Almagest

For the journal, see Almagest (journal).

The Almagest is a 2nd-century mathematical and

Geometric construction used by Hipparchus in his determination

of the distances to the sun and moon.

astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the

stars and planetary paths. Written in Greek by Claudius
Ptolemy, a Roman era scholar of Egypt, it is one of
the most inuential scientic texts of all time, with its
geocentric model accepted for more than twelve hundred
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.
The Almagest is the critical source of information on ancient Greek astronomy. It has also been valuable to students of mathematics because it documents the ancient
Greek mathematician Hipparchus's work, which has been
lost. Hipparchus wrote about trigonometry, but because An edition in Latin of the Almagestum in 1515
his works no longer exist, mathematicians use Ptolemys
book as their source for Hipparchuss work and ancient
1.1 Books
Greek trigonometry in general.
The treatises conventional Greek title is
(Mathmatik Syntaxis), and the treatise is also
known by the Latin form of this, Syntaxis Mathematica.
It was later titled H Megal Syntaxis ( , The Great Treatise"; Latin: Magna Syntaxis),
and the superlative form of this (Ancient Greek: , greatest) lies behind the Arabic name al-majis
(), from which the English name Almagest derives.

The Almagest (Almagestum) consisted 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 dierences between various editions of the same text, as the process of
transcription was highly personal. An example illustrating how the Almagest was organized is given below. It
is a 152-page Latin edition printed in 1515 at Venice by
Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in Petrus Lichtenstein.[2]
147 or 148. The late N. T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemys models set out in the Canopic Inscription
Book I contains an outline of Aristotle's cosmology:
was earlier than the version in the Almagest. Hence the
on the spherical form of the heavens, with the spherAlmagest cannot have been completed before about 150,
[1]
ical Earth lying motionless as the center, with the
a quarter century after Ptolemy began observing.
xed 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
1 Contents
the stars); and an introduction to spherical trigonometry.
1

1 CONTENTS
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 spectators 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.

1.2 Ptolemys cosmos

The cosmology of the Almagest includes ve main points,
each of which is the subject of a chapter in Book I. What
follows is a close paraphrase of Ptolemys own words
from Toomers 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 xed
stars, has no appreciable size and must be treated as
a mathematical point.[5]
The Earth does not move.

1.3 Ptolemys planetary model

Books VII and VIII cover the motions of the xed

stars, including precession of the equinoxes. They
also contain a star catalogue of 1022 stars, described
by their positions in the constellations. The brightest stars were marked rst magnitude (m = 1), while
the faintest visible to the naked eye were sixth magnitude (m = 6). Each numerical magnitude was
twice the brightness of the following one, which
is a logarithmic scale. This system is believed to
have originated with Hipparchus. The stellar positions too are of Hipparchan origin, despite Ptolemys
claim to the contrary.
Book IX addresses general issues associated with
creating models for the ve 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.

16th-century representation of the Ptolemys geocentric model

Ptolemy assigned the following order to the planetary

Book XII covers stations and retrograde motion, spheres, beginning with the innermost:
which occurs when planets appear to pause, then
briey reverse their motion against the background
1. Moon
of the zodiac. Ptolemy understood these terms to
2. Mercury
apply to Mercury and Venus as well as the outer
planets.
3. Venus
Book XIII covers motion in latitude, that is, the deviation of planets from the ecliptic.
The Magna Syntaxis contained details of the locations in
Ancient Britain; Brigantium suggested to be located along
the 22nd parallel, with central England at the 23rd and
York at the 24th.[3]

4. Sun
5. Mars
6. Jupiter
7. Saturn
8. Sphere of xed stars

3
Other classical writers suggested dierent sequences.
Plato (c. 427 c. 347 BC) placed the Sun second in order
after the Moon. Martianus Capella (5th century AD) put
Mercury and Venus in motion around the Sun. Ptolemys
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 ve planets.
The Almagest 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":[6] He succeeded in creating models for the other planets, where Hipparchus had
failed, by introducing a third device called the equant.

Ptolemys Almagest became an authoritative work for many centuries.

Abrachir for Hipparchus. In the 12th century a Spanish

version was produced, which was later translated under
Ptolemy wrote the Almagest as a textbook of mathemat- the patronage of Alfonso X.
ical 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 threedimensional spheres or partial spheres. In contrast to
the mathematical Almagest, the Planetary Hypotheses is
sometimes described as a book of cosmology.

