Claudius Ptolemaeus (
Greek ??a?d??? ?t??eµa??? Klaúdios Ptolemaîos; 90 – 168), known in English as
Ptolemy (pronounced
/'t?l?m?/), was a
Roman citizen of
Greek or
Egyptian ancestry.
[1] He was a
mathematician,
astronomer,
geographer,
astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the
Greek Anthology[2][3]. He lived in
Egypt under the
Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of
Ptolemais Hermiou in the
Thebaid. He died in
Alexandria around AD 168.
[4]Ptolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, three of which would be of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science. The first is the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest (in Greek, ? ?e???? S??ta???, "The Great Treatise", originally ?a??µat??? S??ta???, "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 in Greek as the Apotelesmatika (?p?te?esµat???), or more commonly in Greek as the Tetrabiblos (?et??ß?ß??? "Four books"), in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day.
The name Claudius is a Roman nomen; the fact that Ptolemy bore it proves that he was a Roman citizen. It would have suited custom if the first of Ptolemy's family who became a citizen (whether it was he or an ancestor) took the nomen from a Roman called Claudius, who was in some sense responsible for granting citizenship. If, as was not uncommon, this Roman was the emperor, the citizenship would have been granted between AD 41 and 68 (when Claudius, and then Nero, were emperors). The astronomer would also have had a praenomen, which remains unknown. However, it may have been Tiberius, as that praenomen was very common among those whose families had been granted citizenship by these emperors.
Beyond his being considered a member of Alexandria's Greek society, few details of Ptolemy's life are known. He wrote in Ancient Greek and is known to have utilised Babylonian astronomical data.[5][6] Although a Roman citizen, most scholars have concluded that ethnically, Ptolemy was a Greek,[7][8][9] while some suggest that he was ethnically an Egyptian, though Hellenized.[8][10][11][12] He was often known in later Arabic sources as "the Upper Egyptian",[13] suggesting that he may have had origins in southern Egypt.[12] Later Arabic astronomers, geographers and physicists referred to him by his name in Arabic ???????? Batlaymus.[14]
