Soudines

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Soudines or Sudines ( ancient Greek Σουδινες , bl. Around 240 BC ) was a Babylonian astronomer . He is mentioned by name by Strabo as one of the three most important astrologers of the Chaldeans , also valued by mathematicians , alongside Kidinnu (Kidenas) and Nabu-rimanni .

Like his predecessor Berossus , he moved from Babylonia to the service of the Greeks and was an advisor to King Attalus I Soter of Pergamon . Vettius Valens writes that, among other things, he published ephemeris for predicting the orbit of the moon , something the Chaldeans specialized in at that time. Valens himself (around 160 BC) was concerned with the calculation of eclipses, for which he used, according to his own information, for the sun Hipparchus and for the moon tables by Soudines, Kidenas and Apollonios. The tables of Sudines were in use until the recalculations by Hipparchus and Ptolemy .

Soudines may have contributed a lot to the transfer of knowledge from Babylonian astronomy to the Greek-Hellenistic culture, but little is known about his work and life. The idea that gemstones are important for astrology is attributed to him .

Otto Neugebauer identifies him as the author of the Babylonian astronomical text Anu-aha-usabsi.

literature

  • Franz Xaver Kugler : The Babylonian moon calculation. Freiburg im Breisgau 1900 (general to the Babylonian moon calculation)
  • Anton Pannekoek : A History of Astronomy. New York 1961, p. 81
  • Franz Cumont Astrology and Religion among the greeks and romans , 1912, p. 33, online
  • Otto Neugebauer : A history of ancient mathematical astronomy , Springer 1975, Volume 2, p. 611

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Strabo, Geographika 16, 1-6.
  2. ↑ Pannekoek, History Astronomy , p. 81. Pliny names Kidinnu by name and Vettius Valens Soudines and Kidinnu (Cidenas).
  3. ↑ mostly identified with Apollonios von Myndos, von Neugebauer with Apollonios von Perge .
  4. ^ Neugebauer, A history of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy , Springer 1975, Volume 1, p. 263.
  5. ^ Neugebauer, Exact Sciences in Antiquity , 2nd Edition, Brown University Press 1957, Dover 1969, p. 137.
personal data
SURNAME Soudines
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sudines; Σουδινες (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Babylonian astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH before 240 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH after 240 BC Chr.