ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC PERIOD 



Alexandrian philosopher won his proud title of " sur- 

 veyor of the world." 



HIPPARCHUS, "THE LOVER OF TRUTH" 



Eratosthenes outlived most of his great contem- 

 poraries. He saw the turning of that first and greatest 

 century of Alexandrian science, the third century be- 

 fore our era. He died in the year 196 B.C., having, it is 

 said, starved himself to death to escape the miseries 

 of blindness; to the measurer of shadows, life with- 

 out light seemed not worth the living. Eratosthenes 

 left no immediate successor. A generation later, how- 

 ever, another great figure appeared in the astronom- 

 ical world in the person of Hipparchus, a man who, as 

 a technical observer, had perhaps no peer in the ancient 

 world : one who set so high a value upon accuracy of 

 observation as to earn the title of "the lover of truth." 

 Hipparchus was born at Niccea, in Bithynia, in the year 

 1 60 B.C. His life, all too short for the interests of 

 science, ended in the year 125 B.C. The observations 

 of the great astronomer were made chiefly, perhaps 

 entirely, at Rhodes. A misinterpretation of Ptolemy's 

 writings led to the idea that Hipparchus performed his 

 chief labors in Alexandria, but it is now admitted that 

 there is no evidence for this. Delambre doubted, and 

 most subsequent writers follow him here, whether Hip- 

 parchus ever so much as visited Alexandria. In any 

 event there seems to be no question that Rhodes may 

 claim the honor of being the chief site of his activities. 



It was Hipparchus whose somewhat equivocal com- 

 ment on the work of Eratosthenes we have already 

 noted. No counter-charge in kind could be made 



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