Attalus of Rhodes

Ancient Greek grammarian, astronomer, and mathematician

Attalus of Rhodes (Greek: Ἄτταλος ὁ Ῥόδιος) was an ancient Greek grammarian, astronomer, and mathematician, who lived in Rhodes in the 2nd century BC, and was a contemporary of Hipparchus.^[1] He wrote a commentary on the Phaenomena of Aratus.^[1]^[2]^[3] Although this work is lost,^[2] Hipparchus cites him in his Commentary on the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus.^[3] Attalus sought to defend both Aratus and Eudoxus against criticisms from contemporary astronomers and mathematicians.^[1]^[3]

Book IV of Apollonius of Perga's Conics is addressed to someone named Attalus, and it has been suggested that this may have been Attalus of Rhodes. However, this is not a good match chronologically, and Attalus was a common name at the time, so the connection is only speculative.^[4]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Kidd, Douglas (1997), Aratus: Phaenomena, Cambridge University Press, p. 18, ISBN 9780521582308.
^ ^a ^b Gutzwiller, Kathryn (2008), A Guide to Hellenistic Literature, John Wiley & Sons, p. 97, ISBN 9780470766088.
^ ^a ^b ^c Dickey, Eleanor (2007), Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises : From Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period, Oxford University Press, pp. 56–57, ISBN 9780198042662.
^ Fried, Michael N. (2001), Apollonius of Perga's Conica: Text, Context, Subtext, Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, vol. 222, BRILL, p. 416, ISBN 9789004119772.