COMMENTARIES, CRITICISMS & REFERENCES 359 
Other very early criticisms there were, directed against the 
very first steps in Euclid’s work. Thus Zeno of Sidon, an 
Epicurean, attacked the proposition I. 1 on the ground that it 
is not conclusive unless it be first assumed that neither two 
straight lines nor two circumferences can have a common 
segment ; and this was so far regarded as a serious criticism 
that Posidonius wrote a whole book to controvert Zeno. 1 
Again, there is the criticism of the Epicureans that I. 20, 
proving that any two sides in a triangle are together greater 
than the third, is evident even to an ass and requires no 
proof, I mention these isolated criticisms to show that the 
Elements, although they superseded all other Elements and 
never in ancient times had any rival, were not even at the 
first accepted without question. 
The first Latin author to mention Euclid is Cicero; but 
it is not likely that the Elements had then been translated 
into Latin. Theoretical geometry did not appeal to the 
Romans, who only cared for so much of it as was useful for 
measurements and calculations. Philosophers studied Euclid, 
but probably in the original Greek ; Martianus Capella speaks 
of the effect of the mention of the proposition ‘ how to con 
struct an equilateral triangle on a given straight line ’ among 
a company of philosophers, who, recognizing the first pro 
position of the Elements, straightway break out into encomiums 
on Euclid. 2 Beyond a fragment in a Verona palimpsest of 
a free rendering or rearrangement of some propositions from 
Books XII and XIII dating apparently from the fourth century, 
we have no trace of any Latin version before Boëtius (born 
about A. d. 480), to whom Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus and 
Theodoric attribute a translation of Euclid. The so-called 
geometry of Boëtius which has come down to us is by no 
means a translation of Euclid ; but even the redaction of this 
in two Books which was edited by Friedlein is not genuine, 
having apparently been put together in the eleventh century 
from various sources ; it contains the definitions of Book I, 
the Postulates (five in number), the Axioms (three only), then 
some definitions from Eucl. II, III, TV, followed by the 
enunciations only (without proofs) of Eucl. I, ten propositions 
Proclus on Eucl. I, p. 200. 2. 
2 Mart. Capella, vi. 724,