Archytas

First published Thu Jun 26, 2003; substantive revision Mon Jul 25, 2011

Copyright 2011 by
Carl Huffman <cahuff@depauw.edu>
Archytas of Tarentum was a Greek mathematician, political leader and
philosopher, active in the first half of the fourth century BC (i.e., during Plato's
lifetime). He was the last prominent figure in the early Pythagorean tradition and
the dominant political figure in Tarentum, being elected general seven
consecutive times. He sent a ship to rescue Plato from the clutches of the tyrant
of Syracuse, Dionysius II, in 361, but his personal and philosophical connections
to Plato are complex, and there are many signs of disagreement between the two
philosophers. A great number of works were forged in Archytas' name starting in
the first century BC, and only four fragments of his genuine work survive,
although these are supplemented by a number of important testimonia. Archytas
was the first to solve one of the most celebrated mathematical problems in
antiquity, the duplication of the cube. We also have his proof showing that ratios
of the form (n+1) : n, which are important in music theory, cannot be divided by
a mean proportional. He was the most sophisticated of the Pythagorean harmonic
theorists and provided mathematical accounts of musical scales used by the
practicing musicians of his day. Fr. 1 of Archytas may be the earliest text to
identify the group of four canonical sciences (logistic [arithmetic], geometry,
astronomy and music), which would become known as thequadrivium in the
middle ages. There are also some indications that he contributed to the
development of the science of optics and laid the mathematical foundations for
the science of mechanics. He saw the ultimate goal of the sciences as the
description of individual things in the world in terms of ratio and proportion and
accordingly regarded logistic, the science of number and proportion, as the
master science. Rational calculation and an understanding of proportion were
also the bases of the just state and of the good life for an individual. He gave
definitions of things that took account of both their matter and their form.
Although we have little information about his cosmology, he developed the most
famous argument for the infinity of the universe in antiquity.

1. Life and Works

1.1 Family, Teachers, and Pupils; Date
Archytas, son of Hestiaeus (see Aristoxenus in Diels-Kranz 1952, chap. 47,
passage A1; abbreviated as DK47 A1), lived in the Greek city of Tarentum, on
1

the heel of the boot of Italy. The later tradition almost universally identifies him
as a Pythagorean (e.g., A1, A2, A7, A16). Aristotle and his pupil Eudemus do not
explicitly call Archytas a Pythagorean and appear to treat him as an important
independent thinker. Plato never refers to Archytas by name except in
the Seventh Letter, if that is by Plato, and he is not called a Pythagorean there. In
the Republic, however, when Plato quotes a sentence which appears in Fr. 1 of
Archytas (DK47 B1), he explicitly labels it as part of Pythagorean harmonics
(530d). Cicero (de Orat. III 34. 139) reports that Archytas was the pupil of
Philolaus, and this is not improbable. Philolaus was the most prominent
Pythagorean of the preceding generation (ca. 470390) and may have taught in
Tarentum (Huffman 1993, 6). Archytas' achievements in mathematics depend on
the work of Hippocrates of Chios, but we have no evidence that he studied with
Hippocrates. The only pupil of Archytas who is more than a name, is Eudoxus
(ca. 390340), the prominent mathematician. Eudoxus presumably did not learn
his famous hedonism from Archytas (see DK47 A9), and it is specifically
geometry that he is said to have studied with Archytas (Diogenes Laertius VIII
86).
Archytas was, roughly speaking, a contemporary of Plato, but it is difficult to be
more precise about his dates. Aristotle's pupil, Eudemus, presents him as the
contemporary of Plato (born 428/7) and Leodamas (born ca. 430), on the one
hand, and of Theaetetus (born ca. 415), on the other (A6). Since it would be
difficult to call him the contemporary of Theaetetus, if he were born much earlier
than 435, this is the earliest he was likely to have been born. On the other hand,
he could have been born as late as 410 and still be considered a contemporary of
Plato. Strabo associates Archytas with the flourishing of Tarentum, before a
period of decline, in which Tarentum hired mercenary generals (A4). Since the
mercenaries appear ca. 340, it seems likely that Archytas was dead by 350 at the
latest. Such a date is in accord with other evidence (A5 = [Demosthenes], Erot.
Or. 61.46), which connects Archytas to Timotheus, who died ca. 355, and with
Plato's (?) Seventh Letter(350a), which presents Archytas as still active in
Tarentum in 361. Thus Archytas was born between 435 and 410 and died
between 360 and 350.
Some scholars (e.g., Ciaceri 192732: III 4) have supposed that the speaker of
the Roman poet, Horace's, Archytas Ode (I 28 = A3) is Archytas himself and
hence have concluded that Archytas died in a shipwreck. The standard
interpretation, however, rightly recognizes that the speaker is not Archytas but a
shipwrecked sailor who apostrophizes Archytas (Nisbet and Hubbard 1970,
317ff.). The ode tells us nothing about Archytas' death, but it is one of many
pieces of evidence for the fascination with Archytas by Roman authors of the
first century BC (Propertius IV 1b.77; Varro in B8; Cicero, Rep. I 38.59, I
10.16; Fin. V 29.87; Tusc. IV 36.78, V 23.64, de Orat. III 34.139; Amic. XXIII
88; Sen. XII 3941), perhaps because Pythagoreanism had come to be seen as a
native Italian philosophy, and not a Greek import (Burkert 1961; Powell 1995, 11
ff.).

1.2 Sources
Apart from the surviving fragments of his writings, our knowledge of Archytas'
life and work depends heavily on authors who wrote in the second half of the
fourth century, in the fifty years after Archytas' death. Archytas' importance both
as an intellectual and as a political leader is reflected in the number of writings
about him in this period, although only fragments of these works have been
preserved. Aristotle wrote a work in three volumes on the philosophy of
Archytas, more than on any other of his predecessors, as well as a second work,
consisting of a summary of Plato's Timaeus and the writings of Archytas (A13).
Unfortunately almost nothing of these works has survived. Aristotle's pupil
Eudemus discussed Archytas prominently in his history of geometry (A6 and
A14) and in his work on physics (A23 and A24). Another pupil of Aristotle's,
Aristoxenus, wrote a Life of Archytas, which is the basis for much of the
biographical tradition about him (A1, A7, A9). Aristoxenus (375-ca. 300) was in
a good position to have accurate information about Archytas. He was born in
Tarentum and grew up during the height of Archytas' prominence in the city. In
addition to whatever personal knowledge he had of Archytas, he draws on his
own father Spintharus, who was a younger contemporary of Archytas, as a
source (e.g., A7). Aristoxenus began his philosophical career as a Pythagorean
and studied with the Pythagorean Xenophilus at Athens, so that it is not
surprising that his portrayal of Archytas is largely positive. Nonetheless,
Archytas' opponents are given a fair hearing (e.g., Polyarchus in A9), and
Archytas himself is represented as not without small flaws of character (A7).
Other fourth-century sources such as the Seventh Letter in the Platonic corpus
and Demosthenes' (?) Erotic Oration focus on the connection between Archytas
and Plato (see below).

1.3 Archytas and Tarentum

Archytas is unique among Greek philosophers for the prominent role he played
in the politics of his native city. He was elected general (stratgos) seven years in
succession at one point in his career (A1), a record that reminds us of Pericles at
Athens. His election was an exception to a law, which forbade election in
successive years, and thus attests to his reputation in Tarentum. Aristoxenus
reports that Archytas was never defeated in battle and that, when at one point he
was forced to withdraw from his post by the envy of his enemies, the Tarentines
immediately suffered defeat (A1). He probably served as part of a board of
generals (there was a board of ten at Athens). The analogy with Athens suggests
that as a general he may also have had special privileges in addressing the
assembly at Tarentum on issues of importance to the city, so that his position as
general gave him considerable political as well as military power. At some point
in
his
career,
he
may
have
been
designated
as
a
general autokratr (plenipotentiary) (A2), which gave him special latitude in
dealing with diplomatic and military matters without consulting the assembly,
although this was not dictatorial power and all arrangements probably required
the eventual approval of the assembly. We do not know when Archytas served
3

