[286] Eudoxus of Cnidus (408-355 B. C.) had much to do with the early scientific astronomy of the Greeks. The fifth book of Euclid is generally attributed to him. His astronomical works are known chiefly through the poetical version of Aratus mentioned in note 13, page 167.
[287] Simplicius, a native of Cilicia, lived in the 6th century of our era. He was driven from Athens by Justinian and went to Persia (531), but he returned later and had some fame as a teacher.
[288] See Vol. I, page 160, note 3 {348}.
[289] See Vol. I, page 76, note 3 {112}.
[290] "Through right and wrong."
[291] "It is therefore to arrive at this parallelism, or to preserve it, that Copernicus feared to be obliged to have recourse to this equal and opposite movement which destroys the effect which he attributed so freely to the first, of deranging the parallelism."
[292] A contemporary of Plato and a disciple of Aristotle.
[293] Meton's solstice, the beginning of the Metonic cycles, has been placed at 432 B. C. Ptolemy states that he made the length of the year 365¼ + 1/72 days.
[294] Aratus lived about 270 B. C., at the court of Antigonus of Macedonia, and probably practiced medicine there. He was the author of two astronomical poems, the Φαινόμενα, apparently based on the lost work of Eudoxus, and the Διοσηεῖα based on Aristotle's Meteorologica and De Signis Ventorum of Theophrastus.
[295] "The nineteen (-year) cycle of the shining sun."