THE GENESIS OF THE LAW OF GRAVITY 315 



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ire of the Athenians was aroused in behalf of their gods. As a result, 

 history would have claimed the first martyr to scientific truth in the 

 person of Anaxagoras (500^28), had not the great Pericles inter- 

 posed in his behalf. Even so, the death penalty was but exchanged 

 for that of banishment. 



Another disciple of Thales was the illustrious Pythagoras (572- 

 400), who not only held the views of his master, but, from observations 

 on the altitude of the stars, measured in different places, demonstrated 

 that the earth was round, or, at least, not flat. He conceived Venus 

 to be both the morning and evening star — a view lost sight of, later, 

 as shown by the double name, Lucifer and Hesperus, long applied to 

 this planet. Most remarkable, perhaps, was his doctrine of the diurnal 

 rotation of the earth and its annual motion about the sun. Less sub- 

 stantial, but longer-lived, was his fanciful notion of the harmony of 



