Greek-Roman mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet
90 CE
to 168 CE
Claudius Ptolemy (Greek: Klaudios Ptolemaios; Latin: Claudius Ptolemaeus; c. CE 90 – c. CE 168), is a Greek-Roman citizen of Egypt who writes in Greek.
He is a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology.
He lives in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the Thebaid.
This theory, proposed by Theodore Meliteniotes, could be correct, but it is late (ca.
1360) and unsupported.
There is no reason to suppose that he ever lived anywhere else than Alexandria,where he dies around CE 168.
Ptolemy is the author of several scientific treatises, at least three of which are of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science.
The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, "The Great Treatise", originally "Mathematical Treatise").
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 ("Four books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum (or four books) in which he attempts to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
