antiquity for stamina and fortitude. Capella, on the other hand, becomes exhausted copying from Pliny's list of place-names over his northern Mediterraneanperiplus and, once Capella gets over the Riphaean Mountains, he races across Northern Europe from the Scythian Sea and Hyrcanian Forest, across Britain and its islands, past Thule and Aquitania, all in one section of 100 words-and mentions only one place-name in Spain. Thus Pliny's combined accounts of Spain are eight times as long as Capella's.71 Geographicaltreatises that follow the periplus style necessarily give scanty and confused information or no information at all on interior regions. Pliny yet the format of the perimust have had extensive knowledge of Germany,77
73 Cf. Pliny 2.167-170. A typical example 74This was Posidonius' boundary, accordof how badly Capella garbles Pliny's account ing to Strabo 491, and was also commonly remay be seen in comparing Pliny's statement garded as the boundary since Herodotus' time. that the Swabian king gave Metellus Celer See Thomson, op. cit., p. 59. 75 Cf. Pliny 3.3 and Solinus 23.15. some Indian captives who had been driven off 7I Capella on Spain, 627-633, 666; cf. Pliny their course by storms with Capella's statement that Cornelius Nepos, after taking some 3.6-30, 4.110-120; Solinus 23.1-9. 77He was the author of a celebrated work Indians captive, sailed through Germaiiy.

TRADITIONS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL LATIN SCIENCE

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to that country and plus permits him to devote only a few short paragraphs78 its peoples. It is interesting to point out that in this respect Pliny set a pattern for medieval geography. The writers who plagiarized him, directly or indirectly, Solinus, Capella, Isidore of Seville, and Dicuil, all have enormous gaps in their internal geography. Dicuil, an Irish monk of the ninth century and the first geographer of the Frankish kingdom, reveals almost no geographicalknowledge of that kingdom and for the geography of Germany depends on the scanty information in Pliny. Surely he had better first-hand materials than those found in the compilers."9 After returning to Cadiz from their amazing peregrination around the northern half of the known world, Pliny and Capella embark upon a second periplus, across North Africa to the Middle and Near East, across the Caucasus to India and Ceylon, back along a southerly course to Ethiopia, then around the Southern Ocean to Mauretania. Pliny's southern periplus fills two books of his encyclopedia, about 125 pages of text, and in regions like Syria, where Pliny had good first-hand information, offers some valuable additions to our knowledge of ancient geography. Solinus saw fit to reduce Pliny's tedious catalogue of place-names drastically and to insert curious or fascinating tidbits of folklore, culled from other parts of Pliny's encyclopedia or from other sources.80 Capella's second periplus is about one-fifth as long as Pliny's, and like Solinus' account, attempts to relieve the reader's boredom by preserving interesting bits of folk and local lore. As geographical works Solinus' and Capella's treatises are worthless. 3 It is reasonable to identify Macrobius, the second Neoplatoinic encyclopedist of our group, with the official who held high governmental positions in 399/400, 410, and 422, as recordedin the Theodosian Codex, and to assume that Macrobius' vernacular was Latin and not Greek.8' Of his three known works, only one is of interest here, his Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. The title of this work is misleading. It purports to be a commentary on the
(lost) on the Roman wars with the Germans Christianity when writing oIi pagan subjects. in twenty books, a valuable source for Tacitus' That Macrobius does not mention Christianity
writings.
78 79

Pliny 3.98-101. See M. L. W Laistner, in A. P. Newton's

in the MAiddle Ages rerum inemtoraThe title, Collectanea

Travel and Travellers

80

(London-New York, 1930), p. 136. biliunt, suggests the character of Solinus' work. For Solinus' sources see the Mommsei edition. 81 The objection usually raised to that identification is that Macrobius would have had to be a Christian to hold such offices and there is no evidence in his writings that he was a Christian. But it must be remembered that Christians were given a pagan education in the schools, that they clung to their pagan erudition through life, and that it seems to have been a regular practice not to mention

in his writings is no proof that he was not a Christian, or a sufficiently nominal Christian to qualify to hold government posts. It is more reasonable to suppose that Macrobius' remark that he was "born under another sky" refers to North Africa, von Jan's view, than to suppose, as Glover, Sandys, and Whittaker do, that he was born in some Greekspeaking land. Wissowa argues that Macrobius' fondness for Cicero and Vergil and his numerous mistranslations of Greek passages indicate that Latin and not Greek was his vernacular. Macrobius' works reveal a greater familiarity with Latin than with Greek literature. A new Teubner edition of his works is being prepared by Dr. J. A. Willis of the University of London.

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H. STAHL WVILLIAM

closing episode of Cicero's De republica. Actually Macrobius was using this episode, known since the early Middle Ages as The Dream of Scipio, as a framework upon which to construct a treatise of Neoplatonic philosophy, and at no time does he seem to be aware of the anachronismsinvolved in imputing Neoplatonic dogmas to Cicero. Though the Commentaryis tedious to us when compared with Cicero's exquisite gem (it is seventeen times as long as the Dream), it enjoyed an extraordinary vogue in the Middle Ages, probably because it was about as lucid and compendious an exposition of Neoplatonic doctrines as was available and was interspersed with popular excursuses on dreams, Pythagorean arithmetic, and astronomy and geography. The most widely quoted section of the Commentary was the lengthy excursus on astronomy and geography, a prospect of the heavens and earth which, as the author anticipated, was to excite the imaginations of readers in the Middle
Ages.82