his seven successive years as general. Some have supposed that they must
coincide with the seven year period which includes Plato's second and third visits
to Italy and Sicily, 367361 (e.g., Wuilleumier 1939, 689), but Archytas need
not have been stratgos to play the role assigned to him during these years in
the Seventh Letter. The evidence suggests that most of Archytas' military
campaigns were directed not at other Greeks but at native Italic peoples such as
the Messapians and Lucanians, with whom Tarentum had been in constant
conflict since its founding.
It is important to recognize that the Tarentum in which Archytas exercised such
influence was not some insignificant backwater. Spartan colonists founded it in
706. It was initially overshadowed by other Greek colonies in southern Italy such
as Croton, although it had the best harbor on the south coast of Italy and was the
natural stopping point for any ships sailing west from mainland Greece. Archytas
will have grown up in a Tarentum that, in accord with its foundation by Sparta,
took the Peloponnesian and Syracusan side against Athens in the Peloponnesian
War (Thuc. VI 44; VI 104; VII 91). Athens allied with the Messapians (Thuc.
VII 33), the long-standing enemy of the Tarentines, against whom Archytas
would later lead expeditions (A7). After the Peloponnesian War, Tarentum
appears to have avoided direct involvement in the conflict between the tyrant of
Syracuse, Dionysius I, and a league of Greek cities in southern Italy headed by
Croton. After Dionysius crushed the league, Tarentum emerged as the most
powerful Greek state in southern Italy and probably became the new head of the
league of Italiot Greek cities (A2). In the period from 380350, when Archytas
was in his prime and old age, Tarentum was one of the most powerful cities in
the Greek world (Purcell 1994, 388). Strabo's description of its military might
(VI 3.4) compares favorably with Thucydides' account of Athens at the
beginning of the Peloponnesian war (II. 13).
Despite its ancestral connections to Sparta, which was an oligarchy, Tarentum
appears to have been a democracy during Archytas' lifetime. According to
Aristotle (Pol. 1303a), the democracy was founded after a large part of the
Tarentine aristocracy was killed in a battle with a native people, the Iapygians, in
473. Herodotus confirms that this was the greatest slaughter of Greeks of which
he was aware (VII 170). There is no evidence that Tarentum was anything but a
democracy between the founding of the democracy in 473 and Archytas' death
ca. 350. Some scholars have argued that Tarentum's ties to Sparta and the
supposed predilection of the Pythagoreans for aristocracy will have insured that
Tarentum did not remain a democracy long and that it was not a democracy
under Archytas (Minar 1942, 8890; Ciaceri 192732, II 4467). Strabo,
however, explicitly describes Tarentum as a democracy at the time of its
flourishing under Archytas (A4), and the descriptions of Archytas' power in
Tarentum stress his popularity with the masses and his election as general by the
citizens (A1 and A2). Finally, Aristotle's account of the structure of the Tarentine
government in the fourth century (Pol. 1291b14), while possibly consistent with
other forms of government, makes most sense if Tarentum was a democracy. The

same is true of fr. B3 of Archytas, with its emphasis on a more equal distribution
of wealth.

1.4 Archytas and Plato

Archytas was most famous in antiquity and is most famous in the modern world
for having sent a ship to rescue Plato from the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius II, in
361. In both the surviving ancient lives of Archytas (by Diogenes Laertius, VIII
7983, and in the Suda) the first thing mentioned about him, after the name of his
city-state and his father, is his rescue of Plato (A1 and A2). This story is told in
greatest detail in the Seventh Letter ascribed to Plato. It has accordingly been
typical to identify Archytas as the friend of Plato (Mathieu 1987). Archytas
first met Plato over twenty years earlier, when Plato visited southern Italy and
Sicily for the first time in 388/7, during his travels after the death of Socrates (Pl.
[?],Ep. VII 324a, 326b-d; Cicero, Rep. I 10. 16; Philodemus, Acad. Ind. X 511;
cf. D.L. III 6). Some scholars have seen Archytas as the dominant figure in the
relationship (Zhmud 2006, 93) and even as the new model philosopher for
Plato (Vlastos 1991, 129) and the archetype of Plato's philosopher-king (Guthrie
1962, 333). The actual situation appears to be considerably more complicated.
The ancient evidence, apart from the Seventh Letter, presents the relationship
between Archytas and Plato in diametrically opposed ways. One tradition does
present Archytas as the Pythagorean master at whose feet Plato sat, after Socrates
had died (e.g., Cicero, Rep. I 10.16), but another tradition makes Archytas the
student of Plato, to whom he owed his fame and success in Tarentum
(Demosthenes [?],Erotic Oration 44).
The Seventh Letter itself is of contested authenticity, although most scholars
regard it either as the work of Plato himself or of a student of Plato who had
considerable familiarity with Plato's involvement in events in Sicily (see e.g.,
Brisson 1987; Lloyd 1990; Schofield 2000). The letter appears to serve as an
apologia for Plato's involvement in events in Sicily. Lloyd has recently argued,
however, that the letter also serves to distance Plato from Pythagoreanism and
from Archytas (1990). Nothing in the letter suggests that Plato was ever the pupil
of Archytas; instead the relationship is much closer to that presented in the Erotic
Oration. Plato is presented as the dominant figure upon whom Archytas depends
both philosophically and politically. Archytas writes to Plato claiming that
Dionysius II has made great progress in philosophy, in order to urge Plato to
come to Sicily a third time (339d-e). These claims are belied as soon as Plato
arrives (340b). The letter thus suggests that, far from being the Pythagorean
master from whom Plato learned his philosophy, Archytas had a very imperfect
understanding of what Plato considered philosophy to be. The letter makes clear
that Plato does have a relationship ofxenia, guest-friendship, with Archytas and
others at Tarentum (339e, 350a). This relationship was probably established on
Plato's first visit in 388/7, since Plato uses it as a basis to establish a similar
relationship between Archytas and Dionysius II during his second visit in 367
(338c). It is also the relationship in terms of which Plato appeals to Archytas for
help, when he is in danger after the third trip to Sicily goes badly (350a). Such a
5

friendship need not imply any close personal intimacy, however. Aristotle
classifiesxenia as a friendship for utility and points out that such friends do not
necessarily spend much time together or even find each other's company pleasant
(EN 1156a26 ff.). Apart from Archytas' rescue of Plato in 361 (even this is
described as devised by Plato [350a]), Plato is clearly the dominant figure in the
relationship. Archytas is portrayed as Plato's inferior in his understanding of
philosophy, and Plato is even presented as responsible for some of Archytas'
political success, insofar as he establishes the relationship between Archytas and
Dionysius II, which is described as of considerable political importance (339d).
How are we to unravel the true nature of the relationship between Plato and
Archytas in the light of this conflicting evidence? Apart from the Seventh Letter,
Plato never makes a direct reference to Archytas. He does, however, virtually
quote a sentence from Archytas' book on harmonics in Book VII of
the Republic (530d), and his discussions of the science of stereometry shortly
before this are likely to have some connections to Archytas' work in solid
geometry (528d). It is thus in the context of the discussion of the sciences that
Plato refers to Archytas, and the remains of Archytas' work focus precisely on
the sciences (e.g., fr. B1). Both strands of the tradition can be reconciled, if we
suppose that Plato's first visit to Italy and Sicily was at least in part motivated by
his desire to meet Archytas, as the first tradition claims, but that he sought
Archytas out not as a new model philosopher but rather as an expert in the
mathematical sciences, in which Plato had developed a deep interest.
In Republic VII, Plato is critical of Pythagorean harmonics and of current work
in solid geometry on philosophical grounds, so that, while he undoubtedly
learned a considerable amount of mathematics from Archytas, he clearly
disagreed with Archytas' understanding of the philosophical uses of the sciences.
In 388 Tarentum had not yet reached the height of its power, and Archytas is not
likely to have achieved his political dominance yet, so that there may also be
some truth to the claim of the second tradition that Archytas did not achieve his
great practical success until after his contact with Plato; whether or not that
success had any direct relationship to his contact with Plato is more doubtful. On
their first meeting in 388/7, Plato and Archytas established a relationship of
guest-friendship, which obligated them to further each other's interests, which
they did, as the events of 367361 show. Plato and Archytas need not have been
in agreement on philosophical issues and are perhaps better seen as competitive
colleagues engaged in an ongoing debate as to the value of the sciences for
philosophy (Huffman 2005, 3242).

1.5 The Authenticity Question

More pages of text have been preserved in Archytas' name than in the name of
any other Pythagorean. Unfortunately the vast majority of this material is rightly
regarded as spurious. The same is true of the Pythagorean tradition in general;
the vast majority of texts which purport to be by early Pythagoreans are, in fact,
later forgeries. Some of these forgeries were produced for purely monetary
reasons; a text of a rare work by a famous Pythagorean could fetch a
6

considerable sum from book collectors. There were characteristics unique to the
Pythagorean tradition, however, that led to a proliferation of forgeries. Starting as
early as the later fourth century BC, Pythagoras came to be regarded, in some
circles, as the philosopher par excellence, to whom all truth had been revealed.
All later philosophy, insofar as it was true, was a restatement of this original
revelation (see, e.g., O'Meara 1989). In order to support this view of Pythagoras,
texts were forged in the name of Pythagoras and other early Pythagoreans, to
show that they had, in fact, anticipated the most important ideas of Plato and
Aristotle. These pseudo-Pythagorean texts are thus characterized by the use of
central Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, expressed in the technical terminology
used by Plato and Aristotle. Some of the forgeries even attempt to improve on
Plato and Aristotle by adding refinements to their positions, which were first
advanced several hundred years after their deaths. The date and place of origin of
these pseudo-Pythagorean treatises is difficult to determine, but most seem to
have been composed between 150 BC and 100 AD (Burkert 1972b; Centrone
1990; Moraux 1984); Rome (Burkert 1972b) and Alexandria (Centrone 1990) are
the most likely places of origin. Archytas is the dominant figure in this pseudoPythagorean tradition. In Thesleff 1965's collection of the pseudo-Pythagorean
writings, forty-five of the two-hundred and forty-five pages (2-48), about 20%,
comprising some 1,200 lines, are devoted to texts forged in Archytas' name. On
the other hand, the fragments likely to be genuine, which are collected in DK, fill
out only a hundred lines of text. Thus, over ten times more spurious than genuine
material has been preserved in Archytas' name. It may well be that the style and
Doric dialect of the pseudo-Pythagorean writings were also based on the model
of Archytas' genuine writings.

