Aristarco de Samos - GÓMEZ GÓMEZ, A. (2011)

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath
Alberto Gomez Gomez

algomgom@gmail.com
(2011-05-05; revised on 2011-11-20)
Part 1
Abstract
The evidence on Aristarchos of Samos is gathered and pieced together, revealing a genius who has
influenced history more than history has been aware of.
Contents of Part 1
1. Introduction........................................1
2. The early earth movers.......................2
3. Aristarchos and the human eye ........10
4. Eagle eyes?.......................................11
5. The suns distance............................12
6. Archimedes chiliagon .................... 13

7. The myriad figure............................ 14
8. On Sizes and Distances ................... 17
9. The solar system scale..................... 19
Appendix 1 .......................................... 22
1. Introduction
The ravishes of history have left us few traces of the Greatest Mind of Antiquity. Yet, the remnants
alone are more than enough to show that he was a supernova who once shone through the dust of
prejudice to light up the very workings of the world around us, and to remind us forever of how easily
the truths of science can be hidden by the lies of ignorance. His was a mind capable of seeing truths
that would remain hidden from most of us for nearly two thousand years. Can this be said of anyone
else? Men like this are rarely met with, says Vitruvius (On Architecture 1.1.17) in the 1st century (1c)
BC, echoing the high esteem and admiration Aristarchos was held in by his contemporaries, or rather
by the wisest and best hearted of them who, for good reason, called him The Mathematician.1
Aristarchos was born on the small but important and wealthy island of Samos. We dont even know
exactly when but, because he had become a prominent astronomer by the year 280 BC, we might tentatively assign him an age of about 30 or 40 years by then, which would put his birth date somewhere
between 320 and 310 BC. We might generously allow him to live up to about 230 BC. He is said to
have attended Strato of Lampsacos lectures on the nature of light and human vision; yet, John of
Stobi (Anthology 1.16.1, 1.52.3), who quotes in the 5c the now lost 2c works of Aetios on this detail,
1
In Marcus Vitruvius Pollios 1c BC words (ed. Rose 1899:9), Quibus vero natura tantum tribuit sollertiae
acuminis memoriae ut possint geometriam astrologiam musicen ceterasque disciplinas penitus habere notas,
praetereunt officia architectorum et efficiuntur mathematici. itaque faciliter contra eas disciplinas disputare possunt, quod pluribus telis disciplinarum sunt armati. hi autem inveniuntur raro, ut aliquando fuerunt Aristarchus
Samius, Philolaus et Archytas Tarentini, Apollonius Pergaeus, Eratosthenes Cyrenaeus, Archimedes et Scopinas
ab Syracusis, qui multas res organicas et gnomonicas numero naturalibusque rationibus inventas atque explicatas
posteris reliquerunt. Meaning (tr. Gwilt 1826:9), Those unto whom nature has been so bountiful that they are at
once geometricians, astronomers, musicians, and skilled in many other arts, go beyond what is required of the
architect, and may be properly called mathematicians, in the extended sense of that word. Men so gifted, discriminate acutely, and are rarely met with. Such, however, was Aristarchus of Samos, Philolaus and Archytas of
Tarentum, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Archimedes and Scopinas of Syracuse: each of whom
wrote on all the sciences.
A. G. Gomez
leaves us wondering whether these lectures took place in Alexandria or in Athens, or in both.1 We
know from the 3c biographer Diogenes Laertios (Lives 5.58) that Strato spent the best part of his life
tutoring Ptolemy II in Alexandria, where he might also have taught the young Aristarchos, who was
then about the same age as the future king, or just a little older. Ptolemy I Soter, who had strategically
chosen Strato to tutor his son, made every effort not only to attract brilliant minds to Alexandria, but
also to move the very grounds of Aristotles Lyceum with all the benefits that this would bring to the
City of the Great Library. The latter was never to happen: in 287 BC Strato moved to Athens instead,
succeeding Theophrastos as head of the Lyceum and remaining in this position for eighteen years.2
Whether Aristarchos followed him or stayed in Alexandria among other prominent astronomers like
Timocharis and Aristyllos we do not know, but the chances are that he would not sympathize with the
Aristotelian School as much as with that of the more mathematically inclined Pythagoras of Samos. It
was in the latter school, after all, that the novel idea of a moving earth was first conceived.
2. The early earth movers

According to Laertios (Lives 8.85), the first to say that the earth moves in a circle were Philolaos of
Croton, one of the main exponents of Pythagorism, and Hiketas of Syracuse.3 They did not have it
move around the sun though, but around a fanciful heavenly body called Central Fire, which we, mere
earthlings, can never see because we live on the side of the earth that always looks away from it. Not
even from the earths underside could we see it, for Zeus had so disposed matters that his home at this
wondrous hearth be permanently eclipsed from our sight by another fanciful heavenly body called
Counter Earth. The total number of heavenly bodies moving around this central fire is ten, as befits the
Pythagorean ideal of perfection, and Philolaos was the first to put them in the right order: the sky, the
five planets, the sun, the moon, the earth, and the counter earth. The last two whirl around it in just one
day, while the others take much longer: the moon, for example, takes a month, the sun, one year. This
explains the succession of days and nights as the earth gets lit up every time it races past the sun.
1
The 5c writings of John of Stobi (Macedon) have been traditionally divided into two volumes called Eclogae
(Extracts) and Florilegium (Anthology), which it is the current trend to group together under the name Anthology. Several editions can be consulted for the original words connecting Aristarchos and Strato, like Wachsmuth
and Hense (1884:149, 483), Diels (1879:313, 403), or Meineke (1860:98), ,
, . Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:300), Aristarchos of Samos the Mathematician, following Strato, says that light is the colour impinging on a substratum.
Also, .
. Meaning, Strato says that colours are emanations from bodies,
material molecules, which impart to the intervening air the same colour as that possessed by the body, while
Aristarchos says that colours are shapes or forms stamping the air with impressions like themselves. Also,
. Meaning, Epikouros and Aristarchos
[both of Samos] say that colours in darkness have no colouring.
2
In Laertios own 3c words (ed. Hicks 1925 1:510),
,
.
, , ,
, , .
Meaning (tr. Hicks 1925 1:511), His [Theophrastos] successor in the school was Strato, the son of Arcesilaus, a
native of Lampsacus, whom he mentioned in his will; a distinguished man who is generally known as The
Physicist, because more than anyone else he devoted himself to the most careful study of nature. Moreover, he
taught Ptolemy Philadelphus and received, it is said, eighty talents from him. According to Apollodorus in his
Chronology [of which only fragments now remain] he became head of the school in the hundred and twentythird Olympiad [288 to 284 BC], and continued to preside over it for eighteen years.
3
In Laertios 3c words (ed. Hicks 1925 2:398),
[] . Meaning (tr. Hicks 1925 2:399), He [Philolaos] was the first to declare that the earth
moves in a circle [round the central fire], though some say that it was Hicetas of Syracuse.
A. G. Gomez
All this (see Figure 1) can be pieced together from the scanty accounts of Philolaos theory that
have come down to us, such as John of Stobis (Anthology 1.22.1)1 and Ps-Plutarchs (Placitis 3.9.1),2
both of which serve to reconstruct the writings of Aetios (Placita 3.9.1), as published by Diels (1879).
Sun
Sun
Moon
Earth
Counter Earth
Moon
Central Fire
Central Fire
10
Counter Earth
Earth
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Figure 1: Philolaos cosmos, conceived in the 5c BC, is made up of ten heavenly bodies whirling
round a central fire that cannot be seen from earth. In this scheme of things, we are closest to the
sun at noon (position 1) and furthest from it at midnight (position 2).
1
In Aetios 2c words (ed. Diels 1879:336) as reconstructed from John of Stobi (ed. Wachsmuth and Hense
1884:196, Meineke 1860:134), ,
, , .
, , , ,
, , , , ,
. , ,
, , .
, , .
, ,
, . Meaning (authors tr.), Philolaos says there is fire around the worlds centre, which
he calls Zeus hearth and home. Beyond the worlds outer reaches there is another fire surrounding all there is.
The centre came first by nature, and around it dance ten heavenly bodies: the sky, the five planets, then the sun,
then the moon, then the earth, then the counter earth and, after all these, the fire around the centre. The region
beyond the sky is a place where the elements are in their pure state, unmixed, and that place he calls Olympus.
All that lies beneath Olympus, namely the part where the five planets, the sun, and the moon lie, he calls cosmos;
and the region under the moon and around the earth, he calls heaven. The first two regions are wisely designed to
stay in perfect order and nothing ever changes in them. In the last region, it is the virtue of those subject to birth
and death to experience imperfection and change.
2
In Aetios 2c words (ed. Diels 1879:376) as reconstructed from Pseudo-Plutarch (ed. Dbner 1841:1092),
. , . Meaning,
Thales and those following him say that there is one earth; Hiketas the Pythagorean, that there are two: this present one and the counter earth.
A. G. Gomez
A variant of this model can be taken from the words that Aetios (Placita 3.11.3) later adds in his
account saying that Philolaos earth and counter earth move in opposite circles, and thus remain permanently hidden from each other.1 If we take this to mean that they are on opposite sides of the central
fire, then we have another perfectly working model different from the one first described, but this is
not all! There is yet another dissenting passage by the 1c BC Roman orator Cicero (Academica priora
2.39.123) saying that Theophrastos portrayed Hiketas as brandishing another novel idea: a spinning
earth. According to him, Hiketas thought that nothing in the universe moves except the earth, which
spins about its axis producing the illusion that all moves but us.2 Sarton (1993:290) says that these
words by Cicero, who was no astronomer, show a total forgetfulness of planetary motion along the
zodiac and are better understood as an oversimplification of Hiketas original thought that it is the
earth that turns around its axis every day, not the starry heavens.
If we are to trust Cicero in this, hard though his words are to fit in with Philolaos, then Hiketas is,
as far as we can tell and early in the 4c BC, the first westerner ever to have spoken of a spinning earth.
Alternatively, Aetios (Placita 3.13.3) gives two more names in connection with such a novel idea
when he says that most philosophers believe that the earth remains fixed in space and immobile, that
Philolaos has earth, sun, and moon whirling around the central hearth, and that Heraclides of Pontos
and the Pythagorean Ecphantos have earth spinning on its own axis, but not moving through space or,
as Sarton (1993:291) puts it, moving in the sense of rotation, but not in the sense of translation.3
1
,

. Meaning (tr. Goodwin 1874 3:155), Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the
middle place, and this is the hearth-fire of the universe; the second place to the Antichthon; the third to that earth
which we inhabit, which is seated in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite, which is the reason that
those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. Also (authors tr.), The Pythagorean Philolaos puts the
central hearth in first place, for it is the hinge of the world. Second comes the counter earth, and third, the earth
where we live. The last two move in opposite circles, which is why the inhabitants of both worlds have never
seen each other.
2
In Ciceros 1c BC words (ed. Reid 1885:322), Hicetas Syracosius, ut ait Theophrastus, caelum solem lunam
stellas, supera denique omnia stare censet neque praeter terram rem ullam in mundo moueri, quae cum circum
axem se summa celeritatee conuertat et torqueat, eadem effici omnia, quae si stante terra caelum moueretur.
Meaning (tr. Reid 1880:81), Hicetas the Syracusan, as Theophrastos says, believes that the sky, sun, moon,
stars, and in fact all the heavenly bodies stand still, and that nothing at all moves in the universe except the earth;
and that because it turns and twists with great speed about its axis, all the same phenomena are produced as if the
sky was in motion and the earth standing still.
3
,
. , ,
, , . PsPlutarchs version is slightly different, ,
, .
, , [] , ,
. Meaning (tr. Fortenbaugh and Pender 2009:158, Goodwin 1874 3:156, Heath 1913:251), The
others [believe] that the earth is stationary, but Philolaus the Pythagorean [believes] that it moves in a circle
around the [central] fire in an oblique circle in the same way as the sun and the moon. Heraclides of Pontus and
Ecphantus the Pythagorean make the earth move not by changing its place but by turning from west to east
around its own centre, while it is fixed on an axis in the manner of a wheel. This passage is quoted by Copernicus (Praefatio 1543: Folio IV recto) as one of his inspirational sources (tr. Africa 1961:405), The rest believe
the earth is stationary, but Philolaus the Pythagorean says that it moves around the Fire in an oblique circle like
the sun and moon. Heraclides of Pontus and the Pythagorean Ecphantus also make the earth move, not through
space, but rotating about its own centre like a wheel on an axis from west to east.
A. G. Gomez
Heraclides name appears again in connection with the spinning earth idea in a brief passage by the
5c Greek writer Proclos (Timaeum 281E), who says that he made the earth wind round and round in
contrast to Plato, who kept it still.1 Also in the words of Simplikios, who, a century later, mentions him
four times in his comments on Aristotle saying, in one passage (Caelo 2.14), that Heraclides made the
earth spin and the heavens stand still (just as Cicero, Aetios, and Proclos had said of him before);2 in
another (Caelo 2.8), that not only Heraclides, but also Aristarchos forms part of this team of earth
spinners (and this is the first time in recorded history that both names are put together);3 in a third
(Caelo 2.13), that Heraclides spins the earth and makes it the [worlds] centre;4 and yet in a fourth pas1
In Proclos 5c words (ed. Diehl 1906:138),

, ; ,
, , . Meaning (tr.
Heath 1913:255), How can we, when we are told that the earth is wound round, reasonably make it turn round
as well and give this as Platos view? Let Heraclides of Pontus, who was not a disciple of Plato, hold this opinion
and move the earth round and round; but Plato made it unmoved.
2
In Simplikios 6c words (ed. Heiberg 1894:541, Karsten 1865:242),
, [] ,
. ,
, , ,
, ,
, ,
, ,
,
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:255), This would equally have happened [that is, the stars would
have seemed to be at different distances at different times instead of, as now, appearing to be always at the same
distance, whether at rising or at setting or between these times, and the moon would not, when eclipsed, always
have been diametrically opposite the sun, but would sometimes have been separated from it by an arc less than a
semicircle] if the earth had a motion of translation; but if the earth rotated about its centre while the heavenly
bodies were at rest, as Heraclides of Pontus supposed, then (1), on the hypothesis of rotation towards the west,
the stars would have been seen to rise from that side, while (2) on the hypothesis of rotation towards the east, (a)
if it so rotated about the poles of the equinoctial circle (the equator), the sun and the other planets would not have
risen at different points of the horizon and, (b) if it so rotated about the poles of the zodiac circle, the fixed stars
would not always have risen at the same points, as in fact they do; so that, whether it rotated about the poles of
the equinoctial circle or about the poles of the zodiac, how could the translation of the planets in the direct order
of the signs have been saved on the assumption of the immobility of the heavens?
3
,
, , ,
,

