[775] He is mentioned by Julius Firmicus as “a most just emperor of Egypt, and a very good astronomer.” A work by him is quoted by Galen in his tenth Book on Simples, but it was most probably of spurious origin.
[776] “Pythagoricis” here may either mean the works of the followers of Pythagoras of Samos, or the books which were written by that philosopher. Pliny, in Books 19, 20, and 24, speaks of several writings of Pythagoras, and Diogenes Laertius mentions others; but it is more generally supposed that he wrote nothing, and that everything that passed by his name in ancient times was spurious.
[777] A Stoic philosopher of Apamea in Syria. He was the instructor of Cicero, and the friend of Pompey. He wrote works on history, divination, the tides, and the nature of the gods. Some fragments only have survived.
[778] Of Miletus, was born B.C. 610, and was the successor of Thales, the founder of the Ionian school of philosophy. He is said to have first taught the obliquity of the ecliptic and the use of the gnomon.
[779] A philosopher of Rhodes or Byzantium. Seneca says that he boasted of having studied astronomy among the Chaldeans. He is mentioned by Varro and Columella as having written on rural matters, and is praised by Censorinus.
[780] Of Alexandria, the great geometrician, and instructor of Ptolemy I. He was the founder of the mathematical school of Alexandria.
[781] He was a Greek by birth, and lived in the time of Nero. He is extolled by Tacitus, B. 14, for his superlative wisdom, beyond which nothing is known of him.
[782] Of Cnidus, an astronomer and legislator who flourished B.C. 366. He was a friend and disciple of Plato, and said to have been the first who taught in Greece the motions of the planets. His works on astronomy and geometry are lost, but his Phænomena have been preserved by Aratus, who turned his prose into verse.
[783] Born at Abdera in Thrace, about B.C. 460. He was one of the founders of the atomic theory, and looked upon peace of mind as the summum bonum of mortals. He wrote works on the nature and organization of the world, on physics, on contagious maladies, on the chameleon, and on other subjects.
[784] A Grecian astronomer. A work of his, called “Apotelesmatica,” is said to be preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna.