Aratus of Soli, poet and astronomer

 

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 Pella in 240 BC.

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 Syria as a guest of Antiochus I Soter but returned to Pella where he died in 240/239 BC.

[Pictures from Greek City Times]