SEQUEL TO THE EPOCH OF HIPPARCHUS. 227 



the theory added to the objects of investigation, 

 or presented them in a new point of view. This 

 being the case, it will be more instructive for 

 our purpose to consider the general character and 

 broad intellectual features of this period, than 

 to offer a useless catalogue of obscure and worth- 

 less writers, and of opinions either borrowed or 

 unsound. But before we do this, there is one 

 writer whom we cannot leave undistinguished in 

 the crowd ; since his name is more celebrated 

 even than that of Hipparchus ; his works contain 

 ninety-nine hundredths of what we know of the 

 Greek astronomy; and though he was not the 

 author of a new theory, he made some very re- 

 markable steps in the verification, correction, and 

 extension of the theory which he received. I speak 

 of Ptolemy, whose work, " The Mathematical Con- 

 struction" (of the heavens), contains a complete 

 exposition of the state of astronomy in his time, 

 the reigns of Adrian and Antonine. This book 

 is familiarly known to us by a term which contains 

 the record of our having received our first know- 

 ledge of it from the Arabic writers. The " Me- 

 giste Syntaxis," or Great Construction, gave rise, 

 among them, to the title Al Magisti, or Almagest, 

 by which the work is commonly described. As 

 a mathematical exposition of the Theory of Epi- 

 cycles and Eccentrics, of the observations and 

 calculations which were employed in order to ap- 

 ply this theory to the sun, moon, and planets, and 



Q2 



