The chapter studies this mechanism in detail and focusses on the following questions. First, what are these ‘exhalations’ (ἀναθυμιάσεις) and why do they rise up in the sky? Secondly, why does the desiccation of the sublunary region cause celestial fire to descend to this region? More particularly, why does not celestial fire consume the sublunary region before it totally dries out, as an ordinary wildfire would consume a forest that is still relatively green and full of life? Thirdly, how does celestial fire consume the exhalations and the substances that it finds in the sublunary region? And, more generally, how do the Stoics conceive of the physical process by which a mass of fire consumes another body? In other words, how do they envision the phenomenon of combustion? Fourthly, what is the place of the concept of combustion in their elemental theory? And, finally, how long does the conflagration last?

The early Stoic cosmos is sharply different from that of Plato and Aristotle. But it is also unique compared to that of the Presocratics. In this chapter, I seek to prove that this is so by concentrating upon the Stoic theory of conflagration we just examined. The issue requires an in-depth discussion because Stoic cosmology owes enormously to the Presocratics, and the theory of conflagration is clearly the part of Stoic cosmology that has deeper roots in these early thinkers, much more so than the theories of cosmogony and everlasting recurrence

Inspired by his Old Testament exegesis, Diodore of Tarsus composed a chronicle, which corrected the chronology proposed by Eusebius.

This book shows that the development of Greek chronicle writing from the fourth to the seventh century was not linear. Whilst the impact of the chronicle of Eusebius of Caesarea was great, subsequent writers corrected his errors and incorporated the third-century chronographies by Hippolytus and Julius Africanus into the framework shaped by Eusebius. As a consequence, chronographies and not chronicles dominate in Greek literature. One innovation of the fourth century was to link computus (the calculation of the Easter date) and chronography, first visible in the work of Andreas, brother of Magnus (352), and later in that of Annianus (412). The direct impact of Annianus has been overestimated: unique in some of its core ideas, his work resurfaced only in the 560s, in the context of Justinian’s attempt to impose the Christmas date of 25 December on the church of Jerusalem. This controversy caused a flurry of works of chronography and computus to be written in the early seventh century. Besides this tradition, the book also uncovers a tradition of chronicles with a local focus, which shaped the chronicle of John Malalas. We argue that the source indications of Malalas deserve more credit than they are usually granted.

The first example of mechanical epiphany that the book sets forth is that of the well-known ‘god on the machine’ (deus ex machina) employed in the ancient Greek theatre. Moving beyond interpreting the theatrical crane as a plot device, this chapter forefronts the mēchanē’s material qualities to explore the theological potential of the object as a mode of visual epiphany. Vital to the success of this mode of epiphany was the challenge to the viewer to recognise divine intervention as well as the mechanics that constructed and enabled it. The evidence of Old Comedy, both fragmentary and the fuller plays of Aristophanes, help demonstrate how uses of the comic crane (kradē) undercut the interpretative symbiosis between man, machine, and divine agency on which tragedy was predicated. The chapter closes by exploring how the theatre as a form of mass media made it fertile ground for development and exploration of theological ideas, not just a reflection of literary norms.

A single entry in the Syriac chronicle of Elias of Nisibis (975–1046) mentions consularia as source for the year 412. This is probably a reference copied from the fifth-century Greek church historian Socrates.

Many types of divination in the Graeco-Roman world relied on interventions of human technical knowledge. This chapter explores astragalomancy (knuckle bone divination) and catoptromancy (mirror divination) as two ‘technical’ modes of ancient divination which, through catoptric and mathematical knowledge respectively, reflected and shaped theological assumptions about how the gods intervened in the human realm, and how this connected to human knowledge. The chapter also considers how religious architecture was technologically enhanced for particular theological purposes. The oracle to Trophonios in Lebadeia is analysed through this lens where human technē was essential to achieving a connection with the divine in this artificially manufactured divinatory setting.

Humans have historically devised, and continue to devise, various strategies to make their gods present in the mortal realm. The introduction explains how technologies should be understood as one such strategy employed in ancient Greek religion to solve the ‘problem of divine presence’. Key terms including technology, mechanics, art, and technē are explained, and the relationship between these terms is discussed. Various themes important to the book are also introduced: theoretical frameworks to access the agency of technological objects which conditioned ancient religious experience (including a reassessment of Alfred Gell’s theory of art objects); what we should make of apparently conflicting epistemologies in a topic such as this which combines ‘rational’ scientific knowledge and sacred experience; and how concepts of play and the playful were crucial both to religion and to technology in Classical antiquity.

The conflagration is followed by a cosmony that restores the cosmos. In fact, a permanent end would be impossible given the rationality of the early Stoic god. In this chapter, I limit myself to asking what is the structure of the cosmogony. How, exactly, is the large mass of fire left by the conflagration transformed in the cosmogony into the differentiated masses of air, fire, water and earth that constitute the present cosmos? I shall argue that the cosmogony, which sets off as soon as the conflagration is over, divides into at least three basic stages: (a) the formation of the four elements and of the sublunary and supralunary regions as two differentiated parts of the cosmos, (b) the formation of composite homogeneous substances (gold, flesh, wood, etc.) out of the four elements; and (c) the formation of composite heterogeneous substances (animals and plants) out of homogeneous ones.

The chronogaphy of Panodorus, composed early in the 5th c. in Alexandia, is only attested in the early ninth century. chronicle of Georgius Syncellus, who cites fragments concerning two issues: the long antediluvial chronologies found in Babylonian and Egyptian writings and the start of the Christian era in AM 5493. Panodorus’ chronography relied heavily on astronomical scholarship in Alexandria and is very similar to that of Annianus. We argue that Annianus based himself on Panodorus and not the other way round. Although older scholarship attributed an immense impact of Panodorus on late antique chronicle writing, his work only resurfaced in the ninth century.

The chronography of Annianus, composed in 412, stands out by closely mapping the chronology of the world onto the Alexandrian 532-year Easter cycle, of which he may be the originator. He also defended that Christ was born in AM 5500, which had its roots in Christian exegesis. This generated a set of chronological anomalies, especially the fact that he situated birth and death of Christ about 10 years later than usual in Christian chronography. As a consequence, there is hardly any trace of Annianus before the second half of the sixth century, when Justinian’s attempt to impose the Christmas date of 25 December on the church of Jerusalem sparked a controversy. Annianus’ chronology, which supported the date of 25 December, was put forward by the defenders of that date (especially Heron), whilst those defending 6 January drew on Andreas. Due to this controversy, Annianus’ chronography travelled from Alexandria to Constantinople and was transmitted to Syriac and hence into Arabic.

This chapter and the next build upon the previous chapters by addressing a vital question that they leave open. What is the relation between the cosmos issued from the cosmogony and the cosmos previously destroyed at the conflagration? Is it the same cosmos? Or is it different? The issue of identity drove a great deal of dispute within the school. In fact, as I explain in Chapter Six, there were three clearly different Stoic theories of everlasting recurrence that opposed one another on this question. In the present chapter, I concentrate upon two broader and more basic metaphysical problems presupposed in the dispute over identity. The two problems, concisely put, are the following. (a) Why is the present cosmos present as opposed to past or future? In general, how is the present distinct from the past and the future? (b) Supposing that the present cosmos is type-identical to the previous one and the next how can they really occupy different places in time? And how can the times themselves be distinct if the events are type-identical?