, , , ,
. Meaning (tr. Cohen and Drabkin
1948:106), There have been some, among them Heraclides of Pontus and Aristarchus, who thought that the
phenomena could be accounted for by supposing the heaven and stars to be at rest, and the earth to be in motion
about the poles of the equator from west [to east] making approximately one complete rotation each day. Also
(tr. Fortenbaugh and Penten 2009:174), There have been some, including Heraclides of Pontus and Aristarchus,
who thought that the phenomena were saved if the heavens and the heavenly bodies were at rest, while the Earth
performed approximately one rotation per day around the poles of the equinoxial [circle] from west [to east].
4
, .
Meaning (tr. Heath 1921 1:317), Heraclides of Pontus supposed that the earth is the centre and rotates (lit.
moves in a circle) while the heaven is at rest, and he thought by this supposition to save the phenomena. Also
(tr. Fortenbaugh and Penten 2009:162), Heraclides of Pontus believed that he was saving the phenomena by
hypothesizing that the earth is in the centre [of the All] and moves in a circle, while the heavens are at rest.
A. G. Gomez
sage (Physica 2.2), that Heraclides moves the earth and stills the sun in order to explain the apparent
motion of the latter.1 Stated in this way, this last statement may sound really striking to us and, indeed,
anyone after Copernicus might think that by moving the earth and stilling the sun Heraclides meant
some form of heliocentrism. Pre-Copernican minds could not be fooled though, for, on closer inspection, nothing new is really said: The earth moves (that is, rotates); the sky stands. Thomas Aquinas,
for example, gets it right from Simplikios when, on commenting Aristotles Book On the Heavens in
the 13c, says that Heraclides kept earth spinning at the centre of the world (Caelo 2.21.5),2 while the
heavens were at rest (Caelo 2.11.2).3
This last statement by Simplikios, together with yet another passage by the 4c Latin writer Chalcidius (Timaeus 110) in which Heraclides is reputed to have said that Venus is sometimes above,
sometimes below the sun, and that the circles of both bodies have the same centre,4 was enough to
convince the French scholar Thomas Henri Martin (1849/1971:119-23, 419-28) that Heraclides was
saying that Venus circled the sun. Schiaparelli (1873/1925 1:401-20) took the man at his word and
went even further to say that Heraclides was proposing that all planets circled the sun and that the sun
circled the earth, just as Tycho Brahe proposed at the end of the 16c. Yet, once again, nothing of the
like can be derived from Chalcidius actual words: on closer inspection, we can see that if the circles
of Venus and of the sun have the same centre, then Venus is not orbiting the sun, but both are orbiting
the same centre: presumably, the earth! Neugebauer (1975:694) points out that Mercury is never mentioned in this whole discussion, and that the words sometimes above, sometimes below the sun do
not mean in Chalcidius thinking further or closer to us as would happen in a sun-centred system but,
simply, that Venus is sometimes right and sometimes left of the sun.
Therefore, in the light of the evidence before us and as far as the extant original sources can tell, we
must conclude that Heraclides never harboured any form of heliocentrism nor did he ever have any
thing moving around the sun. So the frequently quoted statement that he had Mercury and Venus orbiting the sun is groundless and goes no further back in time than Martins 19c interpretation. It is to
be noted, though, that there is a certain resemblance between this tale and an extant fragment by
Vitruvius (Arch. 9.1.6) clearly stating that Mercury and Venus revolve around the sun,5 but this frag1
In Simplikios 6c words (ed. Diels 1882:292),

, .
Meaning (tr. Fortenbaugh and Pender 2009:162),A certain Heraclides of Pontus even came forward to say that
[on the hypothesis that] the earth somehow actually moves, and the Sun somehow remains stationary, the apparent unsmoothness [or motion] of the sun can be saved.
2
In Thomas Aquinas 13c words (ed. Rome 1886:205), Quidam Heraclitus Ponticus posuit terram in medio
moveri, et caelum quiescere. Meaning (authors tr.), A certain Heraclides [Thomas spells it Heraclitus] of
Pontus put the earth in motion in the centre, and the heaven at rest.
3
In Thomas Aquinas words (ed. Rome 1886:162), Et ideo quidam, ponentes stellas et totum caelum quiescere,
posuerunt terram in qua nos habitamus, moveri ab occidente in orientem circa polos aequinoctiales qualibet die
semel; et ita per motum nostrum videtur nobis quod stellae in contrarium moveantur; quod quidem dicitur posuisse Heraclitus Ponticus et Aristarchus. Meaning (authors tr.), Some put the stars and the whole heaven at
rest, while making the earth on which we live move eastwards around its equinoctial poles once a day, and this is
why the stars seem to move against the direction we travel. Such is said to have been the opinion of Heraclitus of
Pontus and Aristarchus.
4
In Chalcidius 4c words (ed. Wrobel 1876:176), Denique Heraclides Ponticus, cum circulum Luciferi describeret, item solis, et unum punctum atque unam medietatem duobus daret circulis, demonstrauit ut interdum
Lucifer superior, interdum inferior sole fiat. Meaning (tr. Neugebauer 1975:694, Heath 1913:256), Heraclides
of Pontus, when describing the circle of Venus as well as that of the sun, and giving the two circles one centre
and one mean motion, showed how Venus is sometimes above, sometimes below the sun.
5
In Vitruvius 1c BC words (ed. Rose 1899:217), Mercurii autem et Veneris stellae circa solis radios utique
centrum eum itineribus coronantes regressus retrorsus et retardationes faciunt, et ita stationibus propter eam circinationem morantur in spatiis signorum. Meaning (tr. Gwilt 1826:270), The stars of Mercury and Venus near-
A. G. Gomez
ment has no connection whatever with the name of Heraclides and was written long after heliocentrism had been developed. Centuries later, Proclos wrote a similar fragment (Timaeum 259A), again
without connection to Heraclides.1 So, the fact that two thousand years after Heraclides later generations of such renowned astronomers made up this connection is nothing but an unfair twist of fate.
This leaves us only one candidate on whom to bestow the high honour of having been the first person ever to discover that the earth moves around the sun: Aristarchos of Samos. The ancient testimony
is unanimous on the point, says Heath (1921 2:2), quoting Archimedes (Sandreckoner 1.4) on the matter, from whom we know that Aristarchos brought out a book explaining that the world is many times
greater than previously thought, that the stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth moves
through space following a circular path whose centre is the sun, and that the sphere of the fixed stars,
whose centre is approximately the centre of the sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes
the earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere
bears to its surface.2
est the rays of the sun, move round the sun as centre, and appear sometimes retrograde and sometimes progressive, seeming occasionally, from the nature of their circuit, stationary in the signs [of the zodiac].
1
In Proclos 5c words (ed. Diehl 1906:65), ,

. Meaning (tr. Taylor
1820:228), Above the sun are Venus and Mercury, these planets being solar, and fabricating in conjunction with
the sun, and also contributing together with him to the perfection of wholes. Hence their course is equally swift
with that of the sun, and they revolve about him, as communicating with him in the production of things.
2
In Archimedes words (ed. Heiberg 1881:244), ,
, ,
. , .
,
.
, ,
,
, , ,
, .
. ,
.
, ,
, , ,
. ,
, , .
Meaning (tr. Heath 1897:221, 1913:302), You [King Gelon] are aware that universe is the name given by most
astronomers to the sphere whose centre is the centre of the earth and whose radius is equal to the straight line
between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth. This is the common account, as you have heard from
astronomers. But Aristarchus of Samos brought out a book consisting of some hypotheses, in which the premises
lead to the result that the universe is many times greater than that now so called. His hypotheses are that the
fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun in the circumference of a circle, the
sun lying in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of the fixed stars, situated about the same centre as the
sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of
the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere bears to its surface. Now it is easy to see that this is impossible; for,
since the centre of the sphere has no magnitude, we cannot conceive it to bear any ratio whatever to the surface
of the sphere. We must, however, take Aristarchus to mean this: since we conceive the earth to be, as it were, the
centre of the universe, the ratio which the earth bears to what we describe as the universe is the same as the ratio
which the sphere containing the circle in which he supposes the earth to revolve bears to the sphere of the fixed
stars. For he adapts the proofs of his results to a hypothesis of this kind, and in particular he appears to suppose
the size of the sphere in which he makes the earth move to be equal to what we call the universe.
A. G. Gomez
Taken literally, these last words imply an infinite universe for, as Archimedes points out, the centre
of a sphere is but a point that bears no ratio whatever to the surface of any sphere. Archimedes is not
willing to accept this (for his reckoner needs a finite world to fill up with sand) and immediately tells
us what he thinks Aristarchos means: that the earth is to its orbit what its orbit is to the sphere of the
fixed stars or, put another
way, that the earths radius is
Sphere of the
to that of its orbit what the
fixed stars
radius of its orbit is to that of Earths
the sphere of the fixed stars orbit
Earth
(see Figure 2).
AU
Apparently, this scheme of
things is as whimsical as any
of Philolaos fancies and
many a good scholar, unable
to make head or tail of it, has
been misled into thinking that
it is, to say the least, nothing
but idle guesswork.1 Yet, as
we shall see, there is more to
Aristarchos than meets the
eye.
1e
Earth
10000e
Sun
10000AU
Figure 2: Archimedes thinks Aristarchos means that the earth

is to its orbit what its orbit is to the sphere of the fixed stars.
Destroyed by centuries of vicious persecution, his books and thoughts are only accessible to us now
as a few surviving references by other authors. What is left us, though, is only the tip of a huge iceberg
of sound scientific research, which we can only hope to reconstruct. To do this, we need to look most
carefully at every single fragment that has made it down to us, and Archimedes is key! On trying to
reckon how many grains of sand it would take to fill the largest world then conceived, he tells us
(Sandreckoner 4.12) that Aristarchos places the sphere of the fixed stars almost a myriad (or 10,000)
times farther away than the sun,2 and also that he makes the earth and its orbit bear the same ratio,
placing the sun almost a myriad earth radii away! This is not only to be deduced from Archimedes
words, but also explicitly stated in the Sandreckoner (2.1).3
Two other sources add detail to this piece of evidence: one is Cleomedes (Heavens 2.1.79, 1.11.56),
who tells us that Poseidonios, in the 1c BC, assumes (either from Archimedes or directly from Aristarchos) that the earths (lit. suns) orbit is a myriad earths wide, adding the obscurely worded detail that
it might be more rather than less this figure.4 He also adds a sound description of what the sun and the
1
Neugebauer (1975:643), for one, concludes that Aristarchos treatise on the sizes and distances is a purely
mathematical exercise which has as little to do with practical astronomy as Archimedes Sandreckoner in which
he demonstrates the capability of mathematics of giving numerically definite estimates even for such questions
as the ratio of the volume of the universe to the volume of a grain of sand. He even goes as far as to consider
some [extendable to all?] of Aristarchos methods as pure mathematical pedantry of no astronomical interest.
2
In Archimedes 3c BC words (ed. Heiberg 1881:288),
. Meaning (authors tr.), The diameter of the sphere
of fixed stars is less than a myriad times the diameter of the cosmos [or sphere then equal to the earths orbit].
3
. Meaning (authors tr.), The diameter of the cosmos [or sphere then equal to the earths orbit] is
less than a myriad times the diameter of the earth.
4
In Cleomedes words (ed. Ziegler 1891:144-6),
, [...] . Meaning
(authors tr., see also Kidd 1999:171, Bowen and Todd 2004:114, Heath 1913:344, 346), Poseidonios assumes
that the suns circle is as wide as a myriad earths, [] but it could be more rather than less, for all we know.
A. G. Gomez
earth would look like from the sphere of the fixed stars, making it clear that the sun, for all its brightness, could not be told from other stars, and that the earth too would not be seen at all.1 All this points
to Poseidonios taking Aristarchos myriad earth-orbit distance to the stars as a lower not upper bound
(as Archimedes would prefer in order to count sand grains). But, does this tell us what Aristarchos
himself, with whom all these ideas originate, actually believed? It strongly suggests an endless universe, but what really confirms this is our second piece of evidence on the matter: Aetios (Placita
2.24.8) says that Aristarchos thought of the sun as of another star.2
Even if we didnt have the benefit of Poseidonios or Aetios words to tell us, we could still find
what Aristarchos really thought by reasoning like this: He proposed heliocentrism and then was faced
with the question of why we cant see any stellar parallax. Indeed, if the earth moves, we should see
the stars shifting their positions from each other. So, why do we not? There are two answers: one is
that they are all at the same distance from us, studding the sphere of the fixed stars; the other is that
they are exceedingly far away and their shift is too small to be seen. (Actually, this is what happens.)
Now, which of these options would Aristarchos favour? The answer is in the myriad figure: had he
believed that there was such a thing as a sphere of fixed stars, a much shorter distance would have
been enough to account for null star shifts. Yet, the very fact that he placed the stars a myriad times
farther away than the sun and that this figure links parallax to human vision, as we shall see, proves
that he had infinity in mind.
1
In Poseidonios 3c BC words as quoted by Cleomedes (ed. Ziegler 1891:102-6), ,

,
, ,
. []
, . ,
. [...]
, , ,
. , , ,
[] . []
, ,
.
, ,

. Meaning (tr. Bowen and Todd 2004:86-8), While the earth has
the size demonstrated through the procedures just described, there are several ways of proving that it has the
ratio of a point not only to the total size of the cosmos, but also to the height of the sun, which the sphere that
encloses the fixed stars far exceeds. [] A [single] pitcher of water would not measure the sea, not even the
Nile. So just as a pitcher has no [significant] ratio to the [quantities] mentioned, so too the size of the earth has
no [significant] ratio to the size of the cosmos. [] Although the sun is much larger than the earth and sea combined, it sends out to us an appearance of being about one foot wide, despite being very bright. We can thus form
the notion that the earth, if we should look toward it from the height of the sun, would either not be seen at all, or
be seen with the size of a minuscule star [under such conditions the earth would appear to be moving in the same
orbit as the sun moves when observed from the earth]; but if by hypothesis we were elevated to a distance far
beyond the sun, and right up to the sphere of the fixed stars, the earth would not be seen by us at all, not even if
imagined as having a brightness equal to [that of] the sun. Hence the stars too must be larger than the earth, in
that they are visible from it, whereas the earth could not be seen from the height of the sphere of the fixed stars.
The earth is certainly far smaller in size than the sun, since the sun itself too, if imagined at the height of the
fixed stars, will perhaps appear as large as a star.
2
In Aetios 2c words (ed. Diels 1879:355) as reconstructed from Ps-Plutarch (Placitis 2.24.8) and John of Stobi
(Anthology 1.25.3k), ,
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:305), Aristarchus sets the sun
among the fixed stars and holds that the earth moves around the suns circle [that is, the ecliptic], and is put in
shadow according to its [that is, the earths] inclinations.
A. G. Gomez
3. Aristarchos and the human eye

Before we see how Aristarchos got his myriad figure (which is the Greek word for 10,000 and the
point from where the Greek number system starts repeating itself), I must say that what follows is
based on the discovery by the American astronomer Dennis Rawlins (2008:13-32), whom I greatly
admire, of the connection between Aristarchos and human vision. You wont find here a mere recounting of his theory, for I found there is room for a little improvement. You will find that I have been
rather critical sometimes. Yet, I must own that, had it not been for him pointing in the right direction, I
most likely never would have thought of it. All started because I find his maths sometimes hard to follow; (my own limitation;) but this, together with the fact that it is my job to put things in as plain a
language as possible (and I hope Ive done so here), has turned into an advantage!
Since none of Aristarchos books on optics has survived, we can only imagine what his studies may
have been like. If we were to study human vision from scratch, where should we start? The first thing
one would think of would be to try to measure the ability of the eye to see fine detail. This is easy: we
only need to draw two black bars on a white background (for maximum contrast) and walk away from
them until our eyes can no longer tell them apart because they seem to merge into one (see Figure 3).1
The gap w between these bars divided by the distance d the eye needs to tell them apart yields the angular resolution of the eye in radians:
[rad ]
w
d
(1)
or directly in degrees by any of these relations:

