Euclid, Elements
Thomas L. Heath, Sir Thomas Little Heath, Ed.

distinction by saying of our Euclid that “he was different from him of Megara of whom Laertius wrote, and who wrote dialogues” ¹; and to Commandinus belongs the credit of being the first translator² to put the matter beyond doubt: “Let us then free a number of people from the error by which they have been induced to believe that our Euclid is the same as the philosopher of Megara” etc.

Another idea, that Euclid was born at Gela in Sicily, is due to the same confusion, being based on Diogenes Laertius' description³ of the philosopher Euclid as being “of Megara, or, according to some, of Gela, as Alexander says in the Διαδοχαί.”

In view of the poverty of Greek tradition on the subject even as early as the time of Proclus (410-485 A.D.), we must necessarily take cum grano the apparently circumstantial accounts of Euclid given by Arabian authors; and indeed the origin of their stories can be explained as the result (1) of the Arabian tendency to romance, and (2) of misunderstandings.

We read⁴ that “Euclid, son of Naucrates, grandson of Zenarchus⁵, called the author of geometry, a philosopher of somewhat ancient date, a Greek by nationality domiciled at Damascus, born at Tyre, most learned in the science of geometry, published a most excellent and most useful work entitled the foundation or elements of geometry, a subject in which no more general treatise existed before among the Greeks: nay, there was no one even of later date who did not walk in his footsteps and frankly profess his doctrine. Hence also Greek, Roman and Arabian geometers not a few, who undertook the task of illustrating this work, published commentaries, scholia, and notes upon it, and made an abridgment of the work itself. For this reason the Greek philosophers used to post up on the doors of their schools the well-known notice: ’Let no one come to our school, who has not first learned the elements of Euclid.’” The details at the beginning of this extract cannot be derived from Greek sources, for even Proclus did not know anything about Euclid's father, while it was not the Greek habit to record the names of grandfathers, as the Arabians commonly did. Damascus and Tyre were no doubt brought in to gratify a desire which the Arabians always showed to connect famous Greeks in some way or other with the East. Thus Nas<*>īraddīn, the translator of the Elements, who was of T<*>ūs in Khurāsān, actually makes Euclid out to have been “Thusinus” also⁶. The readiness of the Arabians to run away with an idea is illustrated by the last words