Aryeh FinkelbergRelated papers
Cosmic Order and Divine Power: Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Cosmos, Introduction, text, translation and interpretative essays
2014
The treatise De mundo (On the Cosmos), dated around the 1st century BCE, offers a cosmology in the Peripatetic tradition which draws also on Platonic and Stoic thought and subordinates what happens in the cosmos to the might of an omnipotent god. Thus the work is paradigmatic for the philosophical and religious concepts of the early imperial age, which offer points of contact with nascent Christianity. In line with the aims of the SAPERE series, this volume on De mundo is explicitly interdisciplinary by nature, bringing together contributions from scholars from a broad spectrum of disciplines and specialisations which focus on specific topics, each from its own disciplinary perspective. The volume contains a Greek text and translation of De mundo as well as interpretive essays on the language and style, geography, cosmotheology and the reception in or possible influence of De mundo in various intellectual traditions.
Review of Daniel Graham, Explaining the Cosmos: The Ionian Tradition of Scientific Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Bryn Mawr Classical Review (2007)
Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2007
Colloquium 2: Two Stages Of Early Greek Cosmology
Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy, 2013
It is generally held that Presocratic cosmologies are sui generis and unique to their authors. If, however, a division is made between sixth-century and fifthcentury BC cosmologies, some salient differences emerge. For instance, heavenly bodies in sixth-century cosmologies tend to be light, ephemeral, fed by vapors, and located above the earth; those in fifth-century cosmologies tend to be heavy, permanent, heated by friction, and to travel below the earth. The earlier cosmologies seem to embody a meteorological model of astronomy, the latter a lithic model. The change in models can be accounted for on the basis of Parmenides’ discovery that the moon is illuminated by the sun and hence is a spherical, permanent, opaque or earthy body. This insight generated empirical evidence to confirm itself and rendered obsolete earlier cosmologies.
“Aristotelian Cosmology and Causality in Classical Arabic Philosophy and its Greek Background.” [prepublication, w corrections]
In Damien Janos (ed.), Ideas in Motion in Baghdad and Beyond: Philosophical and Theological Exchanges between Christians and Muslims in the Third/Ninth and Fourth/Tenth Centuries, pp. 312-433. Leiden: Brill, 2016
The two-sphere structure of Greek thought [2013
We hope that you remember the two great events that we cited earlier, namely, the revolution in physics, the science of nature, in the early last century, and its anticipation at the hands of a physicist, who migrated to anthropology from his background in physics, mathematics and philosophy and geography, I mean, Boas. Later on another former natural scientist, with the same background in physics mathematics and philosophy, I mean Malinowski, migrated to anthropology and both became the joint author of a new concept of observation which is now commonly known as the participant observation. However, no sooner had Boas found, as we will see later, that materialist weltanschauung that might have been right for physics but was no more adequate in the study of human relations, and that the separation of subject and object was an a priori speculation which had no human experience behind it, the physics in revolution associated with the relativity and quantum theories discovered that such duality or absolute discontinuity between the two spheres of reality which the human subject and nature represented did not exist even in man's relations with nature.
Oikoumene, Ouraos, Ousia and Outside: An Analogy across Three Ancient Disciplines.
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal Volume 22 Number2, 2001 pp. 115-145
It is in the obscure terrain between the life- world of Greek science and technology and the language of its metaphysics, that one sees the attempts of early navigators and map makers to conceptualize what lies beyond the "oikoumene”. This interest; later effects astronomy in terms of what is “beyond the heavens” ("ezo tes ouranos") and then in metaphysics the advent of a “Beyond Being” (epekeina tes ousias) an ideal Beyond proposed by Plato in Republic 509 and one which is to eventually become a mainstay of NeoPlatonism. Thus the "fundamental act" that Romm describes in the above quote was not only taken up with geographical interest, but is one which can be seen as a preparatory gesture in a culture readying itself for the advent of metaphysics, a gesture which continued to make itself felt up until the last days of the Ancient Academy in the fifth century C.E.. The threads of the intellectual history of Beyond Being find technological roots in the increasingly sophisticated acts of representation that one finds in early cartography, astronomy, and cosmology, one of which will be to mark boundaries around the heavens themselves and to call that Being.
Review of Olaf Almqvist, Chaos, Cosmos and Creation in Early Greek Theogonies. An Ontological Exploration, London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022
The Classical Review 73.1 (2023), 39-41 , 2023
Department of the Classics, Harvard University
On the History of the Greek κοσμοσ
Author(s): Aryeh Finkelberg
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 98 (1998), pp. 103-136
Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University
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ON THE HISTORYOF THE GREEKKOXMOX1
ARYEH FINKELBERG
Anaximander'sidea of the eternal power of Dike ruling natural
phenomenaimplies the idea of a cosmos ... Thereforewe arejustified
in describinghis conception of the universeas the spiritualdiscovery of
the cosmos ... The idea of a cosmos ... conveniently symbolizes the
whole influence of early natural philosophy upon the culture of the
Greeks." These much cited words are from WernerJaeger'sessay "The
discovery of the world-order,"publishedin 1933 as a partof his monumental Paideia,2 which played a significant role in stimulating the
scholarly discussion of the history and meaning of the Greek x6<oto;,
but seems to be responsiblealso for some of its essential shortcomings.
Jaegersought to accountfor the emergenceof a new vision of the world
which was broughtaboutby the Presocraticthinkers. His approachwas
conceptual: in discussing the Presocratics' theories he did not argue
from their use of xKo~to;,and therefore his conclusions are formally
independentof terminologicalconsiderations. Yet in calling the emergence of the new vision of the universe "the discovery of the worldorder,"as well as in having defined it and systematically referredto it
as "cosmos," he intimately linked the Presocratics' "spiritualdiscovery" with the term x6'aoto;, which was thus supposed to convey the
very essence of this vision; the "idea of a cosmos" turnedout to be the
In the subsequent discussion the
terminological concept of
xKr•to;.
word has come to be treated
as the acknowledgedPresocraticterm for
the new and distinctive vision of the world, so that the ultimate objective of the study has been, not to determine the precise scope of the
"...
1 An earlier draft of the first
part of this paper was read at the annual meeting of the
Israel Society for the Promotionof Classical Studies held at the Haifa Universityon 31
May-1 June 1995.
2 Quoted afterthe English translation:W. Jaeger,Paideia: TheIdeas of GreekCulture,
trans.G. Highet (Oxford 1947) 1.160-161.
104
AryehFinkelberg
application of the word, but rather-partly tacitly, but mainly explicitly-to explain how the word came to convey the conception of
the "cosmos."3Of course, such an approachhas not favored a critical
analysis of the evidence.
The currentnotion of IxCdoogas "the combinationof order, fitness
and beauty"4is the inexhaustiblesource of the scholarlytalk of the Presocratic vision of the universe as a structuredsystem exhibiting the
beauty of a perfect arrangement.Unfortunately,the notion is speculative: the association of the derivativesense-"world"-of ic6ago with
its other derivativesense "adornment,"and with its primarymeaning,
"order,"has never been empirically proved, but is in fact an artificial
semantic configuration. According to this logic the use of ix6ito; in
the derivativesense of, say, "adornment"must also have preservedits
link with the primarysense "order"5and have been closely associated
in
with the word's other secondarysenses, e.g., "government."
x6"too;
the sense of "order,"K6xoio;in the sense of "adornment,"and
X6aoto;
in the sense of "world"are homonymic uses, and the divergentsenses
of a word do not produce a cumulative meaning. The vitality of this
speculativenotion may be tracedto the mannerof implementation:the
lack of evidence is compensated by question-begging speculative
3 The meaning of K?aoiogin the Presocraticswas briefly discussed by K. Reinhardt,
Parmenidesund die Geschichteder griechischen Philosophie (Bonn 1916) 174-175; his
conclusions were critically assessed by O. Gigon, Untersuchungenzu Heraklit (Leipzig
1935) 52-55. Subsequentto the publicationof Jaeger'sPaideia there came the full-scale
as a terminological concept by W. Kranz: "Kosmos als
investigations of
K6•Ci•o
philosophischer Begriff friihgriechischerZeit," Philologus 93 (1938/39) 430-448, and
"Kosmos und Mensch in der Vorstellungfrihen Griechentums,"Nachrichten d. Gdtt.
Gesellschaftder Wissenschaften,Ph.-hist. KI., 2.7 (1938) 121-161. The Presocraticuses
were examined briefly by G. S. Kirk, Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments2 (Cambridge
1962; first edition: Cambridge 1954) 311-315 (on which see G. Vlastos's critical comments, "On Heraclitus,"AJP 76 [1955] 344-347) and at length by C. H. Kahn, Anaximanderand the Origins of Greek Cosmology(New York 1960) 219-230. The discussion
culminatedin J. Kerschensteiner'scomprehensivestudy Kosmos. QuellenkritischeUnter(Munich 1962). The general uses of K6oatoghave been
suchungenzu den Vorsokratikern
in
surveyed by H. Diller, "Der vorphilosophischeGebrauchvon K6otog;und KOagE~v,"
Festschrift Bruno Snell (Munich 1956) 47-60, and in the first chapter of Kerschensteiner's Kosmos 4-25. Relevant comments on the uses of Ka~tog; as well as concise
summariesof the semanticdevelopmentof the word are found in some otherauthors.
4 W. K. C. Guthrie,A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge 1962-1981) 1.208
n. 1.
5 Which obviously is not the case, see, e.g., 11.4.145, or Hdt. 7.31.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMOX
105
assumptions,6and a circularway of reasoning runs from the supposed
meaning of x6o(togoto an interpretationof the general purportof Presocratictheories, and from these theories to the meaningof xoGtog.
While it is clear that we try not to read the later senses of x~oogto
into the earlier uses, scholars often take the cosmological application
for granted;the typical approachis to take the word at the outset as
referring to the world and to construe the text in the light of this
assumed meaning. A more critical attitude, adopted by Kirk, led to
conclusions greatly differing from the currentviews; Kirk was attacked
from the speculative positions7 and his approachcondemned as "too
strict and narrow."8It does not, however, seem too strict to demand
from those who claim certaintexts to be the first instancesof a new linguistic usage to take on themselves the onus probandi. It seems to me
somewhat too liberal to grant conveniently the cosmological application of x6'rto; in a given Presocratictext without seriously checking
the possibility of other meanings. The danger of the anachronistic
rendering can be avoided only if the exclusive appropriatenessof the
cosmological sense or, alternatively,the definiteinappropriatenessof all
the other senses of the word may be shown.
But when the cosmological applicationof the word in a given text is
proved beyond reasonable doubt, it still remains to decide whether it
6
One of the most instructiveexamples is perhapsthe following, Jaeger (above, n. 2)
160: "We do not know whetherAnaximanderhimself used the word cosmos in this connection: it is used by his successor Anaximenes, if the fragmentin which it occurs is correctly attributedto him." This is a cautious and philologically conscious statement.Kahn
(above, n. 3) 219: "As Jaeger has put it, the philosophy of Anaximanderrepresents 'the
discovery of the cosmos,' and there is no good reason to suppose that this discovery was
ever called by any other name." (Note that Kahndoes not believe that in AnaximenesB 2
the Koa6to; is genuine.) For another,no less conspicuous, example, see the following
note.
7 By Vlastos (above, n. 3) 344, 345 n. 19: "[Kirk concludes that] the word Kratog;
could only mean 'order,'not 'world,' at this [sc. Heraclitus']time.... I am not ... confident ... that
was not used even in sixth century speculationfor 'world' ... the
Ko•tog;
Milesians would
certainlyneed a substantiveby which to refer ... to the world(s) which
issue from the arche ... such a need is bound to be met sooner or later, and ... it could
be met very early by the use of i6Cogo;since the notion of the world as an orderly
arrangementwas, of course, present from the beginning." (Vlastos's more specific argument, ibid. 345-346, against Kirk, namely that HeraclitusB 30 "is evidence that KoG?.og,
though it implies, does not just mean, 'order,'for what is in question here is not merely
that nobody made the order of the world, but that nobody made this orderlyworld [Vlastos's italics],"regrettablybegs the question.)
8 M. Marcovich,Heraclitus. Editio Maior (Merida 1967) 99.
106
AryehFinkelberg
exhibits the usual or contextual meaning of the word. The failure to
draw this fundamentallinguistic distinctionhas ensued in the artificial
renderingof xo6a`ao;as "world-order,"assumed by scholars to be the
transitional meaning between the primary sense "order" and the
derivative"world."Yetjust as x6pagLo;
used, for example, by Herodotus
with referenceto Polycrates' furniture(3.123.1), does not mean "furniture-adornment,"so being used with reference to the world, the word
does not acquire the hybrid sense "world-order."The conventional
as "world-order"is to be discarded,and the word
renderingof
x6a•Lo;
is to be rendered
as either "order"or "world"dependingon whetherthe
use is occasional, and thereforethe sense "world"is only contextual,or
regular,and hence the meaningis usual.9It goes without saying thatthe
should not be admitted unless the
usual meaning "world"of
x6a•Lo;
character
of
the
use
can
be
argued.
systematic
This would seem to call into question the currentscholarly consensus. In what follows I propose a reexaminationof evidence on more
critical grounds. I hope to show that a strict and open-mindedscrutiny
of evidence, free of speculative presuppositions,leads to conclusions
considerablydifferentfrom the familiarpicture.