Macrobius' section on cosmography occupies seventeen chapters (1.14.212.9), nearly half of the Commentary. Latest scholarship inclines to the view that he derived the doctrines for his cosmographical chapters mainly from Porphyry's lost Commentary on the Timaeus.83 A comparison of Macrobian material with surviving works of a similar nature indicates that Macrobius was following a Platonist-Neoplatonic tradition in which commentators transmitted doctrines that went back to Posidonius' lost Commentary on the Timacus and probably back to Crantor,the first commentatoron the Timaeus.84 Macrobius is a devout Neoplatonist, claiming, when differences of opinion occur, to be upholding Plato, without ever evincing first-hand knowledge of Plato's works. His basic cosmography conforms with the concepts of the Timacus, but his details correspond with those of the handbooks of Theon of Smyrna, Cleomedes, and Geminus. Theon and Cleomedes are believed to be transmitting received opinions of Posidonius, and Geminus, whether he was a pupil of Posidonius or belongs to an earlier age, manifests an abundance of correspondenceswith later encyclopedists. We find in Macrobius' cosmography the stock features of the handbooksa spherical earth in the exact center of the universe, encircled by seven planetary spheres and by the outermost celestial sphere, which rotates diurnally from east to west. The planets have their proper motions from west to east in addition to their more apparent motions from east to west which are the result of their being "dragged along" 85 by the diurnal rotation of the celes82 This section was frequently bound separately and given a title of a work oni astronomy. Of the 48 manuscripts described by voi Jan in his edition, four are fragments containiing only this section. E, is also a fragment, breaking off where Macrobius' cosmographical section ends. Marginal notations calling attention to the beginning and end of the cosmographical excursus are so common that voi Jan has noted three manuscripts that do not have such a notation. Marginal glosses serving as headings of major divisions of the excursus are also very common. 88 Courcelle, op. cit., pp. 20-36; K. Mras,

"Macrobius' Kommeintar zu Ciceros Somniurm,"Sitnmingsberichlteder preuissischlzc Akadeinie der Wissecnsclhafteni,Phiilosophischt-historische Klasse, 1933, 232-286. Paul Henry, in Plotin et l'ocride;tt (Louvain, 1934), preferred to rely on Macrobius' already impugned citations of authorities in order to substantiate his thesis that Plotinus was the dominant Neoplatoflist in the West. 84 A. E. Taylor, A Comnxnetary on Plato's Ti,niaeits (Oxford, 1928), p. 2, points out that the Timiiaeuis was commented upon in every age from Crantor to Proclus. 86 Macrobius 1.18.2.

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tial sphere. Macrobius' figures for the periods of the planets' revolutions correspond in round numbers with those found in the handbooks:86 Saturn thirty years, Jupiter twelve years, Mars two years, Venus, Mercury, and the sun a "year more or less," and the moon twenty-eight days (1.19.3-5). The periods are evidently in proportion to the planets' distances from the earth. But Macrobius' statements about planetary speeds are hopelessly confused and irreconcilable. His difficulty results from his abject reverence for the work upon which he is commenting and his failure to realize that its doctrines and the sources which he and Cicero used are often incongruent or contradictory. He maintains at one point (1.21.6-7) that all planets travel at the same speed and that distance traversed is alone responsible for the difference in time consumed; other planets have longer periods. But he had just explained that the spheres of Venus and Mercury encompass the sphere of the sun, and yet the three have periods of a "year more or less." Later (2.3.14) he says that the Platonists rejected Archimedes'figures for planetary distances and decided that the correct estimate of the sun's distance is twice the moon's distance, and Venus' distance thrice and Mercury's distance four times the moon's distance. A moment later (2.4.2-4) he explains that the high-pitched tones produced by the outer planetary spheres are the result of the high speeds at which they revolve and the low tones of the lunar sphere are the result of its slow speed. Macrobius notes that the planets keep within the zodiac in their eastward courses. He is aware that planetary orbits are inclined to the ecliptic (1.14.25) but he does not give the degrees of their inclinations, a feature usually found in the handbooks.87The ecliptic bisects the zodiac and derives its name from the fact that an eclipse can occur only when the sun and moon are moving along the ecliptic at the same time. The sun can be eclipsed only on the 30th day of the moon and the moon on the 15th day (1.15.10-11). Macrobius makes no mention of the regression of lunar nodes. In elucidating the nature of the Milky Way he ignores fabulous explanations and offers the scientific views of Theophrastus, Diodorus, Democritus, and Posidonius. We may be sure that he did not derive their opinions from reading their works. These are received opinions about the Milky Way which found their way into the doxographictradition.88Instead Macrobius probably got them from Porphyry since, like Porphyry, he assumes that the Milky Way crosses the zodiac at Capricorn and Cancer and not at its actual intersection at Gemini and Sagconnect Homer's descripittarius. Both Macrobius (1.12.1-3) and Porphyry89 tion of the cave at Ithaca with the Pythagorean portal of souls. Macrobius counts nine other great circles girding the celestial sphere, in addition to the zodiac, ecliptic, and Milky Way, and gives the usual information about these great circles. In two points he shows that his grasp of his subject is not as good as that of the other encyclopedists. He remarks that the colures "are not believed to extend to the south pole" (1.15.14) and, when
86Cf. Gemiinus1.24-30; Cleomedes 1.16-17; Theon 136; Chalcidius70. 87 See above, note 44. 88 For the references see W H. Stahl, Macrobiuis' CommenLtary ont the Drcam of Scipio

(New York, 1952), p. 149. 89 De antro nympharum 28. A glossator of Bede, De nlat?tra rerumen17 (Migne, Patrologia Latinia 90.234) calls attention to Macrobius' error.

