Very early, by the fifth century B.C., Greek scholars saw that the earth was a globe. The first firm evidence is in Plato’s Phaedo. Then serious Greek thinkers ceased thinking of the earth as a flat disk floating on the waters. The Pythagoreans and Plato based their belief on aesthetic grounds. Since a sphere is the most perfect mathematical form, the earth must of course have that shape. To argue otherwise would be to deny order in the Creation.
