I’m going to take a bit of a break from direct progress on the Almagest as we get to the star catalog. This is because there is, what I feel to be a fascinating and important discussion surrounding its legitimacy and I want to explore the history of this discussion, even though almost all of it is outside the range of the SCA period1. Namely, the discussion is whether or not Ptolemy’s star catalog is legitimate, one which he took the measurements himself, or if Ptolemy stole the data from an astronomer that came before him and tried to update it, but failed due to an incorrect value for the rate of precession.
Continue reading “Scholarly History of Commentary on Ptolemy’s Star Catalog: 137 CE – 1918 CE”