Aristarchus

“ At dawn Aristarchus again summoned the generals and officers, but the latter resolved to have done with the visit to Aristarchus, and to summon a meeting of the army. In full conclave the soldiers met, with the exception of Neon's men, who remained about ten furlongs off. When they were met together Xenophon rose, and made the following announcement: "Men, Aristarchus with his ships of war hinders us from sailing where we fain would go; it is not even safe to set foot on board a vessel. ”

“ Without stopping to alight on the outer slopes of the great ring-shaped range of peaks which composed Aristarchus, we sailed over their rim and looked down into the interior. Here the splendor of the crystals was greater than on the outer slopes, and the broad floor of the crater, thousands of feet beneath us, shone and sparkled with overwhelming radiance, as if it were an immense bin of diamonds, while a peak in the centre flamed like a stupendous tiara incrusted with selected gems. ”

“ All the conspicuous Tycho streaks originate outside the rim. (6.) The streaks of Copernicus, Kepler, and Aristarchus are greyish in colour, and much less white than those associated with Tycho: some white lines extending south-east from Aristarchus do not apparently belong to the system. In the case of craterlets lying between Aristarchus and Copernicus the streaks point away from the latter. (7.) There are no very long streaks; they vary from ten to fifty miles in length, and are rarely more than a quarter of a mile broad at the crater. ”

“ In the original MS. occurs a reference (struck out) to Aristarchus of Samos as holding the theory of the earth's motion. (Prowe: II, 507, note.) The finding of this passage proves that Copernicus had at least heard of Aristarchus, but his apparent indifference is the more strange since an account of his teaching occurs in the same book of Plutarch from which Copernicus learned about Philolaus. But the chief source of our knowledge about Aristarchus is through Archimedes, and the editio princeps of his works did not appear till 1544, a year after the death of Copernicus. ”

“ Aristarchus is specially remarkable for the extraordinary capability which the material forming its interior and rampart banks has of reflecting light. Although there are many portions of the lunar surface which possess the same property, yet few so remarkably as in the case of Aristarchus, which shines with such brightness, as compared with its immediate surroundings, as to attract the attention of the most unpractized observer. ”

“ The suggestion that has been offered to account for the brightness of Aristarchus and the "ray" systems, namely, that they are composed of metallic dikes and masses which, for various reasons, have escaped oxidation, is recalled by the phenomenon in question. Upon that view we might have to assume that these luminous points indicated the existence of tremendous crystallized masses, with polished surfaces, throwing back the glare of the sunshine like mirrors. ”

“ We can thus tell a good deal about the condition of Homer in the second century B.C., and can hope to establish with few errors a text 'according to Aristarchus,' a text which would approximately satisfy the best literary authority at the best period of Greek criticism. But we must go much further, unless we are to be very unworthy followers of Aristarchus and indifferent to the cause of science in literature. ”

“ He was chiefly known for his critical writings, in which his opinions of poetry were thought so just that few dared to disagree with them; and his name soon became proverbial for a critic. Aristarchus had also the good fortune to be listened to in his lecture-room by one whose name is far more known than those of his two royal pupils. Moschus of Syracuse, the pastoral poet, was one of his hearers; but his fame must not be claimed for Alexandria; he can hardly have learned from the critic that just taste by which he joined softness and sweetness to the rude plainness of the Doric muse. ”

“ The ship in which I, myself, had the good fortune to embark, was bound for the mysterious inner mountain Aristarchus.
Before these expeditions started, a careful exploration had been made in the neighborhood of Cape Heraclides. But, except that the broken walls of the watch tower on the peak, composed of blocks of enormous size, had evidently been the work of creatures endowed with human intelligence, no remains were found indicating the former presence of inhabitants upon this part of the moon. ”

“ But Aristarchus brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the ‘universe’ just mentioned. ”

“ Those verses which Aristarchus was convinced to be spurious he left out of his edition altogether. Aristarchus was in constant opposition to Crates of Mallus, the founder of the Pergamene school of grammar. This Crates had the merit of trans- planting the study of literature to Rome. With regard to Homer, he zealously defended the alle- gorical explication against his rival Aristarchus. ”

“ Astronomers had been long aware that the earth in different parts of her orbit is at different distances from the sun. Roberval wished to claim for Aristarchus the credit of having known this, and introduced into his book, not only the mention of the fact, but an explanation of its cause. Accordingly he makes Aristarchus give a reason "why the sun's apogee (or place of greatest distance from the earth) must always be at the north summer solstice." ”

“ In the period between Euclid and Archimedes comes Aristarchus of Samos (about 310-230 B. C.) , famous for having anticipated Copernicus. Accepting Heraclides’s view that the earth rotates about its own axis, Aristarchus went further and put forward the hypothesis that the sun itself is at rest, and that the earth, as well as Mercury, Venus, and the other planets, revolve in circles about the sun. We have this on the unquestionable authority of Archimedes, who was only some twenty-five years later, and who must have seen the book containing the hypothesis in question. ”

“ ARISTARCHUS of Samothrace (B.C. 216–144) . A Greek scholar. He was the pupil of Aristophanes of Byzantium, became tutor to the son of Ptolemy Philometor, and succeeded his master as head of the Alexandrian library. He died in Cyprus at the age of 72. Aristarchus represents the highest attainments of philological criticism in antiquity, and his influence dominated all later workers. ”

“ The obliquity of the ecliptic was accurately determined, and an arc of the meridian was measured between Syene and Alexandria. The names of Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, Aristyllus, Timocharis, and Autolycus, are familiarly known in association with the advancement of the astronomy of this period. ”

“ It is desirable to quote the whole passage of Archimedes in which the allusion to Aristarchus’s heliocentric hypothesis occurs, in order to show the whole context.
“You are aware [‘you’ being King Gelon] that ‘universe’ is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere the centre of which is the centre of the earth, while its radius is equal to the straight line between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth. ”

