A history of Greek mathematics - Wilbourhall.org

DOMNINUS. SIMPLICIUS 539
sophy at Athens, the last members of the school, including
Damascius and Simplicius, migrated to Persia, but returned
about 533 to Athens, where Simplicius continued to teach for
some time though the school remained closed.
Extracts from Eudemus.
To Simplicius we owe two long extracts of capital importance
for the history of mathematics and astronomy. The
first is his account, based upon and to a large extent quoted
textually from Eudemus's History of Geometry, of the attempt
by Antiphon to square the circle and of the quadratures of
lunes by Hippocrates of Chios. It is contained in Simplicius's
commentary on Aristotle's Physics} and has been the subject
of a considerable literature extending from 1870, the date
when Bretschneider first called attention to it, to the latest
critical
edition with translation and notes by Rudio (Teubner,
1907). It has already been discussed (vol. i, pp. 183-99).
The second, and not less important, of the two passages is
that containing the elaborate and detailed account of the
system of concentric spheres, as first
invented by Eudoxus for
explaining the apparent motion of the sun, moon, and planets,
and of the modifications made by Callippus and Aristotle. It
is contained in the commentary on Aristotle's Be caelo * ;
Simplicius quotes largely from Sosigenes the Peripatetic
(second century a.d.) 5
observing that he in his turn drew
from Eudemus, who dealt with the subject in the second
book of his History of Astronomy. It is this passage of
Simplicius which, along with a passage in Aristotle's Metaphysics?
enabled Schiaparelli to reconstruct Eudoxus' s
system
(see vol. i, pp. 329-34). Nor must it be forgotten that it is in
Simplicius's commentary on the Physics^ that the extract
from Geminus's summary of the Meteorologica of Posidonius
occurs which was used by Schiaparelli to support his view
that it was Heraclides of Pontus, not Aristarchus of Samos,
who first propounded the heliocentric hypothesis.
Simplicius also wrote a commentary on Euclid's Elements,
Book I, from which an-Nairizi, the Arabian commentator,
1
2
Simpl. in Phtjs., pp. 54-69, ed. Diels.
Simpl. on Arist. De caelo, p. 488. 18-24 and pp. 493-506, ed. Heiberg.
3
Metaph. A. 8, 1073 b 17-1074 a 14.
4
Simpl. in Phys., pp. 291-2, ed. Diels.