1.6 Spurious Works Ascribed to Archytas

The treatises under Archytas' name collected in Thesleff 1965 have been almost
universally regarded as spurious, except for On Law and Justice, where there has
been considerable controversy. Most are only preserved in fragments, although
there are two brief complete works. The most famous of these forgeries
is Concerning the Whole System [sc. of Categories] or Concerning the Ten
Categories (preserved complete, see Szlezak 1972). This work along with the
treatise On Opposites (Thesleff 1965, 15.319.2) and the much later Ten
Universal Assertions (preserved complete, first ascribed to Archytas in the
15 century AD; see Szlezak 1972) represent the attempt to claim Aristotle's
doctrine of categories for Archytas and the Pythagoreans. This attempt was to
some extent successful; both Simplicius and Iamblichus regarded the Archytan
works on categories as genuine anticipations of Aristotle (CAG VIII. 2, 9
25). Concerning the Ten Categories and On Opposites are very frequently cited
in the ancient commentaries on Aristotle's Categories. Pseudo-Archytas
identifies ten categories with names that are virtually identical to those used by
Aristotle, and his language follows Aristotle closely in many places. The division
of Archytas' work into two treatises, Concerning the Ten Categories and On
Opposites, reflects the work of Andronicus of Rhodes, who first separated the
last six chapters of Aristotle's Categories from the rest. Thus, the works in
th

Archytas' name must have been forged after Andronicus' work in the first century
BC. Other spurious works in metaphysics and epistemology include On
Principles (Thesleff
1965,
19.3

20.17), On
Intelligence
and
Perception (Thesleff 1965, 36.1239.25), which includes a paraphrase of the
divided line passage in Plato's Republic; On Being (Thesleff 1965, 40.116)
and On Wisdom(Thesleff 1965, 43.2445.4). The authenticity of this latter work
has recently been defended on the grounds that its admitted similarities to
passages in Aristotle are a result of Archytas' influence on Aristotle rather than
an indication that the work was forged on the basis of Aristotle (Johnson 2008,
193194). It is indeed true that Aristotle devoted several lost works to Archytas
and must have been familiar with his thought. However, the issue of authenticity
within the Pythagorean tradition has a different character than is the case with
other ancient authors. In the case of an author such as Plato, where the vast
majority of surviving works are surely authentic, the onus of proof is on anyone
who wants to argue that a work is spurious. In the Pythagorean tradition, on the
other hand, where surely spurious works far outnumber genuine ones, the
situation is reversed. The onus of proof rests on anyone who regards a
Pythagorean work as genuine to show that it does not fit the pattern of the forged
Pythagorean treatises and that its contents can be corroborated by evidence
dating before the third century, when the Pythagorean pseudepigrapha start to be
generated. Since On Wisdom does share with the pseudepigrapha the
characteristic of using important Aristotelian distinctions (Huffman 2005, 598
599), even if it is not as blatant a copy of Aristotle's ideas as the works on
categories ascribed to Archtyas, it is much more likely that it was forged on the
basis of Aristotle than that Aristotle is using On Wisdom without attribution. In
order for the latter situation to be probable there would need to be fourth-century
evidence independent of On Wisdom which ascribed the ideas found in it to
Archytas.
There are also fragments of two surely spurious treatises on ethics and politics,
which have recent editions with commentary: On the Good and Happy
Man (Centrone 1990), which shows connections to Arius Didymus, an author of
the first century BC, and On Moral Education (Centrone 1990), which has ties to
Carneades (2nd c. BC). The status of one final treatise is less clear. The
fragments of On Law and Justice (Thesleff 1965, 33.136.11) were studied in
some detail by Delatte (1922), who showed that the treatise deals with the
political conceptions of the fourth century and who came to the modest
conclusion that the work might be by Archytas, since there were no positive
indications of late composition. Thesleff similarly concluded that the treatise
may be authentic or at least comparatively old (1961, 112), while Minar
maintained that it has an excellent claim to authenticity (1942, 111). Its
authenticity has recently been supported by Johnson (2008, 194198). On the
other hand, DK did not include the fragments of On Law and Justice among the
genuine fragments, and most recent scholars have argued that the treatise is
spurious. Aalders provides the most detailed treatment, although a number of his
arguments are inconclusive (1968, 1320). Other opponents of authenticity are
Burkert (1972a), Moraux (1984, 670677) and Centrone (2000). The connections
8

of On Law and Justice to the genuine fr. B2 of Archytas speak for its
authenticity, but its similarities, sometimes word for word, to pseudoPythagorean treatises by Diotogenes (Thesleff 76.23, 71. 212), Damippos
(Thesleff 68.26) and Metopos (Thesleff 119.28) argue for its spuriousness.
Moreover, the authentic Fr. 3 of Archytas shows that calculation (logismos) was
the key concept in his political philosophy. Its total absence from On Law and
Justice, whose focus is political philosophy, along with the absence of other key
terms in Fr. 3 (e.g., pleonexia, homonoia and isots) is hard to explain, if On Law
and Justice is authentic (Huffman 2003, 599606).
Some testimonia suggest that there were even more pseudo-Archytan treatises,
which have not survived even in fragments (Thesleff 47.8 ff.). Two spurious
letters of Archytas survive. One is the letter to which the pseudo-Platonic Twelfth
Letter is responding (D.L. VIII 7980), and the other is the purported letter of
Archytas to Dionysius II, which was sent along with the ship in order to secure
Plato's release in 361 (D.L. III 212). Archytas was a popular figure in the
Middle Ages and early Renaissance, when works continued to be forged in his
name, usually with the spelling Architas or Archita. The Ars geometriae, which
is ascribed to Boethius, but was in reality composed in the 12 century (Folkerts
1970, 105), ascribes discoveries in mathematics to Architas which are clearly
spurious (Burkert 1972a, 406). Several alchemical recipes involving the wax of
the left ear of a dog and the heart of a wolf are ascribed to Architas in ps.Albertus Magnus, The Marvels of the World (De mirabilibus mundi 13 century
AD). Numerous selections from a book entitled On Events in Nature (de
eventibus in natura, also cited as de effectibus in natura and as de eventibus
futurorum) by Archita Tharentinus (or Tharentinus, or just Tharen) are preserved
in the medieval texts known as The Light of the Soul (Lumen Animae), which
were composed in the fourteenth century and circulated widely in Europe in the
fifteenth century as a manual for preachers (Rouse 1971; Thorndike 1934, III
54660). An apocryphal work, The Circular Theory of the Things in the Heaven,
by Archytas Maximus [!], which has never been published in full, is preserved in
Codex Ambrosianus D 27 sup. (See Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum
Graecorum, ed. F. Cumont et al., Vol. III, p. 11). For more on the issue of
authenticity, see Huffman 2005, 91100 and 595618.
th

th

1.7 Genuine Works and Testimonia

No list of Archytas' works has come down to us from antiquity, so that we don't
know how many books he wrote. In the face of the large mass of spurious works,
it is disappointing that only a few fragments of genuine works have survived.
Most scholars accept as genuine the four fragments printed by Diels and Kranz
(B14). Burkert (1972a, 220 n.14 and 379 n. 46) raised some concerns about the
authenticity of even some of these fragments, but see the responses of Bowen
(1982) and Huffman (1985 and 2005). Our evidence for the titles of Archytas'
genuine writings depends largely on the citations given by the authors who quote
the fragments. Fragments B1 and B2 are reported to come from a treatise
entitledHarmonics, and the major testimonia about Archytas' harmonic theory are
9