Impact

Ptolemys 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 Almagest.
The rst translations into Arabic were made in the 9th
century, with two separate eorts, one sponsored by the
caliph Al-Ma'mun. Sahl ibn Bishr is thought to be the
rst Arabic translator. By this time, the Almagest was lost
in Western Europe, or only dimly remembered. Henry
Aristippus made the rst Latin translation directly from
a Greek copy, but it was not as inuential as a later translation into Latin made by Gerard of Cremona from the
Arabic. 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

Picture of George Trebizonds Latin translation of Almagest

In the 15th century, a Greek version appeared in

Western Europe. The German astronomer Johannes
Mller (known, from his birthplace of Knigsberg, as
Regiomontanus) made an abridged 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. Georges 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 Georges work, and Regiomontanuss translation
had the upper hand for over 100 years.

During the 16th century, Guillaume Postel, who had been

on an embassy to the Ottoman Empire, brought back Arabic disputations of the Almagest, such as the works of
al-Kharaq, Muntah al-idrk f taqsm al-ak (The
Ultimate Grasp of the Divisions of Spheres, 1138/9).[7]
Commentaries on the Almagest were written by Theon
of Alexandria (extant), Pappus of Alexandria (only fragments survive), and Ammonius Hermiae (lost).

Modern editions

The Almagest was edited by J. L. Heiberg in Claudii Ptolemaei opera quae exstant omnia, vols. 1.1 and 1.2 (1898,
1903).
Two translations of the Almagest into English have been
published . The rst, by R. Catesby Taliaferro of St.
Johns College in Annapolis, Maryland, was included in
volume 16 of the Great Books of the Western World; the
second, by G. J. Toomer, Ptolemys Almagest in 1984,
with a second edition in 1998.[4]
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 69page preface. The scanned books are available in full at
the Gallica French national library.[8][9]

never before published. The whole containing the history

of the most illustrious persons of all ages and nations particularly those of Great Britain and Ireland, distinguished
by their rank, actions, learning and other accomplishments.
With reections on such passages of Bayle, as seem to favor
scepticism and the Manichee system. Printed by J. Bettenham. pp. 367. Retrieved 24 November 2012.
[4] Toomer, G. J. (1998), Ptolemys Almagest, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-00260-6
[5] Ptolemy. Almagest., Book I, Chapter 5.
[6] Michael Hoskin. The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy. Chapter 2, page 44.
[7] Islamic science and the making of European Renaissance,
by George Saliba, p.218 ISBN 978-0-262-19557-7
[8] Halma, Nicolas (1813). Composition mathmatique de
Claude Ptolme, traduite pour la premire fois du grec en
franais, sur les manuscrits originaux de la bibliothque
impriale de Paris, tome 1 (in French). Paris: J. Hermann.
p. 608.
[9] Halma, Nicolas (1816). Composition mathmatique de
Claude Ptolme, ou astronomie ancienne, traduite pour la
premire fois du grec en franais sur les manuscrits de la
bibliothque du roi, tome 2 (in French). Paris: H. Grand.
p. 524.

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

REFERENCES

Footnotes

[1] NT Hamilton, N. M. Swerdlow, G. J. Toomer. The

Canobic Inscription: Ptolemys Earliest Work. In
Berggren and Goldstein, eds., From Ancient Omens to
Statistical Mechanics. Copenhagen: University Library,
1987.
[2] Almagestum (1515)". Universitt Wien. Retrieved 31
May 2014.
[3] Pierre Bayle; John Peter Bernard; Thomas Birch; John
Lockman; George Sale; Alexis Gaudin; Anthelme Tricaud; Pierre Desmaizeaux (1737). A general dictionary:
historical and critical: in which a new and accurate translation of that of the celebrated Mr. Bayle, with the corrections and observations printed in the late edition at Paris,
is included; and interspersed with several thousand lives

6 See also
Ab al-Waf' Bzjn (who also wrote an Almagest)
Star cartography

7 References
James Evans, The History and Practice of Ancient
Astronomy, Oxford University Press, 1998 (ISBN 019-509539-1)
Michael Hoskin, The Cambridge Concise History
of Astronomy, Cambridge University Press, 1999
(ISBN 0-521-57291-6)
Olaf Pedersen, A Survey of the Almagest, Odense
University Press, 1974 (ISBN 87-7492-087-1. A
revised edition, prepared by Alexander Jones, is due
to be published by Springer on November 29, 2010.
Olaf Pedersen, Early Physics and Astronomy: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1993 (ISBN 0-521-40340-5)

