Erasistratos of Sikuo ̄n (250 BCE – 95 CE)
A P., in G CMLoc 10.3 (13.356–358 K.), records two humor-
extracting remedies. For gout, draw out the phlegm from blisters raised by pouring on chilled
feet a solution of caper-root, henbane-seed, hemlock, mandrake, etc., heated with dried lees,
and then bandaging the feet with thin vinegar-soaked cloth for two hours. Blood is extracted
by an analogous procedure, rather than by cupping vessels or leeches. Cf. T.
(*)
PTK
Eratokle ̄s (450 – 390 BCE)
Musical theorist quoted by A as representative of the school of harmonikoi,
earlier empiricists who rejected the Pythagorean description of notes as quantities and
conceived them as dimensionless points lying on a linear continuum they called the “dia-
gram.” He and his followers seem to have attempted a distinction of conjunct from disjunct
tetrachords and to have enumerated arrangements of octaves interpreting harmoniai as
approximations to “octave species” (eide ̄ tou dia paso ̄n). However, according to Aristoxenos,
they made no serious attempt to explain the principles governing the melodic phenomena:
thus their results are described by him as incomplete.
A.D. Barker, “Hoi kaloumenoi harmonikoi: the predecessors of Aristoxenos,” PCPhS 24 (1978) 1–21; Idem
(1989) 124–125; OCD3 553, Idem.
E. Rocconi
Eratosthene ̄s of Kure ̄ne ̄ (ca 240 – 194 BCE?)
Polymath, wrote works on a wide range of subjects including mathematics, harmonic the-
ory, geography, chronology, grammar, and literary criticism, as well as composing poetry.
Scarcely any of this oeuvre remains extant except for a mathematical epigram and quotations
from his most important work, Geographica. Various ancient sources report conflicting bio-
graphical details. The Souda (E-2898) credibly states that he was born in the 126th Olympiad
(276– 272 BCE) and died at age 80 during the reign of Ptolemy V. Son of Aglaos, during his
youth in Kure ̄ne ̄ he supposedly received a literary education from the philologist Lusanias
and poet K. During a sojourn at Athens, he associated with prominent philo-
sophers, the Peripatetic Aristo ̄n of Khios and Academic Arkesilaos. From Athens he
was invited to Egypt by Ptolemy III. A Roman-period papyrus (POxy 10.1241) asserts that
Eratosthene ̄s succeeded Apollo ̄nios of Rhodes as head of the Alexandrian library, and that
in turn Aristophane ̄s of Buzantion succeeded him. Probably during the earlier part of his
Alexandrian period, A communicated to him a lost collection of geometrical
propositions asserted without proofs, as well as the extant Method Concerning Mechanical
Theorems, though in his other surviving prefatory letters (to D P),
which must have been written while Eratosthene ̄s was still alive, Archime ̄de ̄s singles
out K as the Alexandrian mathematician for whom Eratosthene ̄s had greatest
respect.
- Mathematics and Harmonics. Our evidence for Eratosthene ̄s’ mathematical
work is severely limited. P (Collection 7.3) includes a formal geometrical treatise by
Eratosthene ̄s called On Means, apparently in two books, as one of the writings making up
ERATOSTHENE ̄S OF KURE ̄NE ̄