Almagest

The Almagest (/ˈælməˌdʒɛst/) is a

2nd-century Greek-language
mathematical and astronomical
treatise on the apparent motions of
the stars and planetary paths, written
by Claudius Ptolemy (c. AD 100 –
Geometric construction used by Hipparchus in his determination of
c. 170). One of the most influential the distances to the Sun and Moon
scientific texts of all time, it
canonized a geocentric model of the
Universe that was accepted for more than 1200 years from its origin in Hellenistic Alexandria, in the
medieval Byzantine and Islamic worlds, and in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and early
Renaissance until Copernicus. It is also a key source of information about ancient Greek astronomy.

Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in 147 or

148. N. T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemy's models
set out in the Canopic Inscription was earlier than the version in
the Almagest. Hence the Almagest could not have been completed
before about 150, a quarter-century after Ptolemy began
observing.[1]

Contents
Names
Contents
Books
Ptolemy's cosmos
The star catalog
Ptolemy's planetary model
An edition in Latin of the Almagestum
Impact in 1515
Modern editions
Gallery
See also
Footnotes
References
External links

Names
The work was originally titled "Μαθηματικὴ Σύνταξις" (Mathēmatikē Syntaxis) in Ancient Greek, and
also called Syntaxis Mathematica or Almagestum in Latin. The treatise was later titled Hē Megalē
Syntaxis (Ἡ Μεγάλη Σύνταξις, "The Great Treatise"; Latin: Magna Syntaxis), and the superlative form of
this (Ancient Greek: μεγίστη, megiste, "greatest") lies behind the Arabic name al-majisṭī (‫)اﻟﻤﺠﺴﻄﻲ‬,
from which the English name Almagest derives. The Arabic name is important due to the popularity of a
Latin translation made in the 12th century from an Arabic translation, which would endure until original
Greek copies resurfaced in the 15th century.

Contents

Books
The Syntaxis Mathematica consists of thirteen sections, called books. As with many medieval
manuscripts that were handcopied or, particularly, printed in the early years of printing, there were
considerable differences between various editions of the same text, as the process of transcription was
highly personal. An example illustrating how the Syntaxis was organized is given below. It is a Latin
edition printed in 1515 at Venice by Petrus Lichtenstein.[2]

Book I contains an outline of Aristotle's cosmology: on the spherical form of the heavens,
with the spherical Earth lying motionless as the center, with the fixed stars and the various
planets revolving around the Earth. Then follows an explanation of chords with table of
chords; observations of the obliquity of the ecliptic (the apparent path of the Sun through the
stars); and an introduction to spherical trigonometry.
Book II covers problems associated with the daily motion attributed to the heavens, namely
risings and settings of celestial objects, the length of daylight, the determination of latitude,
the points at which the Sun is vertical, the shadows of the gnomon at the equinoxes and
solstices, and other observations that change with the spectator's position. There is also a
study of the angles made by the ecliptic with the vertical, with tables.
Book III covers the length of the year, and the motion of the Sun. Ptolemy explains
Hipparchus' discovery of the precession of the equinoxes and begins explaining the theory
of epicycles.
Books IV and V cover the motion of the Moon, lunar parallax, the motion of the lunar
apogee, and the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon relative to the Earth.
Book VI covers solar and lunar eclipses.
Books VII and VIII cover the motions of the fixed stars, including precession of the
equinoxes. They also contain a star catalogue of 1022 stars, described by their positions in
the constellations, together with ecliptic longitude and latitude. Ptolemy states that the
longitudes (which increase due to precession) are for the beginning of the reign of
Antoninus Pius (138 AD), whereas the latitudes do not change with time. (But see below,
under The star catalog.) The constellations north of the zodiac and the northern zodiac
constellations (Aries through Virgo) are in the table at the end of Book VII, while the rest are
in the table at the beginning of Book VIII. The brightest stars were marked first magnitude
(m = 1), while the faintest visible to the naked eye were sixth magnitude (m = 6). Each
numerical magnitude was considered twice the brightness of the following one, which is a
logarithmic scale. (The ratio was subjective as no photodetectors existed.) This system is
believed to have originated with Hipparchus. The stellar positions too are of Hipparchan
origin, despite Ptolemy's claim to the contrary.