I
In describing Socrates' philosophical interests at Memorabilia
1.1.11, Xenophon says: "he did not even discuss, as most others, the
natureof all things, inquiringinto how what the men of wisdom call the
runs and by what necessities each of the heavenly phenomena
xoa6oo
takes
place." These words indicate that by the time they were written
was already put to terminological use, but for Xenophon the
•6•Loowas still a
term
peculiar technical idiom of a definite provenance,and
the commentatorsgenerally agree that the usage must have been relatively new.10 If, for the purposeof the argument,we assume the earliest
date of Memorabilia 1.1-2, viz. soon after the attack against Socrates
published by Polycrates in 393/2 B.C., still the testimony remains
incompatiblewith the currentview of the fifth- and even sixth-century
9 Thus, for example, Aristotle's oipav6;, when used with reference to the world, is
renderedneitheras "heaven"nor as "world-heaven,"but "world."
10See, among others, Gigon (above, n. 3) 54; Kirk (above, n. 3) 314; Plato Gorgias,
ed. E. R. Dodds (Oxford 1959) 308; Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 226 n. 5.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMOX
107
terminologicaluse of xdogog. It has been contended that Xenophon's
phrase only means "that it is the philosophers who call the world
,doagog, not that they have started doing this fairly recently."" Yet
Aristophanes'philosophical parodies demonstratethat until at least the
twenties of the fifth century B.C. the Athenian public was well
acquainted with contemporaryphilosophical writings, and Socrates'
mentioning, in Plato's Apology 26D-E, a drachma as the price of
Anaxagoras' book in the Athenian market place, even if ironically
exaggerated, shows that the situation was not much different some
twenty-five years later.12The fifth-centuryphilosophersaddressedtheir
books to the general reader and their phraseology could hardly strike
this reader as peculiar.13It has also been suggested that Xenophon's
remarkmay have reflectedthe Athenianusage while elsewhere, notably
in Ionia, the sense "world"was established much earlier. Yet except
Archelaus,all the philosophersactive in fifth-centuryAthens were visitors from abroad, including Ionia. Easy explanations do not work;
there must be something wrong with either Xenophon's testimony or,
more probably,the currentaccountof the Presocraticusage.
The beginning of the terminologicalcareerof xKogo; is traditionally
associated with Pythagoras whom, it is generally maintained, Greek
doxographycreditedwith using the word as "world." Yet the examination of the testimony hardlywarrantsthis view. We have two principal
reports. AMtius2.1.1 (= DK 14, 21): Iua)0odpaxppro;
y6axE xTil
pt•obvjcThe
ordinary
Z;v
r&)v
reptoX~lv6Kaiov EiXrig
ao)fo
"x6EO.14
0,oov
11Vlastos (above, n. 3) 345; cf. Kahn (above, n. 3) 220; D. Lanza, Anassagora: testimonianzeeframmenti (Florence 1966) 217, ad B 8.
12The Athenianreadermust, then, have been well
acquaintedwith Anaxagoras'usage,
and thereforeO. Gigon's suggestion, Kommentarzum ersten Buch von XenophonsMemorabilien (Basel 1953) 17, ad loc., that Xenophon's "wise men" may refer to Anaxagoras,
is hardlyplausible.
13Therefore Kranz's explanation (above, n. 3) 446-447, that "dem attischen Durchschnittsbuirgerwar noch un 400 Kosmos fiir Weltall ein Ausdruck der Gelehrten,"is
ratherhe
unconvincing. Besides, Xenophon definitely was not a "Durchschnittsbtirger";
was a literateperson with a wide range of interests, including the philosophical. Kranz's
strong contrast between "learnedpeople" and "averagecitizens" seems to be somewhat
anachronistic,but at any rate Xenophon did not addresshis writings to citizens who did
not readbooks.
14 Photius, Bibl. 440a27, who draws on Stobaeus (see H. Diels, Doxographi Graeci4
[Berlin 1879] 44), glosses i1
z'v 6owv eEptox7 as 6 o'pctvy; and specifies AMtius' rdtit;
as the perfection and beauty of the heaven. In Achilles Isag. 129d rz xx&vis a gloss on
Stobaeus' 1irOv ~"ov
For Achilles' dependence on Stobaeus see Diels, ibid.
•
Eptoxr.
327a; for his inaccuracyin
transcribinghis sources see ibid., 21-26.
108
AryehFinkelberg
sense of nrEptox
i is "an enclosing, compass," and in its two other
occurrencesin AMtiusthe word means "circumference,envelopment."15
This being so, the phrase l r'OvXiov rEptoxi most naturallyrefers to
the (outer) heaven.16The other reportis D.L. 8.48 (= Dox. 492; cf. DK
28 A 44): ro'rov [sc. Pythagoras]6'axIopi'v6g ;rlotv ... KaiXtv
o1pav(xv Rpfxrov6volitixoatKIdcov Ka xTIvyfiv oxpoyyAyXrjVb 8&
OE)opao(To;
HIapxpEvi8rl[sc. called the earthspherical], 0;q8E Z•v(ov
'Haiobov xrX. The opposition rbvo5pav6v --,rv yfiv suggests that the
sense of the ouipav6; is "heaven"ratherthan "world.""17
The agreement
between AMtius'and Diogenes' testimonies makes it likely that they
come from a common source, and we have no special reason to question the Theophrasteanprovenanceof the information.18It should however be realized that the reportcannot be taken at face value. What is
reportedis a Pythagoreantraditionwhich, we can infer, authorizedthe
use of ic"aogo;in the sense of "heaven." Since the attributionof this
terminological invention to Pythagorasconforms to the Pythagoreans'
routine practice, it is impossible to know how old this use really was.
The only historical evidence the reportfurnishes is the use of
K61oto;
for "heaven"by the Pythagoreansof the last generations. We
shall
returnto this meaningof the word later.
Another reportthat has been adduced to prove the Milesian use of
K6coo; in the sense of "world"is a phrase from the Theophrastean
15 [Plut.] Plac. 3.892E (=Diels [above, n. 14] 364a16), cf. LSJ, s.v. nrEptoxii,2; Stob.
Ecl. 1.29.1 (= Diels [above, n. 14] 369b26 = DK 68 A 93).
16 Cf. Kranz
(above, n. 3) 432 (who however is preparedto go beyond the report,
436-437); U. Hilscher, "Anaximanderand the Beginnings of Greek Philosophy"in D. J.
Furley and R. E. Allen eds., Studies in PresocraticPhilosophy (London 1970) 1.297 n. 41
(first published in Hermes 81 [1953] 255-277, 385-417); J. Mansfeld, The Pseudoch. I-II and Greek Philosophy (Assen 1971) 42
6Pio6g&6ov
Hippocratic Tract
F•ept
n. 26.
17Cf. Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 42 n. 26.
18As Gigon (above, n. 3) 54, points out, the reportwould fit with Theophrastus'characteristicinterestin the history of philosophicalterminology.The attributionto Pythagoras of the use of KoLo;ogfor "world"in Achilles' report(see above, n. 14) and in Schol.
ov t6;
at
Hom. ad II. 3.1 (... i7
1ov
rtn luv0ay6po Ei'prlyrat)is a result of
the deteriorationof the tradition. TheKx••Lov
Theophrasteanorigins of AMtius'informationhave
for
been disputed because the alleged attributionto Pythagorasof the use of
xoaCtog
the word.
"world"does not conform to certainscholars' idea of the terminologicaluse of
Thus, for example, Vlastos (above, n. 3) 345 n. 19, questions the attributionbecause this
would be too late a date, while Kirk (above, n. 3) 313 and n. 1, 314, because the date
would be too early.
On the History of the GreekKOXMOX
109
account of Anaximander'sApeiron preservedin Hippolytus (Ref 1.6.1
= DK 12 A 11: tot; oiupavot? icactv
and Simpliv a toi;
icc'tot; Ev
cius (Phys. 24.13 = DK 12 A 9: tot; oiupavo; K•ioov)
avdrot;
It has been supposed that the locution reflects AnaximanKo~6icoL)g).
der's own words,19but the supposition is speculative.20Besides, in the
account the pluraloi.pavo" refers to Anaximander'spluralworlds:Hipe vat, v ( auPpaivet yiv(ok toitco ivty
pol. ibid., tpbS8E
dcV&Stov
41.17
from DK): ?; [sc. t~i1
ro1;
(absent
Phys.
oiUpavoi`;;
Simpl.
Oat
K
t Ti ?tv o~paov(v
ittrav
EFva
a1~Epol) e(P t(TV
o]
X&i6toVIdvrItV
cf. Ps.-Plut. Strom. 2 (DK 12 A 10): tob TCetpov
yEV eo;
e0,yev;
~XV tvExLV
OlRtav)1bC
Tj
; yeV&e(•o
(pavat 'rTv Uoyav aitrav
tE K
ao
'
the
toi
ij;
ti6;
tIvo;
[sc.
Consequently
phrase
(p0op~x.21
•paE(o•; ( n
A &iravTo;
&ienipov]y~veioat rol; oiupavol5; (Hippol. ibid.) /
yveoOat rol; oiupavo6d;(Simpl. Phys. 24.13) speaks of the generation
of worlds from the Apeiron, and hence icai tbv v a(rot; Kctiov /
tot; Ev aXrot; 6outou; can scarcely mean other than "and the
arrangementsin them." Incidentally,the translationof the ou.pavot as
"heavens" would also result in rendering the
/
as
•icogo; K•cogot
"arrangement(s)":"the heavens and the arrangement(s)[enclosed] in
them."
The earliest philosophical text in which cK6ogo; occurs is
Anaximenes B 2. Yet the fragmentshows unmistakablesigns of a late
rewordingand the genuineness of o~iogo;has, with good reason, come
under suspicion.22But even if the word is assumed to be genuine, the
19 Reinhardt
(above, n. 3) 175, followed, among others, by Gigon (above, n. 3) 53-54,
Kranz(above, n. 3) 433, and Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 29-38.
20 As Kirk (above, n. 3) 312, rightly comments, "thereis no suggestion thatTheophrastus is quoting Anaximander."Cf. Vlastos (above, n. 3) 345 n. 19; Guthrie(above, n. 4)
1.111, and others.
21 Zeller's suggestion, followed by F. M. Cornford,"InnumerableWorldsin Presocratic
Philosophy,"CQ 27 (1934) 10-11, Kranz(above, n. 3) 433, and Kahn(above, n. 3) 46-53
(who abrogatedthis interpretationin the Preface to the 1985 reprint),that oljpavot refer
to Anaximander's celestial rings, is untenable; cf. Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 45 n. 40;
A. Finkelberg,"PluralWorlds in Anaximander,"AJP 115 (1994) 502-504. Kirk (above,
n. 3) 312, is correct in pointing out that o-pavc6ois used in the regularPeripateticsense
of "world."
22 See K. Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie (Munich 1926) 209-211; cf. Gigon
(above, n. 3) 54; and for a more balanced view: Vlastos (above, n. 3) 363 n. 55; G. S.
Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge 1983)
159; Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 77-83; Guthrie (above, n. 4) 1.131-132; G. Wihrle,
Anaximenesaus Milet (Stuttgart1993) 63-66.
110
AryehFinkelberg
fact thatits immediatecontext suffereda rewordingmakes the fragment
worthless as evidence of Anaximenes' linguistic usage. Another text
which for a long time has been referredto as an authenticwitness of a
is the first two chaptersof the
very early cosmological use of cK6aojo;
De
tract
hebdomadibus.23However, as Mansfeld
pseudo-Hippocratic
has demonstrated,the entire tract,including the first two chapters,is of
a much later date, most probablyfirst century B.C.24The earliest induin the philosophicalcontext is,
bitably authenticoccurrenceof cK6aojo;
in
for
the
Heraclitus.
However
then,
purposes of the argumentI postthe
discussion
of
Heraclitus'
fragmentsuntil we reachconclusions
pone
in
the
use
of
the
the
firsthalf of the fifth century.
word
regarding
In the extant lines of Parmenides'poem
appearstwice, but
in B 8.52 exemplifies the
both instances are irrelevant:K6aojovnkiov i6oto;S
traditionaluse with reference to the order of a narrative,25and icara'
in B 4.3 is the epic formulafor "in order,orderly."26
Nevertheio6otov
less
some critics wish to understandParmenides' icara 6icotaov as
"throughoutthe world,"27but whatever sense modem commentators
may suggest, the Greek audience must have taken the expression to
mean "orderly,"and Parmenidescould not have been unawareof this.28
Of the two extant occurrencesof the word in Empedocles the first is
in B 26:
23See Kranz(above, n. 3) 433, Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 54-55, and others.
24For the historyof the discussion of the date of the tractsee the firstchapterof Mansfeld (above, n. 16), esp. 16-30.
25See Diller (above, n. 3) 57; Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 9-10; see also A. H.
Coxon, TheFragmentsof Parmenides(Assen 1986) 218.
26Cf. DK 1.232, ad loc.; Kirk (above, n. 3) 313; Diller (above, n. 3) 55; Kerschensteiner (above, n. 3) 119-122; M. Finkelberg, "Homer's View of the Epic Narrative:
Some Formulaic Evidence," CP 82 (1987) 135-138; see also L. Tarain,Parmenides
(Princeton 1965) 47-48; E. Heitsch, Parmenides (Munich 1974) 147; Coxon (above,
n. 25) 189, and others.
27As, for example, G. Calogero, Studi sull' eleatismo (Rome 1932) 22 n. 1;
U. H61lscher,Parmenides (Frankfurtam Main 1969) 47; or D. O'Brien in P. Aubenque
ed., Etudes sur Parmdnide(Paris 1987) 1.21-22.
