Ancient didactic astronomical texts

Abstract

The article focuses on ancient astronomy as an academic dis-cipline. Antiquity created a holistic image of the world and a cul-ture of thinking, in which the natural and exact sciences and lib-eral arts were not artificially differentiated and remained in har-monious unity, becoming the basis of an interdisciplinary ap-proach in education. Therefore, even the exact sciences were studied literarily from poetic works. On the example of ancient culture, the connection between the astronomical worldview and other components of the mindset is particularly clearly traced. This is crucial in terms of technology since ancient pedagogy contained all the criteria for technological effectiveness. In the Homeric age, the basic mnemonic rules for navigating by the stars, the definition of the conditions for visibility of heavenly bodies in all seasons, the connection of celestial phenomena with the calendar, known since the Cretan-Mycenaean age, were liter-arily recorded in the epic. This trend was further developed in Hesiod’s didactic epic and took shape in the content as a para-digm of astronomical education. The appearance of Cleobulina’s astronomical riddles appeared, which are allegorical in nature and show similarities with the allegories of Homer, took place approximately at the same time. In subsequent periods (from the 5th century BC), the school study of the Homer and Hesiod’s works required writing comments on the astronomical passages of these and later other authors. With the development of natural philosophical doctrines, new methods of presenting astronomical material appeared. The original form of the philosophical epic was replaced by a prosaic form. The reaction to the natural philo-sophical revolution led to a preference for the traditional Homer and Hesiod. Special educational astronomical texts written by such authors as Aratus, Germanicus, Alexander Aetolus, etc. came to exist-ence as a separate group.