before Pythagoras, the Greek mathematician usually credited
with discovering the relationship between the squares of a
triangle’s sides and that of its hypotenuse. Clearly, the ancient
megalith builders understood principles of measurement and
engineering. Measurement was also vital to European farm-
ers, who had to devise ways to measure agricultural output
and fi elds.
Extending back to the Neolithic Period the ancient Eu-
ropeans were keen observers of the skies. A bronze disk with
gold inlays found at Nebra in central Germany and dated to
about 1600 b.c.e. is a controversial fi nd owing to the circum-
stances of its discovery, but it is interpreted as bearing a depic-
tion of the star cluster known as the Pleiades. By the time of
the Roman Empire, Roman historians were praising the Celts
for their astronomical skill. Th e writer Martial (ca. 40–103
c.e.), for example, noted that the Celts believed that the world
was round, not fl at. Th e Celts devised an astronomical calen-
dar as far back as 1100 b.c.e., and for many years the ancient
Greeks debated the question of whether the Celts borrowed
their astronomical skills from the Greeks or the Greeks bor-
rowed them from the Celts. In either case the Celts kept me-
ticulous records of astronomical events and were even able to
predict many regularly recurring events. A good example is
provided by the tides and their relationship with the phases
of the moon. A primary motivation was not simple human
curiosity but the desire to understand the will of the gods,
including the later Christian God, and to exert some measure
of control over natural forces.GREECE
BY PHILIPPA LANG
In ancient Greece before the sixth century b.c.e. people could
roughly predict the movements of the stars and constella-
tions throughout the year, relate the movements to seasonal
change, and use the stars to navigate their boats and ships.
Th ey had the technology to make metals and other materials,
such as pottery, both for practical use and pure decoration.
Th ey used plants and foodstuff s for medicine, and they had
stories that explained the world around them and its origins,
usually in terms of gods. Th e sea god Poseidon was the cause
of earthquakes, and thunder came from Zeus. None of this is
what is now called science. No word for science existed in an-
cient Greece, and the category of science, its methods, aims,
and content, is a modern construction that does not transfer
back to the distant past.
From the sixth century b.c.e. onward, however, some
Greeks developed ways of thinking about the world and ef-
forts at controlling it that were similar enough to the mod-
ern concept of science that the term can be used. Ancient
science can be defi ned as attempts to explain, understand,
predict, and sometimes control the natural world. But it is
important to realize that the ancient Greeks did not think of
themselves as doing science, and they had no agreed-upon
scientifi c method.In the sixth century b.c.e. a small group of people now
known as the pre-Socratics developed several theories about
the origins of the universe and its fundamental components.
Th ese theories survive only as fragmentary summaries and
quotations in later writers, so not very much is known about
them. Th ey did not agree with one another, but what they had
in common was the belief that the universe had a consistent
and ordered nature that could be understood and explained
by human reason. Th e Greek word for nature is physis, which
is where the modern word physics comes from. Th e theories
explain natural phenomena without involving traditional
gods or other supernatural forces, though they may describe
natural forces in terms of the gods or they may view the whole
of ordered nature as itself divine. Th is new approach is now
oft en called naturalistic or natural philosophy. Th ales, the ear-
liest pre-Socratic, suggested that the world fl oated on water
and that earthquakes were caused by waves, not by Poseidon.
Xenophanes looked at fossils of fi sh and argued that they
showed parts of the earth had long ago been under water.
Most pre-Socratics also argued that the world and every-
thing in it was made out of the combination of a very few
elements, or sometimes that it was only one element in many
diff erent forms. Such basic elements were usually earth, air,
fi re, and water, but there were also other views. Democritus
theorized that the basic units of matter were tiny unbreak-
able shapes called atoms that fell through a void. When they
collided and stuck together, they made larger objects of many
diff erent kinds.
Another common pre-Socratic theme was a concern
with what counts as truth and what kinds of evidence are re-
liable. Th is concern is called epistemology, the study of theo-
ries about knowledge, truth, and reliability, and it is closely
related to science. But pre-Socratics were not scientists. Later
Greek thought called them philosophers, which means “those
who love knowledge.” Pre-Socratic inquiries made little to no
use of experiment and appealed selectively to everyday ob-
servations. Th ey agreed neither on most theories nor on how
to evaluate them and decide which is better, or more nearly
true. Th ey were oft en as interested in ethics and politics as
in scientifi c topics. Most pre-Socratics were charismatic in-
dividualists with radical and highly speculative views, rather
than scientists in any modern sense. For example, Empedo-
cles was a wonder-worker who claimed to be able to control
the weather and cure the sick.ARISTOTLE
Th e philosopher Aristotle (fourth century b.c.e.) was the fi rst
person to do something very similar to science as it is under-
stood now. He argued that the causes of things were within
the natural world and could be explained by a careful investi-
gation of nature. He systematically collected information on
living creatures and classifi ed them by types and characteris-
tics, trying to grasp how things worked and why. He dissected
many animals; made fi rst-hand observations of insects, fi sh,
mammals, and birds; and asked experts and specialists suchscience: Greece 9370895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i937 937 10/10/07 2:30:29 PM