28On Parmenides'dependenceon the traditionalepics see W. Jaeger, The Theologyof
Early GreekPhilosophers (Oxford 1947) 35-36, 92-96, 104; H. Schwabl, "Zur'Theogonie' bei Parmenidesund Empedokles,"WS 70 (1957) 278-289; id., "Hesiod und Parmenides. Zur Formung des parmenidischenProoimions,"RhM 106 (1963) 134-142;
A. P. D. Mourelatos,The Route of Parmenides(New Haven 1970) 6-37; Coxon (above,
n. 25) 7-17.
On the History of the GreekKOYMOY
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
111
ev &• Lpt
RptcLnogivoto K-1CX0oto,
KpwatrOt
E•t
ei; 0,CX Cccd ciS~ueoat
ev gept
ai'•f;.
ic•d(pO•wt
3tL
yp
tv
acura
a'ria, &8
&t'
8e Oeovta
,a,•,(v EOvea
ai &ov
yivovtat 6vOpornotIre
"t
•O•Prlpv
ei;
icore
gtvvtDtXotrlitaUVEPX6•,ev' ieva cK6aoov,
i
(6) •6•ore 69'aow•x' icaora(popoujeoVa
,,x0t,
N••i•eo;
r Inv 1neeVEpOE
(7) eia6icev ev
yeVrlltat.
gPivto0v'ta
Assuming that lines 4-6 are of cosmological ratherthan biological
in line 5 does not designate the frame of
purportand therefore
K•otaog; of the word
animal bodies, the rendering
depends on whether the
"now
one
refers to the
Love
into
phrase
coming together by
K6acto;"
of
the
of
the
unification
viz. the
elements,
intermediaryperiod
gradual
manifold world, or to the ultimate condition of the perfect unity, viz.
the Sphere. Now it is evident that line 7-"until, growing together
into one, they [sc. the elements] are subdued and become the
whole"29--describesthe ultimate condition of the perfect mixture, and
this meaning is furthersupportedby the contrast with the first line of
the fragment(Kpaerouaot-1ntvep0e y
where the reference is to
the ultimate condition of Strife.30But,vrlrat)
if line 7 depicts the ultimatecondition ratherthan the intermediaryperiod, lines 5 and 6-"now coming
togetherby Love into one K6ago;, // now again being borne apartfrom
each other by the hatred of Strife"-must also describe the ultimate
conditions, the reigns of Love and of Strife respectively. Consequently
the "one icoaCo;o"
in line 5 must refer to the perfect mixtureof the four
elements, i.e., the Sphere.31The other Empedocleanfragmentin which
Kct6og; is found is B 134:
29 Or,
alternatively,"become totally subdued,"although J. Bollack, Empidocle 3: Les
Origines: commentaire1 (Paris 1969) 131, seems correctin that the translationof to'rn&v
as an adverbis contraryto Empedocles' usage, cf. M. R. Wright,Empedocles: TheExtant
Fragments(New Haven 1981) 183.
30 The contrast is
emphasized and correctly explained by Wright (above, n. 29) 183:
... the roots are 'underneath'in the opposite sense to their prevailing (cf. line 1),
because they are not separateand dominantmasses but are in such a mixing ... that none
of their characteristicsis visibly distinct."
31Cf. E. Bignone, Empedocle (Turin 1916) 420. Kirk (above, n. 3) 313, if I correctly
understandhim, reaches a similar conclusion: "K6atov here means 'group,' or 'arrangement, organism'." J. Bollack, "Sur deux fragments de Parmenide,"REG 70 (1957) 61,
argues that the x6Tog; in B 26.5 is not an equivalent of opitpo; og cKXorepig: he
adduces as a parallel B 17.7 which, he infers, must indicate the general direction of the
112
AryehFinkelberg
y
KE(pxX11
1CItc
01)~c x0 XVAPOgie
C
yuiCOCOicxat,
6UoKXc•6Ot
o0 C eV
&ctovtot,
XC&Rti
v(Oxoto
oiun6o&0,oi30o, yoiva,oC9•xaviiev9a,
itr-i6a
(pp v iepi~Jic
apwro;
•ETC
Xo
Uioivov,
&XX, Kilov O•ml
x aCrati
sppovriot
OavrIa ovxouaa
0 oftv.
This descriptionof the spp~ivicpij should be comparedwith Empedocles' portrayal of the Sphere in B 29: oi y7p &cr vxtkoto 6•o
( , oU EToCLa
hXlgiot&~ioovrato,// oi~i6Egn, oi~ ooiva(
y•
yTvvrievt~ ,
K
The
fact
that
the two
xxi
o
oo;g E•rtv acix~.
&•XXX&ipaqpo;g rl
descriptions are practically identical suggests the identity of their
respective subjects-the (ppi"viepi and the Sphere.32Nevertheless
Empedocleanscholarsrefrainfrom the identification:takingfor granted
that
must mean "world,"they conclude thatthe (ppi~viepij must
be a•c6o•og
god contemporaneouswith the manifold world. Yet Empedocles'
belief in a cosmic god contemporaneouswith the world is otherwise
unattested, either in the extant fragments or in the doxographical
reports,33and the whole idea rests on the rendering of K?ioo;S as
"world." However this sense is unnecessary,for, as we have seen, in B
26.5 Empedocles uses the word to designatethe Sphere. This being so,
it is obviously preferablenot to renderthe iK6ctog;as "world"and thus
to avoid the unnecessary multiplicationof entities assuming an addicosmic developmentratherthan its final stage. Unfortunately,Bollack fails to quote the
identical line B 20.2, which would hinder his argument.Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3)
128, says that since the Sphere is not an ordered structure,Empedocles could not have
but this is to beg the question. Besides, the general presumption
designatedit as K6YoLo;,
that K6oYLo;
8&'OvZ~E
necessarilysuggests the idea of an innerstructureis wrong:
K•YJog
ai zdiv •6riv (Hdt. 7.36.5).
32The more so as both fragmentsbelong to one
poem, viz. On Nature. Diels' removal
of B 134 to the Katharmoi was, not without reason, called by G. Zuntz, Persephone
(Oxford 1971) 218, the abuse of evidence; see Bignone (above, n. 31) 631-649;
C. Horna, "Empedocleum,"WS 48 (1930) 3-7; Zuntz, ibid., 214-218; N. van der Ben,
TheProem of Empedocles' Peri Physios (Amsterdam1975) 11-15,
33 Kranz(above, n. 3) 443, refers to Sext. 9.127 (= DK 31 B 136), but if Sextus' words
have a textual basis in Empedocles, it need not be other than B 134. K. v. Fritz, "NOYX,
NOEINand Their Derivativesin Pre-SocraticPhilosophy(ExcludingAnaxagoras).PartI"
in A. P. D. Mourelatosed., ThePre-Socratics.A Collection of CriticalEssays2 (Princeton
1993) 62 n. 125, compares the idea of the divine <ppilvsupposedly pervadingthe world
with B 110.10, but there is a great distancebetween the unifieddivine mind and the statement that all things severally have intelligence and share in thinking, a view which is
relatedto the perceptiveability of the "roots."
On the History of the GreekKOWMOI
113
tional, and otherwise unattested, cosmic deity alongside the Sphere,
similar to, and yet separatefrom it. Moreover it may be arguedthat if
the four "roots"mixed in equal proportionmake blood which is the
thought organ in men (B 98; B 105; Theophr.De sensu 10 = DK 31 A
86), the Sphere, which is the perfect mixture of the four elements in
equal proportion(B 17.27 seems to state that the elements are of equal
bulk), must in its entiretybe a thought organ34which is, of course, the
.pp'v iep" of B 134; this must be the ultimate explanationwhy Empedocles "hymns"the Sphere "as god."35The ioagog, throughwhich the
qpp1lv"dartswith swift thoughts,"must, then, be the Sphereratherthan
the articulatedworld.36But if the K6dogo;is nevertheless admitted to
refer to the developed world, the fact that Empedocles uses the word
indifferentlyto denote the Sphere of Love and the world would entail
the contextualcharacterof the meaning "world"in B 134.5.
Anaxagoras B 8: o6 EX(pptorat XXhXhov'rchEv t61vi KdoygJ
i
to
p
oiit) t6
cna 'o•iC
o06u: noVcIon7at
o0h -6 Ogp~tv &iC
x•uxpou
Simplicius quotes the fragmentas illustrat&an6
Oepgo^.
"toi
•u•Xpbv
ing Anaxagoras'doctrine"in everythinga portion of everything."If he
is right, the specification "in the one world" becomes irrelevant37and
even misleading, for it suggests that the "inseparability"of things is
due, not to their intrinsic nature, but to their belonging to "the one
world."38Now the phrase "the things ... are not separatedfrom one
another ... neither the hot from the cold nor the cold from the hot"
implies that "things"are opposites like the hot and the cold, and therefore these are opposites that cannot be separatedfrom each other.39The
phrase 9v -oovi
K6ogip, which qualifies t(A, viz. the opposite things,
specifies what precisely opposites are meant to be inseparable, and
Anaxagoras' illustration-the hot and the cold-suggests that "the one
is "the one, the same order"to which complementaryoppoxo•tjog"
34Cf. Wright(above, n. 29) 238.
35 Simpl. De anima 70.17; cf. 68.2 and Phys. 1124.1.
36This would dispense with the anachronisticimmaterialityof the
<ppriv,which, on the
rendering ic6~ago as "world," scholars are compelled to allow; see, e.g., Reinhardt
(above, n. 3) 143; Guthrie(above, n. 4) 2.260, and others.
37 Not mere "beinahepleonastisch"(Gigon [above, n. 3] 53).
38 Lanza (above, n. 11) 217, ad B 8, believes that the
phraseconfirmsthe Anaxagorean
doctrineof the uniquenessof the world, but does not explain how the supposedreference
to this doctrinehere may be pertinentto Anaxagoras'meaning.
39 Schofield (above, n. 22) 371, aptly recalls Heraclitus' doctrineof the unity of opposites.
114
Aryeh Finkelberg
sites belong: the things that, like the hot and the cold, in the one array
are not separatedfrom one anothernor cut off with an axe.40If so, the
sense of the phrase "one K6ctoog"here is precisely the same as in
Empedocles26.5-"one arrangement."41
Melissus B 7: (2) ... Eiytxp E&rpototvrat,
6ioilov
ov
a&vaycrjl
"t yi1l
c
t6
E
&q
o
6v
6v,
yivs 0at ...
•fvat, &XX &nt6XXaUOat lrp6aeOv
t
(3) &XX'o-08&
yp
lrp6aoiv
K6aLo; 6
tEacoo'trljfjvat
Gvixgo6v-6
t6Xrat
ov ob~iC
&n6
oiutre6"il Eov yivertat. Since Melissus' argument
is directed against the changeability of 9b~6v and has nothing to do
with cosmology, the sense "order,arrangement"of the K6a0io`is obvious: "noris it possible for it [sc. 'b i6v] to be rearranged,for the previously existing order does not perish, nor a nonexisting one come into
being."42It seems evident that, if by the time of the composition of this
text K6aogo;was alreadya currentterm for "world,"its use in the argument could mislead the reader into thinking that Melissus argues the
unchangeabilityof the world.43Yet he does not seem to have consid40
Vlastos (above, n. 3) 345, objects to Kirk's construal(above, n. 3) 313, of Anaxagoas "the one group or category ... probably,the continuumformed by
ras' "one
is indeed a continuum,but a sineach pairio6atog"
of opposites":". .. his [Anaxagoras']K6~oCtog
gle one wherein 'everythinghas a portion of everything,'not the many continua of his
multiple pairs of opposites, which would not be 'one world"' [Vlastos's italics]. Unfortunately,the argumentis a petitio principii, but apartfrom this Schofield (above, n. 22) 371,
must be right in that the continuaof opposites were regardedby Anaxagoras"as providing the best illustrationof his general theory that 'in everything there is a portion of
everything'."
is
41 Euripidesfr. 910 (= DK 59 A 30: dav~r&ooti0cxOopav
cotov
&ayrjp•v)
(<pi6aJE•g
thoughtto be an echo of Anaxagoras'teaching. Kahn(above, n. 3) 220, says thatIc60otog
here is an instance of the "philosophical"use of the word in the fifth century. Yet the
phrasenot only allows the rendering"order,"it even suggests it: "perceivingthe unaging
world of deathlessnature"does not make good sense.
42Reinhardt(above, n. 3) 174, contended that ico6atoomeans here "einen bestimmten
Zustand,eine Phase dieser Welt ..." The construaldisregardsthe purportof Melissus'
argumentand was rightly dismissed by Gigon (above, n. 3) 52; cf. Kirk (above, n. 3) 313;
Vlastos (above, n. 3) 345; Guthrie(above, n. 4) 2.115; Schofield (above, n. 22) 396, and
others.
43 As it has misled some critics (notablyH. Diller, "Die philosophiegeschichtlicheStellung des Diogenes von Apollonia,"Hermes 76 [1941] 365-366; cf. Kahn [above, n. 3]
229) into thinking that Melissus may have attackedthe idea of the changeabilityof the
world maintainedby contemporaneousphilosophers. Now, regardless of whether these
philosopherscalled the world ico6atog,it seems clear enough that whateverMelissus may
intend to show to be unchangeable,he argues the impossibility of its alterationqua rt
(= arrangement)of rb 6v that he demonstratesto be unalterd6v,and it is the
•c6aJto
able.