Ptolemy identified 48 constellations: The 12 of the zodiac, 21 to the north of the zodiac,
and 15 to the south.[3]
 Book IX addresses general issues associated with creating models for the five naked eye
planets, and the motion of Mercury.
Book X covers the motions of Venus and Mars.
Book XI covers the motions of Jupiter and Saturn.
Book XII covers stations and retrograde motion, which occurs when planets appear to
pause, then briefly reverse their motion against the background of the zodiac. Ptolemy
understood these terms to apply to Mercury and Venus as well as the outer planets.
Book XIII covers motion in latitude, that is, the deviation of planets from the ecliptic.

Ptolemy's cosmos
The cosmology of the Syntaxis includes five main points, each of which is the subject of a chapter in
Book I. What follows is a close paraphrase of Ptolemy's own words from Toomer's translation.[4]

The celestial realm is spherical, and moves as a sphere.

The Earth is a sphere.
The Earth is at the center of the cosmos.
The Earth, in relation to the distance of the fixed stars, has no appreciable size and must be
treated as a mathematical point.[5]
The Earth does not move.

The star catalog

As mentioned, Ptolemy includes a star catalog containing 1022 stars. He says that he "observed as many
stars as it was possible to perceive, even to the sixth magnitude", and that the ecliptic longitudes are for
the beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (138 AD). But calculations show that his ecliptic longitudes
correspond more closely to around 58 AD. He states that he found that the longitudes had increased by 2°
40′ since the time of Hipparchos. This is the amount of axial precession that occurred between the time of
Hipparchos and 58 AD. It appears therefore that Ptolemy took a star catalog of Hipparchos and simply
added 2° 40′ to the longitudes.[6]. However, the figure he used seems to have been based on Hipparchos'
own estimate for precession, which was 1° in 100 years, instead of the correct 1° in 72 years. Dating
attempts through proper motion of the stars also appear to date the actual observation to Hipparchos' time
instead of Ptolemy.[7]

Many of the longitudes and latitudes have been corrupted in the various manuscripts. Most of these errors
can be explained by similarities in the symbols used for different numbers. For example, the Greek letters
Α and Δ were used to mean 1 and 4 respectively, but because these look similar copyists sometimes
wrote the wrong one. In Arabic manuscripts, there was confusion between for example 3 and 8 (‫ ج‬and
‫)ح‬. (At least one translator also introduced errors. Gerard of Cremona, who translated an Arabic
manuscript into Latin around 1175, put 300° for the latitude of several stars. He had apparently learned
from Moors, who used the letter "sin" for 300, but the manuscript he was translating came from the East,
where "sin" was used for 60, like the Hebrew "samech".)[8]

Even without the errors introduced by copyists, and even accounting for the fact that the longitudes are
more appropriate for 58 AD than for 137 AD, the latitudes and longitudes are not very accurate, with
errors of large fractions of a degree. Some errors may be due to atmospheric refraction causing stars that
are low in the sky to appear higher than where they really are.[9] A series of stars in Centaurus are off by
a couple degrees, including the star we call Alpha Centauri. These were probably measured by a different
person or persons from the others, and in an inaccurate way.[10]

Ptolemy's planetary model

Ptolemy assigned the following order to the planetary spheres,
beginning with the innermost:

1. Moon
2. Mercury
3. Venus
4. Sun
5. Mars
6. Jupiter
7. Saturn
8. Sphere of fixed stars
Other classical writers suggested different sequences. Plato (c. 16th-century representation of
Ptolemy's geocentric model in Peter
427 – c. 347 BC) placed the Sun second in order after the Moon.
Apian's Cosmographia, 1524
Martianus Capella (5th century AD) put Mercury and Venus in
motion around the Sun. Ptolemy's authority was preferred by
most medieval Islamic and late medieval European astronomers.

Ptolemy inherited from his Greek predecessors a geometrical toolbox and a partial set of models for
predicting where the planets would appear in the sky. Apollonius of Perga (c. 262 – c. 190 BC) had
introduced the deferent and epicycle and the eccentric deferent to astronomy. Hipparchus (2nd century
BC) had crafted mathematical models of the motion of the Sun and Moon. Hipparchus had some
knowledge of Mesopotamian astronomy, and he felt that Greek models should match those of the
Babylonians in accuracy. He was unable to create accurate models for the remaining five planets.

The Syntaxis adopted Hipparchus' solar model, which consisted of a simple eccentric deferent. For the
Moon, Ptolemy began with Hipparchus' epicycle-on-deferent, then added a device that historians of
astronomy refer to as a "crank mechanism":[11] He succeeded in creating models for the other planets,
where Hipparchus had failed, by introducing a third device called the equant.

