DISTURBING THE HEARTH: ARISTARCHUS’ HELIOCENTRIC UNIVERSE AS COURT PARRHÊSIA

Abstract Aristarchus of Samos’ heliocentric model of the universe has usually been treated by modern scholars as an astronomical controversy somehow removed from the ideological concerns of the Ptolemaic court in which it was produced. This traditional approach has not fully accounted for the contemporary reception of the astronomer’s work, which included accusations of disruption, and even impiety, by scholarly rivals. Consideration of Aristarchus’ astronomy as an expression of scientific parrhêsia (frank speech) for his royal patron may help account for the hostile response. This article identifies spatializing techniques of displacement and diminution within Aristarchus’ astronomy. It proposes that such ideologically disruptive effects function as powerful expressions of parrhêsia intended to place sobering limits on potentially excessive claims to universal kingship promoted in more propagandistic court astronomical treatises.