likely to be ultimately based on this book (A1619). This treatise began with a
discussion of the basic principles of acoustics (B1), defined the three types of
mean which are of importance in music theory (B2), and went on to present
Archytas' mathematical descriptions of the tetrachord (the fourth) in the three
main genera (chromatic, diatonic, and enharmonic A16-A19). B3 probably
comes from a work On Sciences, which may have been a more general
discussion of the value of mathematics for human life in general and for the
establishment of a just state in particular. New support for its authenticity has
been provided by Schofield (2009). B4 comes from a work
entitled Discourses (Diatribai). The fragment itself asserts the priority of the
science of calculation (ha logistika, logistic) to the other sciences, such as
geometry, and thus suggests a technical work of mathematics. The
title Diatribai would more normally suggest a treatise of ethical content,
however, so that in this work the sciences may have been evaluated in terms of
their contribution to the wisdom that leads to a good life.
A relatively rich set of testimonia, many from authors of the fourth century BC,
indicate that Archytas wrote other books as well. Archytas' famous argument for
the unlimited extent of the universe (A24), his theory of vision (A25), and his
account of motion (A23, A23a) all suggest that he may have written a work on
cosmology. Aristotle's comments in the Metaphysics suggest that Archytas may
have written a book on definition (A22), and A20 and A21 might suggest a work
on arithmetic. Perhaps there was a treatise on geometry or solid geometry in
which Archytas' solution to the problem of doubling the cube (A1415) was
published. There is also a tradition of anecdotes about Archytas, which probably
ultimately derives from Aristoxenus' Life of Archytas (A7, A8, A9, A11). It is
possible that even the testimonia for Archytas' argument for an unlimited
universe and his theory of vision were derived from anecdotes preserved by
Aristoxenus, and not at all from works of Archytas' own.
It is uncertain whether the treatises On Flutes (B6), On Machines (B1 and B7),
and On Agriculture (B1 and B8), which were in circulation under the name of
Archytas, were in fact by Archytas of Tarentum or by other men of the same
name. Diogenes Laertius lists three other writers with the name Archytas (VIII
82). The treatise On the Decad mentioned by Theon (B5) might be by Archytas,
but the treatise by Philolaus with which it is paired is spurious (Huffman 1993,
347350), thus suggesting that the same may be true of the treatise under
Archytas' name.

2. Archytas as Mathematician and Harmonic

Theorist
2.1 Doubling the Cube
Archytas was the first person to arrive at a solution to one of the most famous
mathematical puzzles in antiquity, the duplication of the cube. The most romantic
version of the story, which occurs in many variations and ultimately goes back to
10

Eratosthenes (3rd c. BC), reports that the inhabitants of the Greek island of Delos
were beset by a plague and, when they consulted an oracle for advice, were told
that, if they doubled the size of a certain altar, which had the form of a cube, the
plague would stop (Eutocius, in Archim. sphaer. et cyl. II [III 88.396.27
Heiberg/Stamatis]). The simple-minded response to the oracle, which is actually
assigned to the Delians in some versions, is to build a second altar identical to the
first one and set it on top of the first (Philoponus, In Anal. post., CAGXIII.3,
102.1222). The resulting altar does indeed have a volume twice that of the first
altar, but it is no longer a cube. The next simple-minded response is to assume
that, since we want an altar that is double in volume, while still remaining a cube,
we should build the new altar with a side that is double the length of the side of
the original altar. This approach fails as well. Doubling the side of the altar
produces a new altar that is not twice the volume of the original altar but eight
times the volume. If the original altar had a side of two, then its volume would be
2 or 8, while an altar built on a side twice as long will have a volume of 4 or 64.
What then is the length of the side which will produce a cube with twice the
volume of the original cube? The Delians were at a loss and presented their
problem to Plato in the Academy. Plato then posed the Delian Problem, as it
came to be known, to mathematicians associated with the Academy, and no less
than three solutions were devised, those of Eudoxus, Menaechmus, and Archytas.
3

It is not clear whether or not the story about the Delians has any basis in fact.
Even if it does, it should not be understood to suggest that the problem of
doubling the cube first arose in the fourth century with the Delians. We are told
that the mathematician, Hippocrates of Chios, who was active in the second half
of the fifth century, had already confronted the problem and had reduced it to a
slightly different problem (Eutocius, in Archim. sphaer. et cyl. II [III 88.396.27
Heiberg/Stamatis]). Hippocrates recognized that if we could find two mean
proportionals between the length of the side of the original cube G, and length D,
where D = 2G, so that G : x :: x : y :: y : D, then the cube on length x will be
double the cube on length G. Exactly how Hippocrates came to see this is
conjectural and need not concern us here, but that he was right can be seen
relatively easily. Each of the values in the continued proportion G : x :: x : y :: y :
D is equal to G : x, so we can set them all equal to G : x. If we do this and
multiply the three ratios together we get the value G : x . On the other hand, if
we take the same continued proportion and carry out the multiplication in the
original terms, then G : x times x : y yields G : y, and G : y times the remaining
term gives G : D. Thus G : D = G : x , but D is twice G so x is twice G .
Remember that G was the length of the side of the original cube, so the cube that
is twice the cube built on G, will be the cube built on x. The Greeks did not think
of the problem as a problem in algebra but rather as a problem in geometry. After
Hippocrates the problem of doubling the cube was always seen as the problem of
finding two lines such that they were mean proportionals between G, the length
of the side of the original cube, and D, a length which is double G. It was to this
form of the problem that Archytas provided the first solution.
3

11

Archytas' solution has been rightly hailed as the most remarkable of all [the
solutions] and as a bold construction in three dimensions (Heath 1921, 246);
Mueller calls it atour de force of the spatial imagination (1997, 312 n. 23). We
owe the preservation of Archytas' solution to Eutocius, who in the sixth century
AD collected some eleven solutions to the problem as part of his commentary on
the second book of Archimedes' On the Sphere and Cylinder. Eutocius' source
for Archytas' solution was ultimately Aristotle's pupil Eudemus, who in the late
fourth century BC wrote a history of geometry. The solution is complex and it is
not possible to go through it step by step here (see Huffman 2005,342360 for a
detailed treatment of the solution). Archytas proceeds by constructing a series of
four similar triangles (see Figure 1 below) and then showing that the sides are
proportional so that AM : AI :: AI : AK :: AK : AD, where AM was equal to the
side of the original cube (G) and AD was twice AM. Thus the cube double the
volume of the cube on AM should be built on AI. The real difficulty was in
constructing the four similar triangles, where the given length of the side of the
original cube and a length double that magnitude were two of the sides in the
similar triangles. The key point for the construction of these triangles, point K,
was determined as the intersection of two rotating plane figures. The first figure
is a semicircle, which is perpendicular to the plane of the circle ABDZ and which
starts on the diameter AED and, with point A remaining fixed, rotates to position
AKD. The second is the triangle APD, which rotates up out of the plane of the
circle ABDZ to position ALD. As each of these figures rotates, it traces a line on
the surface of a semicylinder, which is perpendicular to the plane of ABDZ and
has ABD as its base. The boldness and the imagination of the construction lies in
envisioning the intersection at point K of the line drawn by the rotating
semicircle on the surface of the semicylinder with the line drawn by the rotating
triangle on the same surface. We simply don't know what led Archytas to
produce this amazing feat of spatial imagination, in order to construct the
triangles with the sides in appropriate proportion.

12

Figure 1
In the later tradition, Plato is reported to have criticized Archytas' solution for
appealing to constructions that use instruments and that are mechanical
(Plutarch, Table Talk VIII 2.1 [718e]; Marc. XIV 56). Plato argued that the
value of geometry and of the rest of mathematics resided in their ability to turn
the soul from the sensible to intelligible realm. The cube with which geometry
deals is not a physical cube or even a drawing of a cube but rather an intelligible
cube that fits the definition of the cube but is not a sense object. By employing
physical instruments, which required much common handicraft, and in effect
constructing machines to determine the two mean proportionals, Archytas was
focusing not on the intelligible world but on the physical world and hence
destroying the value of geometry. Plato's quarrel with Archytas is a charming
story, but it is hard to reconcile with Archytas' actual solution, which, as we have
seen, makes no appeal to any instruments or machines. The story of the quarrel,
which is first reported in Plutarch in the first century AD, is also hard to
reconcile with our earliest source for the story of the Delian problem,
Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes had himself invented an instrument to determine
mean proportionals, the mesolab (mean-getter), and he tells the story of the
Delian problem precisely to emphasize that earlier solutions, including that of
Archytas, were in the form of geometrical demonstrations, which could not be
employed for practical purposes. He specifically labels Archytas' solution
as dysmchana, hardly mechanical. Some scholars attempt to reconcile
Plutarch's and Eratosthenes' versions by focusing on their different literary goals
(Knorr 1986, 22; van der Waerden 1963, 161; Wolfer 1954, 12 ff.; Sachs 1917,
150); some suggest that the rotation of the semicircle and the triangle in
13

Archytas' solution, might be regarded as mechanical, since motion is involved

(Knorr 1986, 22). It may be, however, that Plutarch's story of a quarrel between
Plato and Archytas over the use of mechanical devices in geometry is an
invention of the later tradition (Riginos 1976, 146; Zhmud 1998, 217) and
perhaps served as a sort of foundation myth for the science of mechanics, a myth
which explained the separation of mechanics from philosophy as the result of a
quarrel between two philosophers. In the Republic, Plato is critical of the solid
geometry of his day, but his criticism makes no mention of the use of
instruments. His criticism instead focuses on the failure of solid geometry to be
developed into a coherent discipline alongside geometry and astronomy (528bd). This neglect of solid geometry is ascribed to the failure of the Greek citystates to hold these difficult studies in honor, the lack of a director to organize the
studies, and the arrogance of the current experts in the field, who would not
submit to such a director. Since Archytas' duplication of the cube shows him to
be one of the leading solid geometers of the time, it is hard to avoid the
conclusion that Plato regarded him as one of the arrogant experts, who focused
on solving charming problems but failed to produce a coherent discipline of solid
geometry. Since Archytas was a leading political figure in Tarentum, it is also
possible that Plato was criticizing him for not making Tarentum a state which
held solid geometry in esteem. For more on Archytas' solution to the duplication
of the cube, see Huffman 2005, 342401.

