INTRODUCTION
This work provides a synoptic survey of all “ancient,” i.e., Greek and Greek-based, natural
science, broadly defined, from its beginnings through the end of late antiquity, for the
benefit of anyone interested in the history of science. Greek science is a central field for the
understanding of antiquity – more of Greek science survives than does any other category
of ancient Greek literature, and yet much of that is obscure even to classicists.
It is proper to describe the work of the people included herein as “science,” with no more
risk of anachronism than in using any modern term to refer to a corresponding ancient
practice, because the ancient models of nature, whether correct or not, were indeed
attempts at models. That is, they were created and debated as abstracted descriptions of
phenomena, intended to give a naturalistic and self-consistent causal account, of a world
viewed as regular or constant in its behavior. Their methods and aims were scientific, even
when their theoretical entities or intellectual achievements are ones we now perceive as
inadequate. Histories of science must be comprehensive, including all abandoned paths,
since roads not taken seem evitable only in hindsight.
I. Scope. Natural science is a conceptual territory which cannot be precisely distinguished
from other intellectual activities, and which resembles but is distinct from magic, philosophy,
technology, and theology. Science borders on philosophy (we exclude metaphysics, ethics,
and epistemology), lies near technology (we exclude writers who only record technological
achievements, such as lists of manmade wonders or non-medical cookbooks), has affinity
with magic (we exclude theurgy and all incantations, but we include astrology and alchemy),
and touches on theology (we exclude divine cosmogonies and the theology of the soul). We
prefer to err on the side of inclusion, so that readers working in or near the area of ancient
science will be able to consult the work with profit, and thus we include writers and works
whose topics lie on our margins, so long as it seems likely that they wrote on relevant topics.
Most of the results and theories of ancient science would no longer pass muster as scientific
(humoral medicine no more than astrology), but our principle of inclusion is to ask whether
the endeavor was to understand or model some aspect of the natural world on the basis of
investigation and reason, without recourse to hypotheses about purposive agents, and with-
out reliance on tradition per se.
Texts of ancient writers often survive by accident or despite the ever-changing tastes of
copyists and their patrons. Textual remains rarely represent what contemporaries would
have agreed were the most important works: Strabo ̄n for example seems almost unknown to
his contemporaries, who cite and use works now lost. Many lost works, known to have been
widely read and very influential during antiquity, perished only later. Thus, to present only