Eratosthenes also wrote Olympic Victors, a chronology of the winners of the Olympic Games. George Syncellus was later able to preserve from Chronographies a list of 38 kings of the Egyptian Thebes. This work was highly esteemed for its accuracy. He wrote Chronographies, a text that scientifically depicted dates of importance, beginning with the Trojan War. He wrote poems: one in hexameters called Hermes, illustrating the god's life history and another in elegiacs, called Erigone, describing the suicide of the Athenian maiden Erigone (daughter of Icarius). Eratosthenes was a man of many perspectives and investigated the art of poetry under Callimachus. His interest in Plato led him to write his very first work at a scholarly level, Platonikos, inquiring into the mathematical foundation of Plato's philosophies. He also studied under the head of the Platonic Academy, who was Arcesilaus of Pitane. He then studied under Aristo of Chios, who led a more cynical school of philosophy. There he was taught Stoicism by its founder, Zeno of Citium, in philosophical lectures on living a virtuous life. Įratosthenes teaching in Alexandria by Bernardo Strozzi (1635)Įratosthenes went to Athens to further his studies. Like any young Greek at the time, Eratosthenes would have studied in the local gymnasium, where he would have learned physical skills and social discourse as well as reading, writing, arithmetic, poetry, and music. Cyrene became a place of cultivation, where knowledge blossomed. Under Ptolemaic rule the economy prospered, based largely on the export of horses and silphium, a plant used for rich seasoning and medicine. Alexander the Great conquered Cyrene in 332 BC, and following his death in 323 BC, its rule was given to one of his generals, Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Now part of modern-day Libya, Cyrene had been founded by Greeks centuries earlier and became the capital of Pentapolis (North Africa), a country of five cities: Cyrene, Arsinoe, Berenice, Ptolemias, and Apollonia. ![]() The son of Aglaos, Eratosthenes was born in 276 BC in Cyrene. Yet, according to an entry in the Suda (a 10th-century encyclopedia), some critics scorned him, calling him Beta (the second letter of the Greek alphabet) because he always came in second in all his endeavours. His devotees nicknamed him Pentathlos after the Olympians who were well rounded competitors, for he had proven himself to be knowledgeable in every area of learning. He was a figure of influence in many fields who yearned to understand the complexities of the entire world. In number theory, he introduced the sieve of Eratosthenes, an efficient method of identifying prime numbers. He created the first global projection of the world, incorporating parallels and meridians based on the available geographic knowledge of his era.Įratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology he used Egyptian and Persian records to estimate the dates of the main events of the mythical Trojan War, dating the sack of Troy to 1183 BC. He was also the first to calculate Earth's axial tilt, which has also proved to have remarkable accuracy. He is best known for being the first person known to calculate the circumference of the Earth, which he did by using the extensive survey results he could access in his role at the Library his calculation was remarkably accurate. His work is comparable to what is now known as the study of geography, and he introduced some of the terminology still used today. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria. ![]() 195/194 BC) was a Greek polymath: a mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theorist.
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