Eureka! An Ancient Scientific Revolution

Whale Lungs, Water Clocks and the Measuring of Gas
Whale Lungs, Water Clocks and the Measuring of Gas


The Mouseaum’s Library was still small, but in the halls one could listening to a constant sea of murmers. The art of silent reading wasn’t established yet, which suited Strato, quite right(1). This way he was not only quickly able to locate Baccheius but also listen to the work he was studying: “the whale has no teeth but does have hair that resemble hog bristle”. Apparently he was reading, Historia Animalium one of Aristotle’s many magnificent works

The Hierarchy of Nature According to Aristotle

In this book he classified animals as follows (beginning from the top): “blooded” animals (referring to those with red blood, vertebrates) with humans at the top, viviparous quadrupeds (what we would call terrestrial mammals), oviparous quadrupeds (legged reptiles and amphibians), birds, cetaceans, fishes, and then “bloodless” animals (invertebrates). He named each one of these groups a “genus.”

Humans

Viviparous quadrupeds (terrestrial mammals)

Oviparous quadrupeds (reptiles and amphibians)

Birds

Cetaceans

Fish

Malacia (squids and octopuses)

Malacostraca (crustaceans)

Ostracoderma (bivalve mollusks)

Entoma (insects, spiders, etc.)

Zoophyta (jellyfishes, sponges, etc.)

Higher plants

Lower plants

Based on the “kinds” of animals and the varieties he described on could distinguish somewhere between 550 and 600 species. Most of them he had observed directly and even
listen into dissected but others were based on tales and he warned about the accuracy of those descriptions. For example, although he mentioned information in numerous occasions
provided to him by fishers, many times (but not always) he debunks some of the fallacies he heard based on his own observations, particularly when it came to reproduction.

Of what we would consider today as mammals (including cetaceans) he described about 80 and about 130 species of fishes, which, again, underlines the extensive work, he did on marine creatures, mostly while living at Lesbos. Under the genus “Cetacea” he included at least three species: (1) “dolphins” probably a combination of striped dolphin (Stenella coeruleoalba, the most frequent species in the Mediterranean), the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis), and the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus); (2) the harbor porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) which he described as “similar to dolphins but smaller and found in the Black Sea” (“Euxine”) (HA 566b9)4; and, (3) the fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) another common species in the Mediterranean.

Aristotle was able to distinguish between homology and analogy, recognizing cetaceans as a natural group with many similarities with other mammals (“viviparous quadrupeds”). He considered cetaceans as “blooded” animals, adding, “viviparous such as man, and the horse, and all those animals that have hair; and of the aquatic animals, the whale kind as the dolphin and cartilaginous fishes” . He also wrote: “ The dolphin and the whale, and all such as are furnished with a blow-hole, sleep with the blow-hole over the surface of the water, and breathe through the blow-hole while they keep up a quiet flapping of their fins; indeed, some mariners assure us that they have actually heard the dolphin snoring “

He also mentions that “The dolphin, the whale, and all the rest of the Cetacea, all, thatis to say, that are provided with a blow-hole instead of gills, are viviparous. That is to say, no one of all these fishes is ever seen to be supplied with eggs, but directly with an embryo from whose differentiation comes the fish, just as in the case of mankind and the viviparous quadrupeds. The dolphin bears one at a time generally, but occasionally two. The whale bears one or at the most two, generally two. The porpoise in this respect resembles the dolphin, and, by the way, it is in form like a little dolphin, and is found in the Euxine; it differs, however,from the dolphin as being less in size and broader in the back; its colour is leaden-black.

Many people are of opinion that the porpoise is a variety of the dolphin. The dolphin and the porpoise are provided with milk, and suckle their young. They also take their young, when small, inside them. The young of the dolphin grow rapidly, being full grown at ten years of age. Its period of gestation is ten months. It brings forth its young summer, and never at any other season; (and, singularly enough, under the Dogstar it disappears for about thirty days). Its young accompany it for a considerable period; and, in fact, the creature is remarkable for the strength of its parental affection. It lives for many years; some are known to have lived for more than twenty-five, and some for thirty years; the fact is fishermen nick their tails sometimes and set them adrift again, and by this expedient their ages are ascertained”

Thus, he was the first to separate whales and dolphins from fish. However, Aristotle placed whales and dolphins below reptiles and amphibians, because their lack of legs, despite his physiological and behavioral observations that they were related more closely to “viviparous quadrupeds” than to fish. Aristotle’s observations were on cetaceans were quite fascinating but at the moment Strato considered them a distraction of more important work. “Still, looking having your hopes up for your mega animal battery, I see.”

“Well, yes master Strato.” Baccheius answered sheepishly “Master Herophilos did discovery electricity by working with electric fish, so their should be some value in studying animals.”

Strato agreed in the general sense, however: “True, true and their might be a time for us but we still need to complete our original task, weight our inflammable airs.”




The Art of Measuring Aethers


"Now, I am not sure how exactly we will accomplish this, but I have some ideas. In fact they too involve Aristotle and the mechanics of respiration. Just not of sea mammals.I am talking of Empedocles (1) breath – clepsydra experiment."
Baccheius actually knew that one already since his teacher Herophilios was very much interested in the topic as well. Besides it was an often discussed concept between philosophers as well as doctors.

Empedocles - The Clepsydra

Thus do all things draw breath and breathe it out again. All have bloodless tubes of flesh extended over the surface of their bodies; and at the mouths of these the outermost surface of the skin is perforated all over with pores closely packed together, so as to keep in the blood while a free passage is cut for the air to pass through.Then, when the thin blood recedes from these, the bubbling air rushes in with an impetuous surge; and when the blood runs back it is breathed out again.

Just as when a girl, playing with a water-clock [water clock] of shining brass, puts the orifice of the pipe upon her comely hand, and dips the waterclock into the yielding mass of silvery water -- the stream does not then flow into the vessel, but the bulk of the air inside, pressing upon the close-packed perforations, keeps it out till she uncovers the compressed stream; but then air escapes and an equal volume of water runs in, -- just in the same way, when water occupies the depths of the brazen vessel and the opening and passage is stopped up by the human hand, the air outside, striving to get in, holds the water back at the gates of the ill-sounding neck, pressing upon its surface, till she lets go with her hand.

