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Cleomedes' Lectures on AstronomyA Translation of The Heavens$
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Cleomedes' Lectures on Astronomy: A Translation of The Heavens

Cleomedes and Lawrence Witmer

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780520233256

Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012

DOI: 10.1525/california/9780520233256.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM CALIFORNIA SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.california.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright University of California Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in CALSO for personal use.date: 28 January 2022

Introduction

Introduction

Chapter:
(p.1) Introduction
Source:
Cleomedes' Lectures on Astronomy
Author(s):

Alan C. Bowen

Robert B. Todd

Publisher:
University of California Press
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520233256.003.0001

The Heavens (Caelestia) is the only surviving work by Cleomedes. In the absence of any external biographical information on him, his floruit has to be inferred from the probable date of his treatise. While in the Caelestia he deals primarily with elementary astronomy and some aspects of cosmology, he also anticipates and assumes instruction in Stoic physical theory, and cites without explanation doctrines from Stoic metaphysics, epistemology, semantics, and logic. Since Cleomedes admitted using material from Posidonius, his work was sometimes seen simply as a repository of Posidonian doctrines and treatises, or, in more modified claims, as an amalgam of earlier Stoic literature and Posidonian components. If any source is to be assigned to the conjunction of rigorous reasoning, observations, and physical theory that is so pervasive in the Caelestia, the only possible candidate is Posidonius, even if Cleomedean demonstrative procedures are not regarded as Posidonian in every detail.

Keywords:   The Heavens, Caelestia, astronomy, cosmology, Stoic physical theory, Posidonius

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