200 SCIENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY 



problems perhaps falsely attributed by tradition to 

 Aristotle, and which enunciate with remarkable 

 accuracy the composition of movements by the 

 parallelogram of forces. If this work is not Aristotle's, 

 its distinctly peripatetic inspiration points to its being 

 due to one of his immediate disciples. 1 



Another tradition preserved by the Arabs attributes 

 to Euclid various treatises on the lever and heavy and 

 light bodies. These may not have been the work of 

 Euclid, but they were certainly written by one of his 

 contemporaries ; for, whilst drawing their inspiration 

 from peripatetic dynamics they use an axiomatic 

 method similar to that of the Elements, but much less 

 elaborate than that of Archimedes. 2 



If Archimedes had precursors, he assuredly had also 

 followers in antiquity. Byzantine and Alexandrian 

 science pursued the various paths opened up by him. 

 The art of engineering, developed by him to such a high 

 degree, inspired, as we have seen, the labours of 

 Ctesibius, Philo of Byzantium and Hero of Alexandria. 

 Pappus, on the other hand, endeavoured in theory to 

 equal the demonstrations of the great Syracusan. He 

 alone of all the geometers of antiquity attacked the 

 problem of the inclined plane, without, however, 

 succeeding in solving it correctly [Pappus, Hultsch 

 edit., pp. 1032 and 1033). 3 On the other hand, he 

 discovered the two following theorems, which are 

 known by his name, though sometimes called the 

 theorems of Guldinus [idem, p. 652), namely : 



The volume generated by the revolution of a surface, 

 bounded by a curved line, about an axis is equal to 

 the product of the area of the surface and the circum- 

 ference or arc of circumference described by its centre 

 of gravity. 



The surface generated by a curve turning round an 



1 11 Duhem, Origines, I, p. 108. % Ibid., p. 67. 



3 Ibid., p. 144. 