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Then, on the contrary, just in the opposite way to what happened before, the wind rushes in and an equal volume of water runs out to make room. Even so, when the thin blood that surges through the limbs rushes backwards to the interior, straightway the stream of air comes in with a rushing swell; but when the blood runs back the air breathes out again in equal quantity.”

While Baccheius tried to remember the details of Empedocles description Strato continued: “Now the important point for us is that his experiment show that air has mass. Otherwise it wouldn’t be able to displace water. It also gives us a hint how we might be able to study the nature of gases further. I actually discussed this idea, with Euclid who found our whole investigation quite fascinating.

If I can acquire his help it will certainly be invaluable. Once we complete Mouseion is realized the way I envision it we will handily unravel the myth of the cosmos. But first we need to construct some humble fairly instruments. In this case something that amounts to a simple pneumatic trough. This way we can figure out the basic properties of gases. It will allow us to better catch the different airs, and measure their volume for example.

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A bottle A where gas (or multiple gases like hydrogen and oxygen) is released though a reaction (in the case of the timeline by the electrolysis of water) and displace water in bottle C. Now the gas volume of the gas gases can be measured, interpreted and used for further experiments.

All this was quite clever but for Baccheius taste, this would take to long and venture to far from the original research of toperic pneuma. He already had his own ideas, how to get some quick results on his own. This didn’t mean however that he didn’t respect his mentor, just that he saw him as a bit to careful and deliberate in his steps.


Notes

(1) Something described in detail by Paul Sänger in his book Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading (Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture)

Reading, like any human activity, has a history. Modern reading is a silent and solitary activity. Ancient reading was usually oral, either aloud, in groups, or individually, in a muffled voice. The text format in which thought has been presented to readers has undergone many changes in order to reach the form that the modern Western reader now views as immutable and nearly universal.

Over the course of the nine centuries following Rome’s fall, the task of separating the words in continuous written text, which for half a millennium had been a function of the individual reader’s mind and voice, became instead a labor of professional readers and scribes. The separation of words (and thus silent reading) originated in manuscripts copied by Irish scribes in the seventh and eighth centuries but spread to the European continent only in the late tenth century when scholars first attempted to master a newly recovered corpus of technical, philosophical, and scientific classical texts.

Why was word separation so long in coming? The author finds the answer in ancient reading habits with their oral basis, and in the social context where reading and writing took place. The ancient world had no desire to make reading easier and swifter. For various reasons, what modern readers view as advantages—retrieval of reference information, increased ability to read “difficult” texts, greater diffusion of literacy—were not seen as advantages in the ancient world. The notion that a larger portion of the population should be autonomous and self-motivated readers was entirely foreign to the ancient world’s elitist mentality.

Sources

When Whales Became Mammals: The Scientific Journey of Cetaceans From Fish to Mammals in the History of Science By Aldemaro Romero (2012)
Historia Animālium (History of Animals) by Aristotle (350 B.C.E)
Fragments by Empedocles, translated by John Burnet(1920)
The earliest history of diaphragm physiology by J-Ph. Derenne

People

Ctesibius of Alexandria (285 BCE –222 BCE)
Euclid of Alexandria (3rd century BCE)
Strato of Lampsacus (335 BCE – 269 BCE)
Baccheius of Tanagra (3rd century BCE)
 
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Some of you may wonder about my erratic schedule and about the jumping to topics like whales. Part of the problem is me but another part is the fact that trying to get into the minds of ancient philosopher is much trickier than I originally suspected. Nevertheless I think the result will be a much more in depth exploration of my initial idea of the Point of Divergence.
 
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The Encephalocentrism vs Cardiocentrism Controversy
The Encephalocentrism vs Cardiocentrism Controversy

Baccheius took a deep breath, went outside and watched the sunset. If the sun set he might have never seen, experienced it like this again, but the risks involved had been worth it. Hoooking up the wires to his senses had been exhilarating. This had been the shortcut he had been thinking about, when he last talked with Strato. Instead of investigating, the effects of pneuma topere indirectly through instruments like Strato was doing, or by experimenting with prisoner or animals like Herophilos did he had instead opted to expose his own five senses to its raw, vital force. This brought him one step closer to his On Peneuma Topere, that he wanted to write one day. Although he might have found a lucrative cure for erectile dysfunction.

The first chapters he already had finished in his head. He would first outline, the contributions of the great doctor that came before him. First and foremost there was Hippocrates of Kos, Alcmaaeon of Croton and obviously Herophilios of Alexandria.

Hippocrates Secularization of Medicine

Hippocrates revolutionized medicine, the same way Strato was trying to revolutionize philosophy in general, by supplanting superstition with natural explanations:

It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently. And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly.

They who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using [p. 356]the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome to men in diseases…..All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge, and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die, they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were to blame, seeing they had administered nothing either to eat or drink as medicines, nor had overheated him with baths, so as to prove the cause of what had happened.”

Further in his treaty On Sacred Disease Hippocrates went into a long winded explanation on the topic of the human brain. This however was something great progress had been made since the time of Hippocrates, mostly by his teacher Herophilios.


The Encephalocentrism vs Cardiocentrism Controversy

Herophilos was born in Chalcedon in Asia Minor. Like Baccheius himself his master was moving to Alexandria at a fairly young age to begin his schooling. There he learned his trade from Praxagoras of Kos. Like Hippocrates Praxagoras was a member of the Asclepiads a family descent from the god of healing Asklēpiós . He like most of the family member took up the trade of physician. Praxagoras was held in high regard by Herophilos ´but he made one major mistake in his opinion. He further spread one of the few major flaws in Aristotle’s work, trough the introduction of cardiocentrism in his medical school of Kos. Before it followed the tradition of Hippocratic encephalocentrism.

The groundwork for encephalocentrism had already been laid by Alcmaeon of Croton. Alcmaeon, son of Peirithous, lived in the Greek city of Croton on the instep of the boot of Italy. He wasn’t a traditional doctor however but more of a physikoi (1). He was the first to identify the brain as the seat of understanding and to distinguish understanding from perception. Alcmaeon thought that the sensory organs were connected to the brain by channels (poroi) and may have discovered the poroi connecting the eyes to the brain (i.e. the optic nerve) by excising the eyeball of an animal, although he didn't use dissection as a standard method like master Herophilos did. Alcmaeon “merely” understood that all the senses are connected in some way with the brain observing that the sense organs for sight, hearing, smell, and taste are located on the head and appear connected to passages which lead inward towards the brain by gouging out the eyes of an animal.