Ptolemy wrote the Syntaxis as a textbook of mathematical astronomy. It explained geometrical models of
the planets based on combinations of circles, which could be used to predict the motions of celestial
objects. In a later book, the Planetary Hypotheses, Ptolemy explained how to transform his geometrical
models into three-dimensional spheres or partial spheres. In contrast to the mathematical Syntaxis, the
Planetary Hypotheses is sometimes described as a book of cosmology.

Impact
Ptolemy's comprehensive treatise of mathematical astronomy superseded most older texts of Greek
astronomy. Some were more specialized and thus of less interest; others simply became outdated by the
newer models. As a result, the older texts ceased to be copied and were gradually lost. Much of what we
know about the work of astronomers like Hipparchus comes from references in the Syntaxis.
The first translations into Arabic were made in the 9th century,
with two separate efforts, one sponsored by the caliph Al-
Ma'mun. Sahl ibn Bishr is thought to be the first Arabic
translator. By this time, the Syntaxis was lost in Western Europe,
or only dimly remembered. Henry Aristippus made the first Latin
translation directly from a Greek copy, but it was not as
influential as a later translation into Latin made by Gerard of
Cremona from the Arabic (finished in 1175).[12] Gerard
translated the Arabic text while working at the Toledo School of
Translators, although he was unable to translate many technical
terms such as the Arabic Abrachir for Hipparchus. In the 12th
century a Spanish version was produced, which was later
translated under the patronage of Alfonso X.

In the 15th century, a Greek version appeared in Western Europe.

Ptolemy's Almagest became an
The German astronomer Johannes Müller (known, from his authoritative work for many
birthplace of Königsberg, as Regiomontanus) made an abridged centuries.
Latin version at the instigation of the Greek churchman Johannes,
Cardinal Bessarion. Around the same time, George of Trebizond
made a full translation accompanied by a commentary that was as
long as the original text. George's translation, done under the
patronage of Pope Nicholas V, was intended to supplant the old
translation. The new translation was a great improvement; the new
commentary was not, and aroused criticism. The Pope declined the
dedication of George's work, and Regiomontanus's translation had
the upper hand for over 100 years.

During the 16th century, Guillaume Postel, who had been on an Picture of George of Trebizond's
embassy to the Ottoman Empire, brought back Arabic disputations Latin translation of the Syntaxis
of the Almagest, such as the works of al-Kharaqī, Muntahā al-idrāk Mathematica or Almagest
fī taqāsīm al-aflāk ("The Ultimate Grasp of the Divisions of
Spheres", 1138/9).[13]

Commentaries on the Syntaxis were written by Theon of Alexandria (extant), Pappus of Alexandria (only
fragments survive), and Ammonius Hermiae (lost).

Modern editions
The Almagest under the Latin title Syntaxis mathematica, was edited by J. L. Heiberg in Claudii
Ptolemaei opera quae exstant omnia, vols. 1.1 and 1.2 (1898, 1903).

Three translations of the Almagest into English have been published. The first, by R. Catesby Taliaferro
of St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, was included in volume 16 of the Great Books of the
Western World in 1952. The second, by G. J. Toomer, Ptolemy's Almagest in 1984, with a second edition
in 1998.[4] The third was a partial translation by Bruce M. Perry in The Almagest: Introduction to the
Mathematics of the Heavens in 2014.[14]
A direct French translation from the Greek text was published in two volumes in 1813 and 1816 by
Nicholas Halma, including detailed historical comments in a 69-page preface. The scanned books are
available in full at the Gallica French national library.[15][16]

Gallery

Ptolemy's catalogue Epytoma Ioannis de Almagestum, Latin,

of stars; a revision Monte Regio in 1515
of the Almagest by Almagestum
Christian Heinrich Ptolomei, Latin,
Friedrich Peters and 1496
Edward Ball Knobel,
1915

See also
Abū al-Wafā' Būzjānī (who also wrote an Almagest)
Book of Fixed Stars
Star cartography