w 180 w

d
2d
[ ] = 2 arctan
(2)
Figure 3: In todays optics, pairs of

bars as wide as the gap between
them are used to determine visual
acuity (Grosvenor 2007:9).
Now, the typical human eye can make out gaps of about 30 cm from a distance of about 1 km,
meaning an angular resolution of almost exactly 1 minute of a degree. With this sort of training one
can easily gauge the angular width of any distant object by viewing it through two bars adjusted to
match the objects apparent width as seen from a known distance (preferably from afar, so that the eye
does not have to refocus from distant object to closer bars). The gap between these bars (matching the
objects width) and their distance from the viewers eye give the angular width of the distant object
with impressive precision, such as the one Aristarchos got for the moon and the sun. Archimedes reports (Sandreckoner 1.10) that Aristarchos discovered that the suns apparent size is , which is
about right.2 The method just described would allow him or anyone else to obtain this degree of precision with ease by gauging the apparent size of the moon first, for safety of viewing, and applying the
same result to the sun, which seems to be the same size as the moon when seen from earth. Archimedes himself attempted to measure just this with the same sort of basic geometry, but by a slightly
simpler method (for he didnt place his sun-occulting bar or disc far enough to improve accuracy) and
accordingly got slightly inaccurate results, which, nevertheless, average the same as Aristarchos.
Now, if the full moon is (or 30) wide, then the half moon is (or 15) wide. We also know
that the unaided eye can make out the line exactly halving the moon with a precision of 1. Any
smaller than this and we wont be able to tell whether the moon is exactly half or not; any bigger and
we shall detect it. Aristarchos tried to find the exact moment when the moon is half lit by the sun as
seen from earth because then, and only then, the sun-moon-earth angle would be exactly 90, and this
1
In todays optics, Snellen charts, Landolt rings, and Knig bars are used to determine visual acuity.
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1897:223, 311), Aristarchus discovered that the suns apparent size is about one 720th part of the zodiac circle.
2
10
A. G. Gomez
would allow him to apply simple triangle geometry to work out nothing less than the suns distance!
He only needed to gauge just one other angle, the sun-earth-moon angle, then he would have all that
was needed: two angles (one of them right) and the side between them (equal to the moons distance).
With these, the suns distance could be expressed in units of that of the moon.
But when he attempted to measure this other angle (that is, the angular distance between the sun
and the moon as seen from earth), he saw to his amazement that there was no way to tell it from 90.
What sort of triangle is this? No triangle can have two right angles, so he reasoned that the angle he
needed must be imperceptibly close to 90, yielding a huge distance for the sun as compared to that of
the moon. Now, how far should the sun be for the half moon to subtend an angle that is seen as plainly
distinct from 90 by the human eye? We have all we need to find this: we know that this angle is 1 for
a moon disc of 30 (or for a half moon disc of 15). Translate this into full blown spherical degrees
by imagining that we are not seeing just a flat disc, but a full blown sphere of which only 180 face us,
with only 90 of these being lit by the sun. The equivalence is then plain to see: 1 is to 30 what 3 are
to 90. So the smallest detectable angle for a half moon is 90 3 = 87, which is exactly what Aristarchos is reported to have arrived at by the author of the book bearing his name (see Figure 4).1
Figure 4: If you walk away from this disc
until it is 30 wide (like the moon), then
(unless you have better than normal eyesight)
you wont be able to tell the two halving
lines apart, because the gap between them
will be 1 wide and this is the best the typical
human eye can spot. If instead of thinking of
this figure as of a 30 wide disc we think of it
as of a sphere, then the 1 becomes 6 of the
180 facing us. So we can tell the moment of
half moon as happening somewhere within 3
either side of true middle; any larger than this
and we would confidently tell non-halfness.
This is what Aristarchos had in mind when
he proposed his 87 angle.
4. Eagle eyes?
I hope the previous maths is simple and plain enough. I got it by trying to understand and simplify
Rawlins approach, but this time a perfect hit upon the 87 is achieved through simple maths and realistic estimates of visual acuity, instead of the approximation Rawlins had to round up in order to reach
the mark because he was working on the assumption that the limit of human vision is one 10,000th of a
radian (), which allowed him to link the myriad factor to Aristarchos cosmic size. But, is this true?
Can we really see this sharply? Let me disagree. As we have seen, a visual acuity of 1 is considered
normal. (In modern optics this is called 20/20 vision). Yet it is not difficult to find people who see
better than this (I myself can do it), with visual acuities around or (acuity of 20/15 or 20/13).
Exceptionally, very few people have been found who see as sharply as (acuity of 20/10), and thats
1
Pseudoaristarchos fourth hypothesis (ed. Heath 1913:352) states that,

, . Meaning (tr.
Heath 1913:353), When the moon appears to us halved, its distance from the sun is then less than a quadrant by
one-thirtieth of a quadrant [that is, less than 90 by 1/30th of 90 or 3, and is therefore equal to 87]. Note that I
share with Rawlins the opinion that the book On Sizes and Distances cannot be authentic for the many reasons
that will be given later.
11
A. G. Gomez
the sharpest that has ever been reported (as far as I know). The reason is that there is a physical limit to
our vision: the cone cells responsible for vision cannot be compacted closer than 0.4 at the fovea,
making it only theoretically possible to reach a visual acuity of 0.4 (acuity of 20/8), but in practice
this can only be achieved by using a laser interferometer to project images directly onto the retina so
as to bypass the eyeballs inner irregularities that prevent the unaided eye from seeing this sharply. So,
Rawlins claim that the finest we can see is the 10,000th part of a radian or (acuity of less than 20/7)
is rather overstated. We shall come back to this later.1
5. The suns distance

Now let us see what Aristarchos did with his 87 (see Figure 5).
Moon
M tan 87 =
M
19 M
tan 3
Sun
3
90
M
87
M
M
=
19 M
cos 87 sin 3
Earth
Figure 5: Should the sun be closer than 19 times the distance M to the moon, the angle between
them at half moon would then be plainly detectable by the eye as smaller than 87. Since this is
never the case, we must conclude that the sun is at least 19 times farther away than the moon.
Aristarchos triangle shows that the sun must be at least 19 times farther away than the moon. Were
it closer, the sun-earth-moon angle at the moment of half moon would then be plainly detectable by
the naked eye as smaller than 87. Today we have the benefit of trigonometry to work the distance S to
the sun out of Aristarchos triangle by any of the following relations:
S=
M
M
=
19 M
cos 87 sin 3
(3)
But trigonometry was not yet fully developed back then, so Aristarchos gauged the triangle directly,
or perhaps he relied on a geometric method that placed the result somewhere between 18 and 20.2 This
geometric method is explained in the seventh proposition of the book On Sizes and Distances: reading
it carefully shows that, even though the wording seems to assert that the sun is more than 18 times and
less than 20 times as far away as the moon, the whole thing put in context means that if the half moon
is taken to be 87 from the sun, then the sun is 18 to 20 times as far away as the moon.
In modern optics, the numerator of the 20/20 term refers to the distance in feet from which the subjects eye is
tested; the denominator refers to the distance from which the thickness of the lines shaping the letters in the Snellen chart subtend and angle of 1. Inverted, this fraction gives the eyes angular resolution in minutes of a degree.
2
In Pseudoaristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:376),
,
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:377), The distance of the sun from the earth is greater than eighteen
times, but less than twenty times the distance of the moon from the earth.
12
A. G. Gomez
But Aristarchos knew that the angle actually lay somewhere between 87 and 90, so he knew that
the 18 to 20 figure was only a lower bound for the suns distance. Even if we allow for Archimedes
(Sandreckoner 1.9) telling us that Aristarchos tried to prove that the sun was 18 to 20 times wider (and
farther away) than the moon (which follows from their apparent size),1 we may confidently add the
little tag at least, for we also know from Archimedes same book (and we deduce from Poseidonios)
that Aristarchos did indeed place the sun not just 19 times farther away than the moon, but almost a
myriad earth radii away, which is 9 times as much. And why should he do this? Why almost a myriad?
To answer this question we must see first what Archimedes exactly means by this.
6. Archimedes chiliagon
Archimedes spent a good part of his Sandreckoner (1.17-22) trying to show that the diameter of the
sun is larger than the side of a chiliagon (or polygon of a thousand sides) inscribed in its path. We can
understand this more simply by reasoning that each side of a chiliagon inscribed in a circle (such as
the suns apparent path) subtends an angle equal to the thousandth part of 360 (or 2136), which is
certainly less than the suns apparent size that Archimedes put between the 164th and 200th part of a
right angle (that is, between 3256 and 27, or about 3 either side of Aristarchos own value).
Then he made use of the old lore that any polygon of more than six sides has a perimeter greater
than three (and less than pi) times its diameter (in fact, the more sides a polygon has the more its girth
becomes like that of a circle, which is pi times its breadth). Because this number three could be neatly
used as a round figure (instead of pi itself), he surpassed Aristarchos lower bound and conveniently
made the sun thirty times as wide as the moon (which is roughly ten pi), reasoning in the process that,
because the earth is wider than the moon, the sun must be less than thirty times as wide as the earth.
Then, because thirty earths are wider than the sun, which in turn is wider than a chiliagons side, it
follows that 30,000 earths are wider than 1000 suns, which in turn are wider than a chiliagons girth.
Now, making use of the fact that a chiliagons girth is more than three times its breadth, and that its
breadth is the same as that of the earths orbit (or cosmos as then understood) within which it is inscribed, we can say that 30,000 earths are wider than three times the earths orbit. Divide it all by three
and you will find that a myriad earths are wider than the earths orbit or, put another way, that the
cosmos is less than a myriad earths wide.
But there is a loophole in Archimedes thinking, for it all hinges on how big the sun is made to be:
take the sun to be as wide as thirty moons, and the cosmos becomes less than a myriad earths wide;
take it to be ten times pi as wide as the moon and the cosmos becomes exactly a myriad earths wide;
take it to be more than ten times pi and the cosmos then becomes more than a myriad earths wide (and
we are only changing the suns size by a small amount around the pi number)! If you want to work it
all out by yourself, here is a formula for a polygons side s, where r is the radius (of 1AU in this case)
and n the number of its sides (you can find the polygons girth as n times s):
s = 2 r sin (180 n )
(4)
Or, if you prefer to get the cosmos size k straight without further ado, here is another one, where
the sun is m times the moons width, and r and n as before. Archimedes made the sun thirty times as
wide as the moon for ease of computation. How big would you make it? Try it and see what happens:
k=
1000 m
n r sin (180 n )
(5)
In Archimedes 3c BC words (ed. Heiberg 1881:248), ,

,
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1897:223), Aristarchus tried to prove that the diameter of the sun is greater
than 18 times but less than 20 times the diameter of the moon.
13
A. G. Gomez
All this proves that Archimedes end product is as arbitrary as his choice of sun size and, therefore,
the expression less than a myriad is no better than the expression exactly a myriad or more than a
myriad at telling us how far Aristarchos placed the sun (just as Poseidonios had hinted at). Yet, this
figure is of the utmost importance in trying to unravel how Aristarchos measured the world. We may
never know whether he gave a more precise figure and later rounded it down to the nearest myriad or
whether the rounding down was done by Archimedes, but we can certainly get a good idea of what the
original numbers that led to such an outcome were like, as we shall now see.
7. The myriad figure

Moving the earth had raised an interesting question: the stars may be awfully far away but, even so,
is there any chance that we may spot any shift in their position? Our best hope is to keep track of close
pairs throughout the year. If we find a pair of stars so arranged that they overlap at a certain time of the
year and six months later, when the earth is on the opposite side of its orbit, they can be told apart,
then we have found the shift we were after. The smallest gap the typical human eye can see is 1 of a
degree, so our chosen pair of stars must split at least 1 at some time along the year. Let us see whether
such an arrangement is possible (see Figure 6).
fh
nh
n
f
Figure 6: Parallax is (half) the apparent shift or displacement of a nearby object (such as a star) against a distant background (such as a farther away star),
when viewed from two different positions (like two ends of the earths orbit).
In the right triangle above, the distance n from earth to a nearby star and the distance f to a farther
away star that happens to lie just behind the first one when viewed from one point of the earths orbit
are found by the following expressions where h is the width of the earths orbit and is the shift (or
twice the parallax) observed between both stars when seen from the opposite side of the earths orbit:
nh
f = h tan 45 + arctan
+
n+h
fh =
nh
cos 45 + arctan
+
n+h
(6)
or
fh =
f 2 + h2
f h
n = h tan 45 + arctan

f +h
nh =
f h
cos 45 + arctan

f
+
h
(7)
(8)
or
nh = n 2 + h 2
f h
nh
arctan
f
+
h
n+h
= arctan
(9)
(10)
14
A. G. Gomez
All these equations simplify greatly if we take the farther of our two stars to be infinitely far away:
n=
h
tan
nh =
(11)
h
sin
(12)
Let us consider whether Aristarchos farthest away star can be thought of as being infinitely far
away. Well, the farthest object we can see with the naked eye is the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2
million light years away and looks like a whitish glow with none of its individual stars clearly discernible (unless they explode as supernovas). So we must look for our farthest star within our own
galaxy. One of the farthest away stars that can be seen with the naked eye is x Carin which, at its
impressive distance of 5930.9 light years (or 375,076,504 AU) from us, shines with magnitude 3.93.
Not that Aristarchos could possibly know any of this, of course, but we are considering it here only to
assess whether his method is sound. Now let us suppose x Carin to be the farthest away of an ideal
pair of overlapping stars such as described above. How far should its imaginary companion be from us
in order to shift 1 from x Carin once a year? The answer by (8) is 6875 AU and by (11) is 6875
AU, which proves that there is virtually no difference between calculating distances using a naked-eye
background stars actual distance or just using infinity. Aristarchos method is therefore sound and
allowed him to assess the worlds size in terms of thousands of AU (or cosmos) for the first time ever.
So, thinks Aristarchos to himself, let us go then after the big game! Let us keep our eyes peeled
for any shift in virtually any star [since any of them could be suspected of being an overlapping pair]
during a year. Oh-oh, none found! So stars must be more than 6875 cosmos away! Is this the best we
can do? Couldnt we pick the most eagle-eyed among us and try again? Well, after a year gazing at
close line-of-sight pairs, no shift was found either, but at least this allowed him to resize the world to
the best of human ability, and just how sharply can humans see? It is not difficult to find people who
can see as sharply as , try a little harder and youll find eyes sharp, while sharp eyes are very
rare indeed. Now, which do you think was Aristarchos choice (if indeed he himself couldnt see that
sharply)? The answer is in Archimedes myriad. How far away should a star be to shift from an
infinitely far away background of stars? Compute it by (11) and you get 10313 AU which, rounded
down, is the myriad we were after.1
Note that 6875 and 10313 are both multiples of a curious number, 1146 (or rather of 3600/),
which, as Rawlins (2008:23) discovered, is the number of earth radii spanning the suns distance in
Aristarchos triangle if we take the moon to be 60 earth radii away (see Figure 7)! He also points out
that al-Battani (Zij 50) in the 9c chose this very same distance as the farthest the sun can get from us,
failing to supply coherent justification for the choice. Though suggestive, this coincidence hardly
proves any connection between both ancients, even though al-Battani was explicitly building upon the
remains of Greek solar theory. What really proves that Aristarchos did indeed work out the suns distance as (at least) 1146 earth radii (and, therefore, the moons distance as 60 earth radii) is the fact that
Archimedes (Sandreckoner 1.19), in the course of his long dissertation on the virtues of the chiliagon,
mentions that the suns breadth and distance bear a ratio smaller than 11 to 1148, all while describing
the largest world then conceived!2 Let us see how this fits with Aristarchos maths.
1
I am indebted to Rawlins (2008:17) for having inspired these maths, though I disagree with him in key points
such as his claim that a shift of leads to compute a distance of 10,000 AU for the nearest star. In fact, neither
is a gap of visible to the naked eye nor does it compute a myriad AU, but twice as much because, though he
seems to be aware that the actual base line is 2 AU, his maths do not really take this into account: a slight slip
that does not diminish at all his groundbreaking discovery that Aristarchos relied so heavily on optics!
2
In Archimedes words (ed. Heiberg 1881:258), ,
. Meaning (my tr.), [The suns width] to [the suns distance from us] has a ratio smaller than 11 to 1148.
15
A. G. Gomez
60 e
1144 e
tan 3
Moon
Sun
3
90
60 e
60 e
1146 e
sin 3
87
e
Earth
Figure 7: If we take the moon to be as far away as 60e, then the

suns distance in Aristarchos triangle becomes (at least) 1146e.
In Aristarchos triangle (see Figure 7) we can see that if we take the moon to be 60e away, then the
sun is (at least) 1146e away.1 This, together with the fact that both bodies appear to span half a degree
across the sky, is all we need to find the suns width w expressed in earth radii by rearranging (2):
d
w = 2 d tan
2 180
(13)
and putting Aristarchos data in it:
wSun = 2 1146e tan = 10 e
(14)
So, the suns width in Aristarchos triangle is easy to find by any of the expressions in (13) as 10e,
meaning that the sun is (at least) 5 times wider than the earth and that Aristarchos put the width-todistance ratio of the sun at 10:1146 which, as Archimedes said, is a bit less than his own 11:1148 ratio.
Now, the number 11 in the latter comes straight from Archimedes taking the suns apparent size as
the 164th part of 90, rather than Aristarchos . Put this in (13), including his own 22/7 value for pi,
and the suns width becomes exactly 11e, which is perhaps why he chose such an awkward looking .
The other number in Archimedes ratio, 1148, comes from his long calculation in Sandreckoner 1.19,
which essentially boils down to multiplying 164 by 7 (both the denominators of his chosen and ).
This calculation is likely to have been tailored to yield a number that is the hypotenuse of a triangle (or
diagonal of a rectangle) whose sides are 60 and 1146: a personal interpretation of Aristarchos triangle
by Archimedes the Geometer! Anyway, if we compute back the moons distance that corresponds to a
suns distance of 1148e, we get it as just slightly over 60e, which Aristarchos would most likely round
down to 60e, thus confirming the only possibility left: that of his 10:60:1146 ratio.
M Sandreckoner 1148e sin 3 60 e
(15)
The symbol e is taken here to mean earth radii. Likewise, m and s will stand for the moons and the suns radii
when encountered, and M and S, for the distance to the moon and the sun respectively.
16
A. G. Gomez
8. On Sizes and Distances