2.2 Music and Mathematics

One of the most startling discoveries of early Greek science was that the
fundamental intervals of music, the octave, the fourth, and the fifth, corresponded
to whole number ratios of string length. Thus, if we pluck a string of length x and
then a string of length 2x, we will hear the interval of an octave between the two
sounds. If the two string lengths are in the ratio 4 : 3, we will hear a fourth, and,
if the ratio is 3 : 2, we will hear a fifth. This discovery that the phenomena of
musical sound are governed by whole number ratios must have played a central
role in the Pythagorean conception, first expressed by Philolaus, that all things
are known through number (DK 44 B4). The next step in harmonic theory was to
describe an entire octave length scale in terms of mathematical ratios. The
earliest such description of a scale is found in Philolaus fr. B6. Philolaus
recognizes that, if we go up the interval of a fourth from any given note, and then
up the interval of a fifth, the final note will be an octave above the first note.
Thus, the octave is made up of a fourth and a fifth. In mathematical terms, the
ratios that govern the fifth (3 : 2) and fourth (4 : 3) are added by multiplying the
terms and thus produce an octave (3 : 2 4 : 3 = 12 : 6 = 2 : 1). The interval
between the note that is a fourth up from the starting note and the note that is a
fifth up was regarded as the basic unit of the scale, the whole tone, which
corresponded to the ratio of 9 : 8 (subtraction of ratios is carried out by dividing
the terms, or cross multiplying: 3 : 2 / 4 : 3 = 9 : 8). The fifth was thus regarded
as a fourth plus a whole tone, and the octave can be regarded as two fourths plus
a whole tone. The fourth consists of two whole tones with a remainder, which
has the unlovely ratio of 256 : 243 (4 : 3 / 9 : 8 = 32 : 27 / 9 : 8 = 256 : 243).
14

Philolaus' scale thus consisted of the following intervals: 9 : 8, 9 : 8, 256 : 243

[these three intervals take us up a fourth], 9 : 8, 9 : 8, 9 : 8, 256 : 243 [these four
intervals make up a fifth and complete the octave from our staring note]. This
scale is known as the Pythagorean diatonic and is the scale that Plato adopted in
the construction of the world soul in the Timaeus (36a-b).
Archytas took harmonic theory to a whole new level of theoretical and
mathematical sophistication. Ptolemy, writing in the second century AD,
identifies Archytas as having engaged in the study of music most of all the
Pythagoreans (A16). First, Archytas provided a general explanation of pitch,
arguing that the pitch of a sound depends on the speed with which the sound is
propagated and travels (B1). Thus, if a stick is waved back and forth rapidly, it
will produce a sound that travels rapidly through the air, which will be perceived
as of a higher pitch than the sound produced by a stick waved more slowly.
Archytas is correct to associate pitch with speed, but he misunderstood the role
of speed. The pitch does not depend on the speed with which a sound reaches us
but rather on the frequency of impacts in a given period of time. A string that
vibrates more rapidly produces a sound of a higher pitch, but all sounds,
regardless of pitch, travel at an equal velocity, if the medium is the same.
Although Archytas' account of pitch was ultimately incorrect, it was very
influential. It was taken over and adapted by both Plato and Aristotle and
remained the dominant theory throughout antiquity (Barker 1989, 41 n. 47).
Second, Archytas introduced new mathematical rigor into Pythagorean
harmonics. One of the important results of the analysis of music in terms of
whole number ratios is the recognition that it is not possible to divide the basic
musical intervals in half. The octave is not divided into two equal halves but into
a fourth and a fifth, the fourth is not divided into two equal halves but into two
whole tones and a remainder. The whole tone cannot be divided into two equal
half tones. On the other hand, it is possible to divide a double octave in half.
Mathematically this can be seen by recognizing that it is possible to insert a mean
proportional between the terms of the ratio corresponding to the double octave (4
: 1) so that 4 : 2 :: 2 : 1. The double octave can thus be divided into two equal
parts each having a ratio of 2 : 1. The ratios which govern the basic musical
intervals (2 : 1, 4 : 3, 3 : 2, 9 : 8), all belong to a type of ratio known as a
superparticular ratio roughly speaking, ratios of the form (n + 1) : n. Archytas
made a crucial contribution by providing a rigorous proof that there is no mean
proportional between numbers in superparticular ratio (A19) and hence that the
basic musical intervals cannot be divided in half. Archytas' proof was later taken
over and modified slightly in the Sectio Canonis ascribed to Euclid (Prop. 3; see
Barker 1989, 195).
Archytas' final contribution to music theory has to do with the structure of the
scale. The Greeks used a number of different scales, which were distinguished by
the way in which the fourth, or tetrachord, was constructed. These scales were
grouped into three main types or genera. One genus was called the diatonic; one
example of this is the Pythagorean diatonic described above, which is built on the
tetrachord with the intervals 9 : 8, 9 : 8 and 256 : 243 and was used by Philolaus
15

and Plato. There is no doubt that Archytas knew of this diatonic scale, but his
own diatonic tetrachord was somewhat different, being composed of the intervals
9 : 8, 8 : 7 and 28 : 27. Archytas also defined scales in the two other major
genera, the enharmonic and chromatic. Archytas' enharmonic tetrachord is
composed of the intervals 5 : 4, 36 : 35 and 28 : 27 and his chromatic tetrachord
of the intervals 32 : 27, 243 : 224, and 28 : 27. There are several puzzles about
the tetrachords which Archytas adopts in each of the genera. First, why does
Archytas reject the Pythagorean diatonic used by Philolaus and Plato? Second,
Ptolemy, who is our major source for Archytas' tetrachords (A16), argues that
Archytas adopted as a principle that all concordant intervals should correspond to
superparticular ratios. The ratios in Archytas' diatonic and enharmonic
tetrachords are indeed superparticular, but two of the ratios in his chromatic
tetrachord are not superparticular (32 : 27 and 243 : 224). Why are these ratios
not superparticular as well? Finally, Plato criticizes Pythagorean harmonics in
the Republic for seeking numbers in heard harmonies rather than ascending to
generalized problems (531c). Can any sense be made of this criticism in light of
Archytas' tetrachords? The basis for an answer to all of these questions is
contained in the work of Winnington-Ingram (1932) and Barker (1989, 46-52).
The crucial point is that Archytas' account of the tetrachords in each of the three
genera can be shown to correspond to the musical practice of his day; Ptolemy's
criticisms miss the mark because of his ignorance of musical practice in
Archytas' day, some 500 years before Ptolemy (Winnington-Ingram 1932, 207).
Archytas is giving mathematical descriptions of scales actually in use; he arrived
at his numbers in part by observation of the way in which musicians tuned their
instruments (Barker 1989, 5051). He did not follow the Pythagorean diatonic
scale because it did not correspond to any scale actually in use, although it does
correspond to a method of tuning. The unusual numbers in Archytas' chromatic
tetrachord do correspond to a chromatic scale in use in Archytas' day. Barker
tries to save Archytas' adherence to the principle that all concordant intervals
should have superparticular ratios, but there is no direct evidence that he was
using such a principle, and Ptolemy may be mistaken to apply it to him. Archytas
thus provides a brilliant analysis of the music of his day, but it is precisely his
focus on actual musical practice that draws Plato's ire. Plato does not want him to
focus on the music he hears about him (heard harmonies) but rather to ascend
to consider quite abstract questions about which numbers are harmonious with
which. Plato might well have welcomed a principle of concordance based solely
on mathematical considerations, such as the principle that only superparticular
ratios are concordant, but Archytas wanted to explain the numbers of the music
he actually heard played. There is an important metaphysical issue at stake here.
Plato is calling for the study of number in itself, apart from the sensible world,
while Archytas, like Pythagoreans before him, envisages no split between a
sensible and an intelligible world and is looking for the numbers which govern
sensible things.