Footnotes
1. N. T. Hamilton, N. M. Swerdlow, G. J. Toomer. "The Canobic Inscription: Ptolemy's Earliest
Work". In Berggren and Goldstein, eds., From Ancient Omens to Statistical Mechanics.
Copenhagen: University Library, 1987.
2. "Almagestum (1515)" (http://www.univie.ac.at/hwastro/rare/1515_ptolemae.htm). Universität
Wien. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
3. Ley, Willy (December 1963). "The Names of the Constellations" (https://archive.org/stream/
Galaxy_v22n02_1963-12#page/n46/mode/1up). For Your Information. Galaxy Science
Fiction. pp. 90–99.
4. Toomer, G. J. (1998), Ptolemy's Almagest (https://isidore.co/calibre/get/pdf/Ptolemy%26%2
339%3Bs%20Almagest%20-%20Ptolemy%2C%20Claudius%20%26amp%3B%20Toome
r%2C%20G.%20J__5114.pdf) (PDF), Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-00260-6
5. Ptolemy. Almagest (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.547436)., Book I, Chapter 5.
6. Christian Peters and Edward Knobel (1915). Ptolemy's Catalogue of the Stars – A Revision
of the Almagest (https://archive.org/details/cu31924012300491). p. 15.
7. Dambis, A. K.; Efremov, Yu. N. (2000). "Dating Ptolemy's Star Catalogue through Proper
Motions: The Hipparchan Epoch". Journal for the History of Astronomy. 31 (2): 115–134.
doi:10.1177/002182860003100202 (https://doi.org/10.1177%2F002182860003100202).
 8. Peters and Knobel, pp. 9-14.
9. Peters and Knobel, p. 14.
10. Peters and Knobel, p. 112.
11. Michael Hoskin. The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy. Chapter 2, page 44.
12. See p. 3 of Introduction of the Toomis translation.
13. Islamic science and the making of European Renaissance, by George Saliba, p. 218
ISBN 978-0-262-19557-7
14. Perry, Bruce M. (2014), The Almagest: Introduction to the Mathematics of the Heavens,
Green Lion Press, ISBN 978-188800943-9
15. Halma, Nicolas (1813). Composition mathématique de Claude Ptolémée, traduite pour la
première fois du grec en français, sur les manuscrits originaux de la bibliothèque impériale
de Paris, tome 1 (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64767c) (in French). Paris: J.
Hermann. p. 608.
16. Halma, Nicolas (1816). Composition mathématique de Claude Ptolémée, ou astronomie
ancienne, traduite pour la première fois du grec en français sur les manuscrits de la
bibliothèque du roi, tome 2 (http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6205670z) (in French).
Paris: H. Grand. p. 524.

References
James Evans (1998) The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy, Oxford University
Press ISBN 0-19-509539-1
Michael Hoskin (1999) The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy, Cambridge University
Press ISBN 0-521-57291-6
Olaf Pedersen (1974) A Survey of the Almagest, Odense University Press ISBN 87-7492-
087-1.
Alexander Jones & Olaf Pedersen (2011) A Survey of the Almagest, Springer
ISBN 9780387848259
Olaf Pedersen (1993) Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition,
Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-521-40340-5

External links
Syntaxis mathematica in J.L. Heiberg's edition (1898-1903) (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Re
cord/000557831)
Ptolemy's De Analemmate. PDF scans of Heiberg's Greek edition, now in the public domain
(https://www.wilbourhall.org/pdfs/analemma.pdf) (Koine Greek)
Toomer's English translation (https://isidore.co/calibre/get/pdf/Ptolemy%26%2339%3Bs%20
Almagest%20-%20Ptolemy%2C%20Claudius%20%26amp%3B%20Toomer%2C%20G.%2
0J__5114.pdf), 1984.
Ptolemy. Almagest. (https://web.archive.org/web/20171025170900/http://search.slv.vic.gov.
au/primo_library/libweb/action/dlDisplay.do?vid=MAIN&reset_config=true&docId=SLV_VOY
AGER485154) Latin translation from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona. Digitized version of
manuscript made in Northern Italy c. 1200–1225 held by the State Library of Victoria.
University of Vienna: Almagestum (1515) (http://www.univie.ac.at/hwastro/rare/1515_ptolem
ae.htm) PDFs of different resolutions. Edition of Petrus Liechtenstein, Latin translation of
Gerard of Cremona.
Almagest Planetary Model Animations (https://web.archive.org/web/20070210055252/http://
www.csit.fsu.edu/~dduke/models)
 Online luni-solar and planetary ephemeris calculator based on the Almagest (http://www.staf
f.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/astro/ancientephemerides.htm)
A podcast discussion by Prof. M Heath and Dr A. Chapman of a recent re-discovery of a
14th-century manuscript in the university of Leeds Library (https://web.archive.org/web/2010
0618052417/http://astrotalkuk.org/2010/01/29/episode-33-january-27th-2010-ptolemy%E2%
80%99s-almagest/)
Star catalog (https://web.archive.org/web/20071115020105/http://astro.isi.edu/reference/al
magest.html) in ASCII (Latin)

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