As stated before, a suns width of (at least) 10e means that the sun is (at least) 5 times wider than the
earth. This is in stark contrast to the fifteenth proposition of the book On Sizes and Distances, which
states that the sun is 19/3 to 43/6 (a mean of 6) times wider than the earth.1 This is not the only
strange thing about this book that has long been ascribed to Aristarchos. The first who noted that it
cant be genuinely his was Rawlins (2008:19), who pointed out a number of compelling arguments
such as the fact that the author of On Sizes wrongly takes the suns and moons apparent size as 2
(that is, four times the truth),2 gainsaying Archimedes report (Sandreckoner 1.10) that the true Aristarchos rightly takes it as . So, according to the author of On Sizes, whoever it was, eclipses can last
more than half a day (or about four times longer than they really do)!
Now let us draw some conclusions from the data contained in On Sizes. If the sun is 6 times wider
than the earth (that is, if it is 13e wide), then it must also be about 387e away in order to subtend an
apparent size of 2, as can be found by rearranging (2) thus:
d=
w
180 w
2 tan( / 2)
(16)
where d, w, and are the suns distance, width, and apparent size. From the suns distance thus obtained, we can derive the moons distance as 20e by rearranging (3).3 The same can be deduced from
the seventeenth proposition of On Sizes, which states that the earth is 108/43 to 60/19 (a mean of
2316/817) times wider than the moon.4 If so (that is, if the moon is 193/270e wide), then the moon
must again be about 20e away in order to look 2 wide (see Table 1).
Table 1. Summary of sizes and distances (in terms of the earths radius),
as derived from the 15th and 17th propositions of the book On Sizes.
Prop. 15 values lower [mean] upper
Suns width
12
13
14
Suns distance
363
387
411
Moons distance
19
20
21
Moons shift
6
5
5
Prop. 17 values lower [mean] upper

Moons width
43/54 193/270 19/30
Suns distance
344
387
430
Moons distance
18
20
22
Moons shift
6
5
5
The fifteenth proposition of the book On Sizes and Distances states that (ed. Heath 1913:402),
, .
Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:403), The diameter of the sun has to the diameter of the earth a ratio greater than that
which 19 has to 3, but less than that which 43 has to 6.
2
The sixth hypothesis of the book On Sizes and Distances states that (ed. Heath 1913:352),
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:353), The moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign of the zodiac [that is, 1/15th of 30, or 2].
3
Note that Heath (1913:350), quoting Hultsch (1900:199), rightly derives the same conclusion, with the only
difference that, instead of using the mean value of 6e for the suns width as I have done here, he uses the lower
19/3 value given in the fifteenth proposition and correspondingly obtains a distance for the sun and the moon of
about 360e and 19e respectively. Had he used the upper 43/6 value, he would have obtained 411e and 21e instead, as readers can derive from the equations and method presented here and summarized in Table 1.
4
The seventeenth proposition of the book On Sizes and Distances states that (ed. Heath 1913:408),
[] ,
. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:409), The diameter of the earth is to the diameter of the moon in a ratio
greater than that which 108 has to 43, but less than that which 60 has to 19.
17
A. G. Gomez
So, according to the 15th and 17th propositions of the book On Sizes, the moon is about 20e away.
At this distance, the moon would subtend a wild shift of 5 (vs. 2 in reality) as seen by observers
placed on opposite ends of the earths surface; this can be found by rearranging (11). If instead of simultaneously watching the moon from two extreme points on the earths surface we watch it from a
point on the earths equator which moves with the earths rotation and gets two earth radii away every
twelve hours, we would witness the strange phenomenon of the moon looping its way across the sky
(like the outer planets), as its mean sidereal motion (which amounts to about 6 in half a day) would
add its own touch to the shift of 5 mentioned above!1 Since the moon travels 2M (where M is the
moons distance, taken here as 20e) in one sidereal month (of 27.32 days), it follows that the moon
travels 2e in half a day. At the same time, our observer on the equator moves along an arc equal in
length to e (or half the earths circumference), which is more than the arc travelled by the moon. This
means that the equatorial observer travels faster than the moon, and Rawlins (2008:20), the first to
point this out, explains that the moon would be seen to move in retrograde against the background of
the stars as a consequence of the observer being moved towards the moon or away from it in the
course of half a day.2 This happens because, though the observer moves faster than the moon, neither
moves in a straight line (while the moon may be taken to do so, certainly the observer cannot), and the
result is that in half a day the effective displacement of the equatorial observer is not e but 2e, which
is not more but less than the moons displacement. So, at a distance of 20e, we would see the moon
fly a wide loop against the background of the stars starting at moonrise, slowing, halting, and reversing its motion only to resume moving forwards near moonset.3
To add fuel to the flames, the 11th proposition of the book On Sizes is not mathematically consistent
with the others. It states that the moon is 22 to 30 times farther away than it is wide.4 So, by taking
the moons width from the 17th proposition, we can easily work out the moons distance as ranging
from 14e (the result of 19/3022) to 23.89e (the result of 43/5430), and averaging 19e, instead of
the 20e derived from the 15th and 17th propositions.5 Note that the closest of these distances would
make the moon fly loops so wide as could be seen even from Mediterranean climes!
None of these follies is ever mentioned by Archimedes. On the contrary, he reports different things.
This very likely means that Archimedes, one of the greatest mathematical geniuses of all times and to
whom we owe the most detailed first hand account of Aristarchos theory, never read the book On
Sizes, presumably because it was written after his (and Aristarchos) time. Actually, the book Archimedes talks about describes an already fully blown heliocentric theory that places the stars at least a
1
Since the moon takes a mean of 27.321662 days to complete one sidereal revolution (that is, to cover 360
around the earth in reference to the fixed stars), it follows that it covers about 6 in half a day.
2
Note that Rawlins, following Heath, uses the lower of the moons distances derived from the 15th proposition,
that is, 19e, instead of the mean value of 20e used here, and therefore gets a moons parallax of 3. Note also
that Rawlins refers to the moons (horizontal) parallax, which is the angle (of about 1 in reality) subtended at
the moons distance by the earths radius, while I use the moons shift, or angle (of about 2 in reality) subtended
at the moons distance by the earths width.
3
The reader may actually see how this would happen in a free sky simulator like Stellarium: the programming
instructions are included in Appendix 1.
4
The eleventh proposition of the book On Sizes and Distances states that (ed. Heath 1913:386),
, ,
, . Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:387), The diameter of the moon is less than 2/45ths, but
greater than 1/30th, of the distance of the centre of the moon from our eye.
5
Eratosthenes is the first person ever to use a moon distance of 19e (Rawlins 2008:6) as can be deduced from his
own value of 78 myriad stades, which comes from multiplying (and rounding) 19 by his own earths radius of
40800 stades which, a hundredfold, is also the basis for his suns distance as bequeathed to us by Eusebios,
Bishop of Caesarea-Palestine (Praeparatio 15.53). Being a geocentrist, the former would prefer the 19e value of
the 11th proposition to the slightly farther 20e of the 15th and 17th propositions, all this assuming he derived his
own value from the book On Sizes (if indeed it had already been written), rather than the other way round.
18
A. G. Gomez
myriad times farther away than the sun, and the sun at least a myriad earth radii away! The book On
Sizes, by contrast, though building upon some Aristarchan data and providing invaluable insight into
the 3 to half moon detail, seems the work of a geocentrist willing to bring both sun and moon as close
to earth as possible, little realizing the implications of his own constructions: a 2 wide moon flying
loops! Definitely, this doesnt sound like the Aristarchos Archimedes talks about in his Sandreckoner.
Thus, as far as we can tell, the 10c Greek copy of On Sizes kept at the Vatican, which is the oldest and
best preserved of its kind, is a fake: albeit a most valuable one. Proof of this is the most absurd of all
its follies: why did Pseudoaristarchos take the suns and moons apparent size as 2 instead of as
Archimedes reports Aristarchos really took? Rawlins (1991:69) suggests that Aristarchos used an ancient unit called or part, which was of a zodiacal sign. Neugebauer (1975:652, 671) attests
how the ancients used to divide the great circle of the sky in twelfths (each being a zodiacal sign of
30), twenty-fourths (called steps or half signs of 15), and forty-eighths (called parts or half steps of
7). Poseidonios, for one, whom we know was greatly influenced by Aristarchos, is said by Cleomedes (Heavens 1.10) to use exactly these.1 So, while the real Aristarchos would say that the moon
subtends one fifteenth of a part of a sign (that is, 1/15th of 7, or ), Pseudoaristarchos would take
this to mean that the moon subtends one fifteenth part of a sign (that is, 1/15th of 30, or 2).
9. The solar system scale

Let us go back to the earlier Aristarchos: the one who placed the moon 60e away, and the sun no
less than 19.1 times farther away than the moon, that is, 1146e away. Wouldnt he attempt to measure
the distance to the planets too? Why, to start with, Mercury and Venus might roughly be assumed to
be and of an AU from the sun (and this wouldnt be too far off from the truth as a first approximation). Even Mars could be assumed to follow a similar pattern and be placed about 1 AU from the
sun (vs. 1 AU in reality). One way to test and refine this guesstimate is to try to measure any planetary diurnal parallax, that is, the shift that the planets show against the background of the stars owing
to the earths rotation.
If we place the sun 1146e away in a simplified heliocentric system such as the one just mentioned,
then, when at their closest to earth, both Venus and Mars should show a daily shift of about 18 to an
equatorial observer, as can be found by putting w as 2e and d as of 1146e in (2). If we were in Alexandria rather than at the equator, we would still witness a wild shift of 15 (comparable to half the
moons disc).2 This is plain enough to see with the naked eye. Mercury too, when closest to earth (that
is, when it is of an AU from us), would show a daily shift of about 9 to an equatorial observer (8 if
seen from Alexandria). Now let us see when the best time would be for such observations.
In the case of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, these observations would be best made when in opposition,
that is, when these planets are closest to earth and opposite the sun in the sky, staying visible the
whole night long, rising as the sun sets and setting as the sun rises; or, if you do not wish the planets
proper motion to bear too much on your observations during the time it takes the earths rotation to
waft you over 2e, you might prefer (as Flamsteed did on the night of October 6, 1672, when he measured the parallax of Mars) to observe these planets when at a station, that is, when they seem to halt
their motion against the background of stars. There is no proper motion correction to make then.
In Cleomedes words (ed. Ziegler 1891:92), ,