He regarded the eye as composed of water and fire and vision as taking place when what is seen is reflected in the gleaming and translucent part of the eye. “Eye sees through the water round about. And the eye obviously has fire within for when one is struck [this fire] flashes out. Vision is due to the gleaming—that is to say, the transparent—character of that which [in the eye] reflects the object; and sight is the more perfect, the greater purity of this substance. All the senses are connected in some way with the brain.” [a blow on the eye produced “a flash within it” (2). He also came up with similar explanations for the other senses (3).

Hippocrates and his students among them his son Polybus, refined these initial ideas about medicine developed by Alcmaeon and tried to strip them of their speculative parts, replacing them with direct observation:

Whoever has been accustomed to listening to speakers who discuss the nature of man beyond the scope, which pertains to medicine, is not suitable for listening to my present lecture. For I do not insist at all that a human being is air or fire or water or earth, or anything else that does not appear to the senses to be existing in the human being (Polybus).”

How well they practiced this principle can be seen in the detailed description of the brain that was outlined in On Scared Disease:

“The brain of man, as in all other animals, is double, and a thin membrane divides it through the middle, and therefore the pain is not always in the same part of the head; for sometimes it is situated on either side, and sometimes the whole is affected; and veins run toward it from all parts of the body, many of which are small, but two are thick, the one from the liver, and the other from the spleen. And it is thus with regard to the one from the liver: a portion of it runs downward through the parts on the side,….(Hippocrates)”


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Aristotle observing and recording his environement.

Herophilos vs Paraxagoras

The discovery of pneuma topere began with a strong diagnostic disagreement between Herophilos and his teacher Praxagoras (4). Underling the discussion was the age old question is the heart or the brain the seat “in charge” of the body. Many great man had discussed and disagreed on this this question like Alcmaeon and Empdocles, or more recently Plato and Aristotle. Plato followed the encephalocentric as he argued that the “eyes, ears, tongue, hands, and feet act in accordance with the discernment of the brain

But Aristotle observation and experiments (mis-)lead him on a different part. First he recognized that the heart moved and contained blood while the brain “has the least blood and moisture of all the moist parts”. The heart was unlike the brain centrally located, and feels warm while the brain was distant and rather cold. Since people lose their “warmth” when they die, he saw a connection here as well. The body grows cold when the heart stops beating so the heart is the vital hearth of the body. Further the beating heart can be seen well before the brain in embryos.

Based on his extensive research in the comparative anatomy of many different species, he reasoned that not all animals capable of movement and sensation have a brain, but at least a heart, therefore the brain can’t be responsible for these functions. He also noticed that if an exposed brain of an injured person or animal was touched, it did not induce pain or any other sensation. He thus came to the conclusion that the brain is not engaged in perception of any kind. To protect the heart from overheating, Aristotle assigned the function of cooling the unremitting heart to the brain instead of any intellectual capacity.

Going Now Praxagoras inspired by Aristotle stated that palpitation, tremor and spasm are an affection of the arteries, differing not in kind but in size from the pulsating motion in them. For the pulse, Praxagoras said, occurs when the arteries are in a natural state, without any difficult circumstance. But when their motion is increased to an unnatural extent, spasm is caused in the first place, and secondly, following upon it, tremor, and thirdly palpitation is caused. All these affections differ from each other in size. Praxagoras did not qualitatively differentiate between pulsating motion and these affections of the body (i.e. spasm, tremor and palpitation) by connecting all of them with the arteries.

Herophilos, who had a more accurate knowledge of this topic thanks to pursuing state sanctioned human dissections, found their differences to lie in quality instead. For, his master says, pulse occurs only in the arteries and the heart, while palpitation and spasm and tremor occur in muscles as well as in nerves. And the pulse, he says, is born with an animal and dies with it, while these other motions do not. Also, the pulse, he says, occurs both when the arteries are filled and when they are emptied, while these others do not. And the pulse always attends us involuntarily, since it exists naturally, while the others are also within our power to choose, by pressing out and depressing the parts frequently

Praxagoras’ cardiocentric model of the human being however had a serious problem, because his model could not give an account of clinical cases in which some of these affections occur in some particular parts of the body, while the heart and the arteries are observed on the normality of the pulse to be functioning well. In other words, with a view to give a persuasive account of these cases, it is theoretical necessary to regard the system of muscles and nerves as essentially different from that of arteries, which have their origin in the heart. Still, brooding over the matter and seeking a way to decisively win this argument that Herophilos, made his fateful observation of electric fish.

People

Hippocrates of Kos (460 BCE – 370 BCE)
Herophilos of Chalcedon (335 BCE – 280 BCE)
Praxagoras of Kos (BCE 340-???)
Alcmaeon of Croton (510 BCE - ???)

Notes

(1) Pre-Socratic philosophy is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates and schools contemporary to Socrates that were not influenced by him. In classical antiquity, the pre-socratic philosophers were called physiologoi (physical or natural philosophers). Aristotle called them physikoi ("physicists", after physis, "nature") because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier theologoi (theologians), whose philosophical basis was supernatural.

(2) A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. The word phosphene comes from the Greek words phos (light) and phainein (to show. The most common phosphenes are pressure phosphenes, caused by rubbing or applying pressure on or near the closed eyes. The pressure mechanically stimulates the cells of the retina.

(3) Hearing is by means of the ears, he (Alcmaeon) says, because within them is an empty space, and this empty space resounds. A kind of noise is produced by the cavity, and the internal air re-echoes this sound. Smelling is by mean of the nostrils in connection with the act of respiration when one draws up the breath to the brain. By the tongue we discern tastes. Forsince it is warm and soft, the tongue dissolves [substances] with its heat; and because of its loose and yielding texture it readily receives and transmits [the savours]. (Theophrastus, 1917, p. 89)

(4) An OTL disagreement recorded by Galen. The big different an POD of this timeline is that Herophilos finds an igneous way to once and for all proof his point and as a little side effect discover electricity.

