Pappos lists Aristaios’ Solid Loci in five books (also called Conic Elements: 7.29) after Apollo ̄n-
ios’ Conics, the last work discussed in detail, and before the final two treatises in the cata-
logue, Euclid’s Surface Loci and Eratosthene ̄s’ On Means. The order suggests Pappos thought
Aristaios best studied after Apollo ̄nios, and, indeed, he says that Aristaios’ work was written
rather succinctly as if for readers already competent. However, he clearly thinks Apollo ̄nios
was chronologically later since he tells us (7.30) that Apollo ̄nios introduced the words
“ellipse,” “parabola,” and “hyperbola” for what his predecessors and Aristaios called sec-
tions of acute-angled, right-angled, and obtuse-angled cones (7.30), and Euclid published a
(lost) work on loci after Aristaios’ Solid Loci (7.34). Attempts to reconstruct Aristaios’ contribu-
tion to the study of conics are inferences from this information and what else we know
about Greek studies in the field.
H (in the so-called Book 14 of Euclid’s Elements) says that in his Comparison of the
Five Figures, Aristaios proved that the same circle circumscribes the pentagonal face of the
regular dodecahedron and the triangular face of the regular icosahedron (Heiberg-Stamatis
1977: 4.4–7). Hupsikle ̄s gives his own proof of this result as proposition 3. Doubts have
been raised about whether Solid Loci and Comparison of the Five Figures have the same author,
but these seem to depend on more specific chronological assumptions than the evidence
warrants.
Heath (1926) 3.513–515; J.L. Heiberg and E.S. Stamatis, edd., Euclidis Elementa (1977) v. 5.1; Jones
(1986) 573–591.
Ian Mueller
Aristanax (330 BCE – 120 CE)
Greek physician criticized by S, Gyn. 2.48 (CMG 4, p. 87; CUF v. 2, p. 57), for
recommending that female infants be weaned six months later than males, based on his
generalizing assumption that females are weaker. Listed after, and probably later than,
M ( A? K?). This Doric form of the name is esp. common
on Rhodes (LGPN).
RE 2.1 (1895) 859 (#2), M. Wellmann.
GLIM
Aristandros of Athens (240 – 90 BCE)
Wrote a work on agriculture, possibly treating cereals, livestock, poultry, viticulture, and
arboriculture (cf. P, 1.ind.8, 10, 14–15, 17–18), that was excerpted by C
D (V, RR 1.1.8, cf. C, 1.1.8). He had a special interest in botan-
ical “portents” or anomalies, such as trees bearing fruit on their trunks, or fruit but no
leaves, and trees which altered in color or genus (Pliny, 17.241–243). A terminus post quem is
provided by his reference to the city of Laodikeia, which was founded by Antiokhos II
sometime between 261 and 247.
RE S.1 (1903) 131 (#6a), M. Wellmann.
Philip Thibodeau
Aristarkhos of Samos (ca 280 – 270 BCE)
Particularly renowned for proposing a heliocentric theory that inspired Copernicus, but his
one extant work is a study On the Distances of the Sun and the Moon. Prior to Aristarkhos, there
ARISTARKHOS OF SAMOS