, ,
. Meaning (tr. Bowen and Todd 2004:79), Posidonius divides the zodiacal circle
(which, since it too divides the cosmos into 2 equal parts, is equal to the meridians) into 48 parts by dividing
each of its [twelve signs] into quarters.
2
Rather than using just 2e for this calculation, you may need the formula for the radius r of the parallel corresponding to a given latitude (that of Alexandria: 311250 N), which is r = recos(Lat)/Sqr(1-(1-rp/re)sin(Lat)),
where re and rp are the earths equatorial and polar radii, and Lat is the latitude (Meeus 1998:83).
19
A. G. Gomez
The case of Mercury is most ill suited for this sort of observation, because it is always too close to
the sun and we are dazzled before we can detect any shift in the planets position. Venus is slightly
better. When closest to us, it is said to be in inferior conjunction (that is, passing in front of the sun).
This is not the best time to choose for naked eye observers, even though, today, with the help of special cameras and accurate clocks, astronomers use the rare transits of the sun by Venus to gauge its
parallax, which turns out to be about (or a whole shift of about 1) at this moment. Naked eye astronomers would do better to wait for Venus to be at one of its greatest elongations from the sun (that
is, when it remains longest in the sky as a morning or evening star), so that the earths rotation may
waft us along the greatest possible distance while it is visible.
As Rawlins (2008:27) points out, only three observations of a planet occulting a star have survived
from this far ago to our days: all are preserved in Ptolemys Almagest, all are Greek, all date from
within the period of Aristarchos lifetime, and two of them are dated according to the Dionysian calendar. Ptolemy doesnt give a hint as to the purpose of such unique observations, but he (Alm. 10.4)
mentions Timocharis of Alexandria (a close associate of Aristyllos of Samos) as the author of one of
them: that of Venus passing over Zaniah ( Vir) on October 12, 271, at near dawn. This observation
was made a month and a half after Venus had passed its greatest morning elongation, so its not quite
the ideal moment to look for any possible shift in Venus position, though it still remains long in the
sky and is not too bright to dazzle nearby stars and could, therefore, be used. The shift that could be
expected of Venus at this moment when seen from Alexandria in the simplified heliocentric model
mentioned earlier is about 1.1 (This would be difficult to spot!)
Ptolemy (Alm. 10.9) also mentions the occultation of Acrab ( Sco) by Mars as recorded by someone he doesnt name on January 16, 271, at near dawn. This moment is not the best we should choose
for measuring the shift of Mars, for it doesnt happen near a station. The moment chosen, instead, is
when Mars is near its western quadrature (that is, at right angles with the earth-sun line), rising at
midnight and setting at noon. Yet, even so, given the simplified model and the early 1146e value for
the suns distance we are considering here, even at this moment we should expect a shift of nearly 2
for Mars as seen from Alexandria.2 (Still quite demanding for the naked eye to see!)
The last of the planet-star occultations mentioned by Ptolemy (Alm. 11.3) is that of Jupiter passing
over the Southern Ass ( Cnc) on September 4, 240, before dawn. This observation was taken nearly
a month before a station of Jupiter and, therefore, while it was still far from earth. At this moment,
Jupiter should show a shift of about as seen from Alexandria, but if we assume Jupiter to be 1 AU
from the sun (following the same pattern as assumed for the inner planets), its shift then becomes 1.3
1
Supposing Venus to be AU from the sun and the sun to be 1146e from earth, then Timocharis observation is
made when Venus is about 1181e from earth. Taking the radius of the parallel at Alexandrias latitude to be
about 0.86e (instead of 1e at the equator), and putting twice this number in (2) together with the Earth-Venus distance, will give a daily shift of 5, but this is a maximum that can never be reached because, at this time, Venus is
visible only during 2 hours (not 12), so the only shift we can really expect to see amounts to about 1.
2
Supposing Mars to be 1 AU from the sun and the sun to be 1146e from earth, then this observation is made
when Mars is about 1605e from earth. Taking the radius of the parallel at Alexandrias latitude to be as before,
and putting twice this number in (2) together with the Earth-Mars distance, will give a daily shift of about 3,
but at quadrature Mars is visible only during 6 hours (not 12), so the only shift we can really expect to see
amounts to about 1.8.
3
Supposing the sun to be 1146e from earth, then this observation is made when Jupiter is about 6539e from earth.
Taking the radius of the parallel at Alexandrias latitude as before, and putting twice this number in (2) together
with the Earth-Jupiter distance, will give a daily shift of about 1, but on the date chosen Jupiter is visible only
during 4 hours (not 12), so the only shift we can really expect to see amounts to about . If we assume Jupiter
to follow the same distance pattern as was assumed earlier for Mercury and Venus, that is, if we assume Jupiter
to be 1 AU from the sun, or AU from earth when at its closest, things change: now Jupiter would be about
2094e from earth at this moment, which would yield a daily shift of about 2.8, or about 1 in 4 hours.
20
A. G. Gomez
None of these observations is taken at a time when we should expect the greatest possible shift in
planetary positions, but they prove that Timocharis in Alexandria and perhaps someone else who had a
liking for the Dionysian calendar had an interest in planet-star occultations. And why should this be?
Rawlins suggests that these three unique occultations saved by Ptolemy from oblivion were, in fact,
only part of a larger body of observations intended to find out whether the planets showed any daily
shift, as they surely should in the model originally proposed by Aristarchos, in which the sun is placed
at least 1146e away (let this model be called Early Aristarchan, or EA for short, from now on).
Measuring these shifts would allow the suns distance to be more accurately defined. We have already
seen that in this system both Mars and Venus should be expected to shift about 18 (15 if observed
from Alexandria) when at their closest to earth. We have also seen that the observation of the inner
planets Mercury and Venus is marred by their proximity to the sun. Therefore, Mars is our best hope,
especially when at opposition and, best of all, when at a station.1
When John Flamsteed measured the parallactic shift of Mars from Derby, England, on the night of
October 6, 1672, he found it to be 30 (vs. 38 in reality).2 Giovanni Cassini measured it too the
same year, and found it to be 25. Both astronomers realized that 1672 would be an excellent time for
such an observation, for Mars would be at opposition near perihelion. Cassini used a different method:
he observed Mars from Paris and sent an assistant to French Cayenne Island with instructions to record
the position of Mars from there at a specified time, then he had to wait a year for his return before putting together his own observations and those of his assistant (Moreland 2002). Recently, the Mars
opposition perihelion of August 8, 2003, was the closest Mars got to earth in some 60,000 years. It
gave astronomers an excellent opportunity to gauge Mars parallax, which Moreland (2003) found was
22.9 2 (a shift of about 46) at this momentous occasion.
So, not even at their closest do any of the planets show any shift that is detectable to the naked eye.
Besides, even though the typical human eye can see detail as fine as about 1, observations of planetary
diurnal parallax are much more challenging than just trying to tell the moment of half-moon, or trying
to distinguish two bright stars against the background of the night sky. This time the problem is much
more challenging: we have to compare the position of a planet at one moment with its position several
hours later! When Aristarchos failed to see the wild shift of 15 that his EA model predicted for Mars,
in fact, when he failed to see any shift at all, he realized that the 1146e distance was still too short! He
also found that, if you multiply this number by 9, a curious symmetry occurs in this model, which thus
becomes what I shall call the Ultimate Aristarchan (UA) model. In the UA model the distance to the
sun becomes 10314e, which, rounded down to a myriad earth radii, is the distance Archimedes says
Aristarchos finally adopted for the sun. At this distance the sun subtends a parallactic shift of exactly
(which is the visual acuity Aristarchos used to determine the distance to the nearest stars). The
planets, too, when at their closest to earth and assuming them to be regularly spaced by gaps of about
AU in the UA model, are allowed a shift of exactly 1 for Mercury and 2 for Venus and Mars! Next
question: how big is the sun? Compute it by (13) and you get exactly 90e wide. Now, in the same way
as the small moon moves round the big earth, lest the tail wag the dog, shouldnt the tiny earth move
round the huge sun? There is still one more piece of the puzzle to fit into place: how did Aristarchos
get his 60e distance for the Moon? Let this and more be the subject of the next part of this article.
The reader is encouraged to try and gauge any possible planetary shifts in this EA model, either through
mathematical formulas as I have done here or, even, by using a sky simulator like Stellarium in a similar way as
indicated in Appendix 1: rather than bringing each of the heavenly bodies closer to earth in order to simulate the
EA model, its much easier to simply change the earths radius from its 6378.14 km value to an imaginary size
of 130489.127 km. This produces exactly the same effect as if the sun was 1146e away. Try and see how much
the planets shift against the background of the stars.
2
The true value can be found by putting the earths equatorial diameter (2e) in equation (2) together with the
distance (10678e) from Earth to Mars at the specified moment (the night of 1672/10/6).
21
A. G. Gomez
Appendix 1
You can see Pseudoaristarchos moon fly loops against the background of the stars if you download
and install the free program Stellarium in your computer, open the ssystem folder (which can be accessed by opening My Computer, then Local Disk, then Program Files, then Stellarium, then data, and
then ssystem), place the pointer at the very beginning of the text there, and add the following data:
[pseudoaristarchos moon]
name = Pseudoaristarchos Moon
parent = Earth
radius = 1737.4
halo = false
color = 1.0,0.98,0.96
tex_map = lune.png
tex_halo = NULL
lighting = true
albedo = 0.12
rot_periode = 655.7198811
rot_rotation_offset = 38
rot_obliquity = 23.45
#rot_equator_ascending_node = 0
coord_func = ell_orbit
orbit_Epoch = 2451545.0
orbit_Period = 27.32166171
orbit_SemiMajorAxis = 129973.5
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.0549
orbit_Inclination = 23.435
orbit_AscendingNode = 5.0445479
orbit_LongOfPericenter = 83.3532465
orbit_MeanLongitude = 218.3164477
landscape = moon
Then close the ssystem folder and save the changes. The next time you open Stellarium youll find a
brand new body among the whole set of bodies already there. I have called this imaginary new body
Pseudoaristarchos Moon. It is identical to the moon in everything except its distance from earth,
which the number 129973.5 in the instructions above sets at 20e (the moons semi-major axis being
384399 km or about 60e). The disparate apparent size (of 2) that Pseudoaristarchos gave to the moon
is ignored here, though, obviously, bringing the moon closer will make it look bigger.
There is yet another way of seeing the moon looping its way across the sky without inserting the set
of instructions given above: just change the earths radius from 6378.14 km to 19012.346 km and the
true moon will then behave as if it was 20e away. You must open the ssystem folder, find the earths
radius there, and simply change it as indicated. Close and save the changes as before. Do not forget to
undo these changes if you want Stellarium to revert to its original settings.
22

Alberto Gomez Gomez
algomgom@gmail.com
(2011-07-26; revised on 2011-11-20)
Part 2
Contents of Part 2
1. Introduction......................................23
2. The moons distance ........................24
3. Aristarchos solstice.........................29
4. Ancient year lengths.........................32
5. Precession of the equinoxes .............34
6. Clues on clay ................................... 35

7. Aristarchos Great Year................... 36
8. Tropical and sidereal years.............. 38
9. Summary ......................................... 39
10. Conclusion..................................... 39
1. Introduction
As we saw in Part 1, there are two main sources from which we learn of Aristarchos: one is the
book On Sizes, which presents him as a geocentrist ascribing to the moon a wrong apparent size of 2
and a wrong mean distance of either 19e or 20e (as follows from Propositions 11, and 15 and 17); the
other source is Archimedes, who presents him in the Sandreckoner as a heliocentrist ascribing to the
moon a correct apparent size of and a correct distance of 60e (as equation 15 proves).1 Whether we
choose to trust one source more than the other is completely up to us, but Archimedes report shows
that Aristarchos got it all correctly, even when he said that, unless a star is less than a myriad times as
far away as the sun, we wont be able to spot any yearly shift in its position with the naked eye.
Attempts to reconcile both traditions were made, for example, when Heath (1913:312) suggested
that the book On Sizes was an early work written before Aristarchus had made the more accurate []
observation recorded by Archimedes, but this cannot be so, because the 87 of the 4th Hypothesis had
been computed from (and this implies that the real Aristarchos had already arrived at) a wide moon
(as shown in Figure 4), and not from the 2 reported in On Sizes. Voltaire (Phil. Dic., System) was
the first to suspect that this book is a sham, but he provided no proof of this.2 This proof is now before
your eyes, lucky reader, but let us not discard the book On Sizes altogether, for we may glimpse the
real Aristarchos through the tainted glass it provides: its maths do not tally, but they do tell tales; the
only thing we have to do is to tell the true data from the fake. The question we are going to address
now is how he measured the moons distance, and On Sizes suggests that he used moon eclipses.
1
The numbering of the equations and figures in this paper follows that of Part 1.
In Voltaires words (ed. Grasset 1775:410) Quant au prtendu Aristarque de Samos, quon dit avoir dvelop
les dcouvertes des Chaldens sur le cours de la plante de la terre et des autres plantes, il est si obscur, que
Wallis a t oblig de le commenter dun bout lautre pour tcher de le rendre intelligible. Enfin il est fort douteux que le livre attribu cet Aristarque de Samos soit de lui. On a fort souponn les ennemis de la nouvelle
philosophie davoir fabriqu cette fausse pice en faveur de leur mauvaise cause. Ce nest pas seulement en fait
de vieilles chartes que nous avors eu de pieux faussaires. Meaning (authors tr.; also Fleming 1901:40), As for
the so-called Aristarchus of Samos, who is said to have built on the Chaldean discoveries about the motion of the
earth and other planets, he is so obscure that Wallis [of Roberval] had to provide footnotes throughout his work
in order to make him intelligible. Finally, it is very doubtful that the book attributed to this Aristarchus of Samos
is really by him. It has been strongly suspected that the enemies of the new philosophy have made this forgery in
favour of their evil cause. It is not only in respect of old documents that similar forgeries are resorted to.
2
A. G. Gomez
2. The moons distance

The 5th Hypothesis of the book On Sizes states that the earths shadow (where the moon crosses it)
is twice as wide as the moon,1 and the 14th Proposition states that the moon is over 675 times farther
away than the distance between the centre of the moons spherical body (not of the disc) and the centre
of the earths shadow (at point S in Figure 8) during a perfectly central moon eclipse.2 Both statements
are grossly wrong.
Figure 8: Proposition 14 states that the distance BC (between the centres of the earth
and the moon) has to CS a ratio greater than 675 to 1 (Heath 1913:403).
In fact, Proposition 14 is grossly understated, as readers may derive from the following equation,
where is the apparent size of the moon, and , the apparent size of the earths shadow:
1
BC
=
CS 1 sin( / 2) sin( / 2)
tan( / 2) tan( / 2)
(17)
Taking and to be 2 and 4 degrees respectively, as follows from Hypotheses 5 and 6, the ratio
BC:CS becomes 1313; and using the actual values of and ( and 1.4) in (17), the ratio BC:CS
becomes 11884, which is nowhere near the 675 value stated in On Sizes. It is also somewhat odd that
so much attention should be paid to this hair-splitting detail, which, given the distances and angles
involved, can hardly have any bearing on the problem discussed, while the important fact that the
1
In Pseudo-Aristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:352), . Meaning (tr.

Heath 1913:353), The breadth of the [earths] shadow is [that] of two moons.
2
In Pseudo-Aristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:398),
,
, . Meaning (tr. Heath
1913:399), The straight line joined from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon has to the straight line
cut off from the axis towards the centre of the moon by the straight line subtending the circumference within the
earths shadow [in Figure 32 of Heath 1913:400] a ratio greater than that which 675 has to 1.
24
A. G. Gomez
observers eye is not at the earths centre is wholly set aside even from the very start of the book,
when Hypothesis 2 states that the earth is but a point compared to the sphere in which the moon moves
(thus ruling out the possibility of any diurnal parallax).1 This is later contradicted when Hypothesis 5
states that this point casts a shadow twice wider than the moon! I am not certain of the extent to
which the original Aristarchan mathematics have been tampered with here, so this time I wont take
(17) as a rigorous mathematical proof, but only as another hint supporting the suspicion that the book
On Sizes was an attempt by the enemies of the new philosophy to belittle Aristarchos and make him
look incompetent as both a mathematician and an astronomer. We know better, thanks to Archimedes.
But, how on earth did the Aristarchos Archimedes writes about pin down the moons distance at 60e?
Was he the first to do so?
We saw at the end of the first part how Timocharis and some other astronomer(s) in Alexandria had
been busy observing planet-star occultations, possibly in the hope of finding some daily planetary shift
that might serve to establish the true size of the solar system. The fact that no such shift can ever be
seen with the naked eye is the most likely explanation for Aristarchos ultimately placing the sun
about a myriad earth radii away, as reported by Archimedes in the Sandreckoner (2.1). We also saw
how only three of these ancient observations, dating from 271 and 240, have survived to our day,
being preserved in the Almagest (10.4, 10.9, and 11.3).
Now, if these observations were indeed intended to measure any parallax, shouldnt that of the
moon have been attempted first? After all, the moon is the closest of all heavenly bodies and must
show the greatest shift against the background of the stars when seen from two different locations on
the earths surface. The answer is yes: we are lucky that Ptolemy (Alm. 7.3) has preserved four 3c BC
observations of close moon-star approaches, all of them by Timocharis and, as expected, all of them
predating the three planetary observations mentioned above (see Table 2).
Table 2. Timocharis lunar observations in the Almagest (7.3).
Nabonassar Era
Julian Date
454 Phaophi 16 294 Dec 21

454 Tybi 5
293 Mar 9
465 Hathyr 29 282 Jan 29
466 Thoth 7
282 Nov 9
UT2
h
4
21h
17h
2h
Star
Observation
Heiberg
Acrab
Spica
Pleiades
Spica
Conjunction
Conjunction
Occultation
Conjunction
2, p. 32
2, p. 28
2, p. 25
2, p. 29
But, whatever Timocharis did with these observations is not likely to have surpassed the precision
reached in the 16c by the master of naked eye astronomy Tycho Brahe (Omnia 2:131), when he put
the moon between 52.4 and 60.6 (a mean of 56) earth radii away. The fact that the Sandreckoner
contains information proving (15) that Aristarchos pinned down the moons distance at 60e gives a
hint of the sort of mind we are dealing with here. If we want to explain how Aristarchos nailed down
the moons distance, we need a method capable of yielding greater accuracy than Tychos. This
method is hinted at in the book On Sizes and it involves the study of moon eclipses. So, let us now see
how the whole thing was done.
In Pseudo-Aristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:352),

. Meaning (tr. Heath 1913:353), The earth is in the relation of a point and centre to the sphere
of the moon.
2
The approximate Greenwich Mean Time is that of my own reckoning. Add two hours to find the local time at
Alexandria.
25
A. G. Gomez
The earths shadow, which can best be seen when it sweeps the moon, was known to be shaped as a
long cone even before Aristotle. His words in Meteorology (1.8) reveal that speculations on the size
and distances of the sun and moon had already begun by the middle of the 4c BC;1 Archimedes
confirms this when he says (Sandreckoner 1.9) that Eudoxos of Knidos estimated the sun to be nine
times wider than the moon, and that Pheidias (his own father) estimated it to be twelve times as wide.
The medieval Arabic versions of the book On Sizes provide further proof that Aristarchos knew about
the conical shape of the earths shadow, for they include one final proposition not found in the Greek
sources that deals exactly with its shape and size: Proposition 17a, as Berggren and Sidoli (2007:218)
call it, states that the tip of the earths shadow cone is between 108/37ths and 4 times farther away than
the moon.2 This is true for any distance of the moon. Taking that of the 15th and 17th propositions gives
a mean shadow length of 70e, but following Archimedes lead and using the moons true distance,
Prop 17a puts the earths shadow length correctly between 175e and 240e (actually it is about 216e).
The length d of the earths shadow can also be found by putting the earths width w and the suns
apparent size in (16) or, more rigorously, in this other equation:3
d=
e
e
sin( / 2)(1 e / s ) sin( / 2)
(18)
where e and s are the earths and suns radii. Thus, using Aristarchos value in either (16) or (18)
gives a shadow length of about 229e. Once we know the length of the earths shadow cone, we still
need to know how wide it is at the point where the moon crosses it in order to work out the moons
distance. One way to do this is by drawing pictures of an eclipsing moon and then trying to pinpoint
the centre of the earths shadow by drawing perpendiculars and bisectors accordingly, as shown in
Figure 9 (Beech 2008:99).
H
Figure 9. The centre C of the earths

shadow is a point lying somewhere along
the perpendicular bisector of the line HN
connecting the moons horns during a moon
eclipse. If O is the point on the shadows
arc halfway between these horns, then the
perpendicular bisectors of the lines HO and
NO meet at the centre of the shadow. The
ratio OC:OH gives the size of the shadow.
N
1
In Aristotles 4c BC words (ed. Ideler 1834:30; Bekker 1831:345), ,