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he comes to the last in his list of celestial circles, he foolishly substitutes the visible for the celestial horizon (1.15.18). Macrobius' section on the order of the planets (1.19.1-10) contains an ambiguous passage which was misunderstood in the Middle Ages and since Dreyer, Heath, and Duhem misinterpreted the passage a generation ago, the error has been cropping up whenever Macrobius' cosmography has been discussed. Since the Middle Ages Macrobius has been mistakenly regarded as one of the three ancient authorities who propounded the view of Heraclides of Pontus that the revolutions of Venus and Mercury were about the sun and not about the earth. Duhem has a chapter of 119 pages on the transmission of the doctrines of the three Heraclideans during the Middle Ages.90 Chalcidius and Capella are clearly trying to represent Heraclides' theory, but Macrobius reveals only the faintest trace of an allusion to this theory. It would be impossible to draw any conception of Heraclides' views from Macrobius' statement. Anyone who regards Macrobius as a Heraclidean has previously learned about Heraclides' views from some other source and from this knowledge ascribes to Macrobius concepts which he did not apprehend. To get to the crux of the difficulty, a proponent of Heraclides' system cannot maintain a fixed order of the planets since, in a geocentric orientation, Mercury and Venus will be either above the sun or below it. But anyone who reads Macrobius' discussion in this chapter and elsewhere when he refers to the order of the planets or planetary spheres must admit that Macrobius is adopting the fixed Platonic order of planets. At the outset Macrobius points out that no difficulty arises in determining the location of the spheres of the outermost planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. They have longer periods and in their orbits traverse vast distances. At the other extreme the sphere of the moon is clearly placed above the earth's sphere since its period is only twenty-eight days. Confusion results in the proper placing of the spheres of Venus, Mercury, and the sun; because their revolutions are completed "in the same amount of time, a year more or less," their positions must be very close to each other. Macrobius is embarrassed to find that two men he has always regarded as omniscient and infallible hold contrary views. Plato, the founder of the school of philosophy that Macrobius is expounding in the Commentary, adopted a supra-solar order for Venus and Mercury, arranging his spheres moon, sun, Venus, and Mercury.9' Cicero, whose Dream of Scipio is the work upon which Macrobius is ostensibly commenting, adopts in this work an infra-solar order of moon, Mercury, Venus, and sun.92 The latter order appears to have grown in popularity in the passage of time and is the order adopted by Cleomedes,93 Geminus,94and Vitruvius.95 Since the Dream of Scipio and the works of Cleomedes and Vitruvius are thought to have leaned heavily upon the authority of Posidonius, it appears likely that Posidonius adopted the infra90 Op. cit., 3, 44-162. 9 I1Somninurn Scipiontis 4.2; De divinatione 91 Timaeus 38d; Reputblic 616e. Macrobius 2.91. 93 1.27. himself is confused about Plato's order, giving it correctly twice (1.19.7-10; 2.3.14), but in 941.3. 95 9.5. 1.21.27 giving it as moon, sunl, Mercury, and Venus.

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solar order. It is not at all surprising to find the zealous Neoplatonist Macrobius, in this dilemma, preferring the Platonic order to the Ciceronian one. Plato's order, according to Macrobius, conformed to the Egyptian system and Cicero was following the Chaldaean order.96 Then follows the passage, misinterpreted by medieval and modern scholars alike, in which Macrobius shows how the confusion arose: The spherein which the sun travels is encircledby the sphereof Mercury, which is above it, and by the higher sphere of Venus as well. As a result, when these two planetscoursethrouglh the upperreachesof their spheres,they are perceived(intellegantur)to be abovethe sun, but when they pass into the lower tracts of their spheresthey are thought (aestimetur)to be beneaththe sun. Those who assigned to them a position beneath the sun made their observationsat a time when the planets' courses seemed (videtur) to be beneaththe sun, which,as we noted,sometimeshappens; indeed,this position is more noticeablesince we get a clearerview at that time. When Mercury and Venus are in their upper regions, they are less apparentbecauseof the sun's rays. As a result the false opinion (persuasio)lhasgrown stronger,and this order has receivedalmost universalacceptance. It is likely that when Macrobius speaks of Venus and Mercury coursing through the upper and lower reaches of their spheres, at times discernible as being above the sun and at times appearing to be beneath the sun, he is vaguely recalling something he read about the Heraclidean theory. Everywhere else he upholds the fixed Platonic order of the planets. In the passage immediately following he says that the true order of the planets is evident from the fact that the moon, which is the only planet illuminated by the light of the sun, necessarily lies beneath it. All the other planets are located above the sun in pure ether and shine forth with their own radiance in a region where everything is ablaze with natural and spontaneous light.97 Three medieval authors who were mistaken in attributing Heraclides' theory to Macrobius are Bartholomaeus Anglicus,98Baudoin de Courtenay (12171270)," and Peter of Abano.'00 An amusing misinterpretationof Macrobius' doctrines is found in the Peri didaxeon of William of Conches. He points out that since the sun, Venus, and Mercury traverse the zodiac in nearly the same period, their orbits are nearly equal in size and are not contained within each other but intersect each other.'0' As if he had not confused his readers enough by alluding vaguely to Heraclides' system and thus appearing to impose incongruous heliocentric notions upon a fixed geocentric order of the planets, in the following chapter Macrobius introduces solar "attraction-repulsion"doctrines which cannot be reconciled with either the Platonic or Heraclidean system. The passage in question
98 Liber de proprietatibus rerum 8.26. 96 As a result of this statement Macrobius' 99 In a work Introductoire d'astronomie, system, including the false assumption that he was embracing Heraclidean doctrines, was examined in manuscriptby Duhem and quoted known in the Middle Ages as the Egyptian by him in Le systeme du monde, 3, 150. 100 In Luccidator astrologiae, read in manusystem. See Dreyer, op. cit., p. 129. 97 For further arguments about the misinscript and quoted by Duhem, ibid., 153. 101 Opera (1612), 2, 213, cited by Dreyer, terpretation of this passage, see W H. Stahl,

Macrobius' Commnentary on the Dreamt of Scipio, pp. 249-250.

op. cit., p. 229.

