Eugene Afonasin

The first complete translation of the Derveni Papyrus into Russian is prepared by Eugene V. Afonasin. The remains of carbonized upper part of a papyrus roll with a Greek prose text written in columns, found in the debris of a funeral fire of a Macedonian grave around Derveni, is now ranked among the most important literary finds ever made and is admittedly the oldest papyrus found in Greece. The papyrus contains a very curious commentary to an Orphic theogony and in this capacity is of great interest for understanding religious and philosophical developments at the end of the fourth – the beginning of the third century B. C. E.. The author considers the enterprise quite timely, since we now possess an authoritative edition of the text with commentaries and the photographs of the papyrus – a collective effort the Greek team, as well as a series of new studies, provoked by this long-awaited event. The present publication contains a Russian translation of the papyrus, supplied with short textual and bibliographic notes, occasionally supplemented by longer remarks of conceptual nature.

Cicero, Clement of Alexandria as well as Proclus inform us that Theophrastus [372–287 BCE] inclined to identify the god and the sky. In the paper we will see that, indeed, the student of Aristotle frequently professes ideas that would surprise the philosopher of Stagira. For instance, he frequently insists that the kosmos is a living and ordered universe, and its innate movement is something which cannot be explained with the help of hand-made teleological constructions, such as the first mover. The analysis of the Metaphysics is supplemented in the paper by observations based on Theophrastus’ Meteorology and a selection of the fragments of his lost scientific works. The Metaphysics is translated into Russian for the first time.

The article deals with currents and tides. We look at the history of their observation in antiquity as well as alternative theories, designed to explain their nature. Major theories accessed are those by Aristotle, Posidonius and Seneca. Special attention is given to ancient explanation of the phenomenon of the periodical change of the stream in Euripus’ channel. Throughout we refl ect on an analogy between natural phenomena and the processes occurring in living organisms, common to our philosophers of nature, as well as the peculiarities of their interpretation of the theory of mutual transformation of the elements. Besides, it is important to note the place of the method of analogy in their observations and theoretical constructions.

The first detailed study of the pulse is associated in antiquity with Herophilus, an Alexandrian physician, renowned for his anatomical discoveries. The scholars also attribute to him a discovery of a portable and adjustable water-clock, used for measuring ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ pulse and, accordingly, temperature of the patient. In the article we translate the principal ancient evidences and comment upon them. We study both the practical aspects of ancient sphygmology and the theoretical speculations associated with it. Ancient theory of proportion and musical harmony allowed to build a classification of the pulses, but the medical experience did not fit well in the Procrustean bed of this rather simple theory.

Eugene Afonasin highlights the wealth of information on Pythagoras and his tradition preserved in Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis and presents them against the background of Later Platonic philosophy. He rst outlines what Clement knew about the Pythagoreans, and then what he made of the Pythagorean ideal and how he reinterpreted it for his own purposes. Clement clearly occupies an intermediate position between the Neopythagorean biographical tradition, rmly based on Nicomachus, and that more or less vague and difuse literary situation which preceded the later developments, and in this respect is a very good source, worth studying for its own sake and as supplementary material which can help to understand the great Pythagorean synthesis attempted by Iamblichus. Developing their variants of the “exhortation to philosophy” (protreptikoi logoi), these men were much concerned with the educational value of the Pythagorean way of life rather than biographical circumstances, designed to place the ancient sage in the proper cultural context