\textit{Personae} at play. `Men of mathematics' in commentary (Q2001443)

The author is concerned with the reasons why commentators of Greek texts, unlike the authors of those texts, mention names of mathematicians. The practice of mentioning names absent in the commented texts, is analyzed in commentaries by Pappus (on Euclid, Apollonius, and Aristaeus), Eutocius (on Archimedes), al-Nayrīzī (on Euclid), and Proclus (on Euclid). ``With the exception of al-Nayrīzī, we can understand the naming practices I looked at as attempts to provide fuller normative instruction with the already existing set of authorities, that is, as a kind of move aiming at extension.'' (p.\ 13)