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sounds like an echo of the heliocentric views of Aristarchusof Samos. It reads: The sun is called the regulatorof the other planetsbecauseit controlsthe departingand returningof eaclhplanet through a fixed allotmentof space. Each planet has a definitelimit which it reachesin its course away fromithe sun and then, as if forbiddento transgress,is seen to turn back, and again, when it reachesa certainpoint, it is recalledto its formerdirection. In this way the sun's power and influencedirect the movementsof the other planets over their appointedpaths [1.20.4-5]. These attraction-repulsionviews, possibly echoing Aristarchus' heliocentric theory, seem to have been embracedby Stoic philosophers to add to their arguments of solar physics. This is not the place to enter into the controversy as to whether Posidonius did or did not include these solar doctrines in his writings on astronomy. R. M. Jones feels that a philosopher of Posidonius' caliber would not be found guilty of embracing two irreconcilable orientaticns.'02 But when we observe that Cicero, Vitruvius, Pliny, Theon, Plutarch,l"" and Chalcidius, as well as Macrobius, either attempted to combine both sets of views or propounded them without acknowledging their irreconcilability, and that all these writers are commonly believed to have drawn much of their astronomy directly or indirectly from Posidonius, it does appear likely that Posidonius, too, embraced attraction-repulsiondoctrines and geocentric views at the same time. In this same chapter, which is devoted exclusively to the sun, we find Macrobius in a mood to impress his readers with his attainments as a scientist. He is ready to expose faulty procedures in the demonstrationsof Eratosthenes and Posidonius, just as we later find him treating with contempt views of Archimedesand Aristotle. Macrobius pretends to be quoting a statement from a work of Eratosthenes in which the sun is estimated to be twenty-seven times greater than the earth and he goes on to say that Posidonius' estimate is "many, many times greater." He then chides both these masters for resorting to circular reasoning in basing their results on lunar eclipses. When they wish to dem-nonstrate that the sun is greater than the earth, they use the proof of lunar eclipses, and when they wish to account for lunar eclipses, they base their proofs on the size of the sun. Macrobiu-s'absurd vanity here, of pretending to be representing mathematical demonstrations of Eratosthenes and Posidonius as faulty and his own as correct, is matched later on, when he pretends to be parading the views of Aristotle"4 only to topple them over, one by one, in the following chapter. First of all we may be sure that Macrobius did not read any of the masters he dismisses with contempt, and second, any modern scholar who bases his conclusions upon Macrobius' references to his predecessors is being deceived exactly as Macrobius' readers were in the Middle
Ages.'05
102 In "Posidonius and Solar Eschatology" (Classical Philology, 1932, 27: 122), Prof. Jones bases his negative view on a fragment from Geminus' epitome of Posidonius' Meteorologly in which Posidonius explains the anomalies in planetary motions either by epiycles or eccentrics. Jones feels that Posi-

donius could not have held both epicycliceccentric and attraction-repulsionviews at the same time. 103 De face in orbe lunae 15.
104 Macrobius 2.15.
105

F. Hultsch, Poscidontiosiiber die Grosse

itfzd Euttfernuniitg der Sonnt-e (Berlin, 1897), pp.

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Macrobius is now ready to offer his own spectacular demonstrations to estimate the sun's size. His estimates of planetary distances in millions of stades must have astounded his readers as cosmologists' recent estimates of intergalactic space in billions of light-years have astounded us. Macrobius pretends to be drawing his demonstrations from the ancient Egyptians, to him much more respectable authorities than Eratosthenes. Macrobius opens his breathtaking account with the bald declaration that the cone of the earth's shadow extends sixty earth-diameters and that the apex of the cone just reaches the sun's circle, and he offers no proof of these statements.'06 Macrobius then bases his calculations on Eratosthenes' estimate of the earth's circumferenceas 252,000 stades, giving Eratosthenes no credit for this figure, although he has just claimed to be rejecting Eratosthenes' method and has abused him for faulty procedure. The earth's diameter is then found to be 80,000 stades, "or slightly more." Multiplying this figure by 60 he gets 4,800,000 stades for the distance to the sun's orbit. Doubling that, he finds the diameter of the sun's orbit to be 9,600,000 stades, and by multiplying the diameter by 31,, he finds the sun's orbit to be roughly 30,170,000 stades. Very impressive indeed! Next he marks on a hemispherical bowl the shadow cast on the rim of the bowl when the sun is resting upon the horizon and finds that the angular diameter of the sun is ?1,/6 of its entire orbit. His result (1?40') is grossly excessive when compared with the figures of Cleomedes (28'48"), Aristarchus (30'), Ptolemy (mean figure 33'20"), and Capella (36'). The actual mean apparent size of the sun is 31'59". Dividing the length of the sun's orbit by 216, Macrobius arrives at a figure of slightly less than 140,000 stades for the sun's diameter. He now reminds his readers that geometrical methods show that when the diameter of one sphere is twice as great as the diameter of another sphere, the former sphere is really 8 times as great. And so, after all his tedious and, by his standards, careful calculations, he now concludes that the sun is 8 times as large as the earth. If he had taken the cube of 1:, (140,000:80,000) he would have gotten 5.36 instead of 8! It appears unlikely that Macrobius was able to compute the cube of fractions. Had he been familiar with the rudiments of geometry, he would have known that if the earth's cone extended as far as the sun's orbit and the sun's orbit were circular, as he assumes it to be, the sun's diameter would have been seen to be twice as great as the earth's and there would have been no need to pursue his tedious calculations. Perhaps one of Macrobius' predecessors had used the geometrical method'07and had obtained the result which Macrobius is strain5-6, gives an elaborate discussion of the comparison of Eratosthenes' estimate as reported by Macrobius and the dimensions of Posidonius as known from other sources, and concludes that Macrobius' statemenit that Posidonius' estimate is many times greater must refer to volume and not diameter. This discussion appears to be a waste of time when one sees that Macrobius probably knew no more about Eratosthenes than a schoolboy knows about Descartes or Laplace. Jones, op. cit., pp. 121122. is also unduly influencld by Macrobiis' citations. 106 This figure happenis to be approximately twice as great as the figures of Hipparchus and Ptolemy for the distance of the moon, and Macrobius approved of the Platonist view that the sun's distance was twice as great as the moon's. It may be that the encyclopedist or Neoplatonist from whom Macrobius drew this demonstration arrived at his figure in this manner. 107 Cleomedes 2.78 does.

