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Eudemus
Eudemus (general)

Eudemus was one of Alexander the Great's generals, who was appointed by him to the command of the troops left in History of India, after the murder of the Alexander-appointed satrap Philip by his own mercenary troops in 326 BCE:...
 is also the name of a general of Alexander the Great (died 316 BC).


Eudemus of Rhodes (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ??d?µ??) was an ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 philosopher, and first historian of science who lived from ca. 370 BC until ca. 300 BC. He was one of Aristotle's most important pupils, editing his teacher's work and making it more easily accessible. Eudemus' nephew, Pasicles, was also credited with editing Aristotle's works.

mus was born on the isle of Rhodes
Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
, but spent a large part of his life in Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
, where he studied philosophy at Aristotle's
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 Peripatetic School
Peripatetic

The Peripatetics were members of a school of philosophy in ancient Greece. Their teachings derived from their founder, the greek philosophy Aristotle and Peripatetic is a name given to his followers....
.






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Eudemus
Eudemus (general)

Eudemus was one of Alexander the Great's generals, who was appointed by him to the command of the troops left in History of India, after the murder of the Alexander-appointed satrap Philip by his own mercenary troops in 326 BCE:...
 is also the name of a general of Alexander the Great (died 316 BC).


Eudemus of Rhodes (Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ??d?µ??) was an ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
 philosopher, and first historian of science who lived from ca. 370 BC until ca. 300 BC. He was one of Aristotle's most important pupils, editing his teacher's work and making it more easily accessible. Eudemus' nephew, Pasicles, was also credited with editing Aristotle's works.

Life

Eudemus was born on the isle of Rhodes
Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
, but spent a large part of his life in Athens
Athens

Athens , the Capital and largest city of Greece, dominates the Attica periphery; as one of the List of cities by time of continuous habitation, its recorded history spans around 3,400 years....
, where he studied philosophy at Aristotle's
Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
 Peripatetic School
Peripatetic

The Peripatetics were members of a school of philosophy in ancient Greece. Their teachings derived from their founder, the greek philosophy Aristotle and Peripatetic is a name given to his followers....
. Eudemus's collaboration with Aristotle was long-lasting and close, and he was generally considered to be one of Aristotle's most brilliant pupils: he and Theophrastus of Lesbos
Theophrastus

Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eressos in Lesbos Island, was the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. His interests were wide-ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics....
 were regularly called not Aristotle's "disciples", but his "companions" (`eta????).

It seems that Theophrastus was the greater genius of the two, continuing Aristotle's studies in a wide range of areas. Although Eudemus too conducted original research, his forte lay in systematizing Aristotle's philosophical legacy, and in a clever didactical presentation of his teacher's ideas. Later authors who wrote commentaries on Aristotle often made good use of Eudemus's preliminary work. It is for this reason that, though Eudemus's writings themselves are not extant, we know many citations and testimonia regarding his work, and are thus able to build up a picture of him and his work.

Aristotle, shortly before his death in 322 BC, designated Theophrastus to be his successor as head of the Peripatetic School. Eudemus then returned to Rhodes, where he founded his own philosophical school, continued his own philosophical research, and went on editing Aristotle's work.

Historian of science

At the insistence of Aristotle, Eudemus wrote histories of Greek mathematics and astronomy. Though only fragments of these have survived, included in the works of later authors, their value is immense. It is only because later authors used Eudemus's writings that we still are informed about the early history and development of Greek science. In his historical writings Eudemus showed how the purely practically oriented knowledge and skills that earlier peoples such as the Egyptians and the Babylonians had known, were by the Greeks given a theoretical basis, and built into a coherent and comprehensive philosophical building.

  • As regards his History of Arithmetics (????µ?t??? ?st???a) we only have the tiniest bit of information: there is only one testimonium, saying that Eudemus mentions the discovery by the Pythagoreans
    Pythagoras

    Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionians Ancient Greeks mathematician and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mysticism and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics and natural philosophy....
     that it is possible to connect musical intervals with integer numbers.


  • Eudemus's History of Geometry (Ge?µet???? ?st???a) is mentioned by many more writers, including Proclus
    Proclus

    Proclus Lycaeus , called "The Successor" or "Diadochos" , was a Greek philosophy Neoplatonist philosophy, one of the last major Classical philosophers ....
    , Simplicius
    Simplicius

    Simplicius may refer to:* Pope Simplicius.* Simplicius of Cilicia, the philosopher.* Simplicius , an operetta by Johann Strauss II.* Simplicius Simplicissimus, the main character of Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus novel....
    , and Pappus of Alexandria
    Pappus of Alexandria

    Pappus of Alexandria was one of the last great Greek mathematicss of antiquity, known for his Synagoge or Collection , and for Pappus's hexagon theorem in projective geometry....
    . From them we know that the book treated the work by, among others, Thales of Miletus, the Pythagoreans, Oenopides of Chios, and Hippocrates of Chios
    Hippocrates of Chios

    Hippocrates of Chios was an ancient Greece mathematician, , and astronomer, who lived c. 470 – c. 410 Common Era.He was born on the isle of Chios, where he originally was a merchant....
    . Among the topics Eudemus discussed were the discovery of geometrical theorems and constructions (systematized in Eudemus's days by Euclid
    Euclid

    Euclid , floruit 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematics and is often referred to as the Father of Geometry. He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I ....
     in his Elements), and the classical problems of Greek geometry, such as the quadrature of the circle and the duplication of the cube.