Sources

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy; Alcmaeon
On the Nature of Man and On Sacred Disease by Hippocrates of Kos
Herophilus of Chalcedon (and the Hippocratic Tradition in Early Alexandrian Medicine by Mashiro Imai
Alcmaeon of Croton's Observations on Health, Brain, Mind, and Soul by Gastone G. Celesia
Minds Behind the Brain: A History of the Pioneers and Their Discoveries by Stanley Finger
 
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Making Analogies and Breaking Taboos
Making Analogies and Breaking Taboos

Indeed, Meno, in speaking to Socrates in the dialogue of the same name, says "And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer you. [Meno by Socrates](1)."

As to the torpedo ray, itself, Oppian (2) calls it the cramp-fish, saying in his book Halieutica that "in its loins it hath a piece of craft, its strength in weakness: even two rays planted in its sides, one on either hand. If one approach and touch these, straight way it quenches the strength of his body and his blood is frozen within him and his limbs can no longer carry him but he quietly pines away and his strength is drained by stupid torpor" . Later, Oppian relates how, if caught, the shock runs through the line and rod to the hand of the fisherman, causing him to drop the tackle. "Such icy numbness straight way settles in his hand".

The more fanciful story Herophilos liked to tell his students was that he observed such an incident himself when he walked along the Nile, and screamed "Heúrēka, Heureka!" (3) ran back to his teacher and told him the solution to their dispute. Obviously these strange creatures were able to weaponize their pneuma topere by overwhelming their enemies with an abundance of it. The important thing however was that the fish basically acted as an "external brain/heart" generating pneuma topere that could make other peoples arms etc. involuntary move. The fishing rot was the blood vessel/nerve transporting the pneuma topere (4).

If they used such a fish and a wire/water soaked thread or similar medium they could deliberately and precisely inject controlled amount of pneuma into human or animal bodies to see how they react.

The fact that they could do so was what made Egypt such a special place, Baccheius noted to himself. The difference of the skin taboo. Herophilus’ work was remarkable because he defied Ancient Greek taboos regarding purity, death, and the human body.

The founder of the new Hellenic Egypt, the great king Ptolemy of Lagus . Ptolemaic bringing him with the great Greek tradition and knowledge of medicine as well as philosophy but encouraging curiosity and greatness of the physikoi. A Manifested of this new spirit became stone in Alexandria’s Hephaisteion and its supplementary library.

Since he himself grew up in the heartland of Greece Tanagra, Baccheius knew very well how crazy his mentors work must look to many men at home. Anatomical knowledge began with the Greek philosopher and scientist, as the often cited Aristotle. This led him to dissect animals and recorded his findings in his book, On the Parts of Animals

Based on his findings, Aristotle made inferences from the anatomy of animals to humans. During his time, human anatomy was only known through comparison. While Aristotle made contributions to the field of zoology, not much is learned directly about human anatomy. The first glimpse of internal human anatomy came from surgical procedures and treatment performed on wounded soldiers. These findings were limited as they were anecdotal and not systematic.

The practice of systematic human dissection was highly controversial in the Greek world. Human dissection for the purposes of medical research violated these taboos in multiple ways.

Taboos

One of these taboos regards the cutting and violation of human skin. It was to most men he know a symbol of community, and health of both an individual, and the society in which they live. Skin represented the protection and stability that “enveloped” civilization. Without it, was believed, that our community was vulnerable and subject to danger. It was as he heard even some polite critics of his teachers work “to interfere with the surface version both of the physical and of the moral condition of a person. Cutting open skin was considered sacrilege!”

Moreover, Baccheius remembered very well that during sacrifice, the skin of the animal is not burned, and is instead left behind as a symbol of moral integrity.

Another taboo was regarding the purity of life and the impurity of the human corpse. Most men even some experienced physician view the human corpse as a source of contamination. There was a clear prohibition of death and dead bodies on religious grounds such as temples and sanctuaries.

Moreover, if a death occurs in a household, the body must purified in a process of being cleaned, anointed in oil, and dressed in white robes. After burial, the mourners must purify themselves as well as wash the grounds of their home with seawater. Even then, the mourners must wait up to two months before walking on religious ground. Those who came into contact with a corpse had to purify themselves or they would be shunned. The impurity of the human corpse was thought to be so strong, that it was even believed to have the ability to contaminate divine figures.

Not an easy environment for himself, or Gods forgive, his teacher. However Ptolemy claimed to have lineage to Alexander the Great and were determined to continue his legacy which meant to make Alexandria and Egypt into the center of the known world. If some taboos had to be broken along the way, that was fine with him or so it seemed for now.

Breaking Taboos

According to some hearsay when asked about Herophilos work Ptoelmy Sotor fondly recalled the story of Alexander visiting Górdion.

The Phrygians were without a king, but an oracle at Telmissus, the ancient capital of Lycia, decreed that the next man to enter the city driving an ox-cart should become their king. A peasant farmer named Gordias drove into town on an ox-cart and was immediately declared king. Out of gratitude, his son Midas dedicated the ox-cart to the Phrygian god Sabazios an aspect of Zeus and tied it to a post with an intricate knot of cornel bark (Cornus mas). The knot was quite impressive. Several knots all so tightly entangled that it was impossible to see how they were fastened.

The ox-cart still stood in the palace of the former kings of Phrygia at Gordionin the fourth century BCE when Alexander arrived, at which point Phrygia had been reduced to a satrapy or province of the Persian Empire. An oracle had declared that any man who could unravel its elaborate knots was destined to become ruler of all of Asia. Alexander wanted to untie the knot but struggled to do so without success. He then reasoned that it would make no difference how the knot was loosed, so he drew his sword and sliced it in half with a single stroke. If we want to untie the knot of human nature we have to cut it.”

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Baccheius didn’t know if this story was true or not but again like the Eureka tale, it would make his Account on the Discovery of pneuma topere much more vivid.
Arguably, the most significant contribution to the progress made in the city was the monarchical government, which allowed tolerance for controversial scientific endeavors such as his teachers and his own research. In contrast, this tolerance did not exist in smaller city-states such as Athens.

Unlike Alexandria, Athens was a democracy that could “vote to ostracize or exile him [an
individual] on grounds of impiety” so even great philosopher such as Aristotle could share the fate of Socrates if they went “too far” with their curiosity or questioned the existing order too much.

Here in Alexandria however things were different. As the son of a trader/industrialist Baccheius understood probably better then many others. His father ran a business selling religious figurines and installed many important lessons in him. One of the was to never be offended by the strange customs of their foreign barbarian, or even fellow Greeks cause nothing in the world is or was ever impure enough to to permanently soil gold or silver.