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ing to arrive at here. Nevertheless Macrobius' estimate of the sun's size as 8 times the earth's size was widely accepted in the Middle Ages.'08 In the next chapter (1.21) Macrobius continues to dazzle his readers with his scientific attainments and again he credits the ancient Egyptians with originating the spectacular procedures he sets forth."'9 He purports to be describing how the Egyptians marked off the twelve signs of the zodiac. They constructed two copper vessels, one having an opening at the bottom, like that of a clepsydra. The perforated vessel, with its hole stopped, was filled with water and placed above the empty vessel. At the moment when a conspicuous star was rising above the horizon, the stopper was removed and the water allowed to flow into the vessel beneath. The flow continued through the following day until that moment in the following night when the same star returned to the horizon. The water in the lower vessel was then divided into twelve equal parts. Then his ingenious Egyptians procured two more vessels, each with a capacity of one of the twelve parts of water. Next they poured all twelve parts of water into the perforated container and placed one of the smaller containers beneath it. When the configurationwhich they later called Aries first began to appear on the eastern horizon, they let the water flow into one small container. At the moment when this became filled, the other small container was substituted and notation was made of the conspicuous star on the horizon that was to mark the end of Aries and the beginning of Taurus. Thus they were able to mark off six divisions in the belt of configurated stars along the ecliptic at that season and the process was repeated six months later to complete the demarcationsof the zodiac. In ascertaining the relative distances of the planets Macrobius summarily rejects Archimedes' figures and adopts (2.3.13-15) the estimates set forth by Porphyry in his Commentaryon the Timaeus. This is Macrobius' only reference to this lost work, which is generally regarded as the chief source of his Commentary. It is evident that Porphyry's distances were based upon the numbers used by the Creator of the World-Soul in Plato's Timaeus. Macrobius had employed the so-called lambda diagram (1.6.46), which, according to Plutarch,"10 was used by Crantor, the first Timaeus commentator,to arrange the numbers used in the fabrication of the World-Soul, and later he showed (2.2.15-23) that the ratios arising from the same numbersproduce the harmony of the spheres. Naturally the ratios producing the harmony of the spheres would determine the distances of the planets (2.3.11-14). In the concluding chapter of his section on astronomy, Macrobius offers his proofs that the earth is at the exact center of the universe. After rebuking Eratosthenes and Posidonius a little earlier for using circular reasoning, he now opines that "those reasons are truly incontrovertible which are mutually confirmed, the one substantiating the other and each arising from the other" (1.22.2), and proceeds to give as fine an example of circular reasoning as one could hope to find. All things are drawn towards the earth since, being the
108 Helpericus of Auxerre, De coi putto 20; Honorius of Autun, Dc philosophia 2.32; Dc solis affectibus 3; William of Conches, Pcri didaxeon, cited by Dreyer, op. cit., p. 229, Wright, op. cit., p. 155. 109 This time Macrobius is not alone in at-

tributing a discovery to the Egyptians. Cleomedes 2.75 also gives them credit for devising the apparatus here described. Capella 860 uses similar apparatus to determine the angular diameter of the moon as Vooo of 3600. 110 Dc aiiniae procreatione 1027d.

