A history of Greek mathematics - Wilbourhall.org

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308 HERON OF ALEXANDRIA
education for centuries. The geometrical or mensurational
books in particular gave scope for expansion by multiplication
of examples, so that it is difficult to disentangle the genuine
Heron from the rest of the collections which have come down
to us under his name. Hultsch's considered criterion is as
follows : The Heron texts which have come down to our
'
time are authentic in so far as they bear the author's name
and have kept the original design and form of Heron's works,
but are unauthentic in so far as, being constantly in use for
practical
purposes, they were repeatedly re-edited and, in the
course of re-editing, were rewritten with a view to the
particular needs of the
time.'
List
of Treatises.
Such of the works of Heron as have survived have reached
us in very different ways. Those which have come down in
the Greek are
I. The Metrica, first discovered in 1896 in a manuscript
of the eleventh (or twelfth) century at Constantinople by
R. Schone and edited by his son, H. Scheme (Heronis Opera, iii,
Teubner, 1903).
II. On the Dioptra, edited in an Italian version by Venturi
in 1814 ;
the Greek text was first brought out by A. J. H.
Vincent 1
in 1858, and the critical edition of it byH. Schone is
included in the Teubner vol. iii just mentioned.
III. The Pneumatica, in two Books, which appeared first in
a Latin translation by Commandinus, published after his
death in 1575; the Greek text was first edited by TheVenot
in Vetevum mathematicovum opera Graece et Latine edita
(Paris, 1693), and is now available in Heronis Opera, i (Teubner,
1899), by W. Schmidt.
IV. On the art of constructing automata (irepl avTo/jiaToiroLrjTLKrjs),
or The automaton-theatre, first edited in an Italian
translation by B. Baldi in 1589 ; the Greek text was included
in TheVenot's Vet, math., and now forms part of Heronis
Opera, vol. i, by W. Schmidt.
V. Belopoe'ica (on the construction of engines of war), edited
1
Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Biblioiheque impe'riale, xix, pt. 2,
pp. 157-337.