On the History of the GreekKOXMOX
115
ered the possibility that his audience could hesitate to refer 6 K66ogo;6
to rbnup6~0(v 6v, for otherwisehe most probablywould
pp6e0ev
~vhv the use
have avoided
of the word or would have specified it as 6
r t
cp6oaOev 6oago;i6vrowvor d6vro;---cf. ••ralooGkrOVMv Ed6vzov
in the next sentence.44
In all the instances examined thus far Kc60to;seems to be invariably
used in the traditional sense "order,""arrangement."Only in one
occurrence, at Empedocles B 134.5, the word may be, though not too
likely, taken as applying to the world. If this is indeed Empedocles'
referencehere,juxtaposed to the applicationof ICoGxo;to the Sphereat
B 26.5, it attests to the occasional characterof the use and the ensuing
contextual characterof the sense "world." Considering also that the
established sense "world"most probablywould precludeMelissus' use
of the word in his argument,we may infer that by the middle of the
fifth century the word still did not acquire the cosmological sense.
With this conclusion in mind we may turn now to Heraclitus. In his
occurs in B 30, 89, and 124, though only in B 30 its
fragments
K6GJaoo
is
authenticity unquestionable.45
B 30:
v o0ME
(r6voe),
a-rbyv a
rv, o0re t?
K•x6oov axx' t6v
tadv
Oet•
i
jv
at
fo
delicai oativ ai
MvOpnov inoiiEsv,
*inp ai&,oov,
gtpa icta &tnooe~vv-iegvovgrpa. The fragmentis gend&iro6gevov
with reference
erally held to be the first instance of the use of
to the world, but this is not at all certain, fori6cotoa
the reference to the
ordered alterations of fire is equally possible: "This order[ed
sequence],46the same of all [things], did none of gods or men make,
but it ever was and is and shall be: everliving fire, kindling in measures
and extinguishing in measures." Theoretically speaking, B 30 may be
an instance of (a) the usual meaning "world,"(b) the contextualmeane?w
Et
6vrowV,
6vrov Ei•l, Mullach;
44MS;
aooCrLov
xv
CE•aiKOG•tjrEi* ioWV
Heidel.
45 The word is found also in B 75, but Diels's assessment of it as a fragment,disputed
by Reinhardt(above, n. 3) 194 n. 2, has been generally abandoned,see Gigon (above,
n. 3) 52; Kirk (above, n. 3) 312-313; Marcovich (above, n. 8) 10; J. Bollack and H. Wismann, Hiraclite ou la Separation (Paris 1972) 234, C. H. Kahn, The Art and Thoughtof
Heraclitus (Cambridge1979) 216, and others.
46 "Orderedsequence, series" is one of the most fundamental and well-established
meanings of ic6'tog in Homer and afterwards, as for instance, in II. 24.622, Od.
13.76-77, or Hdt. 8.67; the same sense the word has in the epic formula
in
iact•r K6tov
application to song. For further examples see Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 5-24; cf.
Kranz(above, n. 3) 430-431.
116
Aryeh Finkelberg
ing "world,"or (c) the usual meaning "order."Option (a) is hardlycompatible with our conclusion thateven some fifty years later "world"was
not the usual meaning of Kop`og either in the Greek West (Empedocles) or, what is especially significant,in Ionia (Anaxagoras,Melissus).
The decision is, then, between (b) and (c), and reasons in favor of the
latteroption seem to be more cogent.
If by
Heraclituswished to refer to the orderof the world, he
K•6itog
would have
had to clarify this because, as we have seen, this was not a
customaryapplicationof the word. It has been repeatedlyarguedthat
•SE specifies the K6oatogas that very order which we see aroundus,
i.e., the orderof the world.47However since beside its deictic sense "8E
has another principal meaning, that of referring forward, Heraclitus'
supposed specification must have been misleading. Habituallytaking
in the general sense of "order,"and naturallylooking for its
K6ctgog
specificationfirst of all in the text itself, Heraclitus'readerwould readvov
pov pa the suitable
ily find in &wr6A'gevov
ptgtpa Iai &roope3vvCTP
of
the
and
of
reference
word
consequentlywould understandthe
point
the
to the orderedalterationsof
as
66E proleptic, viz. relating
fire. In other words, Heraclitus'x•6oog
contemporariescould hardly understand 6og`og;as "the order of the world"; rather they would have
understood it as "the order of the fire's kindling and extinguishing."
Further, Heraclitean scholars regularly mistranslate -rv antbyv
as "the same for all,"48because "this world [or as the word is
&RntVtOWV
artificiallyrendered,"world-order"],the same of all [things]"does not
make sense.49But the phrase"thisorder,the same of all [things]"does,
portrayingas it does fire's regularalterationsas changes of the global
scale. Finally, the reference to the world would turn the phrase "none
of gods or men made" into the denial of the view that the world was
47 Kirk (above, n. 3) 314; cf. J. Burnet,Early GreekPhilosophy4 (London 1930) 162;
Reinhardt(above, n. 3) 175-176; Kranz(above, n. 3) 441, and others.
48Reinhardt(above, n. 3) 170 n. 1, followed by Kirk(above, n. 3) 308-309, and others,
as a gloss.
excises rov aurbyv
•nicvryov
49 One may however
wonder whether "this world-order,the same for all" is better.
as the masculine and understands"one
Vlastos (above, n. 3) 346-347, takes the
nctivryov
from "privatex6atCot"of those asleep (B
of the waking as distinct
and common
oca•gog"
89). Apartfrom the questionableauthenticityof Kicago; in B 89, its grammardiffers from
that of B 30. When the "common"is related to men, as in B 89 and also in B 113, the
idea is conveyed by the dative ("the common [binding]for everybody"),but when it is
related to things, as in B 114, by the genitive ("the common [principle]of everything"),
and it is the latterconstructionwhich is found in B 30.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMO1
117
brought into existence by a creator, an idea which no Greek (at least
until Plato's Timaeus)held, and the solemn rejection of which would
have soundedto Heraclitus'audiencepointless and grotesque.50But the
assertionthat the orderof fire's alterationswas not broughtaboutby an
extraneous agent is an informativestatementof the self-sufficiency of
cosmic fire.51Considering all this, the fragment seems to be properly
understood as speaking of the ordered eternal sequence of the fire's
measuredalterations,which is also the sequence of all things; the idea
thus conveyed is comparablewith Anaximander's i toi Xpbpvou
tr;tq
(B 1).52
B 89: 6 'Hpdlhxt T6 (Plat
rtot;~i
yprlYop6atvwia
ti Kotvbv
'vo
IOTOV
i'tov onooUpE(PEGOtt.
dEvat, t(v 8F Kol
VotltvoV
Ev
c(ojlov
o
Diels
accepted the first clause and the word i'tov in the second one,
but, as Gigon pointed out, icotvov instead of 4,v6v in the first clause
indicates that it also underwenta rewording.53This casts doubt on the
genuineness of co'ato;, which may well be a gloss. And there can be
little doubt that it is indeed a gloss: the word means "one's world,"54
but such a metaphoricaluse presupposes the usual meaning "world,"
which was not the case even half a centurylater.
B 124: &ronep odapla EiKfi KEXU?xWvoV
6
q(PTGV
K0h1ZGto;,
'HpdlKhtTo, [6] IX6opto;.If K6~6to;is assumed to be a part of the
quotation, and if Diels's emendation adppta for adp4 of the MS is
accepted, then Heraclitus'contrastwould be between a randomheap of
sweepings and the most beautiful co6ijto;. Both the Theophrastean
context and the intrinsic meaning of the opposition suggest that the
50 The difficulty is concisely stated by G. E. R. Lloyd, Polarity and Analogy (Cambridge 1971) 273 n. 3: "It is strikingthat in Fr. 30 Heraclitusdenies that the world-order
is the productof 'any god or mortal' ... This is such an explicit denial that it looks as if it
is directed against some specific myth or theory. Yet we have considerabledifficulty in
identifyingthis with any certaintyfrom our availableevidence."
51 This notion was reportedby Theophrastus,as reflected in a number of dependent
accounts in which the fire's kindling and extinguishing are said to be KxtrXdtvx
Ei••ap?tavrlv &vdyXrv(Simpl. Phys. 22.33 = DK 22 A 5) or simply
Eitapkvxprlv (D.L.
K•a'
=
9.8; Aet. 1.7.22; 1.27.1; 1.28.1 DK 22 A 1, 8), cf. HeraclitusB 137.
52On the synonymy of ro'atog;and rd(t; see Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 11 and
n. 5, 12 and n. 1, 17 n. 1.
53Gigon (above, n. 3) 10; cf. Kirk (above, n. 3) 63-64; Marcovich (above, n. 8) 100;
Kahn(above, n. 45) 104, T. M. Robinson,Heraclitus (Toronto1987) 138.
54 Or, as Kirk(above, n. 3) 63, puts it, "thesum of one's experience";cf. Kranz(above,
n. 3) 441.
118
AryehFinkelberg
contrastturns on the idea of order;55the meaning of ~c6opo; is, then,
"order,"but it remains unclear whether the word is used absolutely or
with reference to the world, thus exhibiting the contextual sense of
"world." If the cosmological context of Theophrastus'quotation is
taken as indicative of the similar purportof Heraclitus' saying, the latter may have been (though not necessarily) the case, but Theophrastus
cites the phrase for a rhetorical effect and therefore his context is
indecisive.56The only secure conclusion seems, then, to be thatK16opo;
is employed here in its usual sense of "order";whetheror not the word
was used with reference to the world must remain undecided. Yet in
speculatingon the possibilities one should rememberthat it would not
be particularlydiscriminatingto postulate a contextual sense in ignorance of the context. It may also be observed that while the idea of
orderlinessis pivotal in the supposedlyHeracliteanuse of K6copo;in B
124, in its cosmological application, as exemplified in Empedocles B
134.5 and B 29.5, the word does not distinctivelysuggest this idea.
We turn now to the philosophersof the second half of the fifth century. The relevant fragments are those of Diogenes of Apollonia and
Democritus.57
Diogenes B 2:
aco
t "ivth•sCUav E•ToV
r
heoei
&p
tx svuxa&7et
mtdvayvra
6oKEt
andv.icde
w trepototh
doorXpO
vi•
i0x•oC
ocnr6o*
a•rjat
"tohe'o
0at P
y XtX
v
qv,
rqic
ca,
5•op
icai
&tIp
Kca
(p E6v"tO )t KOCYJO)
eo6vta
Et0e
x 6)a
oa pauveEat
v
t Ko•do
•6vxa, Ei
'iYp a i V'r
J1?) iaci
i
-v
, i'trpov 8v TTf
pqoat,
'Sepovtoi &rtEpo
toYPo•vtt
'6
a)Ct&66v e'r"tErMtE
RoXaXc; ~xa &'trepotoi'ro,
o68api4 o 9te
t(doayeaOt
a&XXfXot•186varo K•cX.
The emphatic repetition"in this I6o'Jo;9"may seem to suggest a conand indeed the doxographical
trastwith some other ico1ao; or K6coraot,
55Cf. Gigon (above, n. 3) 52; Marcovich(above, n. 8) 550.
56Cf Kranz(above, n. 3) 440-441; H. Frainkel,"AThoughtPatternin Heraclitus,"AJP
59 (1938) 319; Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 97 and n. 2.
57In the fragmentswhich came to us under the name of Philolaus (whose floruit may
be as late as c. 400 B.C.,see C. A. Huffman,Philolaus of Croton[Cambridge1993] 1-6),
ic6oato in the sense "world"is quite frequent.Since, however, the authenticityof these
fragmentsis controversial,it would be more prudentto reach our conclusions independently of these texts and to check their use of the word as against the conclusions arrived
at.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMOX
119
traditionascribes to Diogenes the belief in a pluralityof worlds.58Now
Diogenes Laertiusadduces the first sentence of Diogenes' book (B 1):
"I believe that at the beginning of any accountthe authorought to make
his starting point indisputable .. ." The opening words of B 2 ("my
opinion, in sum, is ...") and its general content suggest that the fragment is such an "indisputablestartingpoint," and indeed Simplicius,
who cites it, says that it directly followed the proem. Consequently
even if a few sentences between B 1 and B 2 are missing, it seems obvious enough that they were not dedicatedto the theory of pluralworlds.
From the philosophical point of view as well the contrastbetween our
world and other worlds is scarcely possible here, for the principle Diogenes is formulatingis universal. It follows that on the assumptionof
the established sense "world"for -6Ko?to;,the emphatically repeated
demonstrativemust be pointless. Further,if ic60go; means "world,"
Diogenes' wording appears intolerably and surprisingly pleonastic,
'r av [t•Fi6] T0 KG[(1o
comparedwith his usually succinct style: ei y'&p
w
wad
pwpi i p
ii3 Kid 6,raxx [oa qxpaiveE6v'tx[viv], yi iS' i
t6t
pp Rp
-drKIo?
'rat Ev
eitou~rov rt ix•h. Finally, the phrase rx
I6vrxo],
Y~o•e
av 'r5Fe
(
r
tv '06e
6avrao vuv suggests a contrastwith rx&
K0o•JL•
if
is
rendered
as
"world,"yields
k6vtxa7tp~oev, which,
Kr6t~o)
K•doog
the
between the present and previously
patently impertinentopposition
existing componentsof the world.
