Hadrian denar, Crescent and Stars << < (4/5) > >> *Robert_Brenchley*: The diameter of the Earth was measured, accurately, in 240 BC or so, by a guy called Eratosthenes, who was head of the library of Alexandria. No way were the Romans unaware that the planet is round! *quisquam*: As far as I know there was no agreement in ancient time. A round earth means that there are Antipodes, people on the other side with feet and head directing in the opposite direction. According to the german wikipedia this seemed absurd to some (Laktanz and Augustinus for example), while others thought it was possible (Pythagoras, Platon, Cicero). We had discussions about this topic here, too: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=5673.0 http://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=40755.0 Stefan *Red Henry*: Quote from: Sap on July 06, 2009, 04:12:33 am At the risk of reviving yet another dormant thread, this subject too has been debated at length on the forum. In this thread, for instance. Short answer: yes, the Romans would have known that the Earth was round. The Greeks they conquered certainly did. That is a very informative thread, and confirms what I had believed, that the Romans (and educated Europeans after them) knew quite well that the Earth was round. No wonder there are so many spherical depictions of the World on Roman coins. I believe that Ptolemy's geography, published c. 150 a.d., shows that the Romans knew of the round Earth, although they may not have considered it proven, and even had a fair idea of its size (though, as noted above, these scientific advances may have been due much more to the Greeks than to the Romans themselves-- it is noteworthy that Ptolemy himself, in Alexandria, was writing in a Greek city). Although the first atlases accompanying Ptolemy's work may not have been published until c.1000 or 1100 a.d., his written descriptions from which they were made were clear enough on the subject. At a much later date, as I recall, what Columbus had to convince Isabella of was that he could sail westward to the Indies without himself and crew dying of starvation and thirst before they got there-- which, of course, the sailing ships of their day could not do. It was just luck, for him, that he found a stopping-off point. Red *slokind*: Better than round, they knew it was spherical, and that from much earlier, from the times that ships first exited Gibraltar and crossed the equator and watched the starry sky. Or sailed up the Nile. Or went to the Land of Punt. Or watched a ship approaching from over the horizon. Compare "the Ancients" to (for example) "the North Americans". Like Lactantius, some of the latter group accept that Extraterrestrials descend in New Mexico in Flying Saucers (on which my Apple Airport Extreme's antenna unit's design is playfully based) and come out to scare the modern New Mexicans out of their skins yet believe, because it's in print, that the world was created in 4004 BC (the book doesn't say by which calendar). Other North Americans think empirically. There doubtless were easily frightened Genoese in Columbus's day that thought the earth was round, all right, but a round disk, so that ships would fall off the edge into the jaws of sea monsters. The zodiacal girdle and the apparent progression of signs itself tended to prompt empirical and theoretical minds to think. Pat L. *Pscipio*: As so often, Pat makes a good point there. Among scholars, the roundness of the earth was widely accepted way before Ptolemy's geography as f.e. the comparison of the shape of the earth with a leather ball by Plato in the Phaidon-dialogue shows. Four hundred years later, Pliny listed the obvservations that lead to this knowledge point by point. It was Pliny, too, who observed that a solar eclipse in 59 AD took place between 1 and 2 pm whereas a Roman military officer stationed in Armenia reported the solar eclipse took place three hours later there. That, among many other observations, could only be explained by a spherical earth. Most educated people knew, or accepted that, some others didn't. Lactantius mainly refused the idea of a spherical earth with Antipodes for religious reasons. Lars Navigation [0] Message Index [#] Next page [*] Previous page