We’ve just finished translating and going through Cantemir’s enumeration of Aristotle’s 19 minted coins on the subject of Time. After counting them out in chapter 12 of Book IV of Sacrosanctae Scientiae, Cantemir ‘tests’ these coins with the ‘Lydian stone’ (per Lydian lapidem testantur) in chapter 13. The Lydian touchstone is an ancient method of testing the metallic substance of a coin, used particularly to measure the purity of gold. Interestingly, the Lydian stone is still in use today in some parts of the world.

Aristotle’s coins, unsurprisingly, fail Cantemir’s assaying and prove to be false coins. He tries to dismantle all of them as self-contradictory or contradictory to Nature. In this, Cantemir shows that he finds Logic and reasoning as important aids in taking apart Aristotle.