Diogenes' opposition is between the apparentlymanifold and essentially unified nature of things,59and the temporal specification of the
manifold as "existing now" habitually puts this metaphysicalcontrast
on the cosmogonical plane; therefore the implied ra or rather t6
bv
(8oe ) ic6ct'o ~bv tp6o0ev is unified natureitself, viz. the arche.60
roapog;,then, must refer to the general arrangementof things,61irrespective of whether this is the articulatedworld or the uniform arche.
The latter application is exemplified by Empedocles' use of KcJopog;
with referenceto the uniform Sphere, and Melissus' use with reference
to homogeneous being; if in Empedocles B 134.5 KoJCpog
is assumedto
refer to the world, Diogenes' usage would exactly parallelEmpedocles'
in that the word would apply to both the uniform arche (which is
58D.L. 9.57; Ps.-Plut. Strom.12 (= DK 64 A 1, 6), etc.
59So correctlyKerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 178.
60Cf. Reinhardt
(above, n. 3) 174.
61Cf. Kirk(above, n. 313.
3)
120
AryehFinkelberg
comparable with the homogeneous Sphere) and the differentiated
world. The emphaticallyrepeateddemonstrativeand the list, otherwise
pleonastic, of the world components are thus intended to specify the
sense "arrangement"of Ko6~jto;as "cosmological arrangement,"and
the fact that Diogenes was at pains to secure this sense shows that by
his time the word was not habituallyused in the cosmological context.
in the sense "world"occurs twice,
In Democritus'fragments co6aiog;
in B 274 and B 34,62but both instances are unreliable. The authenticity
I
of B 247 (&v6pi aotp noa yfi
yap &ya0fiGXatpi; 6
VUXfiG
•atii.
the
has
been
for
reason
that the phrase con; Koa6Jog)
rejected
Jtntag
sists
of two corruptediambic trimeters,63and this meter is hardlyincidental, for the phrase is a banal variation on a sentiment popular in
fifth-centuryAtheniandrama.64It is noteworthythat in the second line
of the trimeter the meter is broken precisely by the unmetrical
As to B 34, it comes from David the Armenian,a Christian
KoCYIo;g.65
Neoplatonistof the sixth century,Prolegomena38.14 (Busse):
cati6c(rEp v w)inavri 6p&04evXr p[~v
6povTa otov T&
~t6vo(g
t
T
otov
e
6eta,
6&Kai 6pXovTawaxi
S
av6p6r(iEta
ap6pvlxva
t ep (bXv
va
px& 6o•oyxa
t 0a,
1
&v0pdrOt iicP,
b•t v ic•ax
K6pCrLP
....ov
tp6')
acrbv
v Awtl6'Kptrov
'z8&
6;vx
&p
%?t6vC0
r(J
ictai v
cal'rca0opoFvat,
'r
&
tpxovtat
ic•ai
oPXoUxtv
•wa -tx gev piovov;
ica 6pxolotv (; 6 60lt
WoRtep6 Xoyo;,
'r
...
&8•a 6 vw;
fl En?tteoupa.
a•pxov'tat W6o0tCFp
62In B 180, B 195, and B 274 the meaning is "adornment";in B 258 and B 259 the
referenceis to political order.
63J. Freudenthal,Die Theologiedes Xenophanes(Breslau 1886) 38 n. 3.
64Both in tragedy (e.g., Eur. fr. 777, 1047 N) and in comedy (e.g., Aristoph. Plut.
1151); the maxim is cited also in prose writers(Thuc. 2.43; Lys. 31.6). See DK ad B 247;
R. Philippson, "Demokrits Sittenspruche,"Hermes 59 (1924) 369-371; S. Luria, "Zur
Geschichte einer kosmopolitischenSentenz,"Proceedings of the Academyof Sciences of
the USSR, 1925, 78-81; id., "Einstellungendes Klassikertextesbei Stobaios,"RhM 78
(1929) 88-90; cf. Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 173 and n. 4, but the popularityof the
sentimentalreadyin the second half of the fifth centurymakes her suggestion of the Stoic
provenanceof B 247 unnecessary.
65Some scholars (notably S. Luria, Demokrit [Leningrad1970] 602, who denied the
genuineness of B 247, see the previous note, but later changed his mind) are ready to
admit that Democritus could cite the popular verse maxim; if this was the case (which
does not seem particularlylikely), the unmetricalK6otog;could not originally belong to
Democritus'quotation.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMOX
121
David has no doxographicalauthority,and his attributionof the notion
of ttxpb; Kx6`tLoto Democritusdoes not find supportin other sources.
The earliest instance of the term is in Aristotle who, without specifying
its provenance, applies it to animals in general.66The term, again in
applicationto animals, is related by Galen to "men of antiquityexpert
in inquiry into the nature of things."67Scholars are willing to see in
Galen's reference to ancient philosophers of nature an assistance to
David's attribution,but this seems to be a mistake:the parallelbetween
the world and man suggests a world ruledby Reason, which the parallel
between the world and animal does not; these are two conceptions of
different philosophical provenance. In the Atomists' world there is
nothing akin to the human intelligence, and therefore of all the Presocratics Democritus is the least likely choice for being credited with
formulatingthe conception of man as microcosm.68But not only is the
philosophical plausibility of David's attributionscant, the comparison
he draws between the world and man is patently Platonic, and his
appeal to the authorityof Democritus is surprising. Considering that
the microcosmic theory was quite popularin laterphilosophy in general
and in Neoplatonism in particular,and seeing that beside Democritus
there is no other Presocraticphilosopheraddressedin either of David's
extant works,69the question arises whether the Democritus referredto
is the Abderite, or ratherthe prominentthird-centuryNeoplatonist of
the same name, whose theory of soul (which is significantfor our case)
was influentialenough to be included in a doxographyeventually used
66
Phys. 252b26. The argumentAristotle considers in Phys. 8.2 is that if it is possible
for an animal to rouse itself from rest to motion, it may be possible for the universe as a
whole to be now at rest and now in motion. Luria (above, n. 65) 425, says that he is
"deeply convinced" that not only the term, but the views considered by Aristotle, are
Democritus', but Guthrie (above, n. 4) 2.471 n. 2, seems closer to the truth when he
remarks that "this is certainly not an analogy of which Democritus would have
approved."
67De usu part. 3.10 (= DK 68 B 34).
68The idea was implicit in Presocraticthoughtfrom its very beginning, but, as Guthrie
(above, n. 4) 2.472, comments, "the most striking thing about their [the Atomists']
achievementis the extent to which they freed themselves from the anthropomorphicconception of the universewith which the microcosmic theory is most naturallylinked."
69 Save, of course, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. David's reference, In Porph.
105.11 (Busse), to Heraclitus' mannerof writing as exemplifying &a`pemais irrelevant,
for since Aristotle's Rhetoric Heraclitus' style was commonplace;note the popular dictum (cf. D.L. 2.22 = DK 22 A 4) concerningthe deepness of Heraclitus' meaning which
David adduces.
122
AryehFinkelberg
by Stobaeus.70But even if we assume thatDemocritusmeanthere is the
Abderite, David's appeal to his authorityin connection with the Platonic theory of the microcosm would allow two explanations:either the
notion of jtipo K6icago;as such was intimately associated in the
Greek traditionwith Democritus' name, or David mistakenly credited
him with the Platonic conception of the microcosm. The fact that in
mentioningthe microcosmic theory Aristotle and Galen fail to refer to
Democritus, as well as the general silence of Greek doxographyabout
the Democriteanprovenanceof this popular notion, speak against the
formerpossibility,and thereforethe latteris more probable.71
It thus emerges that the fifth-centurytexts do not furnish any clearcut evidence for Koago;oas "world." The word is consistently used in
and even in this sense no sysits primarysense of "order,arrangement,"
tematic employmentof it in cosmological speculationsis traceable. On
the contrary,certaininstances of the Presocraticuse (notably,Melissus'
and Diogenes') suggest that the word had no distinctive cosmological
connotations. Xenophon's testimony that "world"was not among the
proves to be correct.
fifth-centurysenses of 6oCjgo;
II
A philosopherwho began to teach in Athens in the last years of the
fourth century, Epicurus, defined Koago; as nTIptoijr ti oupavoi,
The definia yiyv ai itdrvTat qpactv6~geva
~oapaCE ix
is a well attestedsense of
tion need not much surpriseus, for "heaven"nept•Zoiaa.72
the GreekKiago;. This meaning is explicitly statedin the Epinomis,73
70 Ecl. 1.49
(1.370.1-2 Wachsmuth).
71As H. Langerbeck,A6•i; intpoagii• (Berlin 1935) 77, saw. The title of Democritus'
book Mipb S;
may have been an ultimatesource of the confusion.
72Pyth. 88;6idiooto;S
roi
cf. 112: ritva&
Palvet oi CdRvov Tb~~Ipo;
'oapa oTpEpocatl
'
axoT
i,
K6 oE arvat, niEpi0 r
... &XX&cxKai &vrlv
po;
ro'roroC -to
o
'outnv'verxl ppE•qEat
Ccx
roi irEPiirOXEiV,
yiF-IcwXovaxi'ylrOEplEarivcxl id (0O;uruCii
Kai
'C,raXaca Krx.
For furtherinstancesof this use in Epicurussee flepi pqaFo;ota', col. IIIa-IVain D. Sedley, "Epicurusand the Mathematiciansof Cyzicus,"CronacheErcolanesi 6 (1976) 37-38.
73Epin. 987B7: the sphere of the fixed stars is said to be what "one would especially
seems to be used exclusively in the
call
Although in the Epinomis K6oagIo;
"heaven"(977B2; 986C4; 987A5, B7, D8), the only generally recognized instance
senser?toago;."
of this meaning remains 987B7, though the synonymy of -co"ago;,"OXtIRno;,and
oibpavd;at 977B2 (for this use of"Ok•vXno;cf. Parm.B 11.2-3) is often noted, see, e.g.,
Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 50; Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 43; cf. W. Burkert'sobserva-
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOLMOY
123
is frequentin Aristotle,74found in the thirdcenturyin Cleanthes'Hymn
to Zeus75and in the astronomicalwork of Euclid,76is reportedin the
first century A.D. by Philo to be a regular use of the word,77and is
recorded by Greek lexicographers.78The use is attested as early as
t KOO
IsocratesPanegyricus 179: cti yxNpyj;
tri
Et&taindal; )Ib io
'11
Riv
6;
,
8' E'pU'PTn%
'Aaiaoq
rt
8Xoa
[[tijRCVr; Koa, was finished c.
Rtvrl; K
course
380, was not oflaoovjgvrle Xi. The speech, which
an esoteric philosophical piece; we may thus infer that by this time the
use of
in the sense "heaven,"viz. synonymouslywith o^Opav6q,
K6atgo;
was fairly
popular. This conclusion finds supportin Isocrates Busiris
12, composed several years earlier: &dpayocptot; Rev
olou)r6nouno
r
u
tot;
)i
rov
REv
to;
n;
alo
nr' •Rpsov •Xzrauovoivo0u,
...
8'
&F
v
i7v
[sc.
o6pav
Rv
Egypt]
8taCpi0tpogRLvou;, Cai"rlv
Xa,,iaroc
in
tob
The
sense
which
Isocrates
uses
Krk.
KEtiivylv
xK6ajo;
hereK6aoto
is best clarified by the comparison with Herodotus 1.142: oi &8
tov
'"o0ve;o-rot ... o.•
ioC tO)
Lv tOK•)
loRv
o1Jpovo wK(Xt
O)po)ev
t
vot
...
yxp
x
ati7'
ivo
t'aTzoXavov
i6SpaodU6 nt6ktax o.tes
oT9pia
It tb inotist f9 'Ilovi oite x&
Xt
... tx&
inb roi0IUXpo
.•tu
g•v
sTe
Kai &ypoi itew6gtva, tix 6k 'nb ToGOspgoi [s Kiial
aO g
8Fo;g.79It
thus emerges that where Herodotussays 6v to4
iatc•toi oupavoi,
Xoao
tion, Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism,trans. E. L. Minar Jr. (Cambridge,
Mass. 1972) 245 n. 36, that "at 986C the word
[is] connected in an emphaticway
o6atgo;
with paths of the stars."
74E.g., Meteor.340b10, 12; Met. 1063a15;EN. 1141bl.
75Ap. Stob. Ecl. 1.1.12 = H. v. Arnim, Stoicorumveterumfragmenta (Stuttgart1905)
1.122.3-4: ao' 86i n&; 6E 6ato;, Xtaao6oFevo;nEptiyyatcv,//Iiei•rat. Cf. Arius Did.
fr. 33 Diels (above, n. 14)•c467.7 (= Arnim, 1.34.27): r*v 8' iXtIovIKaiTiv aGXk•vrlv
6io
Oi
riiv
ri'v8'
n'&'xvacxohiv,
&d'n'
&vaToXfi;
K*6aooGRo
in8
pop&qOapeaOl,
wvavCI (6t&ovpt'v
o(98ion
Ii'rcapaivovra;.
rtavt6I1Oo`
iEK
6.15 (Menge):
YIaOor' 6t&t Tfij; lVo I'Civ ininE6ov
69piroyv&8 8.29:
i
E~i
12.14);
(cf.
FiCninTov
rbv o6agIov
ic6ajgotneptarpoqi~;Xp6vo; aOriv,iV )
&iro' jvaToki; ini iv
,r.
i1
lccxaTovT&vx&haviv earipoy
&
&ava'tOXijv
'an'Vt rTv
tVij;
napaylver•at
&q' o lnoToiv '6Trnouv
ini
acxbyvv6nrov.