“ The only treatise of his that has come down to us is that above mentioned, on the size and distance of the sun and moon.
Aristarchus adopted the Pythagorean system as representing the actual facts. This was the result of a recognition of the sun's amazing distance, and therefore of his enormous size. The heliocentric system, thus regarding the sun as the central orb, degraded the earth to a very subordinate rank, making her only one of a company of six revolving bodies. ”

“ And altogether the poet has attributed devotion to such things to the Suitors, and to the Phæacians, but not to Nestor or to Menelaus. And Aristarchus did not perceive that in his marriage feast, after the entertainment had lasted some time, and the principal days of the revel were over, in which the bride had been taken to the house of the bridegroom, and the marriage of Megapenthes was completed, Menelaus and Helen were left to themselves and feasted together. ”

“ For a person to be introduced speaking thus of himself, is in truth unnatural and out of character." Would that the Doctor had been alive to be set at ease on this point by our explanations—but he is dead. They would have quieted his mind, too, about the celebrated speech of Aristarchus. "In Book IV.," he adds, "is such another breach of truth and decorum, in making Aristarchus (Bentley) abuse himself, and laugh at his own labours. ”

“ In this species of approximation to trigonometry he tacitly assumes45 propositions comparing the ratio between a greater and a lesser angle in a figure with the ratio between two straight lines, propositions which are formally proved by Ptolemy at the beginning of his Syntaxis. Here again we have proof that textbooks containing such propositions existed before Aristarchus’s time, and probably much earlier, although they have not survived. ”

“ Aristarchus appears to have deserved the primacy generally accorded to him by being more wisely conservative than Zenodotus, and less tempted to stick in the letter than the lesser Aristophanes; as well as by a general display, in his more literary remarks, of critical faculty greater than was possessed by either, and infinitely greater than that of the average scholiast. While the still earlier, and at least equally famous or notorious, name of Zoilus is of itself sufficient to show that the critic who is merely or mainly a snarler can at least boast that he is of an ancient house. ”

“ Aristarchus (320-250 B.C.) showed that the sun must be at least nineteen times as far off as the moon, which is far short of the mark. He also found the sun’s diameter, correctly, to be half a degree. Eratosthenes (276-196 B.C.) measured the inclination to the equator of the sun’s apparent path in the heavens—i.e., he measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, making it 23° 51’, confirming our knowledge of its continuous diminution during historical times. ”

“ ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS. We are told that Aristarchus of Samos was a pupil of Strato of Lampsacus, a natural philosopher of originality, who succeeded Theophrastus as head of the Peripatetic school in 288 or 287 B.C., and held that position for eighteen years. ”

“ In literal truth, the habitable world was held to be twice as long as it was wide (i. e. N. to S.) .
The words as to the earth occupying ‘a point central to the sphere (i. e. orbit) of the moon’ are quoted from the Second Hypothesis of Aristarchus (see Introduction) . It has been proposed (by Dr. Max Adler) to substitute the name of Clearchus for that of Hipparchus. But the quarrel of Lamprias is not with philosophers but with astronomers and mathematicians, represented by Apollonides and Menelaus. ”

“ In all adjustment or adaptation the result is that the form which is adjusted finds that by its adjustment it has created an environment. The ancients by their formulation of the Ptolemaic theory committed themselves to the world in which the fixed values of the heavenly over against the earthly obtained. Such a world was the interpretation of the experience involved in their physical and social attitudes. They could not accept the hypothesis of Aristarchus because it conflicted with the world which they had created, with the values which were determining values for them. ”

“ I feel strangely excited to-day, and my work with Aristarchus would have led to no issue. It is a pity that we should have begun to talk of that barbarian rubbish; there are so many other subjects more pleasing and more cheering to the mind. Do you remember how we used to read the great tragedians and Plato together?”
“And how you would often interrupt our tutor Agatharchides in his lectures on geography, to point out some mistake! Did you prosecute those studies in Cyrene?” ”

“ They took the form of recondite mythological erudition, grammar and exegesis, and laborious imitation of the ancients. In science only was there a healthy spirit of research. Mathematics were splendidly represented by Euclid and Archimedes, Geography by Eratosthenes, Astronomy by Hipparchus; for these men, though not all residents in Alexandria, all gained their principles and method from study within her walls. To Aristarchus (fl. 180 B.C.) and his contemporaries we owe the final revision of the Greek classic texts; and the service thus done to scholarship and literature was incalculable. ”

“ No scientific progress is possible without scientific guessing, but Hipparchus belonged to that class of observers with whom hypothesis is held rigidly subservient to fact. It was not to be expected that his mind would be attracted by the heliocentric theory of Aristarchus. He used the facts and observations gathered by his great predecessor of Samos, but he declined to accept his theories. For him the world was central; his problem was to explain, if he could, the irregularities of motion which sun, moon, and planets showed in their seeming circuits about the earth. ”

“ If we had before retained any doubt of the power of lunar volcanoes to throw fragments of their craters so far beyond the moon's attraction that they would necessarily gravitate to this earth, and thus account for the multitude of massive aerolites which have fallen and been found upon our surface, the view which we had of Aristarchus would have set our scepticism forever at rest. This mountain, however, though standing 300 miles in the ocean, is not absolutely insular, for it is connected with the main land by four chains of mountains, which branch from it as a common centre. ”

“ Being however soon after superseded in the command, and finding himself neglected by Pharnabazus, he attempted to revenge himself by persuading Xenophon to lead the army to invade the country of the satrap; but the enterprise was stopped by the prohibition and threats of Aristarchus. (Anab. vii. 2. §5–14.) ”