Aratus was an astronomer
and poet, who was born in Soli
(near modern Mersin ) in 315 BC. He came in the news
after this year’s ongoing excavations in Soli, the Roman Pompeiopolis
as archaeologists discovered a memorial tomb. This grave site was surrounded by
two rows of hexagonal structures and arches and is being described as “a crater
with a circular plot worthy of an astronomer”.
These elements
led the scholar to link the monument to their citizen Aratus although he died in Alexander’s
birthplace
It so happened that Aratus
was invited to the Macedonian court by Antigonus II Gonatas, the son of Demetrios Poliorcetes, in 276 BC. One year later, the poet penned down the king’s
victory over the Gauls in verse form.
While he resided in Pella ,
Aratus wrote a hexameter poem on astronomy. In the first half of his Phenomena, he retells the work of Eudoxus of Cnidos describing the
constellations and other celestial phenomena, which he set into verse. The
second half was known as Diosemeia
and talks about the weather. The interest for Aratus’ poem was such that it was translated into Latin and his
work triggered a great number of comments from the Greek and Latin speaking
public.
However, he also was active in the field of philosophy, grammar and medicine (some pretend he was a doctor).
He spent some time in
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