“The Base Mechanic Arts”?: Some Thoughts on the Contribution of Science (Pure and Applied) to the Culture of the Hellenistic Age

My first task must be to remove some misapprehensions and dispose of some widely held but erroneous notions about ancient science and technology. For example, we are frequently told that the Greeks had no word for science, as we understand that term. But they did have a word, historia, and even if we do not think much of Herodotus’ pioneering “inquiries,” it would be a bold man today who would deny the title of “scientific inquiry” to Theophrastus’ Inquiry into Plants (Peri phyton historia), a work which laid the foundations of the science of botany. As for technology, it is