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middle, it does not move; it does not move because it is at the bottom (the center of a sphere is stationary and the middle is the bottom); finally it must be at the bottom since all things are drawn towards it. Of all the matter that went into the creation of the universe, the purest and clearest took the highest position and is called ether; the part that had some impurity and weight became air; then came that part which is still clear but corporeal, water; lastly came the dregs, the solid matter of the universe, namely, earth. Compact air close to the earth supports it on all sides and by its density keeps the earth in place."' 4 The geographical section of Macrobius' Commentary (2.5-9), though very brief, was at least as influentialin the Middle Ages as his section on astronomy. Macrobius and Capella were largely responsible for the revival and popularity in the Middle Ages of the Cratesian theory of an equatorial and meridional ocean dividing the earth into four quarters, each of which was believed to be inhabited, and for the wide adoption of Eratosthenes' figure of 252,000 stades for the circumference of the earth. Their influence culminated in the period of the tenth to twelfth centuries, when they are acknowledged to have been the most influential authorities on geographical subjects."12 Crates of Mallos, Librarian at Pergamum, who visited Rome as an envoy in 165 B.C., developed his conceptions about the earth and its habitations in a work (lost) dealing with the geographical knowledge of Homer. He maintained that the earth was divided into four quarters, each quarter being separated from the others by an ocean girding the earth at the equator and another ocean, branching off meridionally from the main equatorial ocean, also girding the earth and separating the eastern and western hemispheres. He explained the tides as resulting from a collision of the meridional ocean streams at the poles. Each of the other three quarters was an inhabited world like the known world. Macrobius was led to propound Crates' views through finding echoes of them in a passage in Cicero's Dream of Scipio."13 In commenting upon this passage Macrobius offers a clear statement of the Cratesian theories and perhaps goes farther than Crates, for he states confidently that there is a sea corresponding to the Mediterranean in the temperate zone of the southern hemisphere. He is unable to verify the statement and to show the location of the sea on the map which was drawn to accompany his text. Perhaps it was his fondness for symmetry that led him to conclude that the Caspian was a great bay opening on the Eastern Ocean. It would then cor1'1 Wright, op. cit., pp. 154-155, thinks Adelard and John of Holywood do not comprehend Aristotle's reasoning when they are really following Macrobius'arguments for the earth's being in the center. 112 Wright, op. cit., pp. 11, 55, 155, 160, 360367, 386; Kimble, op. cit., pp. 8-9, 11, 24. Macrobius and Capella were mainly responsiblefor transmitting Cratesian views to the Middle Ages. See Wright, op. cit., pp. 18, 158-159, 192-194, 258, 460; Thomson, op. cit., p. 217;

Duhem, op. cit., 3, 112; Kimble, op cit., pp. 155, 164-165. 113 SOm1tnium Scipionis 6.1-3. Macrobius did not draw the doctrines directly fronmCrates but probably found them in some encyclopedist's wvritings or in Porphyry's Commentary
o;& the trines. Tihnaeus. Cleomedes 1.33-34 and

Geminus 16.1-2 present the Cratesian docReinhardt, Pauly-Wissozwa, 1953, 22,

667, points out that the Cratesian theories were embracedby Posidonius.

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respond to the Mediterranean in the West. The Macrobian manuscript maps became the models for one of the commonest types of medieval mappaemundi, the so-called zone maps."14 Wherever the Cratesian views were circulated in the Middle Ages they were likely to stir up controversies. In classical antiquity Lucretius and Plutarch had scoffed at the idea of antipodeans, and Lactantiusl" and Augustine,"' in refusing to accept such doctrines, served as guides to clergymen who came upon these doctrines in the works of Macrobius and Capella. Whether the clergy actually regarded the acceptance of a spherical earth and antipodeans as heretical has been a subject of controversy among modern scholars."' The puzzling phenomena of the tides also proved to be a bone of contention. Macrobius, in propoundingCrates' explanation of great collisions at the north and south poles causing tidal effects, took a retrogressive step, but in doing so became one of the leading authorities on tides. The other leading explanation, the lunar theory, was widely circulated in the Middle Ages in the writings of Pliny and Bede. Pliny may have derived his views from Posidonius, who, according to Strabo, made observations of the tides at Cadiz. Another dispute arose over the question of the habitability of the torrid zone. Adherents of the Cratesian theory had to abandon the original view that the tropic was the limit of human habitation as explorers continued to report habitation along the upper Nile or the Gulf of Aden far beyond the tropic. Eratosthenes placed the latitude of the Cinnamon Coast and Ceylon at 8,400 stades south of the tropic (12?N). Posidonius firmly maintained that the torrid zone was habitable and Cleomedesl8 presents his reason. Pliny,"' perhaps as a result of an expedition sent by Nero to determine the sources of the Nile, pushed his southern limit of human habitation to 4?N. Macrobius gives the same measurement for the zones as Geminus and Theon and admits habitation only 4,600 stades south of the tropic. The south temperate zone, according to him, has exactly the same dimensions, but communications will never be possible because of the burning heat. The assumption of an equatorial ocean is attributed by Macrobius to the natural philosophers, who taught that since ethereal fire requires water for nourishment, nature saw fit to place the broad belt of ocean directly beneath the sun's course (2.10.10).120 The temperate zones, extending like great belts about the earth, afford human habitation over their entire extent. Inhabitants of the northern, southern, eastern, and western hemispheres may be diametrically or transversely opposed to each other, but there is no fear of their falling off the earth into space since the earth is at the bottom of the universe and they all have earth beneath them and sky above. The inhabitants of the southern hemisphere do, however, have winter when it is summer in the northernhemisphere,
114 See M. C. Andrews, "The Study and York, 1931), pp. 145-146; Dreyer, op. cit., p. Classification of Medieval Mappae Mundi," 224; Thomson, op. cit., p. 386. 118 1.32. Archaeologia, 1925, 75: 71; Beazley, op. cit., 119 See Wright, op. cit., p. 41. 2, 570-576; 625-626. 120 Cf. Cleomedes 1.33; Porphyry De antro 5 Divinae institutiones3.24.
110 117

De civitate dei 16.9.

tyinphcarrin

71;

Stobaeus

Eclogae

526.

Does

Wright, op. cit., pp. 56-57, 160-161,383384, 386; M. L. W Laistlner, Thought and Letters in WesternEurope A.D. 500-900 (New

this perhaps itndicatethat Macrobius derived his geography from Porphyry's Commentary
otn the Ti)11aetts?