Ev
totvvy 6 6ato;
ao;Ka'
77 Philo De aet. mund. 6.73 (Cohn-Wendland): yFcxTat
tiv
[np&Tov]oao2x$aica
Agoipavo) Ica
rIapoov KaTx&
neptoXiv ((ai) yi; cKac
•zv in' abxrfi
('ov iaic quTwv, KaO' eTpov ii'6vo; o;pav6;q nK. For the use of o6aIgo;for
"heaven"in general literaturesee Diod. 1.169.17, 19; 173.8 (Milller).
78 Pollux 4.158 (247.24 Bethe): obpav6;q, c6a0TCo;,AiCiko;, Cvat, S3ca
T& iv TO
iicuxy, & oi inokoit
xakooatv nKcr.Hsch. Lex. 2812 (3.354 Schmidt): n6xo;~,o(8ta
oupavo6, -o6ago;o kX.
79 For other instances of Herodotus'use of oupav6q in the sense of "climate"see J. E.
Powell, A Lexicon to Herodotus2 (Cambridge1938), s.v. iC6atao;.
76 Phaen.
124
AryehFinkelberg
Isocratesuses ev ahcaio' toU
Isocrates' use of 6oago;for
Kxo•Cgo)v.
"climate"testifies that as early as about390 B.C.the synonymy between
olpav6o and K6ago; was so close and familiaras to make possible the
occasional use of the latterin derivativesenses of the former.
in the sense of "heaven"is frequent in Plato,
The use of
K•coog;
although it is often overlooked by translators and commentators.80
Leges 820E-821B:
AO. ao[pov 86i1 ,Rbe'tX&o•aa opaotr7
OrlOtyV
loitgv`otg, av
OeNv
oi
...
To9vavtiov
?X
.bv
7a1i
&poCnqcl oioa
•t~y3toaov
TiRt&O
oitCe?rleltv 88&vo'me.stoXrunpaygoIcai 5Xov [bv KIca0ovqpNThv
yp o38U' otov etvat--zo F_
veiv tI&goairig
n toitoiAEpvvovzaog--oa
to vavtiov ytYv6pievov6po; g &v yti~yveo~t
'otcevov ov
6tXX'
iarpov r?npt~gdOrlaxi otoorov
... KA. eic6ra
oiyetg"
ave'upfioog•v;
The two referencesto the study of the stars and the subsequentdiscussion (821B-822D) of the tracksof the heavenly bodies indicate that the
inquiryinto tbv gyytorov O0bvcail iXov tbv 6i0agov is astronomyand
thereforeK6ogo; must mean "heaven"here ratherthan "world."8'
&' vo6v nidvra
a t
Philebus 28E: cb
pydvaoit
coal fig;
6taovcooaEdt
'v o
oS CoXO6poouKct?l (iou
iaocldolg
doalpyov
oehal
Vrl;g
acot
ove(g
ot
&;tov Icxr. Plato's
counting "theK6(coog"with the sun,
neptupopa;
ri1g
as visual manifestationsof the
revolution
and
the
moon, stars,
heavenly
Mind's orderingactivity again favors the sense of "heaven." Similarly,
in Criti. 121C3, where Plato says that Zeus called all the gods into
'
"their most honorable residence" which icarx eoov nravro;gro
the
I
aCi
op&
ioc yeveaeog Er
KcT6xootP3EP3cuia
•E~,F•Ev,
avoids the
the whole heaven" not only
translation"in the middle of idtvraa
oddness of the location of the god's residence "in the middle of the
whole world"(in the midst of the sphericalearth?in between the earth
and the sky?) but is distinctly suggested by the icaOopQ,the basic sense
of which is "to look down."
80But see D. J. Furley's comment, Aristotle On the Cosmos (Cambridge,Mass. 1978)
349 note c.
81Also in its two other occurrencesin the cosmological context in the Laws (897C8
means "heaven";in 897C this sense is furtherwarrantedby the comand 967C5) Kico"Tog
parisonwith Plato's explanationof the benefitsof sight in Tim.46E-47C.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOLMOI
125
Timaeus27A: "8o4ev y xp iifRivTipgatovgLv, iCTOvTa
cuTpovott'pyov
to. 7avLbrgEi&vat l XlctoXa
Kcxtatov fLgov Kal 7Lcpi
qcpeTCoog
t
to
InetnrOTgtjvov,
Xyetiv p06pOevov &rbt ig o K6ogo(TO)
nIpTov
&kEi;
yev~(oeS, eevx&v
5vOp8nyov
(pa3ntv
Kxh. The phrase &p6dgpievov-FXUexe&vsuggests a series of consecutive accounts, more than
two-of the world and of man-as the traditionaltranslation of the
as "world"makes it mean. Again, on the currentrendering,
Ko•R•og
Plato's
emphasis on Timaeus' being an astronomerappearsirrelevant:
to account for the generationof the world and of man one might well
(and would better) have been a philosopher. The meaning "heaven"
suits the context better: "beginningfrom the generationof the heaven
and going down to the creation of man" is indeed a series of accounts
in which Timaeus' expertnessin astronomymay find its properapplication.
The fourth-centuryuse of Ka6~1ogfor "heaven"brings us back to
Aitius' report,accordingto which Pythagoraswas the first who called
tilvyiv
8T(ov
rneptoxlyv 6cogov. The phrase resembles Epicurus'
neptoxTi tig oupavob, and, more remotely, Aristotle's 6
K•X6og •-rti
ri"vyiiv.82As we concluded above, the reportreflects
rteptxov
the use of K6•Rgogby the Pythagoreansof the last generations,and we
•c6•gogit
can now see
why may have drawnTheophrastus'attention:it became
currentin Athens at the beginning of the fourth century B.C.and was
takenup by philosophers.
Another semantic developmentwhich took place in this period was
the extension of the meaning of oupav6g;which, in addition to its primary sense of "heaven,"came to mean "world." The first instance of
this use seems to be Rep. 509D: ... 68o
evat, alpacitexItv
a~ 6patoi, i~va
;e Iai 6tonlou,
tb TV vo-roi YVvoug
b 86'a?6t)o
tIl ouipavou
a
eooa t nrepi t6 voxa. The meaning is frequent
ei?inv 860 ( otcoipi
in Plato83and is well instanced in Aristotle.84The use is attested in
82Meteor 339b4. Cf. 6 epi qtiv yfiv 6KoCgo;which is composed of the four elements
o 6 Iog; (Meteor.340b12) located below 6
(Meteor 339a19, 340b8, etc.). This is 0'6
; ExivoU oi xo.
(Meteor 339b18;
~icaog; [sc. aether]i•rThprlS
n7pi r,& avo cpopx;
i•Tog
cf. fr. 26 Ross). Cf. Theophrastus'
similar subdivision of the heaven into the upper and
lower regions, De igne 351.19-25 (Wimmer): il npcfirrla(cpppa, which consists of the
element whose nature is
and
and i'lxepi r•v figyi~; cpcaipav
[sc.
ui•xro;
cKacapa•,
which
is
oapcapa]
cKaxi
&d
cx-araxyFveFatv (that Theophrastusconceived of the
formeras filled withegLytvtvrl
the
ratherthan aetheris immaterialhere).
83E.g., Tim.28B2; Pit.Oepgo6v
273C1; Phlb. 30B5; Lg. 896E1, etc.
84E.g., Phys. 212b17; De caelo
301a17; Met. 990a5, etc.; the third sense of ocpav;6
in Aristotle's definition at De caelo 278b10-21: "In yet another sense we call 'the
126
AryehFinkelberg
philosophers,but if it were not popularenough, Plato could not hope,
as he most probablydid, his wordplayin Republic509D be understood
by the generalreader.
Plato's use of
for "world"is well exemplified, but it seems
•o6•og;in which the word is
that not in all instances
traditionallytranslatedas
"world"does it have this meaning.
Gorgias 507E-508A: cpaq 86'oi
odpaKaXhiKeXt;, Kai
aocpoi,Jo
vbv cai yfiv ;caiOECoCg
iai &vOpthnou;g
'ilv (otvoviav ouv•xetv Kcai
Kai
aocppoo;vlv Kcai8tccat6trlTa,KcaiTb
Cai Kooglt6trl-a
pt•,~av
"Xov
6 •raipe, oi~ drCoogitav
x
[to1o
taia
Coaiocotv,
K6Cdoaov
8t6,
The currentrenderingof the ico(tog; as "world"or
o`Ni
d•oXao(iav.
is contrastedwith
"world-order"raises some problems. First, K6oaLog
but "world"can hardlybe the opposite of "intemperance."85
dwKoX(aoia,
Secondly, -rbOXov can scarcely mean "the universe"here: the denial
that the universe may be called "intemperance"is absurd, and moreover, in the sense "universe"to ~iXovneed not be specified by the
oXov does not refer to the universe, it
demonstrativeto^ro. But if -r6
cannot be called "a world-order."rboiOXovto^ro is the fellowship of
"the heaven and the earth, gods and men" ("the heaven and the earth"
stand here for the respective abodes of gods and men, not for cosmological entities) which rests on "orderand temperanceandjustice." For
this reasonthe sages refer to this all-embracingcommunityas a (moral)
order,not disorderliness86and intemperance,and that is why the intemperate, who "is incapable of fellowship" "would be dear neither to a
fellow-man nor to a god."87
heaven' the body encircled by the extreme circumference:the whole or totality we are in
habitto call 'the heaven'."
85To avoid the difficulty translatorsresort to awkwardverbal additions:"... they call
this universe a world-order ... not a world-disorder"(Dodds [above, n. 10] 308, ad
508A3); ". .. they call the sum of things the 'ordered'universe ... not the world of disorder and riot" (W. D. Woodheadin E. Hamilton and H. Cairns eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato 2 [Princeton1963] 290).
86For the moralsense of &riooa(iain Plato cf. Symp. 188B.
87Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 223-224, is correctin stressingthe moral and political,
ratherthan cosmological, purportof the passage. The sages Plato refers to are commonly
maintainedto be the Pythagoreans(see Dodds [above, n. 10] 308, ad 508A3; cf. A. E.
Taylor, Plato. The Man and His Work[London 1926] 128-129; Guthrie [above, n. 4]
4.284, Kerschensteiner,ibid., and others) and the passage is often taken as witnessing the
Whether or not it is Pythagorean(for a balanced view see
Pythagoreanuse of
Ki6otgo;. the
Burkert[above, n. 73]
77-79),
linguistic use is quite regular:the sense of the
K~6ojto;
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOLMOZ
127
Phaedrus 246B-C:
X1 RCX
cxv
XVUX
a av0XC
&m o8pavcv
Xoi zoC , irtv-ra
tt'o E1U1Xat; d8
7reptroXi, .XToT'
-v Xo1)A 'v•xTo
ytYvotFVrj.TOzaCgtiv o0v
'Tv K6opov
o~oa 1cuaiin;Rtspo•tvrvl
pte poiropsi -rEici dvmroa
T
&
E
l
<pUpEat
8totKE1C, 8 tEpoppl
)oaOa
o;g
v oGtpEEO)
'tvog0
o
&vt1iXPrlat,
oT
eoax,
yri'vov
Xa4Coixoa
KcXk.
c&ta
K•aotmoOl1
The verb 8totiko is usually takenhere in the sense "to manage,to control,"the ensuing translationbeing: "when a soul is perfect and winged
it travelsin the heights and controls the whole world."88Yet the parallel
with Kacott o0dEac suggests the other sense of &8otl~, namely "to
inhabit"(cf. Tim. 19E), while the contrastbetween r6v oK6aoov
and o&toa yrji'vov ,a[poioax indicates that the reference is &totw•1
to the
heaven. The soul journeys throughout the whole universe,
rndtva
oupav6v, taking now one form, now another:when it is "perfectand
and inhabits rndvra
winged" it travels in the heights
([tewexoporopd)
r6v K6aoaov,"the whole heaven"(precisely as Plato portraysthis in the
following paragraphswhere he depicts the procession of gods and souls
throughoutthe heaven);but when, strippedof its wings, it falls from the
heaven, it enters o0&toa
yqi.vov, viz. inhabitsthe earth.89The passage is
of great interest:the fact that
which standsfor "heaven"is conK•6o•og
for "world,universe"suggests that
trastedwith o0pav6g which stands
by that time (presumablythe mid-sixties of the fourth century B.C.90)
K6coog;had still not acquiredthe sense of "world."
If I am correct that the rendering of
as "world" in Grg.
Kco•og;that this
508A3 and Phdr 246C2 is erroneous, it emerges
meaning is
found only in the late dialogues, notably, the Timaeus,Politicus, and
Philebus (i.e., presumably from the fifties of the fourth century B.C.
onwards). Since these dialogues seem to be the first Greek texts in
which
is used in the sense of "world" (we shall return to
Ko6oLo;S
is "social order"which Plato associates with the related moral notions, coojit6zr;qand
88 See, e.g., Platon. Oeuvrescompletes,5ed. L. Robin 4 (Paris 1961) 3e partie.Phetdre
246C, translation;R. Hackforth,Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge1952) 70.
89Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 43 n. 31, 122 n. 288, is preparedto recognize
in the
K6otgo;
sense of "heaven"here.
90For a concise critical survey of the studies concerningthe chronology of Plato's dialogues, see L. Brandwood,"Stylometryand Chronology,"in R. Krauted., The Cambridge
Companionto Plato (Cambridge1992) 90-120.