Well personally he wasn’t so sure enough about that saying in particular but he very much agreed with the same underlying sentiment. And who could argue that his teachers work was impure when he performed miracles, made lame limbs move, and even give the deceased could give a short shot of life.

But before he reached this point of fame there had been quite some more obstacles ahead of his teacher.

Notes

(1) Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato It appears to attempt to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning virtue in general, rather than particular virtue

(2) This is part of Oppian of Anazarbus poem on fishing, the Halieutica. The poem is about 3500 lines and bears a dedication to Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus in our timeline. Here things are a bit less clear, but in order to keep this timeline grounded I want to keep “real” contemporary voices wherever possible. Here he is a stand in for some other poet known to Baccheius.

(3) Meaning εὕρηκα "I have found (it)" and also in story reason for the timeline's name.

(4) The transmission power of electric fish was mentioned even in our timeline, although not much ever came of it:

“It is clear, too, that void spaces exist in water from this, that, when wine is poured into water, it is seen to spread itself through every part of the water, which it would not do if there were no vacua in the water. Again, one light traverses another; for, when several lamps are lightcd, all objects are brilliantly illuminated, the rays passing in every direction through each other. And indeed it is possible to penetrate through bronze, iron, and all other bodies, as is seen in the instance of the marine torpedo. (The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria translated by Bennet Woodcroft).

Sources

Ellie H. Barany: The Rise and Fall of Human Dissection in Hellenistic Alexandria
Wikipedia: Goridian Knot, etc.

People

Ptolemy I Soter (367 BCE – 283/2 BCE)
Herophilos of Chalcedon (335 BCE – 280 BCE)
Baccheius of Tanagra (3rd century BCE)
 
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Crime, Punishment and Resurrection ?
Crime, Punishment and Resurrection ?


In order to join Herophilos school and become his pupil there was one crucial step in the admission process. One had to witness the execution of criminals. This seemingly odd requirement was necessary for two reasons.

First to show anybody that the fate of human test subjects was dreadful either way but also to understand how fortunate they were that in spite of their grave crimes these men would be able to repay the community. In fact among the native Egyptians, the death penalty was rather a rare occurrence, the entire legal system Baccheius had learned was more biased towards financial compensation, and finicial restribution.

Capital punishment was dealt out in form of Apotympanismos which consisted of chaining someone to a vertical post, with shackles around his feet, wrists and neck. The convicted criminal would be publicly exposed and subsequently beaten to death with cudgels, A method that could, depending on the constitution of the criminal, be quite slow, possibly taking days even for healthy, strong willed man. Ending on Herophilos table, who was mostly generous with his supply of opium for his subjects.

When he first began to present his theory to Praxagoras however he didn’t propose anything radical as dissecting or vivisecting human patients. He first began rather small, using young catfish who didn’t have quite the sting and hooking them up to amphibians. Frogs had literary a thin skin, were abundant at the Nile’s shore and were easy to dissect, their internal organs fairly distinct and visible. What he could show was first, that the frogs could be forced to move trough influx of pneuma topere something already known. But using wire or threats and needles did indeed help to channel the raw energy like diverting precise amounts of water from an untamed river into the fields.

What took them both at a surprise however was the fact that the pneuma topere could even animate/move dead frogs, even severed limbs. Now even Praxagoras, who had read Aristotle’s studies but not practiced himself anatomical research got hooked. What followed was a slow but steady increase in the size of research objects and indeed the experiment it seemed to be scaled as big as they wanted to. There was however one last frontier, human bodies.

UANmINV.jpg


At this point they had established that it was impossible for now to actually revive any organism, not even to prevent them from decaying but it was still the closes to reanimation that the world had seen so far. Thus Ptolemy I Soter who recently had promoted himself from an administrator to king of Egypt was more then happy to show off the work of his doctors. The dead body of a man who had been sentenced to apotympanismos for the crime of robbing a temple would be publicly animated to show that not even by death one could not escape the justice of the Gods and the King.

Later the young Baccheius heard an eye witness report himself when a merchant visited their statue factory. He described it as “the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subsequent part of the process the right hand was raised and clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion. (1)”

While most who heard this tale shuddered, Baccheius was in aw of the amazing discoveries that were made in Alexandria. But at this point there was still the initial question left: “The Encephalocentrism vs Cardiocentrism Controversy”. Well, technically it had already been solved by probing animals.

The heart could indeed made to beat but the brain, the brain was a bit different. In dead animals animating their brain did nothing, which looked rather discouraging for the encephalocentrism but on the other hand making a dead heart beat didn’t move the body either so no triumphant victory for cardiocentrism either. However using life animal such as a dog, sedating it with opium and opening its skull while it was alive let to very different results. Once the brain of a living dog got stimulated it began to move, at least if one stimulated the cortical cortex of the animal (2).

The same basic finding could be confirmed for humans after Herophilios repeated the same experiment with human subjects. However doing any exact mapping, or refined treatment was hindered by the fact that he had to work with animals as the source of the pneuma topere. One could chose the size of a fish to approximate its pneuma’s strengths but even then it was impossible to get anything but short bursts.

However than this happened as Herophilos had told him. After Praxagoras and him had assessed the effects of the pneuma topere on humans. Praxagoras was now also eager to investigate possible improvements as an actual medical tools. Different shapes and types of metal were compiled, the Basileus after their public demonstration was quite generous in providing working material and test subjects.

Their first priority was to find a way of controlling, maybe even storing the pneuma topere for longer, more continuous use. But both were happy to find any improvement along the process. Thus frogs were prepared by Herophilos fastening brass hooks in their spinal cord., neatly arranged in a row. Outside of their medical praxis was an artificial pond, harboring several electric fish. Their intention was to see how well different types of conducting materials transmitted pneuma. But when Herophilos then connected the frogs to iron wire, behold!, he already observed contractions and movements in the frogs occurred, as if animated by foreign animal pneuma topere.

He immediately repeated the experiment in different pieces with different metals and at different hours of the day and notfied Parxagoras. The results were the same except that the contractions varied with the metals used; that is, they were more violent with some and weaker with others. These results surprised them greatly and led them to suspect that there are some hidden residual pneuma topere inherent in the animal itself that somehow got released. Once they found this shortcut to release it, Herophilos nevertheless continued the original set up. Some substances proved to be very poor conductors of pneuma topere like glass, resin, stones, and dry wood. Nothing of the kind happened and no muscular contractions or movements were evident.

