Despite having one of the best names in Greek philosophy and science, Ekphantos of Syracuse (fl. C4th BCE) is a shadowy figure for whose activities and beliefs the evidence is slender. Moreover, it is not entirely clear that the name refers to one person or two (there was also an Ekphantos of Krotone who may or may not be the same), nor indeed that he was not a fictitious character in a dialogue by Herakleides of Pontos. However, modern scholarship has largely settled on the reality of a single Ekphantos.1 He appears to have been a member of the Pythagorean community in southern Italy and was thus a philosophical speculator.
According to Hippolytos (Refutation: 1.15; DK51.1), he had several ideas that bear upon physics and astronomy. First, he appears to have been something of an instrumentalist, believing that true knowledge of the cosmos was impossible, but that it was possible to define things as we consider fit. Second, he was an atomist and considered that there were three types of indivisible bodies which differed in the size, form and potential, but which were finite in number. In this last matter he differs from the C5th BCE atomist Demokritos. Third, these bodies owed their movement, not to weight or impact, but to divine power which he calls mind or soul. Fourth, the universe is a realisation of this, and by divine power has become spherical. Fifth, the Earth sits in the middle of the universe and rotates towards the east.
The C2nd CE doxographer Aëtios (1.3.19; DK51.2) adds that he believed in the void, that is, he considered empty space a reality (a contested topic at the time); and further (2.1.2; DK51.3) that the cosmos was unique. He goes on to say (2.3.3; DK51.4) that it was administered through divine forethought, which probably means in some vague way that it followed laws. Finally (Aëtios 3.13.3; DK51.5), we learn that, like Herakleides of Pontos, he believed that the Earth moved, not in the sense of changing its location, but turning upon on its axis like a wheel, revolving around its centre from west to east.2
Thus it seems that Ekphantos blended atomic theory both with traditional Pythagoreanism and the contemporary astronomical consensus, maintaining that the cosmos was unique but constructed out of atoms and void. It was spherical in shape and thus finite in size. Moreover, the Earth (presumably spherical, though this is not stated in the sources) was in the centre, as in traditional astronomy and unlike the system of the C5th BCE Pythagorean, Philolaus. Moreover, it revolved while the rest of the cosmos remained at rest, but in the sources it is not stated how the motions of the Moon or the planets were accounted for.
NOTES
1. The matter is discussed in Guthrie (1978: 323‒24).
2. [Eusebius Scr. Eccl., Theol., Praeparatio evangelica, Book 15, chapter 58, section 3, line 1] Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικὸς καὶ Ἔκφαντος ὁ Πυθαγόρειος κινοῦσι μὲν τὴν γῆν, οὐ μήν γε μεταβατικῶς, ἀλλὰ τρεπτικῶς τροχοῦ δίκην ἐνηξονισμένην, ἀπὸ δυσμῶν ἐπ' ἀνατολὰς περὶ τὸ ἴδιον αὑτῆς κέντρον.
Last updated 30/04/20
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