128
AryehFinkelberg
Xenophon's Memorabilia in a moment), it seems reasonable to conclude that the usage was Plato's own terminological innovation. The
way in which the term is treatedin all three dialogues supportsthis conclusion. In Timaeus28B3, before he starts to employ the word in the
new sense (in 24C1
is used in the political context, and in
Ko6•1o;
27A6, as we have seen, in its regularsense of "heaven")Plato defines
n
Kcoa~o;as a synonym of oi6pav6g (in the sense of "world"):6 8 ir&
W
11
ia'TXV
_ovowX
xi a •XXo oTt lro'TE
ogi6vo;
'
oIapav•;--ii KOgOO;
K-tX. In the same manner, the first
ixotto, tro~0' iyIV davotd0om'o
time the term occurs in the Politicus (269D8) it is expressly introduced
as a synonym of oUpaxv6g(=world): 8v &i8oiUpavbv m
icic6xl ov
CX
LEv
nxapx
noXXav
xro yevvvioavxog
7rn(OvotdKxa1CEv,
•ai cap1ovplv
Finally, in the first of the two occurrences of the
Etzei?rlXpEv
KcTX.91
word in the terminologicalsense in the Philebus (29E1; 59A3; as in the
Timaeus,here too the very first appearanceof the word, in 28E4, is in
the sense of "heaven")its conventional characteris carefully pointed
out: Ta-rxbv8i
&8 Xca3g XnRpi ro•8 ~v K6otLov XTyog•v. It thus
for
seems evident that Plato did not expect that his use of
Koatgo;
"world"would be readily understandableoutside the Academy.92
There
was however one writer who immediately noticed Plato's terminological innovation.
Above I allowed for the sake of the argument that Memorabilia
1.1-2 is of an early date, but now we may try to determineits chronology with a more precision. If these chapters are of an early date
indeed, the peculiar sense in which, according to Memorabilia 1.1.11,
"the men of wisdom" used Kacoog;can only be "heaven."93Now the
91In both
dialogues all the occurrencesof ic6ogio; subsequentto the definition are in
the terminologicalsense. The only exception is Tim.40A where the meaning is "adornment"(so correctlyF. Astius, LexiconPlatonicum [Leipzig 1835] 207, s.v. cK6aoog;;
Cornford's "world"is a mistranslation),though Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 43 and n. 31, seems
correctin detectingthe pun on "adornment"and "heaven."
92 W. Burkert,"Platonoder Pythagoras?Zum Ursprungdes WortesPhilosophie,"Herwas inventedby Plato rather
mes 88 (1960) 159-177, suggested that the term (plXoYocpia
than by Pythagoras.If my conclusions are correct, xc6'ogo, currentlyconsidered a distinctively Pythagoreanterm, was also Plato's innovation.If so, Philolaus' fragments--at
least those in which ic6aoog;occurs in the sense of "world"(B 1, B 2, B 6, B 17; all these
are accepted by Burkert[above, n. 73] 218-277; and Huffman [above, n. 57] 15-37 and
passim)-must be a post-Platonicforgery. It is not for nothing that in accountingfor the
PythagoreandoctrinesAristotlefailed to mentionPhilolaus' book.
93 So in F W. Sturz,LexiconXenophonteum(Leipzig 1801) 1.776, s.v. Kc6o`o;.
On the History of the GreekKOWMOI
129
discussion of "the natureof all things"is specified by Xenophon as the
runs"and
inquiry into "how what the men of wisdom call the
Ko"tgoq
into "by what necessities each of the heavenly phenomena
takes place."
The latter inquiry is astronomical;if the
means "heaven,"the
KoqoLto;
former would be astronomicaltoo, and the
whole discussion of "the
natureof all things" would turn out to be about astronomyalone. The
sense of the K6co0o;must, then, be "world." This being so, Memorabilia 1.1-2 cannot be earlier, or at least much earlier, than Plato's
Timaeus.94 Xenophon's "the men of wisdom" are thus the Academy,
and it is their peculiaruse of Ko6Lgo;he recordshere and imitates elsewhere: 6'rbv Xkov aoov
T
... o'rto t&x
oa'itt'tov
K•ioalvVzoxv
p v rpd&x'Trv
(Mem.
4.3.13).95
6p&'opat
gt'ytorxo
Plato seems to have not intendedhis new usage to replace the traditional ones: he used Ko~0ao; interchangeablywith oppabv6;,and in the
Laws he returned to the use of the word in its regular meaning,
"heaven,"a use which he never entirely abandoned;96Aristotle continues to use
in the sense of "heaven,"and in reference to the
K•6o•o;
world he uses
6o.ato; less frequentlythan ou'pav6;. At the same time
Aristotle's use of the word in Plato's terminologicalsense suggests that
the term was not eventually discarded in the Academy, and hence its
absence from the Laws seems to have been due to Plato's ad hoc decision ratherthan to a principledrenunciationof the usage. It seems that
in working on the TimaeusPlato felt the need for an additionalterm for
"world" which would convey semantic nuances absent in o)pav6;.
What, then, could be Plato's reasons for introducing 6oag.o;as an additional term for "world"? The traditional scholarly association of
94 Perhaps the new usage was initiated earlier in the Academy, in oral discussions;
Xenophon's referencemay be to the oral use of the term ratherthan to specific dialogues.
All this however must remain purely speculative. Our textual evidence is Phdr. 246C,
which is the terminuspost quem (presumably,the sixties of the fourth century), and the
Timaeus, which is the terminus ante quem (presumablythe fifties). The Memorabilia,
which is now commonly considered a unified composition, must, then, be later than
Phaedrus and probablyeven later than Timaeus. For a critical survey of the discussion of
the date of the Memorabilia,see R. Nickel, Xenophon(Darmstadt1979).
95 Cf. the way in which Xenophon conveys a similar idea in Cyr.8.3.13: ... eeoFo
yeE
Icr.
... oi cai-rivE-riiv6Wv 6ttyv
•Xh•v
96 Lg. 821A2,897C8;
967C5 oiv(*Xoxotv
mustmean"order,"
a meaning
whichis sug(at
ic•(6ogo;
in theprevious
sengestedby vo; ... 6 8taicExcoogincgi))oa caZr'
o-opavov
irtv0'
in thesense
of "heaven"
is foundin Tim.27A6andPhlb.
tence);werecallthatKc6oL'o;
28E4(i.e.,in bothcasesbeforetheformalintroduction
of thenewterminological
sense)
andin theCritias(121C3),whichpresumably
followstheTimaeusimmediately.
130
AryehFinkelberg
K6oJog;with beauty and orderliness seems to be irrelevant. Timaeus
29A: "If this K6o0og;is beautiful (KcX6;) and the creator good, it is
obvious that he looked to the eternal [pattern],but if what is awful to
say is right, then to the created one. It is clear to everyone that he
looked to the eternal, for it [sc. this K60oYog]is the most beautiful
(iKktolrno;) of creations .. ." Clearly, the assumption that cK6o"o;
strongly implies the idea of beauty would turn Plato's reasoninginto a
sophistry. As to the idea of "order,"in Plt. 273B5 the Kcoaog;is said to
be in a state of disorder before it comes to its present orderly
condition.97 Plato's meaning can perhaps be better isolated if we
consider the word from the linguistic point of view, namely, that of its
morphology and the semantic field to which it was linked by Plato's
innovativeuse.
in the sense of "world"was the extension of its sense
Using K6~C1og;
This extenof "heaven"by analogy with the extendeduse of
oopa(v6g.
relation with 8tosion of meaning brought cK6?oo;into a semantic
which were used
/a/ctarot;6
KooaIo) and its derivative8td&Kcooao;
in the cosmological context alreadyin the fifth century.98There is how/
ever a principal morphological difference between
8td•Kootog;
on
the
while
the
on
and
other:
the
one
hand,
8StaK16(Xojt
otg,
formeris the verbalnoun relatedto K6ctJog,as the designationof its
Sta•xooF`o
action, viz. cosmogony, the latter,if relatedto the verb, comes to designate the result of its action, viz. the world as an outcome of
cosmogony.99I would therefore suggest that Plato sought for a term
97 Note that the logical subject of the phrase
'v ,riEZXov&tr(aiatlXpiv ei; zrv
no,,fi;
is 0K60ojo;
6
viyvK~6ojgov
(272E5, 273A1).
a0ptPto(uOt
98For the first time in ParmenidesB 8.60, which is the first known occurrenceof the
was used
word (zrv oot Ey 6c8tcoojpov otuc6rzandvrozor`pazro).The verb
8t•aoopj(io
0
by Anaxagoras(B 12) with referenceto the cosmogonical activity of the Mind. 8toiCooigo;is a verbalnoun and as such designates action-"(distributive) marshalling,setting in
order,regulating"(as was stressed by Reinhardt,[above, n. 3] 175, but ignored by Kranz
[above, n. 3] 434; see also Kerschensteiner[above, n. 3] 13). Its use in the resultative
sense is derivative, and hence later. For this reason in ParmenidesB 8.60 and in the
Atomists' book titles--MEyaq
o8tiKooajo; and Mtcpb &8tdrooKgo;-theproperrendering
of the word must be "[world-]ordering"ratherthan "[world-]order"(in Parmenidesthis
sense is authenticatedby the fact that the 6t&acoolgo; which the goddess is promising to
relate turns out to be a cosmogony; Kahn's interpretation[above, n. 3] 227, of the
in B 8.60 as "the system of the naturalworld"neglects both the morphology
8t~IKootgo;
of
the word and the contentof the Doxa).
99As Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 13, cf. 14, 16, observed.
On the History of the GreekKOLMOZ
131
which would be a resultativenoun in respect to the action conveyed by
8taKooaglo, and icoogo was just the word. This suggestion seems to
be corroboratedby a semantic developmentwhich evidently took place
outside the Academy but which seems to have been motivated by the
same terminological need-I mean the extension of the use of
8t61ooago; /
to designate, not only cosmogony, but also
o86acoardlot;
the ensuing world.
The first instance of this use is Aristotle Metaphysics 986a6, which is the only occurrenceof the word in the cosmological context in Aristotle, but in later authorsthe use is abundant.100
This usage conforms to the general semantic developmentof the word
which graduallycame to be used also in the resultativesense.101As a
and K6Jogo;became synonyms, and in the course
result,
taocdoagrlot;
of time these
terms generally replaced the use of oupav6; in the sense
of "world."
III
It remainsto examine the semantic developmentas a result of which
Kcoaogo came to designate the world's several regions. Presumably
drawing on current exegeses Plutarch construes the five aoCiootin
Timaeus55C-D as earth, water, air, fire, and heavens,102and scholars
are prepared to follow his interpretation, thus allowing "world's
The passage reads
regions" as Plato's intended meaning of Koa6goti.103
as follows:
in the Stoics:
100Ps.-Arist. De mundo 391bl 1 (StoaKcolrolat),400b32
(Sta6Kooago;);
D.L. 7.137; Arius Dyd. ap. Eus. Prep. Evang. 15.15 (= Arnim
[above, n. 75] 2.169.19),
etc.
101This use seems to be first attestedin Thuc. 4.93, where the word is applied to battle
order.In Plato Stoacirlo;t; occurs several times, but never in the cosmological context;
it is however noteworthythat he uses the word predominantlyin the deverbativesense. In
Symp. 209A7 the meaning is "the orderingof society"; in Critias 118A1 "the organizing
of the territory"by the works describedin the next paragraphs;in Lg. 853A3 "the arranging of the law"; in Tim.23E2 the sense is ambiguous,but it seems that what is meant to
have been recorded is the chronicle of founding the city ratherthan its constitution;the
only clear instance of the resultativemeaningis Tim.24C4. It may, then, seem thatPlato's
was too strong to put the word to the
feeling for the deverbativesense of
&taKcdoaglo;
terminologicaluse in the resultativesense.
102De E. 389F-390A; De
or
430B-C.
def. 421F-422A, 422F-423B,
103R. D. Archer-Hind,The
Timaeus of Plato (London 1888) 198-199, ad loc.; A. E.
Taylor,A Commentaryon Plato's Timaeus(Oxford 1928) 378, ad loc.; F. M. Cornford,
Plato's Cosmology (London 1937) 221; Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 51-53; cf. Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 43.
132
AryehFinkelberg
& 81i
Ei vr6voXa
Xoy~t6Igvo; •ttXgE &knopoin~drepov
it
~xovrx;, 'r6 lgiv
&Xnipou;Xpl Kcogou;o fvat Xiyetv i irCnpaXq
v
devat
66y(iya
&nEipou; ijyiatxr' &v ?vor;q7(xipov trvb;
&A
Eva i i •xv axbro);
Fxrl0ex
lunrtpov xpe~Ovevat, 7n6'rEpov
o
yetyv nori npoon•icnt,
ne_<(uxd;au
taXXov &v a(xiq o'Trg
LiKCxOq
6taunopi7otj. 'r jgivo3v 6i1 nap' 1[t(6v va acxbyv ixar&x
& Ei; 6XX(anirl
'rv eiK6CaX6yov nTUcx6o
vrtrljvut el 6v, EXXo;g
5dot.
860x
phi•q; 'rtepa
Timaeus' unaccounteddigression from the discussion of the primary
bodies to the question of how many i6~o0aotshould be assumed is puzzling. However, what seems clear is that the question posited in the
first clause refers to the numberof worlds allowed to be in existence,
which is confirmedby the comparisonwith Timaeus31A-B.1'4 But if
the io6agot in the first clause means "worlds,"'"xva
i~i' vre (x
a'rooi in
the next clause and 'vaxatxr6v in the last one must also refer to worlds.
