STRATON OF LAMPSACUS

died c. 270 BC Straton also spelled Strato, Latin Strato Physicus Greek philosopher and successor of Theophrastus as head of the Peripatetic school of philosophy (based on the teachings of Aristotle). Straton was famous for his doctrine of the void (asserting that all substances contain void and that differences in the weight of substances are caused by differences in the extension of the void), which served as the theoretical base for the Hellenistic construction of air and steam engines as described in Hero of Alexandria's work. An orthodox Aristotelian, Straton tempered his master's interpretation of nature with an insistence on causality and materialism, denying any theological force at work in the processes of nature. Straton's writings as a whole are lost.