| Summary: | This MA thesis is a study in the history of science and history of ideas (or more specifically, the history of philosophy). The topic of research is the ancient idea of antipodes (αντίποδες) or antipodal inhabitants (“antipodeans”), which feature repeatedly throughout ancient Greek, Roman and medieval writings. The goal is to cast some light on the mysterious origins of this theory in ancient Greek and Hellenistic science, which are nebulous due to the scarcity of available sources and evidence preserved from the time of ancient Greece and the Hellenistic period. This study provides an analysis of the available primary source material, which is presented in an orderly and systematic fashion, where the different scholarly opinions on the relevant ancient texts are documented and compared. The focus is on highlighting the academic controversies which concern this topic and to question some of the prevailing wisdom. The analysis shows that the antipodal theory developed out of two previous theories: Firstly, the doctrine of the earth’s sphericity, which was first discovered by the Pythagoreans in the 5th century BCE, and secondly, the zonal theory (or theory of climate zones) which first appears in the writings of Aristotle (ca. 330 BCE). The zonal theory, especially, was based on concepts of mathematical astronomy and geography which were highly advanced in their time. Concepts such as the celestial sphere and celestial circles (the tropics and the arctic circles), which were used to demarcate the boundaries of the five climate zones. This led to postulation of a habitable temperate zone in the southern hemisphere, which in turn led to the hypothesis of its undiscovered inhabitants, i.e. antipodes. The thesis is that the theory of the antipodes was a scientific hypothesis, rooted in advanced astronomical and geographical concepts (principally the zonal theory), that were developed in late classical Greece and during the Hellenistic period (the so-called Alexandrian age of science). This is contrasted with the ...
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