Ptolemy

Who was Ptolemy?

Claudius Ptolemy was a Greco-Roman writer of Alexandria, known as a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in the city of Alexandria in the Roman province of Egypt, wrote in Greek, and held Roman citizenship. Beyond that, few reliable details of his life are known. His birthplace has been given as Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid in an uncorroborated statement by the 14th century astronomer Theodore Meliteniotes. This is very late, however, and there is no other reason to suppose that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria, where he died around AD 168.

Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which were of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest. The second is the Geography, which is a thorough discussion of the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise known sometimes in Greek as the Apotelesmatika, more commonly in Greek as the Tetrabiblos, and in Latin as the Quadripartitum in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.