Further Reading
By far the best general introductions to ancient science are G.E.R. Lloyd’s Early Greek Science to Aristotle (1970) and Greek Science after Aristotle (1973).
A little old, but still a useful introduction, is S. Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks (1956).
Philosophy and science were very much intertwined in the ancient world. A useful introduction to Greek philosophy is the Routledge History of Philosophy, vols 1 (1997) and 2 (1999), and a more extended introduction can be found in W.G.C. Guthrie’s History of Greek Philosophy in six volumes (1962–81).
The Cambridge Companions series is a useful way of finding out current thinking on various philosophers. While they concentrate on philosophy, there is always some useful material on ancient science as well. There are Cambridge Companions to Early Greek Philosophy, ed. D. Sedley (1999); Plato, ed. R. Kraut (1992); Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (1995); and Hellenistic Philosophy (forthcoming).
The standard work on the pre-Socratics, useful for both their science and philosophy, and giving a good amount of the original material, is G.S. Kirk, J.E. Raven and M. Schofield’s The Presocratic Philosophers (1983).
Somewhat more difficult and controversial, but very entertaining, is J. Barnes’ The Presocratic Philosophers (1979).
On Plato, A.D. Gregory’s Plato’s Philosophy of Science (2000) is the latest work, or there is also G.L. Vlastos’ Plato’s Universe (1975), which has an interesting introductory chapter on early Greek cosmology.
On Aristotle, the best introduction is G.E.R. Lloyd, Aristotle: The Growth and Structure of his Thought (1968), especially chapters 6 and 7.
More advanced on Aristotle, and also containing a great deal of material on issues in science and philosophy in the ancient world, are R.R.K. Sorabji’s Necessity, Cause and Blame (1980), Time, Creation and the Continuum (1983) and Matter, Space and Motion (1988).
For thinkers coming after Aristotle, R.W. Sharples’ Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics (1996) is a good introduction to Hellenistic philosophy and science, while Long and Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols (1987) gives a great amount of original material along with a commentary.
On specific subjects in ancient science, for cosmology I would recommend D.J. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists (1987) and M.R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (1995).
On astronomy, J. Evans, The Theory and Practice of Ancient Astronomy (1998) is the latest work, and while T.L. Heath, Aristarchus of Samos (1913) is somewhat old, it is still a good introduction.
Somewhat more technical are D.R. Dicks, Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle (1970) and G.J. Toomer, Ptolemy’s Almagest (1984).
On mathematics, the standard work is T.L. Heath, Greek Mathematics (1931).
On the life sciences, R. French, Ancient Natural History (1994) is the latest work.
On medicine, J. Longrigg, Greek Rational Medicine (1993) is very good, as is his sourcebook on Greek medicine, Greek Medicine from the Heroic to the Hellenistic Age (1998). On the Hippocratics, see G.E.R. Lloyd (ed.), Hippocratic Writings (1987).
For engineering, see J.G. Landes, Engineering in the Ancient World (1978) or D. Hill, A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times (1984).
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