The last big improvement came when he connected several pneuma topere sources together, like the ox heads used in the recent demonstration by Strato. This way it was possible satisfactory incorporate pneuma topere therapy into the larger canon of medicine. As far as Herophilos or Praxogras for that matter were concerned things might have stopped there. Herophilos gladly began vivi- and dissection of the next batch of human subjects in pursuit of other important medical questions and Praxogras returned to his traditional medical praxis.

It was the arrival of Strato in Alexandria that would give this discovery, and Baccheius life a new twist.


Notes

(1) Description of Aldini Galvani's most famous public demonstration of the electro-stimulation technique of deceased limbs was performed on the executed criminal George forster at Newgate in London 1803.

(2) Electrical brain stimulation was first used in our timeline in the first half of the 19th century by pioneering researchers such as Luigi Rolando (1773–1831) to study the brain localization of function, following the discovery by Italian physician Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) that nerves and muscles were electrically excitable.

The following text excerpt is mostly a bit of background information from our timeline on capital punishment in Ptolemaic Egypt:

Ptolemaic law prescribed the death penalty for a few criminal offenses, such as using false weights and measures as well as various crimes against the royal monopolies. While there is evidence that execution was specified as a punishment, no source actually attests that the death sentence was carried out; and if it were, by which method. Any clarification with regard to this matter shall thus have to be reached through informed speculation. Many methods of execution were used throughout the ancient world, such as: stoning, impaling, drowning, burying alive, strangling, hanging, and different forms of crucifixion. Only four distinct methods have been attested in Greek culture; by process of elimination we might find out the preferred method of the Ptolemies.

Even if Alexander used stoning as a method of execution during his conquests, it is implausible that this punishment was used in Ptolemaic Egypt. By this time, the punishment had already disappeared from most Greek cities and Egyptian sources make no allusions to it whatsoever. Throwing someone of a cliff, which was the Athenian punishment for certain political and religious crimes, is another unlikely candidate. This method of execution would be , to say the least, quite impractical in Lower Egypt; the best alternative would be to roll someone gently down the muddy bank of the Nile. Poisoning had been famously used to execute Socrates, but vanished without a trace from Greek history after the 4th Century BC. We are left , then, with apotympanismos and it is likely that this method would have been used. The lack of evidence may lead us to conclude that capital punishment must not have been carried out frequently during the reign of the Ptolemies, certainly when compared to other cultures in the ancient world. Remarkably, we have seen the same reserve towards the death sentence in pharaonic Egypt
.”

People

Herophilos of Chalcedon (335 BCE – 280 BCE)
Ptolemy I Soter (367 BCE – 283/2 BCE)
Strato of Lampsacus (335 BCE – 269 BCE)
Praxagoras of Cos (4th Century BCE)
Baccheius of Tanagra (4rd century BCE)

Sources

Luigi Galvandie (1792/1953): Viribus electricitatis in motu muscolari.
A.J van Loon (2014): Law and Order in Ancient Egypt.
wikipedia - Giovanni Aldini etc.
 
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The Vinegar Battery and Dreams of the Future
The Vinegar Battery and Dreams of the Future


“So vessels filled with oxein liquid?” Strato raised his eyebrow. He didn’t expect this setup when Baccheius wanted him to show his new solution. “Well I guess it is easier to make vinegar than to hunt a whale or elephant.”

Baccheius, was glad that that his mentor saw the potential in his discovery, although he himself wasn’t free of septicemic. “Getting the vinegar is the easy part, but enough metal for a pond sized battery might be as difficult. Didn’t thought that thru when I envisioned the animal generators either.”

But Strato was to enamored with the contraption in front of him to even hear the last part. “Remarkable, quiet ingenious.” Baccheius had simply replaced the ox heads with vessel filled with either salt water or vinegar. Both seemed to function well enough for a first prototype. “How did you come up with that?”

Baccheius was already back spinning his wild ideas “It was rather simple really. I looked at the ox heads, their tongues and wondered how pneuma topere might taste for them. If they were alive I mean. You see once master Heropilios began to work with living humans, he couldn't just cut holes into every patients head. Instead he began to apply the electricity to the skull. If he got close enough to the orbit, people saw little flashes of light.

Soon he figured out that hooking people up to strong enough batteries allows them to see different color, depending. witch metal pole they are connected too. In some cases even in an otherwise dark room. So if we can see and feel pneuma topere, why shouldn't we be able to taste hear and smell it. Well the last too experiments weren’t very satisfying but once I put the right combination of metal on and under my tongue and it started to taste quite sour. I thought maybe by adding vinegar, or lemon juice I might increase the pneuma topere release. As it turned out the liquid alone was enough to replace any animal parts.”

“So in essence you turned yourself into a battery? Pretty clever, and certainly something we need to pursue further. We are certainly on to something here. Good work.” Strato praised him.

Master Herophilos was also lavish with praise. “Using our own resident pneuma topere, clever, very clever. There are certainly many applications for this discovery alone, not even taking the oxein battery into consideration.”.

The first idea that popped up in his mind was a better cure for erectile dysfunction. Herophilos had already applied toperic current to test subjects genitals. An experience that proved to be rather pleasurable. He wrapped the subjects reproductive organ in a cloth moistened with lukewarm milk, then applied the current. Swelling soon occurred, followed by climax. Later he had used this treatment to help with erectile dysfunction, but it was obviously too impractical for having actual sex.

Now he was familiar with the A kynodesmē was a cord, a string or sometimes a leather strip that was worn by some athletes in Ancient Greece and Etruria to prevent the exposure of the glans penis in public. It was tied tightly around the akroposthion, the part of the foreskin that extended beyond the glans. The public exposure of the penis head was regarded by the Greeks as dishonorable and shameful, something only seen in slaves and barbarians Modesty and decency demanded that men who showed themselves naked in a public setting, such as athletes or actors, must conceal their glans. Maybe by using a similar setup but with different metal pieces or wire one could restore function to the penis. This was probably just the beginning of creating artificial nerve strings.

And so as the day came to an end three men dreamed of the future of toperic energy. One wanted to travel the world in his aeronaûs, one wanted to replace the fleshy weak human body parts with a mesh of wires and the last one wanted his Basileus to gather all these dreamer in one place, the Hephaisteion , so that that their dreams may one day become true.