,
,
, ,
. ,
. Meaning (tr. Webster 1931:36; see also Heath 1913:331), If astronomical
demonstrations are correct and the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth and the distance of the stars
from the earth many times greater than that of the sun (just as the sun is further from the earth than the moon),
then the cone made by the rays of the sun would terminate at no great distance from the earth, and the shadow of
the earth (what we call night) would not reach the stars. On the contrary, the sun shines on all the stars and the
earth screens none of them.
2
In Tusis words (ed. Berggren & Sidoli 2007:249), FI JI LMNO Q ST JI LMNO Q Y] [ Q Y
QÎ] Q _M JI [QbIcM eFQI fI gN JIY QÎ c] QÎ] Q Y I fQ _ M LMNO e Meaning
(tr. Berggren and Sidoli 2007:250), The ratio of the distance of the vertex of the shadow cone from the center of
the moon, when the moon is on the axis of the cone containing the earth and the sun, to the distance of the center
of the moon from the center of the earth is greater than the ratio 71 to 37 and less than the ratio 3 to 1.
3
See Meeus (2007:365) for an alternative way to find this.
26
A. G. Gomez
This method is all right for astronomers working with modern cameras and telescopes, but, without
these advantages, it is not likely to yield the desired accuracy. There is however one method that does:
timing moon eclipses. Ever since Alexanders conquest of Babylon in 331 BC, Greek astronomers had
full, unrestricted access to centuries of careful Babylonian observations. Aristarchos surely benefited
from their eclipse records and, so, he must have learned about the typical duration of moon eclipses.
But, even if we deny him this benefit, this is not such a difficult thing to accomplish that he might not
have found it all by himself just by studying the few total moon eclipses (Espenak and Meeus 2009)
that were visible from Alexandria during his active life as an astronomer (see Table 3).
Table 3. Total moon eclipses that were visible in their
entirety from Alexandria during Aristarchos active life.
Julian Date
304 Nov 1
300 Feb 25
293 Apr 8
286 May 20
283 Mar 18
279 Jun 30
276 Oct 23
272 Feb 16
264 Sep 11
261 Jan 15
260 Jan 5
257 Oct 24
253 Feb 16
253 Aug 11
TT1
02:24
04:29
00:49
03:19
00:54
03:14
00:09
04:05
02:25
23:48
00:00
00:11
03:01
04:40
T
h
Total
m
3 55
3h55m
3h53m
3h51m
3h51m
3h50m
3h49m
3h48m
3h46m
3h46m
3h46m
3h45m
3h44m
3h44m
1 20
1h02m
1h25m
1h41m
42m
h
1 33m
50m
1h17m
1h19m
1h17m
45m
h
1 23m
59m
1h22m
Partial
3h30m
3h21m
3h47m
3h41m
3h24m
3h29m
3h13m
3h22m
3h44m
3h40m
3h35m
3h27m
3h22m
3h33m
Water clocks would have provided a reliable means of finding how long it takes the moons centre
to cross the earths shadow. This is easy to do by keeping track of some central feature on the moons
face as it enters and leaves the shadow. It can also be found by timing the total and partial phases of
the eclipse and then taking the mean of these two values (see Figure 10).
Partial phase
begins
Total phase
begins
Total phase
ends
Partial phase
ends
Figure 10: The partial (or umbral) phase of a moon eclipse begins when the moon
starts entering the earths shadow (or umbra) and ends when the moon leaves it. The
total phase of the eclipse lasts while the moon is totally engulfed in the earths shadow.
Terrestrial Time of greatest eclipse. Subtract T and add two hours to find the local time at Alexandria.
27
A. G. Gomez
Once this is done, it is possible to find the angular width of the earths shadow by an equation
such as this:
360
t
+ 1
T
1440
[ ] =
(19)
where T is the time the moon takes to cross the sky [expressed as a constant of about 27 days],1
and t is the time the moons centre takes to cross the earths shadow [expressed in minutes]. Note that
because the earth goes round the sun in about 365 days, the earths shadow (like the sun) falls behind
the stars by almost exactly 1 every day; this is accounted for by the correction +1 in the equation
above. The reasoning behind (19) couldnt be simpler: if the moon takes 27 days to move 360
across the sky and it also takes a mean of about 141 minutes to cross the earths shadow, then the
earths shadow must be about 1.4 wide. Note that Aristarchos neednt have known his T or t values
with great accuracy, for even rough approximations yield fairly good results. Now we have all we
need to calculate the moons distance (see Figure 11).
A
B
C
D
E
F
Figure 11: The triangles ACE, BCD, and DEF are proportional to each
other, because the apparent size of the sun and moon are about the same.
The earths shadow BD in Figure 11 is 1.4 across, and therefore it is about 2.8 times wider than the
moon DF. This also makes the distance CD about 2.8 times longer than the distance ED to the moon.
Now, the distance EC (which is known to be about 229e) is the same as the distance CD + ED, but this
is the same as saying that 2.8 ED + ED = 229e, and therefore the moons distance ED is about 60e.
This explanation is virtually identical to that given by Rogers (1960:234), but for the numbers used.
Had it not been for the Sandreckoners 11:1148 ratio, we may never have learned that Aristarchos
understood so well how to make the most of moon eclipses. No geocentrist ever reckoned the moons
distance better than him: not even Tycho with his parallax method, or Hipparchos, or Ptolemy. Many
later astronomers adopted his early solar distance with small variation: so did Ptolemy (1200e), Battani
(1108e),2 Copernicus (1142e), Tycho (1150e); only Poseidonios is known to have adopted that of the
UA model (10,000e). Yet, his importance was unfairly played down, for even Copernicus, who had
initially included Aristarchos name in his Revolutions, deleted it from the final script; and Ptolemy,
who mentions Timocharis 14 times in his Almagest, only mentions Aristarchos three times and always
in connection with a summer solstice observation, to which we are now going to turn.
1
Technically, the length T of the mean sidereal month can be found by the expression T = 27.321661547 +
0.000000001857 * (Y 2000) / 365.25, where Y is the year for which this value is required (Chapront 1991).
2
Al-Battani calculated by a simple trigonometric rule the maximum, average, and minimum distances to the sun
as 1146, 1108 and 1070 earth radii (Sardar 1984:75).
28
A. G. Gomez
3. Aristarchos solstice
A solstice is the moment when the sun gets closest to a celestial pole. This happens twice a year,
marking the beginning of summer and winter. In the case of summer, the exact moment of solstice
happens some time during the longest day of the year, and is not necessarily restricted to the time
when the sun gets highest above the horizon at noon. Ancient astronomers like Meton, Kallippos,
Aristarchos, Archimedes, and Hipparchos used summer solstice observations in order to determine the
length of the year. This information was vital for designing trustworthy calendars. By measuring the
time between two such occurrences, we can find the length of the solar or tropical year. Thurston
(2001) explains that the best way to observe a summer solstice in ancient times was to keep a daily
record of the length of a sticks shadow at noon for a good many days before and after it gets shortest,
and then to try to find when the curve thus drawn reaches an extreme. Whether the shadows are cast
on a flat or a curved surface, the result is pretty much the same, except that the latter allows us to work
straight with the suns declination in degrees. Vitruvius (Architecture 9.8.1) says that Aristarchos invented a bowl-shaped sundial called a scaphe (Greek for boat) that could serve just for this.1
Because the shadows were read only at noon, the exact moment when the sun gets closest to a celestial pole must be deduced from these readings.2 Using modern interpolation formulas, Hartner
(1977) found that a span of 10 days before and after the solstice should yield an accuracy of about 2
hours, while an optimal 45-day span before and after the solstice should improve accuracy to about an
hour. Of course, the ancients did not have the advantage of these formulas, but had to rely on a simpler
method of interpolation described by Ptolemy (Alm 3.1) as trying to find a couple of days before and
after the solstice when the length of the shadows was alike. If they are found, the moment of solstice
can then be safely put halfway between them: at noon if they are an even number of days apart, at
midnight if odd. If such a pair of like-shadowed noons cannot be found, then we must see whether the
shadows before our longest reading are longer or shorter than the shadows after it: if longer, our solstice happens at dusk; if shorter, at dawn. This method yields an accuracy of a quarter of a day, which
seems to have been the accepted standard for solstices and equinoxes back then (see Figure 12).
Solstice
at noon
Solstice at
midnight
Solstice
at dawn
Solstice
at dusk
Figure 12: Reading the suns height at noon for several days before and after a solstice was the
most reliable way to determine the moment of its occurrence within an accuracy of a quarter day.
In Vitruvius words (ed. Rose 1899:233), Hemicyclium excavatum ex quadrato ad enclimaque succisum Berosus Chaldaeus dicitur invenisse. scaphen sive hemisphaerium Aristarchus Samius, idem etiam discum in planitia. Meaning (tr. Gwilt 1826:287), Berosus the Chaldean, was the inventor of the semicircle, hollowed in a
square, and inclined according to the climate. Aristarchus the Samian, of the Scaphe or Hemisphere, as also of
the discus on a plane.
2
In modern mathematical language, this is called interpolating the extreme from three equally spaced values (in
this case, shadow lengths). Meeus (1998:25) gives a formula V2 (V3 V1)2 / 8 / (V1 + V3 2V2) for doing this,
where V1, V2, and V3 are, in this case, our sticks noon shadow lengths recorded an equal number of days apart;
V2 should be the shortest of all our readings. This formula tells how long the shortest shadow can ever possibly
get. But, if we are not interested in extreme shadow lengths and simply want the time when the solstice occurs,
we may use this other formula (V1 V3) / 2 / (V1 + V3 2V2) (D3 D2) + D2, where V1, V2, and V3 are as before,
and D2 and D3 are the days when our mid and last chosen measurements were taken. Greater accuracy can be
achieved by using five instead of three equally spanned values, but the complexity of the interpolating formulas
involved goes beyond the scope of this article and hardly justifies an improvement of just a few minutes.
29
A. G. Gomez
Ptolemy has preserved five such solstices in his Almagest (3.1, 7.2). In fact, he gives information
about 28 solar observations, which have been tabulated in full by Britton (1967:23) and can also be
found here in Table 4:
Table 4: Solar observations (5 solstices and 23 equinoxes) in the Almagest (3.1, 7.2).
SS1
SS2
SS3
SS4
SS5
AE1
AE2
AE3
AE4
AE5
AE6
AE7
AE8
SE1
SE2
SE3
SE4
SE5
SE6
SE7
SE8
SE9
SE10
SE11
SE12
SE13
SE14
SE15
Observer (Place)
Meton (Athens)
Aristarchos (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Ptol. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Ptol. (Alexandria)
Ptol. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (?)
Hipp. (Alexandria)
Ptol. (Alexandria)
Nabonassar Date
316 Phamen 21, at dawn
468 [Pharm 29, at noon]
613 [Payni 3, at dawn]
620 [Payni 5, at midnight]
887 Mesore 11, 2h after midn.
586 Mesore 30, at dusk
589 Epag 1, at dawn
590 Epag 1, at noon
601 Epag 3, at midnight
602 Epag 4, at dawn
605 Epag 4, at dusk
880 Athyr 7, 2h after noon
887 Athyr 9, 1h after dawn
602 Mechir 27, at dawn
603 Mechir 27, at noon
604 Mechir 27, at dusk
605 Mechir 28, at midnight
613 Mechir 29, at midnight
616 Mechir 30, at dusk
617 Phamen 1, at midnight
619 Phamen 1, at noon
620 Phamen 1, at dusk
887 Pachom 7, 1h after noon
Julian Date
431/6/27
279[/6/26]
134[/6/26]
127[/6/26]
140/6/25 2h
161/9/27
158/9/27
157/9/27
146/9/27
145/9/27
142/9/26
132/9/25 14h
139/9/26 7h
145/3/24
144/3/23
143/3/23
142/3/24
141/3/24
140/3/23
134/3/24
133/3/24
132/3/23
131/3/23
130/3/24
129/3/24
128/3/23
127/3/23
140/3/22 13h
Truth1
28 08:51
27 03:22
26 05:29
25 21:54
23 11:58
27 00:29
26 18:00
26 23:46
26 15:41
26 21:35
26 15:09
24 02:29
24 19:28
24 13:07
23 18:49
24 00:37
24 06:37
24 12:22
23 18:10
24 05:08
24 10:51
23 16:34
23 22:23
24 04:11
24 09:59
23 15:41
23 21:28
21 14:14
Error
28h25m
6h37m
1h28m
5m
36h1m
15h31m
10h
h
10 14m
6h19m
6h25m
50m
h
33 30m
33h32m
9h7m
8h48m
8h36m
8h37m
8h22m
8h9m
7h8m
6h50m
6h33m
6h22m
6h10m
5h58m
5h41m
5h28m
20h45m
Of all these data, Ptolemy omits the day and hour of Aristarchos and Hipparchos solstices, while
giving the rest in full. Rawlins (1991:51) explains that this is because the method and tables in Almagest 3.2&6 predict different times (about 4h late) for these solstices and Ptolemy tried to hide this
embarrassing fact. Fortunately, it is possible to reconstruct the missing data. Rawlins found the time of
Hipparchos solstice by noting that the yearlength YB contained in the Babylonian tablet BM 55555 is
the result of subtracting a day and a quarter from 297 Kallippic years YK (of exactly 365 days each).
In other words, 297 Babylonian years are shorter than 297 Kallippic years by 1 days.
297YB = 297YK 1d
(20)
The true moments of solstice and equinox in this table are expressed in UT including the T correction obtained from the polynomial equations in Espenak and Meeus (2006:14-6), good to about 4 time seconds between
the years 2000 and 3000. Add 2h to find the local time in Alexandria, or 1h25m for that in Athens; or 1h53m,
should that for Rhodes be required.
30
A. G. Gomez
Then he realized that the interval between the summer solstices of Meton SSM and Hipparchos SSH
is precisely 297 years. This means that someone had counted the days between these two solstices and
divided the result by 297 in order to find YB as it appears on the clay tablet mentioned above.
YB = (days between SSM and SSH)/297y = 365d144451
(21)
From this equation we can work back the number of days between Metons and Hipparchos solstices as 108478. Adding this number to Metons solstice (whose day and hour are known) gives that
of Hipparchos: 134/6/26 at dawn. Aristarchos solstice immediately follows from Hipparchos statement (Alm. 3.1) that the time separating his solstice and that of Aristarchos is less than 145 Kallippic
years by half a day.1 So, the date of Aristarchos solstice is 279/6/26 at noon.2
As for Metons solstice, which Ptolemy dates as 431/6/27 at dawn, it must be said that the real one
fell some 28 hours later, which is why Ptolemy suspects it was roughly observed.3 It is likely that
Meton, Euktemon, and their school were initially more accurate, rounding up their result to local noon
on the correct date (that is, 431/6/28). But therein lies a story: the day on which Meton recorded his
solstice was chosen to mark the beginning of the new Athenian lunisolar calendar. It was then customary in Athens to count days from the moment of sunset, and so, Metons solstice was linked to the
sunset that took place some 16 hours earlier. Later, when the custom of counting days from sunrise
replaced that of sunset, the start of the Solstice Day was once again moved back an extra 12 hours. So,
a solstice that was initially taken with fairly good accuracy ended up being off the mark by as much as
28 hours! Ptolemys words in Almagest 3.1 give a clue that unravels this puzzle. He mentions the
hour of Metons solstice twice: as happening in the morning of Phamenoth 21st (that is, 431/6/27),
which is how it finally came to be known, and at the start of Phamenoth 21st (that is, 431/6/27),
which is how we know it was originally meant back then in Athens (Rawlins 1991:60).
1
In Ptolemys words (ed. Heiberg 1898:206),

. ,
Meaning (authors tr.; see also Taliaferro
1952:82), Most of our observations agree with those of Hipparchos who, in his book On the Length of the Year,
compared the summer solstice observed by Aristarchos at the end of the fiftieth year of the first Calippic cycle
[281-280 BC] with the one he carefully observed at the end of the forty-third year of the third Calippic cycle
[136-135 BC] saying, It is clear that, after 145 years, the summer solstice has fallen earlier by half a day than
would be expected from the assumption that the year is exactly 365 days long.
2
In Ptolemys words (ed. Heiberg 1898:206),

, , ,
, ,
. Meaning (authors tr.), Hipparchos says that 152 years passed between the summer
solstice observed in the time of Apseudes and that observed by Aristarchos at the end of the 50th year of the first
Calippic cycle. This 50th year was the 44th from the death of Alexander, which happened 463 years before our
own [Ptolemys 140 AD] observation, which in turn took place 419 years after that of Aristarchos.
3
In Ptolemys own words (ed. Heiberg 1898:205),

, .

