SOURCE: "Euclid's Sectio canonis and the History of Pythagoreanism," in Science and Philosophy in Classical Greece, translated by Alan C. Bowen, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991, pp. 164-87.

In the following essay, Bowen discusses the content of, and issues surrounding, Sectio Canonis. Bowen addresses the question of authorship and responds to critical arguments on this topic, maintaining that the work is Euclid's. Bowen also contends that the belief that the work is Pythagorean may be as "ill-founded" as the authorship debate.

The treatise which has come down to us as the Sectio canonis or Division of the Canon consists in an introduction of thirty-three lines [Menge 1916, 158.1-160.4] and twenty interconnected demonstrations articulated in roughly the same way as those in Euclid's Elements [cf. Jan 1895, 115-116].¹ Beyond this most everything is in dispute. To begin, scholars debate the authorship of the Sectio. Those who deny or qualify the thesis that it...