Notes

Oxein is the ancient greek word for acid. Literally meaning “sour tasting”

toperic
is the word used in this timeline for electric

People

Herophilos of Chalcedon (335 BCE – 280 BCE)
Ptolemy I Soter (367 BCE – 283/2 BCE)
Strato of Lampsacus (335 BCE – 269 BCE)
Baccheius of Tanagra (4rd century BCE)

Sources

Shocking Frogs: Galvani, Volta, and the Electric Origins of Neuroscience by M. Piccolino, M. Bresadola
Johann Wilhelm Ritter: The Man Who Married His Voltaic Pile
wikipedia: kynodesme
Mark S. Lesney: Chemistry Chronicles. A Basic History of Acid—From Aristotle to Arnold
 
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The first idea that popped up in his mind was a better cure for erectile dysfunction. Herophilos had already applied toperic current to test subjects genitals. An experience that proved to be rather pleasurable. He wrapped the subjects reproductive organ in a cloth moistened with lukewarm milk, then applied the current. Swelling soon occurred, followed by climax. Later he had used this treatment to help with erectile dysfunction, but it was obviously too impractical for having actual sex.
Eeriness!
 
Eeriness!

Well Johann Wilhelm Ritter (who among other things discovered UV light) actually did this and even more insane stuff to himself. So somethimes OTL is even crazier than this timeline. At least Herophilios doesn't feel the need to basically torture himself to death via self electricution
 
Hēlioúpolis in the Limelight: The Invention of Chemistry
Hēlioúpolis in the Limelight: The Invention of Chemistry


Manethōn of Sebennytus the Father of Chemistry

“Barba non facit philosophum” is a Latin phrase meaning “A beard does not constitute a philosopher.”a popular man saying that described few people as well as Manethōn of Sebennytus. For he had neither a beard, nor did he regard himself as a philosopher. Yet he was one of the greatest natural philosopher in history, the father of modern chemistry.

How and why? Simple, Manethōn „Truth of Thoth“ was a native Egyptian who as most of his contemporaries saw natural body hair as a sign of the raw bestial nature of men. and always saw himself first and foremost as a priest not a “philosopher”.

But while he was skeptical of Stratons seemingly narrow, materialistic worldview he still was true to his name, a man of wisdom, knowledge, a paragon of ancient Egyptian civilization.

As important as it became to the history of mankind, his career as a chemist happened almost accidentally. When he joined the Great Temple of Ra in Hēlioúpolis the "City of the Sun", he was recognized as a bright ladd with a knack for practical questions.

Helios, the personified and deified form of the sun, was identified by the Greeks with the native Egyptian gods Ra and Atum, whose principal cult was located in the city. The temple of Ra was not merely a temple but also a depository for royal records, and as the Greek historian Hêródotos later noted states that the priests of Heliopolis were the best informed in matters of history of all the Egyptians. Heliopolis flourished as a seat of learning during the Greek period; the schools of philosophy and astronomy are claimed to have been frequented by Orpheus, Homer, Pythagoras, Plato, Solon, and other Greek philosophers. Ichonuphys was lecturing there in 308 BC, and the Greek mathematician Eudoxus, was one of his pupils.

The work of Manethōn, aside from his religious duties, was however seemingly more mundane. He was in charge of the temple’s Egyptian blue manufacture

Egyptian Blue or the First Step to Modern Chemistry

Egyptian blue is a synthetic blue pigment made up of a mixture of silica, lime, copper, and an alkali. Its color is due to a calcium-copper tetrasilicate CaCuSi4O10 of the same composition as the naturally occurring mineral cuprorivaite. It was made in Egypt during the third millennium BCE, and is the first synthetic pigment produced there. The earliest evidence for the use of Egyptian blue, identified on an alabaster bowl dated to the late pre-dynastic period or Naqada III (circa 3250 BCE)

It was used in antiquity as a blue pigment to color a variety of different media such as stone, wood, plaster, papyrus, and canvas, and in the production of numerous objects, including cylinder seals, beads, scarabs, inlays, pots, and statuettes.

The ancient Egyptians held the color blue in very high regard and were eager to present it on many media and in a variety of forms. They also desired to imitate the semiprecious stones turquoise and lapis lazuli, which were valued for their rarity and stark blue color. Use of naturally occurring minerals, such as azurite, to acquire this blue, was impractical, as these minerals were rare and difficult to work. herefore, to have access to the large quantities of blue color they needed, the Egyptians needed to manufacture the pigment themselves.

Egyptian blue is a multiphase material that was produced by heating together quartz sand, a copper compound, calcium carbonate, and a small amount of an alkali (ash from salt-tolerant, halophyte plants or natron) at temperatures ranging between 800 and 1,000 °C (1,470 and 1,830 °F) (depending on the amount of alkali used) for several hours. The result is cuprorivaite or Egyptian blue, carbon dioxide, and water vapor:

Cu2CO3(OH)2 + 8 SiO2 + 2 CaCO3 → 2 CaCuSi4O10 + 3 CO2 + H2O

425px-Egyptian_-_Amphora_with_Cover_-_Walters_471_-_View_B.jpg

Egyptian blue ceramic ware, New Kingdom (1380-1300 BC)

Production in Details

In its final state, Egyptian blue consists of rectangular blue crystals together with unreacted quartz and some glass. An increase in the alkali content results in the pigment containing more unreacted quartz embedded in a glass matrix, which in turn results in a harder texture. Lowering the alkali content (less than 1%), though, does not allow glass to form and the resultant Egyptian blue is softer

In addition to the way the different compositions influenced texture, the way Egyptian blue was processed also had an effect on its texture, in terms of coarseness and fineness. Following a number of experiments, concluded that for fine-textured Egyptian blue, two stages were necessary to obtain uniformly interspersed crystals. First, the ingredients are heated, and the result is a coarse-textured product. This is then ground to a fine powder and water is added. The paste is then reshaped and fired again at temperatures ranging between 850 and 950°C for one hour.

These two stages possibly were needed to produce a paste that was fine enough for the production of small objects. Coarse-textured Egyptian blue, though, would not have gone through the second stage. Since it is usually found in the form of slabs (in the dynastic periods) and balls (in the Greco-Roman period), these could have either been awaiting to be processed through a second stage, where they would be ground and finely textured, or they would have been ground for use as a blue pigment.

