Bowen A.C., Todd R.B. Cleomedes’ Lectures on Astronomy

Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. — 257 p. — ISBN: 9780520233256.This book is a set of lectures on elementary astronomy delivered by the Stoic philosopher and teacher Cleomedes (Κλεoμήδης) as part of a complete introduction to Stoicism for his students. It is the only work by a professional Stoic teacher to survive intact from the first two centuries A.D., and a rare example of the interaction between science and philosophy in late antiquity. This volume contains a clear and idiomatic English translation — the first ever — of The Heavens, along with an informative introduction, detailed notes, and technical diagrams. This important work will now be accessible to specialists in both ancient philosophy and science and to readers interested in the history of astronomy and cosmology but with no knowledge of ancient Greek.The sole surviving treatise by the Stoic Cleomedes may belong chronologically to some time around A.D. 200, but philosophically it is rooted in the Hellenistic period: in the third century B.C. when Stoicism was first established, and in the first century B.C. when that school underwent a renaissance at the hands of Posidonius of Apamea. The treatise itself, a digression on astronomy and some aspects of cosmology, was prepared for pedagogical purposes as part of a larger survey of Stoicism. We have anticipated a varied readership for this work, most of whom will not know the ancient languages. We thus offer the first English translation of Cleomedes (the sixth into all languages since the late fifteenth century), and the first based on a critical edition of the Greek text. We have addressed the interests of students of Stoic philosophy (in particular of physical theory and epistemology, the two theoretical components that dominate Cleomedes’ treatise), though we have frequently referred them to the rich body of recent scholarship on Stoicism for further discussion of issues that could not be pursued in detail in relation to the Cleomedean evidence. We have also aimed to reach students of ancient mathematical astronomy, and of the general history of astronomy, though, given the wide range of our intended readership, we have not restructured Cleomedes’ text in order to correlate it closely with the technical figures appended to the translation.Abbreviations.Cleomedes' Date.
Cleomedes and Posidonius.
Physics and Astronomy.
Epistemology and Scientific Method.
The Criterion and Demonstrative Procedures.
Posidonius' Legacy.
Outline.
Translation of Cleomedes' The Heavens.
Book One.
Book Two.
Figures.
Appendix.
Posidonius on Physics and Astronomy (Fragment 18 EK).
Glossary of Selected Terms.Passages from Cleomedes in Collections of Texts.
General Index.
Index Locorum.