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and inhabitants of the eastern hemisphere have daylight when it is night in the western hemisphere. 5 A third encyclopedist of this period to be accorded a position as one of. the leading authorities in medieval science was Chalcidius, author of a translation and commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Chalcidius had a particularly strong influence upon Christian writers and is also noteworthy as our sole ancient authority for crediting Heraclides of Pontus with discovering the heliocentric motions of Venus and Mercury. Practically nothing is known about Chalcidius' life. He dedicated his work to a certain Osius, identified by some scholars with the Bishop of Cordova who attended the Council of Nicaea in 325 and later became St. Osius. Duhem regards the identification as possible but doubtful, since Chalcidius in his commentary reveals himself to be well versed in Biblical exegesis and JudaeoChristian controversy, but a closer disciple of Philo Judaeus than of Christian teachers.12' Though Duhem withholds his acceptance of the identification of Chalcidius' friend with the bishop, he is inclined to assign the date for the preparation of this work to that very period, the beginning of the fourth century.' Wrobel,'" the latest editor of Chalcidius' book, and Wilhelm Kroll,'1 favor the identification and regard Chalcidius as a Christian. The real nature of Chalcidius' cosmography was not known until 1849, when the brilliant T. H. Martin edited for the first time the astronomical portion of a commentary on Plato prepared by Theon of Smyrna. Martin then pointed out that the cosmographical section of Chalcidius' commentary was mainly a translation of Theon's work. In fact, Chalcidius' translation is for the most part so faithful that Wrobel, in his Teubner edition of Chalcidius in 1876, and Hiller, in his Teubner edition of Theon in 1878, were able to emend and restore readings in their texts by comparing the two works. Chalcidius generally follows Theon closely until he comes to a passage which he either himself does not understand or feels is too complicated for his readers, at which time he omits to translate the original passage or substitutes a simpler explanation. Theon graciously acknowledges his heavy indebtedness to Adrastus in many places but Chalcidius, as we might expect of a Latin encyclopedist, does not mention Theon or Adrastus among the fortyeight authorities he cites. When he finds in the original the phrase "as Adrastus says," he omits it while translating or paraphrasing everything else. Instead, he pretends to be relying upon such impossible or unlikely sources as Orpheus, Musaeus, Linus, Thales, Pythagoras, and Timaeus.
The opening chapters of Chalcidius' cosmography (59-61),15 containing

proofs of the spherical nature of the universe and the earth, are a rather free translation of the opening paragraphs of Theon's section on astronomy. At this point Chalcidius' translation of Theon becomes quite close as he proceeds with demonstrations, geometrical and real, of the global shape of
the surface of the seas and lands (62-63).1
121

21

Then follow numerous common-

122 Ibid., 161. 123 Platontis Timaeus intcrprctc' Ch71cidio inetftario (Leipzig, 1876), pp. c-iio ciistdei corni

Duhem, op. cit., 2, 419-424.

ix-xii.

124'Patly-Wissowa, 1899, 3, 2042-2043. 125 Cf. Tlieoii 120-122. 126 Cf. Theon 122-124.

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H. STAHL \WILLIAM4

places of the handbooks: that the earth is at the midpoint of the universe, that the earth's size is but a point in comparison with the size of the universe, and that the celestial sphere rotates on an axis drawn through the center of the earth (64-65) .' Chalcidius next defines the celestial circles: arctic, antarctic, equator, tropics, zodiac, horizon, and meridian. The sun, moon, and five planets keep to the zodiac in their courses (65-68).128 The fixed stars are borne along in the uniform motion of the rotating celestial sphere, never changing their respective positions, points of rising, size, or color. The sun, moon, and five planets have independent motions in latitude and longitude and some are seen to change in apparent size or speed as they range nearer to or farther from the earth (69 ) . ' Motions in latitude and longitude vary for the different planets. The sun's
inclination is smallest, V'iiin Libra;"'` Saturn has an inclination of 30, Mars and Jupiter 50, Mercury 8', and Venus and the moon 12;'. The moon comdays, the sun in a year, Mercury and Venus in varying pletes its orbit in 27%/3

periods of a year more or less, Mars in 2 years, Jupiter in approximately 12 years, and Saturn in nearly 30 years. Three planets range freely away from the sun and are sometimes found diametrically opposite it; but Mercury and Venus stay close to the sun, Mercury's greatest eastward or westward elongation being 20? and Venus' 500. Next the heliacal and acronychal risings of the planets and stars are defined (70-71).'.;' Certain Pythagoreans maintain the order of the planets as moon, Mercury, Venus, sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, wishing the sun to have the middle position as the heart of the universe. Eratosthenes' order places the sun
immediately above the moon (72-73).
1
2

The sun and moon have constant

and direct motions into the signs behind them. Not so with the other planets, which experience progressions, stations, and retrogradations. The sublunary expanse is a realm of change, of birth, death, increase, decrease, and movement from place to place. The underlying cause of all this change is the errant motions in latitude of the planets, particularly of the sun and moon, and the stations and retrogradationsof the other planets (74-77) .13 First, Chalcidius discusses the anomalies in the sun's orbit. The duration solstice there of its orbit is 3651/4 days, but from vernal equinox to sumnmer are 941/. days, from summer solstice to autumnal equinox 921/, days, from autumnal equinox to winter solstice 881;/ days, and from winter solstice to vernal equinox 90%/days. The sun's course appears to be slowest in Gemini and swiftest in Sagittarius. He uses geometrical diagrams to account for the sun's anomalies: either an eccentric orbit for the sun or a scheme of epicyclic motions will save the phenomena (78-82).'' Epicyclic motions will account
1' Cf. Theoni 128-129. The substance of a lacuna in Theoni's text iay be suI)p)liC(lfrom Chalci(lius' tranislationi. 12S Cf. Tlheon 129-133. 129 Cf. Theoni 134-135. Johln the Scot has planets takinig onl (lifferenit colors, dep)ending oni the regionis they are traversinig. He attributes these (loctrinies to P'lato hut assure(lyv got themiifrom Chalci(lius. See Duhemii,op. Xit., 3. 46, 61; Dreyer, op. cit.. ). 105; Chalcidius 73. But Duheem is miiistakeniabout Johli the Scot iiot beillg inifluenice(d by MIacrobius. See Johlmice .Scottii.v. AInnoltatiwwi in Alhircimu,llu . e(l. by C. El. Lutz (Camiibri(dge,Mass., 1939),
1). xx.

