Pherekydes of Syros and the Fivefold Cosmologies of Antiquity. Materials for a Discussion

Abstract

The present paper tries to offer a documentary framework for the discussion on the cosmological structure of Pherekydes of Syros. Starting from the controversy between those who assign him a fivefold cosmogram and those who interpret it as sevenfold, we propose a journey through the ancient quinary cosmological doctrines, both Greek and Oriental, in order to explore its recurrence and variety. It is verified that the religious dispute between the apologists of the five and the apologists of the seven existed in the antiquity, being able to affect the reading that doxographers made of the work of Pherekydes. Nick Allen’s theory about the existence of an Indo-European «pentadic ideology» is analyzed, and its idealistic bias (Pythagorean in the line of Dumézil) is criticized. Finally, the hypothesis of the «protogeometric» origin of many ancient fivefold ontological maps is subscribed, and the possible references of Pherekydes are recapitulated.