External links
Ptolemy. Almagest.
/ translated 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) PDF:s of
dierent resolutions
Almagest Planetary Model Animations
Online luni-solar & planetary ephemeris calculator
based on the Almagest
Ptolemys Almagest. PDF scans of Heibergs Greek
edition, now in the public domain (Classical Greek)
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

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Almagest Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest?oldid=694906418 Contributors: Eclecticology, XJaM, Shii, Michael Hardy,

Yann, Looxix~enwiki, Ahoerstemeier, Tkinias, Andres, Charles Matthews, Wetman, Bcorr, Hajor, 1984, ChrisG, Kizor, Flauto Dolce,
Rursus, GreatWhiteNortherner, Giftlite, Gilgamesh~enwiki, Per Honor et Gloria, Matthead, Andycjp, Rdsmith4, Icairns, MakeRocketGoNow, Lectiodicilior, Dbachmann, Bender235, Brian0918, Pilatus, Laurascudder, Wareh, Bill Thayer, Polylerus, HasharBot~enwiki,
Ricky81682, Goldom, Snowolf, Mindmatrix, JFG, Cbustapeck, Horses123, Marudubshinki, Jan van Male, Ketiltrout, Angusmclellan,
Maurog, FlaBot, Joonasl, Aethralis, Gdrbot, EamonnPKeane, Roboto de Ajvol, YurikBot, NTBot~enwiki, RussBot, FDR, Joelloughead, Ragesoss, Finell, SmackBot, Selfworm, C.Fred, Jagged 85, Onebravemonkey, Hmains, Chris the speller, Colonies Chris, Stevenmitchell, Aldaron, Anlace, Feureau, Neddyseagoon, Dacium, Maestlin, Chris55, Albertod4, JForget, Rowellcf, Mmace91, Cydebot, Jgtl2,
Doug Weller, Casliber, Thijs!bot, Lopakhin, Bobblehead, Second Quantization, CielProfond, AstroLynx, MER-C, The Transhumanist,
Aziz1005, Geboy, Rettetast, R'n'B, It Is Me Here, Chiswick Chap, Student7, KylieTastic, Tiggerjay, VolkovBot, A Macedonian, Techfreak8, Amikake3, NikolaiLobachevsky, Evil-mer0dach, TXiKiBoT, Madhero88, Lampica, Uranometria, Stoolblahboo, Ealdgyth, Randy
Kryn, ClueBot, Singinglemon~enwiki, Copyeditor42, Thehelpfulone, Lx 121, Wkboonec, Boleyn, BRPXQZME, Dthomsen8, Good Olfactory, Addbot, LaaknorBot, LPChang, Tide rolls, Lightbot, Legobot, Luckas-bot, Yobot, TaBOT-zerem, JungleJoe, Limttado, Srich32977,
GrouchoBot, Roymail, Omnipaedista, Ajb jr, A.amitkumar, Tom.Reding, RafaelMinuesa, MondalorBot, Zbayz, LilyKitty, Abie the Fish
Peddler, Cayuela, Igor Yalovecky, WikitanvirBot, Dewritech, Iamchenzetian, Sp33dyphil, Paul Bedson, ZroBot, Gurbir2704, SporkBot,
ChuispastonBot, Guardianofhistory, ClueBot NG, Perseus41, Frietjes, Helpful Pixie Bot, Mark Arsten, Pasicles, Nimesh Mistry, JYBot,
Gladtobeherenow, Xenxax, Sagesseetraison, KasparBot and Anonymous: 69

9.2

Images

File:Almagest_1.jpeg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Almagest_1.jpeg License: Public domain Contributors: photograph of 1451 book Original artist: Ptolemy
File:Claudius_Ptolemaeus,_Almagestum,_1515.djvu Source:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Claudius_
Ptolemaeus%2C_Almagestum%2C_1515.djvu License: Public domain Contributors: http://www.univie.ac.at/hwastro/rare/1515_
ptolemae.htm Original artist: Ptolemy
File:Commons-logo.svg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg License: ? Contributors: ? Original
artist: ?
File:HipparchusConstruction.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/HipparchusConstruction.png License: Public domain Contributors: No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). Original
artist: No machine-readable author provided. Maksim assumed (based on copyright claims).
File:Ptolemaicsystem-small.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Ptolemaicsystem-small.png License:
Public domain Contributors: from Edward Grant, Celestial Orbs in the Latin Middle Ages, Isis, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Jun., 1987), pp.
152-173. Original artist: Fastssion
File:Ptolemy_16century.jpg Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Ptolemy_16century.jpg License: Public
domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: User:Stahlkocher

9.3

Content license

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