Diodo ̄ros wrote on theology and scriptural exegesis (fragments of his commentaries in PG
33.1546–1628); he attacked P and P.
Pho ̄tios (Bibl. 223), calling Diodo ̄ros knowledge-loving and wise and his arguments clear
and rigorous, epitomized his Against Destiny, directed against B, including his
theories of cosmogony, astrology, astronomy, ethnology, and zoology. Diodo ̄ros, Book 2,
contended that the entire kosmos and its matter were created, perishing and coming to be
again and again, and that all is governed by the creator (209a–210a). In Book 3, he argued
against a spherical heaven (210ab), and against geographical astrology, since each sign
would affect all regions alike (210b–211a); he disparaged astrological explanations of plan-
etary retrograde motion, the variable apparent size of the Moon, and the relative sizes of
the Sun, Moon, and Saturn (211b). Diodo ̄ros, in Book 4, used the Sun to explain the Earth’s
climatic zones, discounting the effects of astral movement [212b], and considered Greek
astrology inadequate to explain the diversity of colors, figures, and qualities of living
things [213b], much less (Book 5) explain the course of a human life [214a] or even
the color-changing chameleon that harmonizes itself to its environment [215b]. In Book
6 (217b–218b) Diodo ̄ros advanced arguments regarding causality, Book 7 (218b–220b) con-
cerned the problem of evil, and Book 8 (220b) attempted a non-spherical cosmology based
on Hebrew scripture (cf. L and K).
The Souda (Delta-1149) preserves numerous other titles surviving in scant fragments,
including the following nine “scientific” treatises (many of which may be parts of a larger
work on natural philosophy): On the Sphere and the Seven Zones and of the Contrary Motion of the
Stars, On Hipparkhos’ Sphere, On Nature and Matter, That the Unseen Natures are not from the Elements
but Were Made from Nothing along with the Elements, Against Aristotle concerning Celestial Body, How
Hot is the Sun, Against Those Who Say the Heaven is a Living Being, On the Question of How the Creator
is Forever but the Created is Not, Against Porphurios about Animals and Sacrifices.
ODB 626 – 627, B. Baldwin and A. Kazhdan.
PTK and GLIM
Diodotos (Astr. I) (95 – 60 BCE?)
Wrote a lost commentary on A (FGrHist 1026 T19); perhaps the brother of B
S (P.) (S 16.2.24), or else the Stoic teacher of C.
Maass, Aratea (1892) 159; RE 5.1 (1903) 715 (#11), von Arnim, (#12) E. Martini.
PTK
Diodotos (Astr. II) (190 – 230 CE)
Called the foremost astrologos of his time by A A, who reports his
denial that reflection from the Peripatetic exhalation could produce an image of the Sun
that would appear as a comet in the southern sky (In Meteor. 1.6, CAG 3.2 [1899] 28).
RE 5.1 (1903) 715 (#16), F. Boll; Wilson (2008).
PTK
Diodotos (Pharm.) (10 – 30 CE)
Among the Askle ̄piadeans mentioned by D (pr.2) distinguished by their
“vain prating about causation [who] have explained the actions of an individual drug by
DIODOTOS (ASTR. I)