c. 100–170 CE · astronomer · astrologer · geographer · mathematician
Claudius Ptolemy
Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος
In Alexandria: 127–141 CE
Made his observations at Alexandria between 127 and 141 CE and set up the Canobic Inscription in 146/147. The Almagest gave astronomy its form until Copernicus and the Tetrabiblos did the same for astrology; he also wrote the Geography, the Handy Tables, the Harmonics and the Optics. No relation of the kings.
Their life and work
His own books date and place him: the observations he reports in the Almagest run from 127 to 141 CE, the last of them in 9.7, and he says they were made at Alexandria (4.6; 5.12). The Almagest builds on Hipparchus and fits the planets with epicycles and the equant; the Geography lists some eight thousand places by latitude and longitude; the Tetrabiblos gives astrology a physical basis in the heavens' influence. Chiefly through Arabic, the Almagest, whose name is the Arabic form of a Greek word for 'greatest', passed to medieval Europe and held its place until the sixteenth century.
Our device: Their emblem is an armillary sphere. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Claudius Ptolemy, Almagest · c. 150 CE · Survives whole
- Claudius Ptolemy, Handy Tables and the Canobic Inscription · Canobic Inscription 146/7 CE; Handy Tables after the Almagest · Survives in large part
- Claudius Ptolemy, Geography · c. 150–170 CE · Survives whole
- Claudius Ptolemy, Harmonics · c. 150–170 CE · Survives whole
- Claudius Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos · c. 150–170 CE · Survives whole
Moments
- 127–c. 170 CE · Claudius Ptolemy: the Almagest and the Tetrabiblos Known: attested
In the show
- Astrology · Chronology: Ptolemy's TetrabiblosPtolemy's Tetrabiblos, c. 150.Known: attested
+ 3 more
- Fixed StarsSets Agrippa's star natures beside Ptolemy's (Tetrabiblos I.9) and says where they differ.Known: attested
- Zodiacal HoursCites Ptolemy, Almagest II, for the seasonal hours.Known: attested
- Planetary HoursThe Chaldean order Ptolemy also uses; Cassius Dio (37.18–19) credits the planetary week to the Egyptians.Known: attested
Sources (5)
- G. J. Toomer (trans.), Ptolemy's Almagest (London: Duckworth, 1984)
- A. Jones (ed.), Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of His Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010)
- F. E. Robbins (ed. and trans.), Ptolemy: Tetrabiblos, Loeb Classical Library 435 (Cambridge, MA, 1940)
- Ptolemy, Almagest 4.6; 5.12; 9.7
- Ptolemy, Canobic Inscription ed. Heiberg, Opera astronomica minora