2.3 Evaluation of Archytas as Mathematician

16

There have been tendencies both to overvalue and to undervalue Archytas'

achievement as a mathematician. Van der Waerden went so far as to add to
Archytas' accomplishments both Book VIII of Euclid's Elements and the treatise
on the mathematics of music known as theSectio Canonis, which is ascribed to
Euclid in the ancient tradition (1962, 1525). Although later scholars (e.g., Knorr
1975: 244) repeat these assertions, they are based in part on a very subjective
analysis of Archytas' style. Archytas influenced the Sectio Canonis, since
Proposition 3 is based on a proof by Archytas (A19), but the treatise cannot be by
Archytas, because its theory of pitch and its account of the diatonic and
enharmonic tetrachords differ from those of Archytas. On the other hand, some
scholars have cast doubt on Archytas' prowess as a mathematician, arguing that
some of his work looks like mere arithmology and mathematical
mystification (Burkert 1972a, 386; Mueller 1997, 289). This judgment rests
largely on a text that has been mistakenly interpreted as presenting Archytas' own
views, whereas, in fact, it presents Archytas' report of his predecessors (A17).
The duplication of the cube and Archytas' contributions to the mathematics of
music show that there can be no doubt that he was one of the leading
mathematicians of the first part of the fourth century BC. This was certainly the
judgment of antiquity. In his history of geometry, Eudemus identified Archytas
along with Leodamas and Theaetetus as the three most prominent
mathematicians of Plato's generation (A6 = Proclus, in Eucl., prol. II 66, 14).

3. Archytas on the Sciences

3.1 The Value of the Sciences
Archytas B1 is the beginning of his book on harmonics, and most of it is devoted
to the basic principles of his theory of acoustics and, in particular, to his theory of
pitch described in section 2.2 above. In the first five lines, however, Archytas
provides a proem on the value of the sciences (mathmata) in general. There are
several important features of this proem. First, Archytas identifies a set of four
sciences: astronomy, geometry, logistic (arithmetic) and music. B1 is thus
probably the earliest text to identify the set of sciences that became known as
the quadrivium in the middle ages and that constitute four of the seven liberal
arts. Second, Archytas does not present this classification of sciences as his own
discovery but instead begins with praise of his predecessors who have worked in
these fields. Some scholars argue that, when he praises those concerned with the
sciences, he is thinking only of the Pythagoreans (e.g., Zhmud 1997, 198 and
Lasserre 1954, 36), but this is wrongly to assume that all early Greek
mathematics is Pythagorean. Archytas gives no hint that he is limiting his
remarks to Pythagoreans, and, in areas where we can identify those who
influenced him most, these figures are not limited to Pythagoreans (e.g.,
Hippocrates of Chios in geometry, see section 2.1). He praises his predecessors
in the sciences, because, having discerned well about the nature of wholes, they
were likely also to see well how things are in their parts and to have correct
understanding about individual things as they are. It is here that Archytas is
17

putting forth his own understanding of the nature and value of the sciences;
because of the brevity of the passage, much remains unclear. Archytas appears to
be praising those concerned with the sciences for their discernment, their ability
to make distinctions (diagignskein). He argues that they begin by distinguishing
the nature of wholes, the universal concepts of a science, and, because they do
this well, they are able to understand particular objects (the parts). Archytas
appears to follow exactly this procedure in his Harmonics. He begins by defining
the most universal concept of the science, sound, and explains it in terms of other
concepts such as impact, before going on to distinguish between audible and
inaudible sounds and sounds of high and low pitch. The goal of the science is not
the making of these distinctions concerning universal concepts, however, but
knowledge of the true nature of individual things. Thus, Archytas' harmonics
ends with the mathematical description of the musical intervals that we hear
practicing musicians use (see section 2.2 above). Astronomy will end with a
mathematical description of the periods, risings and settings of the planets. One
way to understand Archytas' project is to see him as working out the program
suggested by his predecessor in the Pythagorean tradition, Philolaus. One of
Philolaus' central theses was that we only gain knowledge of things insofar as we
can give an account of them in terms of numbers (DK 44 B4). While Philolaus
only took the first steps in this project, Archytas is much more successful in
giving an account of individual things in the phenomenal world in terms of
numbers, as his description of the musical intervals shows.
Plato's account of the sciences in Book VII of the Republic can be seen as a
response to Archytas' view of the sciences. First Plato identifies a group of five
rather than four sciences and decries the neglect of his proposed fifth science,
stereometry (solid geometry), with a probable allusion to Archytas (see section
2.1). Plato quotes with approval Archytas' assertion that these sciences seem to
be akin (B1), although he applies it just to harmonics and astronomy rather than
to Archytas' quadrivium and does not mention him by name. In the same passage,
however, Plato pointedly rejects the Pythagorean attempt to search for numbers
in heard harmonies. In doing so Plato is disagreeing with Archytas' attempt to
determine the numbers that govern things in the sensible world. For Plato, the
value of the sciences is their ability to turn the eye of the soul from the sensible
to the intelligible realm. Book VII of the Republic with its elaborate argument for
the distinction between the intelligible and sensible realm, between the cave and
the intelligible world outside the cave, may be in large part directed at Archytas'
attempt to use mathematics to explain the sensible world. As Aristotle repeatedly
emphasizes, the Pythagoreans differed from Plato precisely in their refusal to
separate numbers from things (e.g., Metaph. 987b27).

3.2 Logistic as the Master Science

In B4, Archytas asserts that logistic seems to be far superior indeed to the other
arts in regard to wisdom. What does Archytas mean by logistic? It appears to
be Archytas' term for the science of number, which was mentioned as one of the
four sister sciences in B1. There is simply not enough context in B4 or other texts
18

of Archytas to determine the meaning of logistic from Archytas' usage alone. It is

necessary to rely to some extent on Plato, who is the only other early figure to
use the term extensively. A later conception of logistic, as something that deals
with numbered things rather than numbers themselves, which is found in, e.g.,
Geminus, should not be ascribed to Plato or Archytas (Klein 1968; Burkert
1972a, 447 n. 119). In Plato, logistic can refer to everyday calculation, what
we would call arithmetic (e.g. 3 700 = 2,100; see, Hp. Mi. 366c). In other
passages, however, Plato defines logistic in parallel with arithmtik, and treats
the two of them as together constituting the science of number, on which
practical manipulation of number is based (Klein 1968, 2324).
Both arithmtik and logistic deal with the even and the odd.Arithmtik focuses
not on quantities but on kinds of numbers (Grg. 451b), beginning with the even
and the odd and presumably continuing with the types we find later in
Nicomachus (Ar. 1.8 1.13), such as prime, composite and even-times even.
Logistic, on the other hand, focuses on quantity, the amount the odd and even
have both in themselves and in respect to one another (Grg. 451c). An example
of one part of logistic might be the study of various sorts of means and
proportions, which focus on the quantitative relations of numbers to one another
(e.g., Nicomachus, Ar. II. 21 ff.). In B2, Archytas would probably consider
himself to be doing logistic, when he defines the three types of means which are
relevant to music (geometric, arithmetic, and harmonic). The geometric mean
arises whenever three terms are so related that, as the first is to the second, so the
second is to the third (e.g., 8 : 4 :: 4 : 2) and the arithmetic, when three terms are
so related that the first exceeds the second by the same amount as the second
exceeds the third (e.g., 6 : 4 :: 4 : 2). Archytas, like Plato (R. 525c), uses logistic
not just in this narrow sense of the study of relative quantity, but also to
designate the entire science of numbers including arithmtik.
Why does Archytas think that logistic is superior to the other sciences? In B4, he
particularly compares it to geometry, arguing that logistic (1) deals with what it
wishes more vividly than geometry and (2) completes demonstrations where
geometry cannot, even if there is any investigation concerning shapes. This last
remark is surprising, since the study of shapes would appear to be the proper
domain of geometry. The most common way of explaining Archytas' remark is to
suppose that he is arguing that logistic is mathematically superior to geometry, in
that certain proofs can only be completed by an appeal to logistic. Burkert sees
this as a reason for doubting the authenticity of the fragment, since the exact
opposite seems to be true. Archytas could determine the cube root of two
geometrically, through his solution to the duplication of the cube, but could not
do so arithmetically, since the cube root of two is an irrational number (1972a,
220 n. 14). Other scholars have pointed out, however, that certain proofs in
geometry do require an appeal to logistic (Knorr 1975, 311; Mueller 1992b, 90 n.
12), e.g., logistic is required to recognize the incomensurability of the diagonal
with the side of the square, since incommensurability arises when two
magnitudes have not to one another the ratio whichnumber has to number
(Euclid X 7). These suggestions show that logistic can be superior to geometry in
19

