Über voreuklidische ''Elemente'', deren Autor Proportionen vermied (Q1065769)

The author argues that the proofs in Euclid's Elements, Books II-IV, provide evidence concerning preeuclidean attempts, mentioned by Proclus, to write elements of geometry without using proportions. Theudios, of the generation of Plato's students and somewhat older than Aristotle, is identified as having written such a proportion-free set of elements, influenced by contemporary debates to revise previously existing proofs to avoid proportions. Where proportions might otherwise have been used, reference is made to the equality of areas of rectangles formed from what would have been the means and what would have been the extremes of the proportions.