1::4l ()n the supposed ilnctilationi of the suin to the ecli)tic, see D)reyer, )P. cit. p). 94-95. 1::i Cf. Theon 135-138. 1:;2 Cf. T leon 138-143. :4:: Cf. Ti'hemo 147-150. 1:14 Cf. Tlieoni 147-150.

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for the progressions, stations, and retrogradationsof the planets. A diagram is introduced to explain the behaviour of the planets. Mathematicians prefer to have the planets describe clockwise epicyclic motions while the centers of the epicycles move along deferents in a counterclockwisedirection. Natural philosophers prefer to have both epicyclic and deferent motions in a counterclockwise direction. Either case accounts for the stations and retrogradations equally well (84-86). 1'` Chalcidius next discusses occultations, introducing diagrams to show what forms the shadow takes if the luminous body is larger, smaller, or the same size as the occulting body. The moon and sun are not eclipsed each month because the sun declines '.? from the ecliptic in Libra A work of Hipparchus and the moon declines 100, according to Hipparchus.1"'t is cited to indicate the relative sizes of the sun and moon. The sun is 1880 times as large as the moon."' Consequently the shadow cast by the occulting body will be conical-shaped and partial eclipses will frequently occur (87-91) . The most important chapters in Chalcidius' astronomy are involved in his attempt to explain the words enantian dvnarminin Plato's Timaeus 38d. Some suppose that the "opposite tendency" refers to the contrariness between the sun's natural motion from east to west and its epicyclic motion in the course of a year from west to east; others think that the contrariness refers to the motions of Venus and Mercury which alternately overtake, or are overtaken by, the sun and appear ahead of the sun as morning stars and behind it as evening stars (109). Chalcidius then proceeds to explain the views of Heraclides of Pontus, referring only to the motions of Venus although it is generally supposed that he intended to include Mercury's motions in this explanation. Chalcidius imputes to Heraclides a system in which the sun and Venus have concentric epicycles, Venus appearing at times above and at times below the sun and never exceeding 500 of eastward or westward elongation (110-111). The evidence is clear that Heraclides did not introduce epicycles into his system.':' In the next chapter Chalcidius gets still farther from the truth in ascribing an epicyclic system for the sun, Mercury, and Venus to Plato. This time the epicycles are not concentric but separate, the deferents of Mercury and Venus being beyond that of the sun (112). 6 The conclusions of this paper may be stated briefly. When Latin writers before the twelfth century cite Ptolenmyas their authority, they should be suspected of fraud. In the preparation of this paper I have encountered numerous references to Ptolemy, all but one being obvious deceptions. That the one exception gives Ptolemy's estimate of the earth's circumference correctly may be nothing more than a coincidence and that reference, too, may
135

Cf. Theon 178-192.

gave the moon's (lecliniatioln as 12?. He actually derived Hipl)archus' figure from Theon 194. 137 These figures refer to volume. The sun's diamlieter would be 12%/ times thle carthi's an(d the earth's 3 times the moon's. Again the figures attributed to Hipparchus comiie from

136 Chalcidius above (70)

Tlieoii 197. l ;sCf. Tlheoni 192-198. 1:;'['rlhe interpretation of Chalcidius' chapters on Plato's imieaniniganid otn Heraclides' views has been discussed at length by A. E. Taylor, A Coimmcntal(i onz.Plato's Timi(acuis, pp. 196-202; Heath, A4ristarchus of Samos. pp. 256-258; Drcyer, op. cit., pp. 126-130.

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WILLIAM H. STAHL

be fraudulent. Instead of Ptolemy holding a dominant position, we find a rather stereotyped tradition of encyclopedic science going back to the Hellenistic period. The shoddy and benighted character of encyclopedic science is evident. (1) Encyclopedists conceal their plundering by suppressing their sources and attributing their doctrines to early masters. (2) Latin encyclopedists after Pliny have only the slightest inkling of the specific contributions of the Hellenistic Greeks. They acknowledge these Greeks as their authorities, claim to be drawing their doctrines and data from them, but are about as aware of the true nature of the Greek achievements as a boy, who knows only the story of the apple, is of the true meaning of Newton's work. (3) Pliny and the Latin encyclopedists who followed in his train do not realize that in the process of incorporatingstatements of various predecessors they are often found embracing incompatible doctrines, sometimes in successive paragraphs. They also lack the critical sense of a scientist or scholar, for at one time they record a figure of 252,000 stades for the earth's circumference and at another 406,010 stades, they mark the maximum elongations of Venus and Mercury as 50? and 230 in one place and 460 and 22? in another place, or they state that the northern and southern hemispheres have contrary seasons and elsewhere state that the seasons are the same. (4) The encyclopedists are wholly bookish in their instincts. They may have been quite familiar with the geography of a country through having spent a lifetime there, yet they prefer to preserve the scanty or faulty information about that country found in some handbook. Lastly, in this writer's opinion, an exhaustive study of the transmission of Hellenistic science through the Latin encyclopedists would produce enough evidence either to indicate that Posidonius did write a Timaeus commentary, or to thrust upon those who deny the existence of this work the burden of showing in which other lost work or works by Posidonius this rather well-defined body of encyclopedic astronomy did appear.