certain cases, but they do not explain Archytas' more general assertion that
logistic deals with whatever problems it wants more clearly than geometry.
However, it may be that B4 is not in fact comparing logistic to the other sciences
as sciences in terms of their relative success in providing demonstrations. The
title of the work from which B4 is said to come, Discourses (Diatribai), is most
commonly used of ethical treatises. Moreover, it is specifically with regard to
wisdom (sophia) that logistic is said to be superior, and, while sophia can refer to
technical expertise, it more commonly refers to the highest sort of intellectual
excellence, often the excellence that allows us to live a good life
(Arist., EN 1141a12; Pl., R. 428d ff.). Is there any sense in which logistic makes
us wiser than the other sciences? Since Archytas evidently agreed with Philolaus
that we only understand individual things in the world insofar as we grasp the
numbers that govern them, it seems quite plausible that Archytas would regard
logistic as the science that makes us wise about the world. It is in this sense that
logistic will always be superior to geometry, even when dealing with shapes.
Perhaps the most famous statue of the classical period is the Doryphoros by the
Argive sculptor Polyclitus, which he also referred to as the Canon (i.e., the
standard). Although Polyclitus undoubtedly made use of geometry in
constructing this magnificent shape, in a famous sentence from his book, also
entitled Canon, he asserts that his statue came to be not through many shapes but
through many numbers (DK40 B2, see Huffman 2002a). Geometrical relations
alone will not determine the form of a given object, we have to assign specific
proportions, specific numbers. Archytas also thought that numbers and logistic
were the basis of the just state and hence the good life. In B3 he argues that it is
rational calculation (logismos) that produces the fairness on which the state
depends. Justice is a relation that needs to be stated numerically and it is through
such a statement that rich and poor can live together, each seeing that he has
what is fair. Logistic will always be superior to the other sciences, because those
sciences will in the end rely on numbers to give us knowledge of the sounds we
hear, the shapes we see and the movements of the heavenly bodies which we
observe.

3.3 Optics and Mechanics

Aristotle is the first Greek author to mention the sciences of optics and
mechanics, describing optics as a subordinate science to geometry and mechanics
as a subordinate science to solid geometry (APo. 78b34). Archytas does not
mention either of these sciences in B1, when describing the work of his
predecessors in the sciences, nor does Plato mention them. This silence suggests
that the two disciplines may have first developed in the first half of the fourth
century, when Archytas was most active, and it is possible that he played an
important role in the development of both of them. In a recently identified
fragment from his book on the Pythagoreans (Iamblichus, Comm. Math. XXV;
see Burkert 1972a, 50 n. 112), Aristotle assigns a hitherto unrecognized
importance to optics in Pythagoreanism. Just as the Pythagoreans were impressed
with the fact that musical intervals were based on whole number ratios, so they
20

were impressed that the phenomena of optics could be explained in terms of

geometrical diagrams. In addition to being an accomplished mathematician,
Archytas had a theory of vision and evidently tried to explain some of the
phenomena involved in mirrors. In contrast to Plato, who argued that the visual
ray, which proceeded from the eye, requires the support of and coalesces with
external light, Archytas explained vision in terms of the visual ray alone (A25). It
is tempting, then, to suppose that Archytas played a major role in the
development of the mathematically based Pythagorean optics, to which Aristotle
refers. On the other hand, when Aristotle refers to Pythagoreans, he generally
means Pythagoreans of the fifth century. Elsewhere he treats Archytas
independently of the Pythagorean tradition, writing works on Archytas which
were distinct from his work on the Pythagoreans. It would thus be more natural
to read Aristotle's reference to Pythagorean optics as alluding to fifth-century
Pythagoreans such as Philolaus. Archytas will then have been responsible for
developing an already existing Pythagorean optical tradition into a science, rather
than founding such a tradition.
Diogenes Laertius reports that Archytas was the first to systematize mechanics
by using mathematical first principles (VIII 83 = A1), and Archytas is
accordingly sometimes hailed by modern scholars as the founder of the science
of mechanics. There is a puzzle, however, since, no ancient Greek author in the
later mechanical tradition (e.g., Heron, Pappus, Archimedes, Philon) ever
ascribes any work in the field to Archytas. What did the ancients mean by
mechanics? A rough definition would be the description and explanation of the
operation of machines (Knorr, Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. 3, s.v.). The
earliest treatise in mechanics, the Mechanical Problems ascribed to Aristotle,
begins with problems having to do with a simple machine, the lever. Pappus (AD
320) refers to machines used to lift great weights, machines of war such as the
catapult, water lifting machines, amazing devices (automata), and machines that
served as models of the heavens (1024.12 1025.4, on Pappus, see Cuomo
2000). Pappus emphasizes, however, that, in addition to this practical part of
mechanics, there is a theoretical part that is heavily mathematical (1022. 1315).
Given his interest in describing physical phenomena in mathematical terms, it
might seem logical that Archytas would make important contributions to
mechanics. The actual evidence is less conclusive. A great part of the tendency to
assign Archytas a role in the development of mechanics can be traced to
Plutarch's story about the quarrel between Plato and Archytas over Archytas'
supposed mechanical solution to the problem of doubling the cube. This story is
likely to be false (see 2.1 above). Some scholars have argued that Archytas
devised machines of war (Diels 1965; Cambiano 1998), as Archimedes did later,
but this conclusion is based on questionable inferences and no ancient source
ascribes such machines to Archytas. The only mechanical device that can with
some probability be assigned to Archytas, apart from the children's toy known as
a clapper (A10), is an automaton in the form of a wooden dove, which was
connected to a pulley and counterweight and flew up from a lower perch to a
higher one, when set in motion by a puff of air (A10a). It has been suggested
that, since ancient siege devices were called by the names of animals (e.g.,
21

tortoise and crow), Archytas' dove might have been an early catapult of his
devising, or a projectile hurled by such a catapult, which was later misunderstood
to be a mechanical dove (Berryman 2003, 355). However, no ancient source
explains the dove in this way. A complicating factor here is that Diogenes
Laertius reports (A1) that there was a book on mechanics in circulation, which
some thought to be by a different Archytas, so that it is possible that the flying
dove is, in fact, the work of a separate Archytas. Archytas' solution to the
duplication of the cube, although it was not mechanical itself, was of enormous
importance for mechanics, since the solution to the problem allows one not just
to double a cube but also to construct bodies that are larger or smaller than a
given body in any given ratio. Thus, the solution permits the construction of a
full-scale machine on the basis of a working model. Pappus cites the solution to
the duplication of the cube as one of the three most crucial geometrical theorems
for practical mechanics (Math. Coll. 1028. 1821). It may then be that Archytas'
primary contribution to mechanics was precisely his solution to the duplication of
the cube and that it is this solution which constituted the mathematical first
principles which Archytas provided for mechanics. It is more doubtful that
Archytas wrote a treatise on mechanics.

4. Definitions
In the Metaphysics, Aristotle praises Archytas for having offered definitions
which took account of both form and matter (1043a1426 = A22). The examples
given are windlessness (nnemia), which is defined as stillness [the form] in a
quantity of air [the matter], and calm-on-the-ocean (galn), which is defined
as levelness [the form] of sea [the matter]. The terms form and matter are
Aristotle's, and we cannot be sure how Archytas conceptualized the two parts of
his definitions. A plausible suggestion is that he followed his predecessor
Philolaus in adopting limiters and unlimiteds as his basic metaphysical principles
and that he saw his definitions as combinations of limiters, such as levelness and
stillness, with unlimiteds, such as air and sea. The oddity of windlessness and
calm-on-the-sea as examples suggests that they were not the by-products of
some other sort of investigation, e.g. cosmology, but were chosen precisely to
illustrate principles of definition. Archytas may thus have devoted a treatise to
the topic. Aristotle elsewhere comments on the use of proportion in developing
definitions and uses these same examples (Top. 108a7). The ability to recognize
likeness in things of different genera is said to be the key. Windlessness and
calm-on-the-ocean are recognized as alike, and this likeness can be expressed
in the following proportion: as nnemia is to the air sogaln is to the sea. It is
tempting to suppose that Archytas, who saw the world as explicable in terms of
number and proportion, also saw proportion as the key in developing definitions.
This would explain another reference to Archytas in Aristotle.
At Rhetoric1412a9-17 (= A12) Aristotle praises Archytas precisely for his ability
to see similarity, even in things which differ greatly, and gives as an example
Archytas' assertion that an arbitrator and an altar are the same. DK oddly include
this text among the testimonia for Archytas' life, but it clearly is part of Archytas'
work on definition. The definitions of both an altar and an arbitrator will appeal
22

to their common functions as a refuge, while recognizing the different context

and way in which this function is carried out (for doubts about this reconstruction
of Archytas' theory of definition, see Barker 2006, 314318).

