Ed.: J. Whittaker and P. Louis, Alcinoos. Enseignement des doctrines de Platon (CUF 1990); J. Dillon, trans.,
Alcinous. The Handbook of Platonism (1993).
DPA 1 (1989) 96–97, J. Whittaker; OCD3 54, J. Dillon; BNP 1 (2002) 452 (#2), M. Baltes.
Jan Opsomer
Alkmaio ̄n of Kroto ̄n (ca 500 – 480 BCE)
As a natural philosopher Alkmaio ̄n belonged to the Pythagorean school and as a doctor to
the Krotonian medical school. His book On Nature, preserved in several fragments and
testimonia, is addressed to three Pythagoreans (B1 DK), and several later Pythagoreans
(M, I, H, P) shared his interest in natural science and
medicine.
Following X, Alkmaio ̄n insisted that human cognition is limited and has to
rely on the empirical evidence (B1). He revealed no interest in cosmogony and very little in
cosmology. Apart from the old Ionian views, Alkmaio ̄n shared some ideas of Pythagorean
astronomy, e.g. the motion of the planets from west to east, which he most likely conceived
as circular (A4, 12). In Pre-Socratic thought he was a founder of the trend that focused on
the human body, its nature and functioning. He transferred P’ idea of the
qualitative opposite principles from cosmic to human realm (“most human affairs go in
pairs,” A1) and based on it his theory that health is kept due to “equality” of the forces
(isonomia to ̄n dunameo ̄n) – wet, dry, cold, hot, bitter, sweet, etc. – whereas domination (mon-
arkhia) of one of them causes diseases (B4). (Isonomia is understood here in the spirit of the
Pythagorean aristocracy, to which Alkmaio ̄n belonged politically, and not in the later
democratic sense.) Alkmaio ̄n’s theory also took into account external factors (character of
place, water, etc.) and, contrary to the later schemes, did not fix the number of the contrar-
ieties. To keep and restore their balance is the task of the rational dietetics that became a
cornerstone of Pythagorean medicine and through the authors of the Hippokratic corpus
exerted powerful influence throughout Greek medicine.
As a pioneer in anatomic research, Alkmaio ̄n discovered the optic nerves, visibly con-
nected with the brain (A10). Hence his ingenious conclusion that all the senses (sight, hear-
ing, smell, taste) are transferred through special channels (poroi) from organs of sense (eyes,
ears, nose, tongue) to the brain, which is the center of consciousness. Alkmaio ̄n was the first
to distinguish between intelligence and perception; both of them inhere in humans, animals
possess only perception (A5–9). His embryology is understandably more primitive: semen
comes from the brain, embryos from the mixture of male and female semen; sex of the
child depends on whose semen was stronger (A13–14).
Alkmaio ̄n regarded the soul as immortal; like the immortal heavenly bodies it is in eternal
circular motion (A12). Apparently, he distinguished between intelligence located in the
brain and the soul located, probably, in the heart (A18; cf. similar theory of Philolaos,
44 A13 DK). The soul is responsible for locomotion and perception, which are inherent in
animals as well. Humans die “because they cannot connect the beginning with the end”
(B2), i.e. when circular motion of the soul ceases.
DK 24; G.E.R. Lloyd, “Alcmaeon and the early history of dissection,” Sudhoffs Archiv 59 (1975) 113–147;
Longrigg (1993); Zhmud (1997); L. Perilli, “Alcmeone di Crotone tra filosofia e scienza,” QUCC 69
(2001) 55–79.
Leonid Zhmud
ALKMAIO ̄N OF KROTO ̄N