  Isaac Newton, in popular imagination the Ur-scientist, was an outstanding
humanist scholar. His researches on, among others, ancient philosophy, are
thorough and appear to be connected to and fit within his larger philosophical
and theological agenda. It is therefore relevant to take a closer look at
Newton's intellectual choices, at how and why precisely he would occupy himself
with specific text-sources, and how this interest fits into the larger picture
of his scientific and intellectual endeavours. In what follows, we shall follow
Newton into his study and look over his shoulder while reading compendia and
original source-texts in his personal library at Cambridge, meticulously
investigating and comparing fragments and commentaries, and carefully keeping
track in private notes of how they support his own developing ideas. Indeed,
Newton was convinced that precursors to his own insights and discoveries were
present already in Antiquity, even before the Greeks, in ancient Egypt, and he
puts a lot of time and effort into making the point, especially, and not
incidentially, in the period between the first and the second edition of the
Principia. A clear understanding of his reading of the classic sources
therefore matters to our understanding of its content and gestation process. In
what follows we will confine ourselves to the classical legacy, and investigate
Newton's intellectual intercourse with it.