Plutarch'sexegesis is unwarranted:whateverthe purportof the passage
may be, the K6aoLotmeans "worlds,"not "regions."105Besides this
Timaeuspassage two other texts have been referredto as supposedly
testifying the fourth-centuryorigins of the notion of the universe as
stratifiedinto several oajogot.
Damascius De Principiis 321 (Ruelle) = Eudemus fr. 150 (Wehrli,
70.12-19):
&S 6E1pto;
~ j;
evaoCt&d•i mic Xp6vov cxi
Z&vmro
EpEFicr
[.tv
X8oviavI'x; srpEi;npcjaX;q
Tcv 8voiv,
&pxd;, 'ilv ~aXvg(Pninp6
x
io
6
av,
'Xv &8Xp6vov notiIoat -KTouy6vov
XrlV
aXixr&; poZ&
roi
ci {6p, riv pnkuijv,
Ualoto 7np ici irveiwcoacai
oxtt, npitv
C
g
1v
v
vorl ou,
tCvTe
vo)v TnoxilV &rlv
8tplvtt•
LZFotg
uov oivat 8&0v, rlV vTC
'aixTbv
iv'Zxov
KacXcL[tiVjv,
yewvev
& tol)Tov (kxog i'a•g
inEv,
( ibo)
n7epi
nesvtEKoopgov.
E•o
pcXv•xItK(Xtpo;.
o1v 6p0•e EvaoCpavbv
ii InoXX Kai neirpou; X•ytv
'04
•i
nrpoostpjiKcaOEv,
nI6epov
... 68t&
va, Ei'nspCa-r nap6d&itYga
iv 6pe6terpov;
taOra
86Erl1itoOpyrg1vo;otat
"tb
oi•zre&0ooijZ'&nIEpo; e~nicO1eV6 rnot~vKC6ogou;,6XX' Ef 688govoyevi~; o pav6;
105Though conceding Plutarch's interpretation,Cornford (above, n. 103) 220-221,
wonders:"Itstill remainsa puzzle why Plato should speak of the notion that thereare five
cosmoi = regions in the one world as an alternativeto a single cosmos = world or an
indefinitenumberof worlds"[Cornford'sitalics].
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOEMOX
133
Damascius draws here on Eudemus, and Kerschensteiner106
suggested
as
must be his,
that the explanationof the Pherecydian
tuXo'o coatoot
for, she argues, the surmise i'owg
bespeaks Eudemus' attemptto
EittEnv
construe, in following Aristotle Metaphysics 1091b8, Pherecydes'
approach as midway between theology and natural philosophy. The
suggestion does not appeartenable when Damascius' whole passage is
considered. The first two underlined phrases are clearly Damascius'
own surmises, and the third is quite on a par with them. The explanation of
as
og must, then, be Damascius' (and it
rtevr_4guXo; nrev'r•co~o
may be added that this explanationneed not be more relevantthan his
two previous conjectures). Furtherevidence of the early use of Kc6?aog
for several cosmic regions has been found in the Theophrasteanreport
on Anaximanderdiscussed above (pages 108-109), the plural acoigot
in which have been admitted to refer to the elemental spheres.107Yet
Simplicius' plural seems to be due to a corruption,the correct version
being the singularKacoiogin Hippolytus.108But if nonetheless Simplicius' version is preferred,the grammaticalparallelbetween rob; oipaseems to suggest the meaning "a single
vou; and toi;
K6tomago
in
each
(arrangement)
single oiUpav6;(world)." At any rate, if
coato;S
is
to
have
describedthe cosmic stratain others'
Theophrastus supposed
doctrines by the term co6aogot,
he may certainly be expected to have
used the term in his own stratification of the universe (De igne
351.19-25), which is not the case.
Yet although the notion of the world's several a6oigotcannot be
plausibly traced back to the fourth century B.C.,its preconditionsare
already there. Mansfeld109aptly compares the notion of regional
with the popularview of the universe as composed of concenK6at1ot
tric elemental spheres,110as well as with the subdivisions of the heavenly region in the early Academy"' and the Aristotelian distinction
106 Kerschensteiner
(above, n. 3) 53-54 and n. 1.
(above, n. 16) 44-45; cf. Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 44.
108 See Finkelberg(above, n. 21) 486, 493-494.
109Mansfeld (above, n.
16) 43-44.
110See, for instance, Arist. De caelo
287a30-b14; and in the Stoics: D.L. 7. 137, 155;
for furtherreferences see Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 114 and notes 250, 251, 252; 115 and
notes 253 and 256. Mansfeld traces this view back to Aristotle,but it was alreadyprefigured in the Presocraticcosmologies.
Ill Xenocrates fr. 15, cf. fr. 5 and 18 (Heinze = fr. 213, 83, 215 IsnardiParente);Heraclides Ponticus fr. 96 (Wehrli). Cf. P. Boyanc6, "La religion astralede Platon ' Cic6ron,"
REG 65 (1952) 331-335; Burkert(above, n. 73) 245 n. 36.
107Mansfeld
134
AryehFinkelberg
between the upper and lower heavens. As to the term
6co(toq,
Epinomis 987B advises to reserve the name for the sphere of the fixed
stars alone, but in the second partof AMtius'reporton Philolaus, which,
as Burkerthas shown, is a Platonic concoction,112we find the typically
is the
Platonic threefold division of the heavens113in which
ioa'to;
as distinct
name of the sphereof the five planets, the sun and the moon,
which is the outerheaven, and from oUpav6;, which is
from"Ok•hgnro;,
ro l)1noo(krlvov Kai R-pPyetovjgipo;. Thus it seems that the name
Kojogo; was applied to more than one, if eventuallynot to all, heavenly
regions, and it was but a short step to make this cumulativeuse systematic. Again, Aristotle's two senses of Koa(log, the upper and lower
heavens, readily suggest the terminological distinction between two
heavenly KG6got.114We may thus suppose that the "regional"meaning
of K6opog;was a generalizationof its use in the sense of "a (particular)
heavenly region (sphere)" for all the world's spherical strata.115The
pseudo-HippocratictractDe hebdomadibus,which seems to be the first
in the "regional"sense, confirms
known instance of the use of 6o'Tgoq
this conclusion.
In the first two chapters of the treatise the world is divided into
seven ro4t; (1.41, 50, 63 Roscher), jgoipat (1.70), or g'pip (1.78)
which severally (1.43, 70, 2.15, 42) and collectively (1.95) are referred
to as K6oJgot. These are the outer heaven, the spheres of the stars, of
the sun, of the moon, of air,of water,and the earth,beneathwhich there
are other Ki6ogotoiot 8 -rv t0bv
opttolyv jloto vetvj •18v (2.1). The
these
feature
of
peculiar
K6opGotis that, except for the earth and the
outermostheaven (2.15), all of them (including the spheres of air and
112Aet. 2.7.7 = DK 44 A 16; Burkert
(above, n. 73) 244-246.
113Burkert's"of the cosmos" (above, n. 73) 245 and n. 36, repeatedin Mansfeld'srefer-
ence (above, n. 16) 43 n. 34, to Burkert,is mistaken.
e' yet [sc. Aristotle] &51o
114Epiphan.Adv. haer 3.31: E{vat 5&
tbv &vwKai
Ko6o•go•T
TbvKXdOC
CT X,.
115It should be noted in this connection that the Stoics seem to have used the term
a(paipa for both the celestial spheres and the elemental sphericallayers:Arius Did. fr. 31
Diels (above, n. 14) 466.9 (=Arnim [above, n. 75] 2.169.1) ... rnepteXeo0at&%
rtdoa
T&;
( cov
Tfi T•&v
&(hav&v ocpaipaq. t&v 5e nr(avwgevwvdyrlxonmXb
Irxavwgjvw0iv
&
Toi
Kp6vou, tger& Ta(xriv TijvTzo-At'd,
tdhrlv elvat TeX&tlV(xZCv)&~havwvTilv
Tv to3
icaijleC'
etra ilv toi "Apeog,Pefij; &e%
TfiT 'Ap(poSi'lT,
ilV
'Eptoi,j
i azr(lV
& jlV
i TvfiG
i i&o't tSi
av tzcod~pt ... nDR&8
iAvl Rald(ovdo
eFxa •lv toi illioi,
TV
ov pog,
oP
p
U
(TO) i6azo,
tail ae&lIv
TEXEvETo3Xa
aR v (PEP
rlV TjilVTo t
t'
Ta(av 5•%til%T- Yiq Rept Cbg•oov oralgeovToDlrogot ceIteIVlqK X.
OntheHistoryof theGreekKOXMOX
135
water as well as the subterraneanones) move in circles (2.6, 47). This
bizarrebehaviourof the 6oaTjotsuggests their origin in the astronomical theory of the homocentric rotating spheres. The Hebdomadiccosmology seems to be a generalizationof the astronomicalmodel for the
world as a whole, and the use of K6o'tot for the designation of all the
elemental spheres must be part of this generalization. If so, the tract
evidences the derivationof the use of K60ototin the "regional"sense
from the use of the word for heavenly spheres.l16
More specific conclusions must remain conjectural. The source on
which the Hebdomadicauthorpresumablydrew could hardly be astronomical. First of all, Eudoxus' sphereswere known as
and
uptipa1t,17
certain
of
features
the
Hebdomadic
its
secondly,
picture suggest philosophical, ratherthan astronomical,provenance. Indeed,the name of the
outermost sphere 6
(2.15, 42) evokes Epinomis
06X•rtigto; Kcotio;
where
and
977B,
6o(0og;,"Okugnrog;, oaUpav6gare used synonymously
of the outerheaven (cf.
as the name of the outer heaven in the
"Oh••rtog;
Platonic account of Philolaus);
if Roscher's emendation lprilrou for
Xcipitro(1.44) is accepted, this epithet of the outermostsphere would
parallel Theophrastus' description (De igne 351.24) of his rpdokrl
but above all, the immobility of the outermost
apcixpa as Ktircxog;
is
K6cLog; conspicuous:in so far as it is not the sphereof the fixed stars,
it cannot come from an astronomicaltheory. To these it may be added
that a person who, like the Hebdomadic author,does not hesitate to
locate the fixed stars and the planets in the same spherecan hardlybe a
reader of astronomicaltreatises. The source of the De hebdomadibus
must, then, have been a philosophical tract in which the theory of the
homocentricrotatingspheres was adaptedto the Academic-Peripatetic
stratificationsof the heaven into several main regions, and these concentric stratawere termed K6O(0ot.The piece seems to have originated
in Platonic-Peripateticcircles: Eudoxus' theory (as improvedby Callippus) of the homocentric spheres was introduced into philosophy and
adaptedby Aristotle;the Hebdomadicterminology suggests Academic,
116
Cf. Corp. Herm. 1.1.7: EirthxKoagIot= the seven planets.
117Both in astronomical and general literature,see, e.g., Arist. Met. 1073b17; Eucl.
Phaen. 12.6 (Menge); Arch. Aren. 256.1 (Heiberg); Diod. 1.172.32, 34 (Miiller). It is
however noteworthythat ic6agog was the established astronomicalterm for the sphere
whose radiusis the straightline between the centers of the earthand sun, see Arch.Aren.
must be derivativeof its
218.2, cf. 218.24, 31 etc. This terminological use of
K6o•gog
meaning "heavenlysphere."
136
AryehFinkelberg
and if Roscher's emendationis accepted, also Peripatetic,provenance,
while the use of KoG'Tot for all the heavenly regions is a generalization
of Platonic (but perhapsalso the astronomical-K6oJlgo;as the term for
the solar sphere)usage.
But whateverthe detailed points of semanticdevelopmentmay be, it
seems evident that the "regional"sense of 6oajgo;,besides the use in
the sense of "world,"is anotherextension of its meaning "heaven.""118
The word which meant "heaven" and then "a (particular)heavenly
sphere,"came to designate also all the other "spheres"of which the universe was commonly believed to consist.119Assuming Mansfeld's date
of the De hebdomadibus,this use must be late, aroundthe first century
B.C.
TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY
118 Not the
narrowing of the sense of "world" as is generally supposed; see, e.g.,
Kerschensteiner(above, n. 3) 58-59; Mansfeld (above, n. 16) 44 and n. 35.
119This is the exact meaning of icoaJgogin its "regional"use. The meaning was never
lost and the word seems to have been used only for the world's strata or strata-like
6
regions, as in Herm. ap. Stob. Ecl. 396.17; 405.1 (Wachsmuth),where 0'er6polo;
are distinguished(LSJ, s.v. c6ajgogiv, "of any region
K6oagogand 6 ~irntx6vioqK6Tagog
in Stobaeusis misof the universe"[LSJ's italics], with referenceto 6 pverdpoato
Kpog6to
leading). The popularconstrualof the word as referringto "partialarrangements"of the
world (as, for instance,in Cornford[above, n. 21] 9: "K6ajgothere [in Hippolytus'report
on Xenophanes]might mean successive 'arrangements'in which dry land and sea are distinct ... Or the
may be those other 'climes, sections or zones of the earth'which
Ka6•aot
of their own (Adt. 2.24.9)," or in Kirk [above, n. 22] 178 n. 1: "...
have suns and moons
the ambiguous use of Kdoagot [in the same report of Hippolytus] ... there properly
i.e. of the earth'ssurface .. ."), is a linguistic fancy.
'world-arrangements,'
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