He ̄rakleide ̄s and that he lived for some time in Athens, probably after being exiled by
Ptolemy VIII in 145 BCE.
Only minor fragments survive of most of his works. According to Pho ̄tios, he wrote seven
works. These include an epitome of the 4th c. BCE poet Antimakhos of Kolopho ̄n’s Lude ̄
(“Lyde”), a book on friendship, and a collection of excerpts from writers on remarkable
natural and human phenomena. Agatharkhide ̄s was best known in antiquity, however, as a
historian. His principal works were two large histories – On Affairs in Asia in 10 books and On
Affairs in Europe in 49 books – which together surveyed world history up to his own time. His
third historical work, the On the Erythraean Sea in five books, is better known thanks to the
survival of an epitome of its first and fifth books by Pho ̄tios and extensive excerpts in the
third book of D S.
The fifth book of the On the Erythraean Sea treated comprehensively the history and cul-
tural geography of the Red Sea and its hinterlands based on the reports of 3rd c. BCE
Ptolemaic explorers. Its ethnographic accounts were organized according to the Peri-
patetic theory that a people’s interaction with its environment determined the nature of its
culture. Although not a formal geographical work, the fifth book of the On the Erythraean Sea
was the main source for later accounts of the geography and ethnology of the region,
strongly influencing S’s Geography, P’s Natural History, and A’ On the
Nature of Animals.
Ed.: FGrHist 86; Stanley M. Burstein, Agatharchides of Cnidus, On the Erythraean Sea (1989).
BNP 1 (2002) 311, K. Meister.
Stanley M. Burstein
Agatharkhide ̄s of Samos (250 BCE – 50 CE?)
Author of an On stones in at least four books (-P De fluu. 9.5 [1155D]).
Many consider him fictive. (Schlereth, however, identifies him with the Peripatetic histor-
ian and geographer A K.) P quotes our author in Parall.
min. 305E, and attributes to him a Persika in at least two books, possibly supporting the
historicity of our Agatharkhide ̄s.
J. Geffken, Geographie des Westens (1892) 85, n.2; RE S.1 (1903) 22, G. Knaack; Schlereth (1931) 97–99;
Jacoby (1940) 76; FGrHist 284; Giannini (1964) 124; PGR 144 – 145; De Lazzer (2003) 66–67.
Eugenio Amato
Agatharkhos of Samos (460 – 410 BCE?)
Son of Eude ̄mos, worked as a painter in Athens, and wrote a book on ske ̄ne ̄-painting for
Aeschylus, or a revival of Aeschylus, offering a novel theory of perspective, that inspired
D and A (V 7.pr.11; cf. P Rep. 10 [602c–d]). Agath-
arkhos worked rapidly (P, Per. 13.2), and was compelled to paint Alkibiade ̄s’ house
(Andokide ̄s 4.17).
BNP 1 (2002) 311–312, N. Hoesch.
PTK
Agathe ̄meros son of Ortho ̄n (400 – 600 CE)
Otherwise unknown author of a treatise Geo ̄graphias hupotupo ̄sis, preserved only in later
copies of the 9th c. codex Palatinus gr. 398. The text treats the history of geography from
AGATHE ̄MEROS SON OF ORTHO ̄N