Ptolemy

PTOLEMY (Roman Greco-Egyptian, c. 100-170 CE)

Ptolemy (called Claudius Ptolemy to distinguish him from members of the Greco-Egyptian ruling dynasty that ended with Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE) was a Greco-Egyptian Roman citizen and a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist. He wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science: the astronomical treatise now known as the Almagest; the Geography, a discussion on the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world; and the astrological treatise attempting to adapt astrology to the Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day known as the Tetrábiblos or "Four Books." Ptolemy's writings were copied and commented upon throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

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