The shade of blue reached was also related to the coarseness and fineness of Egyptian blue as it was determined by the degree of aggregation of the Egyptian blue crystals. Coarse Egyptian blue was relatively thick in form, due to the large clusters of crystals which adhere to the unreacted quartz. This clustering results in a dark blue color that is the appearance of coarse Egyptian blue. Alternatively, fine-textured Egyptian blue consists of smaller clusters that are uniformly interspersed between the unreacted quartz grains and tends to be light blue in color.

Diluted light blue, though, is used to describe the color of fine-textured Egyptian blue that has a large amount of glass formed in its composition, which masks the blue color, and gives it a diluted appearance. It depends on the level of alkali added to the mixture, so with more alkali, more glass formed, and the more diluted the appearance. This type of Egyptian blue is especially evident during the 18th dynasty and later, and is probably associated with the surge in glass technology at this time.

If certain conditions were not met, the Egyptian blue would not be satisfactorily produced. For example, if the temperatures were above 1050°C, it would become unstable. If too much lime was added, wollastonite (CaSiO3) forms and gives the pigment a green color. Too much of the copper ingredients results in excesses of copper oxides cuprite and tenorite.

Manethōn of Sebennytus Great Insight

Dealing with the delicate chemical process above, was probably the most fertile ground to develop chemistry as we know it today. It didn’t take particularly long for the work of Straton on the process of hydrolysis to reach Hēlioúpolis. After all there already was a decent sized community of Greek and native Egyptian scholars.

Manethōn pretty much immediately realized the potential of the new discovery. Not only was it possible to dissolve water into its parts, but also the salts contained in ash or natron solutions. Instead of having to deal with different natural occurring materials riddled with impurities he might be able to create Egyptian blue from or other types of glass and pigments from the ground up. Dissolve anything in its atomic parts and rearrange them in an almost perfectly neat manner. Pursuing this idea would lead him to some unexpected places but in the end it would bring great glory to the Sun/Ra/Apollo as he intended.

Sources
wikipedia

People
Strato of Lampsacus (335 BCE – 269 BCE)
Manethōn of Sebennytus (3th BCE)
 
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Hēlioúpolis in the Limelight: The Discovery of the Calcium Torch
Hēlioúpolis in the Limelight: The Discovery of the Calcium Torch


And now think of the different and diverse perils of the night. See what a height it is to that towering roof from which a pot comes crack upon my head every time that some broken or leaky vessel is pitched out of the window! See with what a smash it strikes and dints the pavement! There’s death in every open window as you pass along at night; you may well be deemed a fool, improvident of sudden accident, if you go out to dinner without having made your will… Yet however reckless the fellow may be, however hot with wine and young blood, he gives a wide berth to one whose scarlet cloak and long retinue of attendants, with torches and brass lamps in their hands, bid him keep his distance. But to me, who am wont to be escorted home by the moon, or by the scant light of a candle he pays no respect.” (Titus Lucretius Carus – A night in the Pre-Atomic Age.)

Lucretius himself was actually pretty rich and born in a time when public illumination had already become the norm in the city. All Roman poets were relatively well heeled (the leisure you needed for writing poetry required money, even if you pretended to be poor). His self-presentation as a ‘man of the people’ was a bit of a playfull façade. But how accurate was his nightmare vision of Rome at night before limelights had found their way into the city?

Was it really a place where chamber pots crashed on your head, the rich and powerful stamped all over you, and where (as Lucretius learned from his grandfather) you risked being mugged and robbed by any group of thugs that came along?

Probably yes.

Outside the splendid civic center, Rome was a place of narrow alleyways, a labyrinth of lanes and passageways. There was no street lighting, nowhere to throw your excrement and no police force. After dark, ancient Rome must have been a threatening place. Most rich people, I’m sure, didn’t go out – at least, not without their private security team of slaves or their “long retinue of attendants”.

In his little poem Lucretius wanted to rekindle the awe of the first industrial-scientific revolution that had been swept over the world from to the most distant places in the known world. One of the great invention that let him to the declaration that we are living in a new age, the Atomic age.

zNv7CDC.jpg

Ancent Egyptian Depiction of Blowtorches

The Invention of Limelight

Straton of Lampsakenos today is regarded as the key actor in starting the scientific revolution. And he did indeed build the theoretical and practical framework for the a systematic natural philosophical factory in form of the Hephaistíon in Alexandria.

However one can’t stress enough how much the Priest and later Headpriest Manethōn of Sebennytus and the Temple of Ra did for the commercial side of the scientific revolution.

One of the first things he noticed while playing around with the process of hydrolysis and its products was that hydrogen gas (H2) happened to be pretty much invisible, it lacked a color of its own. He already knew from his work with vitriccc that different material could change the color of flames. Now with a transparent flame it should be even easier to sort and identify things by their flame color. Thus he wrote the first comprehensive record of “flame testing”.

While doing that he made a very unexpected discovery. Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, if heated in a hydrogen flame up to (2,572 °C) began to glow and once he led a flow of oxygen toward the glowing lime it hone insanely brightly.

Fascinated with this phenomenon and the general heating power of oxyhydrogen (2 H2 + O2 ) he constructed a special blowpipe that was fed the tow gases. If a stream or jet of air is directed through a flame, fuel air mixing is enhanced and the jet exiting the flame is intensely hot. Jewelers and glassblowers in Egypt had used the blowpipe since ancient times.

Although instead of the blast being powered by the user's lungs in his case it were bladders filled with the two types of gas. Soon he also began to do similar experiments with other vitreous materials produced at the time in Egpyt such as glass and Egyptian faience.

The resulting calcium torch was very impressive and found spending of use in religious rituals, an impressive representation of the sun on earth but still. One problem persisted that even the ingenious Manethōn could not solve. Where do we get enough oxygen and hydrogen fuel to illuminate the entire Tempel of Ra, perhaps Egypt, the world?

People

Straton of Lampsakenos (335 BCE – 269 BCE)
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (In our timeline 1st and early 2nd century AD, here he is a stand in for another fictional contemporary satirist)

Sources

wikipedia
http://www.historyextra.com/article/romans/dangerous-streets-ancient-rome
Drummond's Inventions: Drummond Light and Lighthouse Experiments In Memoir of Thomas Drummond (1867)
History of Industrial Gases by Ebbe Almqvist
 
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