Kosma ̄s of Alexandria, Indikopleuste ̄s (530 – 570 CE)
Merchant who wrote a Christian Topography between 535 and 547. Kosma ̄s aimed to produce
a thoroughly Christian view of the world. He attacked the theory of a spherical Earth as
pagan and argued that, according to the Bible, the Earth was flat and rectangular and
the shape of the world resembled the Tabernacle of Moses. In Kosma ̄s’ view, the Earth is
divided into two parts, covered by heaven as if by a roof. The part on which we now live is
surrounded by ocean. The other part of the Earth, which people inhabited at one time
before the Flood and which contains Paradise, encircles the ocean. These ideas were not
universally accepted in the Byzantine Empire. Judging from the number of surviving
MSS, Kosma ̄s’ work had a limited circulation in the Greek world and remained inaccessible
to the Latin West. Kosma ̄s’ work was, however, translated into Slavic languages (Russian,
Bulgarian, and Serbian).
Ed.: W. Wolska-Conus, La topographie chrétienne de Cosmas Indicopleustès 3 vv. (1968–1973).
KP 3.315–316, F. Lasserre; HLB 1.528–530; ODB 1151 – 1152, B. Baldwin and A. Cutler; PLRE 3
(1992) 355–356; OCD3 404, S.J.B. Barnish; TTE 129 – 131, W. Wolska-Conus; BNP 3 (2003) 861– 862
(#2), K. Brodersen.
Natalia Lozovsky
K ⇒ K
Kosmos (80 – 100 CE)
M B cites remedies from Kosmos: (a) trokhiskos for the eyes,
with myrrh, saffron, and other aromatics or imports, such as bdellium, cardamom, or
kostos (8.8, 14: CML 5, pp. 115–116), (b) for pain, also with myrrh and saffron, plus cassia
(14.45, p. 240), and (c) a complex trokhiskos for intestinal disorders and serpent bites,
again with myrrh and saffron, plus aromatics and imports including malabathron (20.19,
p. 332). Kosmos also revised A’ collyrium (8.11, p. 115) and offered a purgative
(30.28, p. 528). A P., in G CMLoc 7.5 (13.100 K.), cites Kosmos’
remedy for excess wetness: myrrh and ground pepper in Attic honey boiled to gumminess
(Kühn prints ΚΟΣΟΥ). Probably the same Kosmos is ridiculed by Martial for his use of
“leaf” (11.18.9, 14.146.1: i.e., malabathron) and other aromatics (3.55.1, 9.26.2, 14.59.2),
in remedies made into pastillae.
RE 11.2 (1922) 1499 (#2), A. Stein, (#4), F.E. Kind.
PTK
On the Kosmos (80 – 20 BCE)
This anonymous work addressed to an Alexander, “best of rulers,” depends on C-
and P, but a few scholars attribute it to A. The author described
the kosmos as a “system of heaven and earth and the elements contained in them.” He
added aithe ̄r to the Aristotelian elements fire, air, water, and earth, and arranged them in
four concentric spherical shells around a central spherical Earth. Phenomena of the planets,
Moon and Sun, whose endless uniform circular motions showed them to be composed
of material fundamentally distinct from mundane matter, occurred in aithe ̄r, while irregu-
lar events such as comets, haloes, or meteors were fiery. The planets orbited on the
“different” geocentric circles of A’ epicyclical model, in the order, from Earth
outwards: Moon, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The author named Saturn
ON THE KOSMOS