. Meaning (authors tr.; see also Fotheringham 1924:384), And if, because of its antiquity, we
compare the summer solstice that Meton, Euktemon, and their school observed somewhat carelessly with the one
we have deduced most carefully, we shall find the same thing. Theirs was recorded while Apseudes was archon
of Athens, at the start [that is, at dusk] of the 21st of the Egyptian Phamenoth.
31
A. G. Gomez
As for Hipparchos, it must be said that he compared his solstice SSH to that of Aristarchos SSA in
order to find the yearlength YH that was later adopted as standard throughout the Almagest. He simply
divided the number of days (52960d) and the number of years (145y) between these solstices.
YH = (days between SSA and SSH)/145y 365d1448
(22)
There is no evidence that Hipparchos himself computed the yearlength YB on the BM 55555 tablet.
Rather, he seems to have stuck to YH for, even his second solstice SSH2, which Ptolemy (Alm. 7.2)
dates at 128 BC (and which actually fell on 127/6/26 at midnight), yields again the same YH value
when we divide the number of days (55517d) and the number of years (152y) between this solstice
and that of Aristarchos SSA.
YH = (days between SSA and SSH2)/152y 365d1448
(23)
So, the tropical solar year used all over the Almagest is the result of rounding up either (22) or (23)
saying that one Hipparchan year is less than one Kallippic year by the 300th part of a day.
YH = YK 1/300d = 365d1448
(24)
As we shall see, many had previously set out to assess the length of the year to the best of their ability, as this was vital for designing trustworthy, reliable calendars.
4. Ancient year lengths

History has been kind enough to preserve yet another set of data connected to Aristarchos: his name
figures among those of other astronomers whose supposed values for the length of the year are listed
in two rare and precious ancient Greek manuscripts held by the Vatican Library (see Table 5): one
(Vat. Gr. 381, fol. 163v) is by Aratos (Aratea 3); the other (Vat. Gr. 191, fol. 170v), by Vettius Valens
(Anthology 9.12).
Table 5: Aratos and Vettius lists of ancient astronomers and their yearlengths.
List A1
, ,

[]
Translation

Euktemon, Philip, Apollinarius

Aristarchos of Samos
A Babylonian
Sudines
[Garbled]
365 19 5
365 4 10 4
365 4 5 7
365 4 3 5
365 4 100 200
Meton, Euktemon, Philip

Aristarchos of Samos
Chaldeans
Babylonians
365 5 19
[365] 4 20 60 2
365 4 5 7
365 4 144
List V2
, ,

List A: from Aratos 3c BC words (ed. Maass 1892:140), .

. . . [...].
2
List V: from Vettius Valens 2c words (ed. Kroll 1906:127, Kroll 1908:353, and Pingree 1986:339),
,
, , , . Meaning (tr.
Riley 1990:450), Even the length of the year has been fixed at various values: Meton the Athenian, Euktemon,
and Philip fixed it at 365 5 19, Aristarchos of Samos at [365] 4 20 62, the Chaldeans at 365 4 5 7, the
Babylonians at 365 4 144, and many others at different values.
32
A. G. Gomez
The first to point out the connection between these two lists was Neugebauer (1975:601), who also
identified the first item with the Metonic cycle of 19 years that almost equal 235 lunar months, both
totalling around 6940 days. Dividing the latter by the former gives the length of Metons year YM,
which can be expressed as 365 + 1/4 + 1/76 days or, more simply, as 365 + 5/19, exactly the numbers
in both Vatican manuscript lists. No sense could be made of the other items until Rawlins (1999:30)
cracked the code. He found that the ancient Greeks had used here a method called continued fractions
in a way not as strictly unambiguous as we do today. Arbitrary though their flexible use of signs between fractions may seem to us now, it certainly achieves what then seemed a more desirable aim:
short, even veiled expressions, just for those in the know.
For example, the Aristarchan sidereal (star-to-star) year YAs in list A (365 4 10 4), interpreted as
365 + 1/(4 1/(10 1/4)), is a shorter expression than strict modern mathematical notation allows: 365
+ 1/(3 + 1/(1 + 1/(8 + 1/(1 + 1/3)))) or 365;3,1,8,1,3. This value is the result of adding one day to two
Kallippic cycles (each of 76 years equalling 27759 days).1 That is, 152 years totalling 55519 days. Dividing these numbers gives Aristarchos value for the length of the sidereal year, which is good to an
impressive few seconds of time!
The Aristarchan tropical year YAt in list V (365 4 20 60 2), interpreted as 365 + 1/(4 + 1/(20 +
2/60)), is not a shorter but a longer expression than modern notation allows: 365;4,20,30 or 365 + 1/(4
+ 1/(20 + 1/30)). Seemingly, encryption came before shortening here. Anyway, this value is the result
of subtracting one day from 18 saros cycles of the kind Ptolemy describes (Alm. 4.2) as 18 + 10
Kallippic years, that is, (18 + 10/360)365, or (18 + 4/135)365, or 4868/270365. That is, a
total of 324 + 8/15 Kallippic years containing 118534 + 4/5 days. Dividing these numbers gives Aristarchos value for the length of the tropical year (which is about 6 minutes too long).
Likewise, the Babylonian sidereal year YBs in list V (365 4 144), interpreted as 365 + 1/4 + 1/144,
comes from adding one day to 144 Kallippic years.2 That is, 144 years containing 52597 days. Dividing these numbers gives YBs. However, the Babylonian tropical year YBt (also in list V) is not so
straightforward. The original idea was to subtract one day from 15 Metonic cycles (each of 19 Kallippic, not Metonic, years), or to subtract one day from 3 Kallippic cycles (each of 76 Kallippic years
containing 27759 days). That is, 285 years containing 104095 days. In order to ease up calculations
they simply did away with the fraction by replacing the initial numbers with their almost equivalent
284 years containing 103730 days (note that if the one day is not subtracted, the equivalence remains
intact, of course). Dividing these numbers gives the length of the tropical year, which the Babylonians
expressed in both lists as 365 4 5 7, to be interpreted as 365 + 1/(4 + (1/5 1/7)). This expression is
shorter than modern notation allows: 365;4,17,2 or 365 + 1/(4 + 1/(17 + 1/2)).
Sudines tropical year YSt in list A (365 4 3 5), interpreted as 365 + 1/(4 + (3 + 1/5)/60)), is again
a shorter expression than modern notation allows: 365;4,18,1,3 or 365 + 1/(4 + 1/(18 + 1/(1 + 1/3))).
This value is the result of subtracting one day from four Kallippic cycles (each of 76 years containing
27759 days). That is, 304 years containing 111035 days. Dividing these numbers gives the length of
the tropical year according to Sudines.
The last item in list A is too garbled to allow confident deductions; even the authors name is gone.
Yet, Rawlins advanced this possible interpretation: If the (meaning 200) is arbitrarily assumed to be
a scribal mistake for (meaning 100) and the resulting expression (365 4 100 100) is interpreted as
365 + 1/(4 1/(100 + 100/60)), then we have a perfect match with the yearlength YAg of 365 + 1/4 +
1/1623 ascribed by Censorinus (Birthday 19.2) to Aristarchos and reconstructed by Tannery (1888) as
1
By 330 BC, Kallippos realized that Metons yearlength (derived from the Metonic cycle) was too long, so he
shortened it by getting rid of the 1/76 fraction. This left a simpler and more accurate yearlength YK of just 365
days. This was achieved by subtracting one day every four Metonic cycles, which makes up a Kallippic cycle.
2
The number 144 likely comes from rounding 8 saros down to the square of the magic number 12.
33
A. G. Gomez
365 + 1/4 + 3/4868. This value is the result of adding one day to 90 saros (of 4868/270 Kallippic years
each). That is, 1622 years containing 592680 days. Dividing these numbers gives Aristarchos
yearlength as reconstructed from Censorinus. (Well come back to this one later.) These interpretations
are summarized in Table 6.
Table 6: Rawlins deciphering of Aratos and Vettius yearlength lists.
List A
Year
YM
YAs
YBt
YSt
YAg
YAg
Calendarist
Euktemon, Philip
Aristarchos
A Babylonian
Sudines
[Garbled]
[Garbled, alternative]
Continued Fraction
365 + 5/19
365 + 1/(4 1/(10 1/4))
365 + 1/(4 + (1/5 1/7))
365 + 1/(4 + (3 + 1/5)/60))
365 + 1/(4 1/(100 + 100/60))
365 + 1/(4 1/100)
Restored Year
365 + 1/76
365 + 1/152
365 1/284
365 1/304
365 + 3/4868
365 + 1/1596
Date
432 BC
c. 280 BC
c. 240 BC
List V
Year
YM
YAt
YBt
YBs
Calendarist
Meton, Euktemon
Aristarchos
Chaldeans
Babylonians
Continued Fraction
365 + 5/19
365 + 1/(4 + 1/(20 + 2/60))
365 + 1/(4 + (1/5 1/7))
365 + 1/4 + 1/144
Restored Year
Date
365 + 1/76
432 BC
365 15/4868 c. 280 BC
365 1/284
365 + 1/144
5. Precession of the equinoxes

According to Rawlins (1999:37, 1991:49), two important implications follow from the fact that
Aristarchos is the only astronomer that appears in both Vatican lists giving different yearlengths: one
is that he is the first traceable person ever to have realized that the tiny difference (of 13m55s) between
his tropical (solstice-to-solstice) and sidereal (star-to-star) years gives rise to a very slow shift of the
equinoxes equal to 0.952 per century (which, rounded up to 1, is the value later adopted by Hipparchos),1 as can be found from this equation for centennial precession:
P = 100(YAs YAt)360/YAt
(25)
The other implication is that Aristarchos is also the first person we know of to have arrived at a
highly accurate value for the month,2 a value that can virtually be recovered by multiplying his tropical
year by the Metonic fraction that equates 19 years to (almost) 235 new moons, giving 29.530602 days.
This is close indeed to the actual length of what is known in astronomical terminology as mean synodic month or time between new moons,3 and it differs only by a fraction of a second from the true
month (then equal to 29.5305957 mean solar days)4 and from the value written on a special clay tablet
which has been already mentioned and which is the object of our next story.
1
The actual value then as now is 1.3 per century.

The previous months by Meton and Kallippos were longer than the real month by 1m54s and 22s respectively.
3
The actual time between two successive new moons can vary between the extremes 29d6h34m and 29d19h58m
due to irregularities in the Moons motion caused by the gravitational pull of other bodies in the solar system
(Meeus, 2007:11).
4
Note that the value for the mean synodic month (29.5305888531019d at J2000) is commonly quoted in terms of
atomic days while, for calendrical purposes, the relevant mean synodic month is in terms of mean solar days
2
34
A. G. Gomez
6. Clues on clay
In 1882 the British Museum acquired a rare late Babylonian clay tablet dating from about 100 BC.
It was tagged BM 55555 and was described by Neugebauer (1955 1:271-3, 3:243a; 1975:528) as ACT
210.1 It is of great significance because it contains the only extant Babylonian estimate of the tropical
yearlength on clay. The statement in lines 11 and 12 that 6574.42425 days equal 18 sidereal years,2
immediately leads by division of these two numbers to a yearlength of 365d144451 (see Figure 13),
which is nearly 5 minutes over the tropical (not sidereal) year back then. This means that the original
expression returning to its longitude (meaning
coming back to the same spot in the sky) must be
either a scribal mistake or a genuine Babylonian
Bab. 1 R9 E4 W5 W7 Q8
misunderstanding of their Greek precession-wise
sources. (Note that this value was obtained by
tr. [1, 49,] 34; 25, 27, 18
comparing Metons and Hipparchos solstices, and
therefore the tablet is post-Hipparchan.)
Figure 13: The Babylonian numbers in lines
The tablet also contains the length of the mean
11 and 12 of BM 55555 yield a fairly accurate
synodic (phase-to-phase) month expressed sexatropical yearlength when divided by 18.
gesimally as 29 days 3150820 (see Fig. 14).3
This is just the same as the molad of the Hebrew
calendar, which Rabban Gamaliel settled in the
Bab. W9 E1 t 8 w
Babylonian Talmud as 29 days and of an hour
tr.
[29; 31,] 50, 8, 20
and 73 parts (of which there are 1080 in an hour).4
This value is accurate then and now to a fraction
of a timesecond. Yet, there is no hint in the whole
Figure 14: Lines 6 and 7 of BM 55555 give
body of extant Babylonian records as to how this
the length of the mean synodic month.
figure was arrived at. So, how did they get it?
(29.530587705761d at J2000). The mean length of the synodic month in the past or the future can be calculated
by Chapronts (1988:342-352) polynomial 29.5305888531 + (2.1621 0.00364 * T) * T / 10000000, where T =
(JD 2451545) / 36525 and JD = Julian Day. The problem with this polynomial is that it gives results in ephemeris days, and must therefore be converted. For results directly expressed in mean solar days, Brombergs (2004)
equation can be used: 29 + 191 / 360 + E / 86400, where E is the excess number = L * (L * (L * 1.2434254 /
100000 2.021679) / 1000000 2.51203947) / 100000 + 2.777861, L is the lunation number relative to 2000
Jan 6th at 14:20:44 TT, which is the moment of mean new moon after AD 2000 = (12.3682665 5.367946 /
100000 / 100000 * T) * T 0.172522, and T = (JD 2451545) / (365 + 104621 / 432000). These polynomials
must be used within their range of validity, which in this case spans 10,000 years either side of AD 2000; beyond
this, they should not be relied upon. The fossil records reveal that the further we go back in time, the closer and
faster did the moon whirl around the earth, doing so in a way that exactly made up for the faster-spinning earth.
This means that, though days were shorter back then, the mean length of the synodic month remained fairly constant around its 29 mean solar day value for eons on end.
1
Viewable online at the Museums Collections Database, with registration number 1882,0704.143.
2
In the tablets 1c BC words, [1,4]9,34;25,27,18 u4-me 18 mu dama [an ki-] gur ina 18 bal-me.
Meaning (Neugebauer 1955 1:271-3), [1,4]9,34;25,27,18 days equal 18 years of the sun, returning [to] its [longitude] in 18 rotations. (The restorations in brackets are secure, according to Neugebauer.)
3
Line 6 of the tablet states that [29;31,]50,8,20 u4-me mint(it-ut) i[tu dsin]. Meaning (authors tr.), There
are 29;31,50,8,20 days in one synodic (lunar) month. Line 7 repeats this statement saying that [5,54;2]2,1,40
u4-me 12 itu-me ds[in]. Meaning (authors tr.), There are 354;22,1,40 days in 12 synodic months.
4
In Rabban Gamaliels 1c words (Seder Moed, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, 25a),
. Meaning (Epstein
1938:110), I have it on the authority of the house of my fathers father that the renewal of the moon takes place
after not less than twenty-nine days and a half and two-thirds of an hour and seventy-three parts.
35
A. G. Gomez
Ptolemy ascribes it to Hipparchos in a passage (Alm. 4.2) which is worth reading carefully, and
which I have taken the freedom of translating here in a language which I hope will make the original
meaning clearer. Taliaferros (1952:110) and Toomers (1984:175) more literal translations can also
be consulted:
The ancient astronomers wondered whether they could find any cycles ruling the movements of the sun,
the moon, the stars, and the succession of days and nights. [] From the observation and comparison of
moon eclipses, still earlier astronomers derived a first cycle [called saros] that spanned without appreciable
error over 6585 days, 223 [synodic] months [or new moons], 239 returns in anomaly [or anomalistic (perigee-to-perigee) months], 242 returns in latitude [or draconic (node-to-node) months], and 241 laps of the
moon across the sky [or sidereal months] plus the 10 that the sun also adds to 18 of its own laps across the
sky [or sidereal (actually, saronic or even Kallippic) years], or exactly 18 [Kallippic] years plus 1056 days.
[] So as to have it in whole days, they tripled the 6585 value obtaining a new period called exeligmos,1
in which realignments take place every 19756 days, 669 months, 717 returns in anomaly, 726 returns in latitude, and 723 sky laps of the moon plus the 32 that the sun also adds to 54 of its own laps [or Kallippic
years K], which is exactly the same as 54 Egyptian years [of 365 days] and 46 days.
However, from calculations based on observations made in his own time and in that of the Chaldeans,
Hipparchos proved that the exeligmos is not as good a cycle as that of 126007 days and 1 equinoctial hour
spanning 4267 months, 4573 returns in anomaly, and 4612 laps of the moon across the sky less the 7 that
the sun also needs to complete each of the 345 sidereal years in this cycle, or exactly 345 Egyptian years, 82
days, and 1 hour. [] Then, by dividing the number of days and months in this cycle, he got the mean
length of the month as 29 days 3150820.
Ptolemy defines here the saros S, the exeligmos E, and yet a better cycle B thus:
S = 6585d = 223syn = 239an = 242dr = 241sid + 10 = 18K + 10 = 18K + 1056d
d
E = 19756 = 669
syn
an
dr
sid
= 717 = 726 = 723 + 32 = 54 + 32
d h
B = 126007 1 = 4267
syn
an
sid
= 4573 = 4612 7 = 345(Ys 7)
(26)
(27)
(28)
So, according to Ptolemy, Hipparchos found this 345-year cycle by comparing his own observations
with those of the Chaldeans. These surely refer, as Rawlins (1996:6) says, to the eclipse observed by
Hipparchos on 145/4/22 (Alm. 3.1) and one recorded in Babylon on 490/4/26 (Alm. 4.9). Indeed, the
number of days between these two eclipses (especially when rounded to their nearest hour) is as
stated. The question is: was Hipparchos discovering this or just checking something already known?
Rawlins (1996:6) suggests that the astronomer who actually used the above cycle of 345 years was
Aristarchos: he (1985:901) specifically proposes that the moon eclipses of 275/4/18 and 620/4/22
(Alm. 5.14) may have been used by Aristarchos to find the cycle B that Ptolemy said is the base for the
synodic month that later became standard in the Middle Ages.2 Proof of this is a little oddity which
was noted as early as the 9c, when al-Hajjaj translated the Almagest into Arabic: dividing 4267 months
into 126007d1h does not quite produce the value Ptolemy stated twice in the Almagest (4.2 and 4.3),3
but 29 days 31508920. To see the connection with Aristarchos, we need first understand what
it is that the Greeks called a Great Year.
7. Aristarchos Great Year

