c. 335–405 CE · mathematician · astronomer · member of the Mouseion
Theon of Alexandria
Θέων
In Alexandria: c. 360–380 CE
Father of Hypatia, who observed eclipses at Alexandria in 364 CE. His recension of Euclid's Elements is the text of nearly every manuscript, and he commented on the Almagest and the Handy Tables. The Suda calls him "the man from the Mouseion", the last person known to be connected with it.
Their life and work
He reports the solar eclipse of 16 June 364 and the lunar eclipse of that November, both seen at Alexandria, in his commentary on Ptolemy. His editions were made for teaching: in the Elements he smoothed the language, filled gaps and added steps, and in the commentary on the Almagest he says that he had himself added to a proof in the sixth book of his edition. He wrote a Great and a Little Commentary on the Handy Tables. The Suda's phrase for him, 'the man from the Mouseion', is the last time anyone is placed there; what the institution then was is not known.
Our device: Their emblem is a table of eclipses. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Theon of Alexandria, Edition of Euclid; Commentaries on the Almagest and Handy Tables; lost works on omens · c. 360–390 CE · Survives in large part
Moments
- c. 364 CE · Theon, the last known man "of the Mouseion" Known: attested
In the show
The show has not yet spoken of Theon of Alexandria.
Sources (5)
- Suda Theon, θ 205 (opens in a new tab)
- A. Jones (ed.), Ptolemy in Perspective: Use and Criticism of His Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century (Dordrecht: Springer, 2010)
- E. J. Watts, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017)
- Theon, Commentary on the Almagest book 6, for the eclipses of 364 (Greek text only in the Basel edition of 1538); 1.10, for his edition of the Elements (ed. Rome, II, 492)
- T. L. Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921) (opens in a new tab)