Abstract
The main purpose of the preceding chapters was to present modern students with an outline of the Almagest in such a way that its inner structure would become clear. A secondary purpose was to express the fundamental concepts and relations of Pto- lemaic astronomy in a way profitable to the study of Mediaeval astronomy. However, from the latter point of view it will be convenient to conclude with a few words on some other Ptolemaic works of particular importance to the Middle Ages.
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Notes
- 1.
Duhem made much of these two ancient ’schools’ in his Systeme du Monde, vol. 2, Chapters 10-11. In the Middle Ages the discussion was renewed and mathematical astronomy attacked by Aristotelian philosophers advocating a ’physical’ theory of the universe; see Duhem, vol. 4, Chapters 8-9.
- 2.
A critical edition of the Handy Tables is one of the principal desiderata of historians of Ancient and Mediaeval astronomy, Halma’s edition and translation being unreliable in many details. For further information on these tables the reader is referred to the studies by Delambre (1817, II, p. 616 ff.), A. Rome (in his edition of Theon), B. L. van der Waerden (1953; 1957, col. 1823-27; 1958), W. D. Stahlmann (1960), and A. Aaboe (1960 a).
- 3.
This distinction is still preserved in early Mediaeval works, for instance in Isidore of Seville’s Libri Etymologiarum (III, 27). Many later authors caused much confusion by interchanging the meaning of the two terms.
- 4.
There is no comprehensive study of ancient astrology taking the results of modern research into account. Two older works are still useful, viz. A. Bouchd-Leclerq, Vastrologie grecque y Paris 1899, and F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans, London, 1912 (Reprinted New York, 1960).
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Pedersen, O. (2011). Epilogue – the Other Ptolemy. In: Jones, A. (eds) A Survey of the Almagest. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84826-6_13
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