  • We know quite a lot too about Eudemus's History of Astronomy (?st???????? ?st???a), from sources such as Theon of Smyrna
    Theon of Smyrna

    Theon of Smyrna was a Greece philosopher and mathematician, whose works were strongly influenced by the Pythagoras school of thought. Little is known about the early life of Theon of Smyrna; Ptolemy cites work of his on several occasions between 127 and 132, but there are few other dates that are known for certain....
    , Simplicius, Diogenes Laërtius
    Diogenes Laertius

    Diogenes La?rtius , the biographer of the Greece philosophers, is supposed by some to have received his surname from the town of Laerte in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and by others from the Roman Empire family of the La?rtii....
    , Clement of Alexandria
    Clement of Alexandria

    Clement of Alexandria , was the first notable member of the Christianity of Alexandria, and one of its most distinguished teachers. He was born about the middle of the 2nd century, and died between 211 and 216....
    , and others. Building upon those data we can reconstruct with some accuracy the astronomical discoveries that were made in Greece between 600 and 350 BC, as well as the theories that were developed in that period regarding the earth, solar and lunar eclipse
    Eclipse

    An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another. The term is derived from the ancient Greek noun , from verb , "I cease to exist," a combination of prefix , from preposition , "out," and of verb , "I am absent"....
    s, the movements of the heavenly bodies, etcetera. Philosophers and astronomers treated by Eudemus include Thales, Anaximander
    Anaximander

    Anaximander was a pre-Socratic Ancient Greece philosopher who lived in Miletus, a city of Ionia. He belonged to the Milesian school and learned the teachings of his master Thales....
    , Anaximenes
    Anaximenes

    Anaximenes may refer to:*Anaximenes of Lampsacus , Greek rhetorician and historian*Anaximenes of Miletus , Greek pre-Socratic philosopher*Anaximenes , a lunar crater...
    , Oenopides, Eudoxus
    Eudoxus

    Eudoxus was the name of two ancient Greece:* Eudoxus of Cnidus , Greek astronomer and mathematician.* Eudoxus of Cyzicus , Greek navigator....
    , and others.


Two other historical works are attributed to Eudemus, but here his authorship is not certain. First, he is said to have written a History of Theology, that discussed the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Greek ideas regarding the origins of the universe. Secondly, he is said to have been the author of a History of Lindos (Lindos is a port on Rhodes).

To Eudemus is also ascribed a book with miraculous stories about animals and their humanlike properties (exemplary braveness, ethical sensitivity, and the like). However, as the character of this work does not at all fit in with the serious scientific approach that is apparent from Eudemus's other works, it is generally held that Eudemus of Rhodes cannot have been the author of this book (it may have been another Eudemus—Eudemus was a fairly common name in ancient Greece).

Editor of Aristotle's work

Eudemus, Theophrastus, and other pupils of Aristotle took care that the intellectual heritage of their master after his death would remain accessible in a reliable form, by recording it in a long series of publications. These were based on Aristotle's writings, their own lecture notes, personal recollections, etcetera.

Thus one of Aristotle's writings is still called the Eudemian Ethics
Eudemian Ethics

The Eudemian Ethics is a work of philosophy by Aristotle. Its primary focus is on Ethics. It is named for Eudemus of Rhodes, a pupil of Aristotle who may also have had a hand in editing the final work....
, probably because it was Eudemus who edited (though very lightly) this text. More important, Eudemus wrote a number of influential books that clarified Aristotle's works:

  • Eudemus's Physics (F?s???) was a compact, and more didactical version of Aristotle's homonymous work.
  • Eudemus wrote two or three books dealing with logics (Analytics and Categories (possibly the same book), and On discourse (?e?? ?e?e??)), which probably expounded Aristotle's ideas.
  • Finally, a geometrical work, On the angle (?e?? ????a?).


A comparison between the Eudemus fragments and their corresponding parts in the works of Aristotle shows that Eudemus was a gifted teacher: he systematizes subject matter, leaves out digressions that distract from the main theme, adds specific examples to illustrate abstract statements, formulates in catching phrases, and occasionally inserts a joke to keep the reader attentive.

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