Hellenistic Science at Court / / Marquis Berrey.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2017 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Berrey, Marquis,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Series: Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Cultures , 5
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (VIII, 274 p.)

The development of science in the modern world is often held to depend on such institutions as universities, peer-reviewed journals, and democracy. How, then, did new science emerge in the pre-modern culture of the Hellenistic Egyptian monarchy? Berrey argues that the court society formed around the Ptolemaic pharaohs Ptolemy III and IV (reigned successively 246-205/4 BCE) provided an audience for cross-disciplinary, learned knowledge, as physicians, mathematicians, and mechanicians clothed themselves in the virtues of courtiers attendant on the kings. The multicultural Greco-Egyptian court society prized entertainment that drew on earlier literature, mixed genres and cultures, and highlighted motion and sound. New cross-disciplinary science in the Hellenistic period gained its social currency and subsequent scientific success through its entertainment value as court science. Ancient court science sheds light on the long history of scientific interdisciplinarity.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Simmias the Elephant-Hunter and Other People at the Court of Ptolemy -- 2. Kingship, Symposia, Gift-Exchange: Parameters of Friendship -- 3. An Entertaining Genre -- 4. Technology and Performance in Eratosthenes and Andreas -- 5. Herophilus’ Pulse and Archimedes’ Mechanized Mathematics -- Epilogue -- Editions of Primary Sources -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- Index Rerum