R.B. Kebric, In the Shadow of Macedon: Duris of Samos (1977); D. Knoepfler, “Trois historiens hellénis-
tiques: Douris de Samos, Hiéronymos de Cardia, Philochore d’Athènes,” in Histoire et Historiographie
dans l’Antiquité (2001) 25–44.
Daniela Dueck
Drako ̄n of Kerkura (80? – 120 CE)
Wrote an On stones (P, QR 22.41 and Ath., Deipn. 15.46 [692d]). Drako ̄n may
postdate P to whom he was apparently unknown. However, his interest in the Janus
legend (to whom the invention of the crown, rafts, boats and bronze coinage are attributed)
might suggest the Augustan age.
RE 5.2 (1905) 1663 (#16), M. Wellmann.
Eugenio Amato
Drako ̄n of Ko ̄s (400 – 350 BCE)
G, commenting on two Hippokratic treatises, mentions Drako ̄n the son of
H, and brother of T K, and suggests that some claimed that
Drako ̄n authored them: In Hipp. Nat. Hom 2.1 (CMG 5.9.1, p. 58) and In Hipp. Prorrhet. I 2.17
(CMG 5.9.2, p. 68). S, Vita Hipp. 15 (CMG 4, p. 178), describes the family; Souda
Delta-1497 distorts that account.
Von Staden (1989) 64; van der Eijk (2000–2001) fr.13.
PTK
“Dtrums” (230 – 30 BCE?)
Wrote a Greek work on burning mirrors surviving only in Arabic, unknown beyond his
text itself, which has only one internal reference, to an anonymous Katoptrika. Rashed
renders the author’s original name, distorted beyond recognition in Arabic transliteration
and subsequent tradition, according to an ad-hoc transliteration of the Arabic characters
used for the name: DTRWMS. The treatise’s level and contents are comparable to
D’, and may suggest a Hellenistic date, but the methods used indicate no depend-
ence of one treatise on the other. There is, furthermore, no clear dependence or influence
on A, Didumos (also edited by Rashed 2000, and post-Anthe ̄mios), or the Bob-
bio fragment (see Rashed 1997). The Arabic translator has explicitly replaced the first two
parts, treating proprieties of conic sections, with excerpts of A’ Ko ̄nika. Only
the third part is translated from Dtrums’ Greek; it first addresses the properties of the
parabolic mirror, including a skillful and original point by point construction of the para-
bola, given its axis and diameter (prop. 12 and 13). The end discusses the burning proper-
ties of the spherical mirror (prop. 14 and 15) and includes an original discussion of the
path of reflected sunrays, coming to meet the axis after more than one reflection on the
mirror.
Ed.: R. Rashed, Œuvres philosophiques et scientifiques d’al-Kindi, v. 1, L’optique et la catoptrique (1997) 117–120;
Rashed (2000) 153–213.
Alain Bernard and Kevin van Bladel
DRAKO ̄N OF KERKURA