For the Greeks, a Great Year was the period after which all the planets meet (Plato Timaios 11).
Such an event is so rare (Meis and Meeus 1994:293) that what Aristarchos really meant by this was a
1
1c BC Geminus (Isagoge 18.1, ed. Manitius 1907:200) defined the exeligmos as the shortest time containing a
whole number of days, a whole number of [synodic] months, and a whole number of anomalistic months.
2
In fact, Aristarchos might have also used two other pair of eclipses (286/5/20 and 631/5/24, and 260/6/30
and 605/7/5), but these are not attested in surviving records. Only half the eclipse proposed by Rawlins was
visible from Alexandria, but this would have been enough to approximate the time of mid-eclipse.
3
See Heibergs (1898) standard Greek Edition, pp. 271 and 278.
36
A. G. Gomez
cycle involving just the sun and all the different months of the moon. Censorinus gives us here some
vital information when he tells us that Aristarchos gave the length of the Great Year as 2484 years
(Birthday 18.11),1 each of which he made longer than a Kallippic year by the 1623rd part of a day
(Birthday 19.2).2 Tannery (1888) showed that this yearlength that Censorinus ascribed to Aristarchos
results from rounding up the yearlength C (derived from dividing the days and years) in a saros (or an
exeligmos), thus:
C = 6585/(18 + 10) = 19756/(54 + 32) = 365 + 1/1622 365 + 1/1623
(29)
Having shown that Aristarchos made the saros (and the exeligmos) an integral part of his Great
Year, Tannery went on to suggest that Censorinus first number 2484 must be a scribal mistake for
2434, reasoning that 2434 years span exactly 135 saros (or 45 exeligmos). The Great Year Tannery
reconstructs from Censorinus is only the first of Aristarchos steps towards his ambitious goal and the
only one to have made it to our days. I call it here the Early Aristarchan Great Year (GY1). It spanned
889020 (the result of 1356585) days, 2434 saronic years C (of the sort explained in eq. 29), 135
saros S, 30105 (the result of 135223) synodic months, and so on:
GY1 = 889020d = 2434C = 135S = 30105syn = 32265an = 32670dr = 32539sid
(30)
Eventually, Aristarchos improved things by replacing the saronic yearlength in his Early Great
Year with the simpler and more accurate yearlength of Kallippos. (In doing this, he was correcting the
exeligmos before Hipparchos.) His Great Year now spanned 889018 days, 2434 Kallippic years K,
135 saros, 30105 synodic months, and so on:
GY2 = 889018d = 2434K = 135S = 30105syn = 32265an = 32670dr = 32539sid
(31)
Then, according to Rawlins (1985:901, 1996:15), Aristarchos doubled this period in order to have it
all neatly arranged in whole numbers thus reaching his Ultimate Great Year (GY3), which spanned
1778037 days, 4868 Kallippic years, 270 saros, 60210 (or 270223) synodic months, and so on:
GY3 = 1778037d = 4868K = 270S = 60210syn = 64530an = 65340dr = 65078sid
(32)
Once Aristarchos was satisfied that this was the most accurate lunisolar equation ever known, explains Rawlins (2002:7), he proceeded to calculate the (synodic) monthlength MA corresponding to his
Great Year by dividing the number of days and months in it. He could have done this by dividing
60210syn straight into 1778037d, but he found a way to ensure a neat sexagesimal ending to his month:
he divided first by 223 (months in a saros), then rounded up the result to the nearest minute, and then
divided this by 270. This gives exactly: 29 days 3150820, which is the value baked on BM
55555, hallowed in Gamaliels words, and claimed in Ptolemys Almagest as someone elses work.
MA = 1778037/60210 = (1778037/223)/270 7973d6h15m/270 = 29d3150820
1
(33)
In Censorinus 3c words (ed. Jahn 1845:55), Hunc Aristarchus putavit esse annorum vertentium MMCCCCLXXXIIII, Aretes Dyrrachinus VDLII, Heraclitus et Linus XDCCC, Dion XDCCCLXXXIIII, Orpheus CXX,
Cassandrus tricies sexies centum milium; alii vero infinitum esse nec umquam in se reverti existimarunt. Meaning (tr. Parker 2007:43), Aristarchos thought the Great Year took 2484 solar years; Aretes of Dyrrachium, 5552;
Heraclitus and Linus, 10800; Dion, 10884; Orpheus, 120,000; and Cassandrus, 3,600,000 [thirty-six times a
hundred thousand] years. Others think it is infinite and will never return.
2
In Censorinus words (ed. Jahn 1845:57), Philolaus annum naturalem dies habere prodidit CCCLXIIII et dimidiatum, Aphrodisius CCCLXV et partem diei octavam, Callippus autem CCCLXV, et Aristarchus Samius
tantumdem et praeterea die partem MDCXXIII, Meton vero CCCLXV et dierum quinque undevicensimam partem, Oenopides CCCLXV et dierum duum et viginti partem undesexagensimam, Harpalus autem CCCLXV et
horas aequinoctiales XIII, at noster Ennius CCCLXVI. Meaning (authors tr.; also Parker 2007:44), Philolaus
wrote that the natural year has 364 days; Aphodisius, 365 days; Callippus, 365[] days; Aristarchus of
Samos, the same number plus the 1623rd part of a day; Meton, 365 and the 19th part of 5 days; Oenopides, 365
and the 59th part of 22 days; Harpalus, 365 days and 13 equinoctial hours; and our own poet Ennius, 366.
37
A. G. Gomez
We know this value (like that of 126007d1h) is of Greek origin because it was based on the Greek
(and modern) system of dividing the day into hours and minutes, while the Babylonians would have
used their customary division of days into 360 ush or time-degrees and this would have resulted in
slightly different numbers.
8. Tropical and sidereal years

The only datum Ptolemy gives of Aristarchos is the year of his solstice observation: 280 BC. This is
exactly 8 Metonic (or 2 Kallippic) cycles after Metons solstice. From this we know, says Rawlins
(2002:7), that Aristarchos accepted the Metonic cycle of 19 solar years equalling 235 lunar months.
We also know that Aristarchos may have compared his solstice to that of Meton in order to find the
length of the year (in the same way as Hipparchos compared his own solstice to that of Aristarchos).
This is astronomers secret for determining accurate heavenly motions (Rawlins 1996:11): comparing
data from as long an interval as possible. The number of days and the number of years between Aristarchos (279/6/26) and Metons (431/6/27) solstices are 55517 and 152 respectively. Dividing
these numbers gives a yearlength that is slightly shorter than that of Kallippos, so Aristarchos realized
that the Kallippic year was slightly over the truth. Then he wondered how much the 4868 Kallippic
years in his Great Year would drift off the truth because of this. To calculate this, he didnt use the
yearlength he had just derived from comparing his solstice to that of Meton other than as a reference;
he had more trust in the accuracy of the Metonic cycle, which, besides, allowed him to fit in the accurate monthlength he had just found. So, this is what 4868 real tropical years Yt should read:
4868Yt = 4868235/19MA = 1778021d12h44m 1778022d
(34)
Since everything in his Great Year was arranged to be integral, he rounded up the above number of
days to just 1778022, which is exactly 15 days less than the 4868 Kallippic years in his Great Year.
This settled the length of his tropical year, which is the same as that on List V:
YAt = 365 15/4868
(35)
As for the sidereal year on List A, Rawlins (1985) suggests that Aristarchos got it by comparing the
total eclipse on 283/3/18 with the almost grazing one observed in Babylon on 719/3/9. Ptolemy
(Alm. 4.6-9, 6.9) describes the latter as happening exactly at midnight in Babylon (which, according to
his reckoning, was 50m before midnight in Alexandria), when the moon was near 49 [actually, ] Vir.
Aristarchos own eclipse happened when the moon was at Vir (Spica), which is about 6 from Vir.
Then, dividing the number of days by the number of years elapsed between both eclipses and adding
the 6 correction gives a fairly accurate value for the sidereal year:
YAs = 159258d/(436y + 6) 365 + 1/152
38
(36)
A. G. Gomez
9. Summary
The new findings in this paper are as follows:
1. A development of Dennis Rawlins ideas on how Aristarchos arrived at his 87 angle, this time
reaching a perfect match through very simple maths (or, rather, through no maths at all). I deem this
the most important part of the paper (read Figure 4 for a short description of this).
2. An explanation of Archimedes odd-looking values for the suns width (see pages 13 and 16).
3. A correction to what I think is a slight slip in Rawlins maths on the myriad figure. He is essentially proved right, though (see note 1 on page 15 for a summary of this).
4. A mathematical proof that Aristarchos did use the 1146e figure is found this time, not in al-Battani,
but in Archimedes Sandreckoner (see note 2 on page 15 for a quick summary of this).
5. A mathematical proof that Aristarchos did actually measure the distance to the moon as 60 earthradii (see Equation 15).
6. Some simple programming instructions for curious readers to make the sky simulator Stellarium
reproduce Rawlins finding that Pseudo-Aristarchos moon flies loops in the sky (see page 22).
7. A mathematical proof that On Sizes cannot be genuine (see page 23).
8. A development of Eric M. Rogers ideas on how Aristarchos measured the distance to the moon,
reaching full precision this time (see Figure 11).
10. Conclusion
I started this paper by calling Aristarchos the Greatest Mind of Antiquity. My paper tries to justify
this claim, even though it is not all-encompassing, for it skips important issues, for example, his more
than probable involvement in the design of the Dionysian calendar, of which his Great Year may be an
integral part. Other issues could have been dealt with in more depth, for example, the fact that there is
actually some proof of his knowing that the sharpness of human vision is typically around 1 for, in
Proposition 4 of On Sizes, it is stated that an angle smaller than the 3960th part of a right angle [that is,
an angle of less than about 122] is imperceptible to our eye (Heath 1913:371). Trigonometric calculation shows that the angle referred to (as KAD in Fig. 21 of On Sizes, see Heath 1913:364, with as
the moons angular size) is actually just about 1 arcminute (Berggren and Sidoli 2007:229):
KAD [] = 2atan(1/(1/sin(/2)/sin(/4) 1/tan(/4))) = 14
(37)
Besides, my paper focuses on the mathematical aspects of Aristarchos work, and so it omits touchy
questions such as why he was sidelined in the annals of history almost to the point of oblivion, or why
he was threatened by his contemporary Cleanthes, whose words, preserved, to his eternal shame, in
Plutarchs Morals (12.6),1 are a chilling threat to the whole of humankind and a perpetual reminder of
how far science could have taken us by now had it not been hindered in its progress by such threats.
Science might have even taken us to the point of preventing life-wiping, natural catastrophes by now.
Instead, we are several thousand years behind schedule. The echo of Cleanthes words resounding
through history has put the survival of our species in danger. Luckily, it is not because they listened
much to the likes of Cleanthes that the Greeks became a great people, but because they loved science.
The words ought to have in Cleanthes threat seem to indicate that the Greeks did not actually bring
any suit against Aristarchos, instead the opinions of Archimedes and Apollonios show that he was
highly regarded by the brightest ancients (Rawlins 2002:9).
1
In Plutarchs 1c words (ed. Dbner 1841:1130),

, []
, ,
. Meaning (Goodwin 5 1874:240), Cleanthes thought that the Greeks ought to have called Aristarchos the Samian into question and condemned him for blasphemy against the Gods, as shaking the very foundations of the world, because this man, endeavouring to save the appearances, supposed that the heavens remained
immovable, and that the earth moved through an oblique circle, at the same time turning about its own axis.
39
A. G. Gomez
Acknowledgements
Special thanks are due to Mire N Lorcin for valuable comments on drafts of this paper, to Dr Irv
Bromberg for his most kind and detailed elucidation on relevant calendaric points, and also to Dr
Dennis Duke for supplying vital information.
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Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Alberto Gomez Gomez

6. Archimedes chiliagon .................... 13

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

2. The early earth movers

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

In Proclos 5c words (ed. Diehl 1906:138),

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

In Simplikios 6c words (ed. Diels 1882:292),

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Figure 2: Archimedes thinks Aristarchos means that the earth

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

In Poseidonios 3c BC words as quoted by Cleomedes (ed. Ziegler 1891:102-6), ,

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

3. Aristarchos and the human eye

or directly in degrees by any of these relations:

Figure 3: In todays optics, pairs of

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Pseudoaristarchos fourth hypothesis (ed. Heath 1913:352) states that,

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

5. The suns distance

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

In Archimedes 3c BC words (ed. Heiberg 1881:248), ,

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

7. The myriad figure

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Figure 7: If we take the moon to be as far away as 60e, then the

and putting Aristarchos data in it:

wSun = 2 1146e tan = 10 e

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

8. On Sizes and Distances

Prop. 17 values lower [mean] upper

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

9. The solar system scale

In Cleomedes words (ed. Ziegler 1891:92), ,

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

6. Clues on clay ................................... 35

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

2. The moons distance

In Pseudo-Aristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:352), . Meaning (tr.

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

454 Phaophi 16 294 Dec 21

In Pseudo-Aristarchos words (ed. Heath 1913:352),

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

sin( / 2)(1 e / s ) sin( / 2)

Figure 9. The centre C of the earths

In Aristotles 4c BC words (ed. Ideler 1834:30; Bekker 1831:345), ,

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

In Ptolemys words (ed. Heiberg 1898:206),

Aristarchos of Samos the Polymath

4. Ancient year lengths

Euktemon, Philip, Apollinarius