5. Cosmology and Physics

We have very little evidence for Archytas' cosmology, yet he was responsible for
one of the most famous cosmological arguments in antiquity, an argument which
has been hailed as the most compelling argument ever produced for the infinity
of space (Sorabji 1988, 125). The argument is ascribed to Archytas in a
fragment of Eudemus preserved by Simplicius (= A24), and it is probably to
Archytas that Aristotle is referring when he describes the fifth and most
important reason that people believe in the existence of the unlimited
(Ph. 203b22 ff.). Archytas asks anyone who argues that the universe is limited to
engage in a thought experiment: If I arrived at the outermost edge of the heaven,
could I extend my hand or staff into what is outside or not? It would be
paradoxical [given our normal assumptions about the nature of space] not to be
able to extend it. The end of the staff, once extended will mark a new limit.
Archytas can advance to the new limit and ask the same question again, so that
there will always be something, into which his staff can be extended, beyond the
supposed limit, and hence that something is clearly unlimited. Neither Plato nor
Aristotle accepted this argument, and both believed that the universe was limited.
Nonetheless, Archytas' argument had great influence and was taken over and
adapted by the Stoics, Epicureans (Lucretius I 968983), Locke and Newton,
among others, while eliciting responses from Alexander and Simplicius (Sorabji
1988, 125141). Not all scholars have been impressed by the argument (see
Barnes 1982, 362), and modern notions of space allow for it to be finite without
having an edge, and without an edge Archytas' argument cannot get started (but
see Sorabji 1988, 160163). Beyond this argument, there is only exiguous
evidence for Archytas' system of the physical world. Eudemus praises Archytas
for recognizing that the unequal and uneven are not identical with motion as
Plato supposed (see Ti. 52e and 57e) but rather the causes of motion (A23).
Another testimonium suggests that Archytas thought that all things are moved in
accordance with proportion (Arist., Prob. 915a2532 = A23a). The same
testimonium indicates that different sorts of proportion defined different sorts of
motion. Archytas asserted that the proportion of equality (arithmetic
proportion?) defined natural motion, which he regarded as curved motion. This
explanation of natural motion is supposed to explain why certain parts of plants
and animals (e.g. the stem, thighs, arms and trunk) are rounded rather than
triangular or polygonal. Some scholars argue that it was the influence of
Archytas that led Plato and Eudemus to emphasize uniform circular movement in
explaining the heavens (Zhmud 2006: 97). An explanation of motion in terms of
proportion fits well with the rest of evidence for Archytas, but the details remain
obscure.

6. Ethics and Political Philosophy

23

Archytas' search for the numbers in things was not limited to the natural world.
Political relationships and the moral action of individuals were also explained in
terms of number and proportion. In B3, rational calculation is identified as the
basis of the stable state:
Once calculation (logismos) was discovered, it stopped discord and increased
concord. For people do not want more than their share, and equality exists, once
this has come into being. For by means of calculation we will seek reconciliation
in our dealings with others. Through this, then, the poor receive from the
powerful, and the wealthy give to the needy, both in the confidence that they will
have what is fair on account of this.
The emphasis on equality (isotas) and fairness (to ison) suggests that Archytas
envisages rational calculation (logismos) as heavily mathematical. On the other
hand, logismos is not identical to the technical science of number (logistic see
3.2 above) but is rather a practical ability to understand numerical calculations,
including basic proportions, an ability that is shared by most human beings. It is
the clarity of calculation and proportion that does away with the constant striving
for more (pleonexia), which produces discord in the state. Since the state is based
on a widely shared human ability to calculate, an ability that the rich and poor
share, Archytas was led to support a more democratic constitution (see 1.3
above) than Plato, who emphasizes the expert mathematical knowledge of a few
(R. 546a ff.). Zhmud (2006: 6076) points out connections between B3 and
Isocrates and argues that Isocrates is referring to Archytas, when he says that
some praise the sciences for their utility and others try to demonstrate that they
contribute greatly to virtue (Busiris23). However, Archytas seems to accept both
of these views about the sciences, while Isocrates refers to two different groups
of people. Isocrates' reference is also very general and makes no allusion to the
central terms of B3 so that it is doubtful that he has Archytas in mind. For further
discussion of the argument of B3 see Huffman 2005: 182224 and Schofield
2008.
Most of our evidence for Archytas' ethical views is, unfortunately, not based on
fragments of his writings but rather on anecdotes, which probably ultimately
derive from Aristoxenus'Life of Archytas. The good life of the individual, no less
than the stability of the state, appears to have been founded on rational
calculation. Aristoxenus presented a confrontation between the Syracusan
hedonist, Polyarchus, and Archytas. Polyarchus' long speech is preserved by
Athenaeus and Archytas' response by Cicero (A9 = Deip. 545a andSen. XII 39
41 respectively). Polyarchus' defense of always striving for more (pleonexia) and
of the pursuit of pleasure is reminiscent of Plato's presentations of Callicles and
Thrasymachus, but is not derived from those presentations and is better seen as
an important parallel development (Huffman 2002). Archytas bases his response
on the premise that reason (= rational calculation) is the best part of us and the
part that should govern our actions. Polyarchus might grant such a premise, since
his is a rational hedonism. Archytas responds once again with a thought
experiment. We are to imagine someone in the throes of the greatest possible
bodily pleasure (sexual orgasm?). Surely we must agree that a person in such a
24

state is not able to engage in rational calculation. It thus appears that bodily
pleasure is in itself antithetical to reason and that, the more we succeed in
obtaining it, the less we are able to reason. Aristotle appears to refer to this
argument in the Nicomachean Ethics (1152b1618). Archytas' argument is
specifically directed against bodily pleasure and he did not think that all pleasure
was disruptive; he enjoyed playing with children (A8) and recognized that the
pleasures of friendship were part of a good life (Cicero, Amic. XXIII 88). Other
anecdotes emphasize that our actions must be governed by reason rather than the
emotions: Archytas refused to punish the serious misdeeds of his slaves, because
he had become angry and did not want to act out of anger (A7); he restrained
himself from swearing aloud by writing his curses on a wall instead (A11).

7. Importance and Influence

Archytas fits the common stereotype of a Pythagorean better than anyone else
does. He is by far the most accomplished Pythagorean mathematician, making
important contributions to geometry, logistic/arithmetic and harmonics. He was
more successful as a political leader than any other ancient philosopher, and there
is a rich anecdotal tradition about his personal self-control. It is striking,
however, that there are essentially no testimonia connecting Archytas to
metempsychosis or the religious aspect of Pythagoreanism. Archytas is a
prominent figure in the rebirth of interest in Pythagoreanism in first century BC
Rome: Horace, Propertius and Cicero all highlight him. As the last prominent
member of the early Pythagorean tradition, more pseudo-Pythagorean works
came to be forged in his name than any other Pythagorean, including Pythagoras
himself. His name, with the spelling Architas, continued to exert power in
Medieval and Renaissance texts, although the accomplishments assigned to him
in those texts are fanciful.
Scholars have typically emphasized the continuities between Plato and Archytas
(e.g., Kahn 2001, 56), but the evidence suggests that Archytas and Plato were in
serious disagreement on a number of issues. Plato's only certain reference to
Archytas is part of a criticism of his approach to harmonics in Book VII of
the Republic, where there is probably also a criticism of his work in solid
geometry. Plato's attempt to argue for the split between the intelligible and
sensible world in Books VI and VII of the Republic may well be a protreptic
directed at Archytas, who refused to separate numbers from things. It is
sometimes thought that the eponymous primary speaker in Plato's Timaeus, who
is described as a leading political figure and philosopher from southern Italy
(20a), must be a stand-in for Archytas. The Timaeus, however, is a most unArchytan document. It is based on the split between the sensible and intelligible
world, which Archytas did not accept. Plato argues that the universe is limited,
while Archytas is famous for this argument to show that it is unlimited. Plato
constructs the world soul according to ratios that are important in harmonic
theory, but he uses Philolaus' ratios rather than Archytas'. Plato does adopt
Archytas' theory of pitch with some modification, but Archytas and Plato
disagree on the explanation of sight. Archytas' refusal to split the intelligible
25

from the sensible may have made him a more attractive figure to Aristotle, who
devoted four books to him (Huffman 2005: 583594) and praised his definitions
for treating the composite of matter and form, not of form separate from matter
(Metaph. 1043a1426). Archytas' vision of the role of mathematics in the state is
closer to Aristotle's mathematical account of distributive and redistributive
justice (EN 1130b30 ff.) than to Plato's emphasis on the expert mathematical
knowledge of the guardians. Clearly Archytas was an important influence on
both Plato and Aristotle, but the exact nature of those philosophical relationships
is complex.

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