Menelaos (Pharm.) (100 BCE? – 95 CE)
A P., in G Antid. 2.11 (14.173 K.), records Menelaos’ salve to treat
hudrophobia, also effective against aigilo ̄ps and attacks of all serpents, consisting in
red natron, goat-suet, olive oil, beeswax, charred lees, and ammo ̄niakon incense ground
in water until glutinous. The ingredients are mixed, dissolved, heated, and then softened in
a mortar.
RE 15.1 (1931) 835 (#17), K. Deichgräber.
GLIM
Menelaos of Alexandria (ca 90 – 100 CE)
Mathematician and astronomer, to whom P
attributes two observations of lunar positions rela-
tive to fixed stars, both made in Rome in January 98
CE (Almagest 7.3, pp. 30 and 33 H.). Menelaus also
appears as a bystander in P’s On the Face
that Appears in the Moon, set in the late 1st c. Two
mathematical works are extant in Arabic transla-
tions: the Sphairika and On Specific Gravities (MS Escu-
rial 960/3, ff.43–50, 742 H., dedicated to Domitian;
cf. M). The Sphairika was translated into Latin
several times, first by Gerard of Cremona, and later
by Edmund Halley. Menelaos’ most important con-
tributions are to spherical trigonometry, which field
he pioneered, with immediate applications in spher-
ical astronomy. He wrote six (lost) books on chords,
usually taken to include a chord table. His Sphairika
includes a general proof of what has come to be
known as the “Theorem of Menelaus” (actually two
closely related theorems), allowing one to solve for
triangles on a spherical surface. The theorem has
wide-ranging astronomical applications including
conversions between spherical coordinate systems,
the calculations of rising times of oblique arcs, and
(hence) the determination of the length of daylight
at any given latitude, for example.Ed.: M. Krause, Die Sphärik von Menelaos aus Alexandrien (1936).
A.A. Björnbo, Studien über Menelaos’ Sphärik (1902); Neugebauer (1975) 26–27.
Daryn Lehoux
Menemakhos of Aphrodisias (30 – 90 CE)
Physician, listed with T and S among the Methodists (-G
I 14.684 K.; MS Laur. Lat. 73.1, f.143V = fr.13 Tecusan), probably not before
T (Tecusan 2004: 15–16, 65), disagreed with predecessors, sometimes vitupera-
tively (G MM 1.7.5 [10.54 K. = p. 27 Hankinson]). A, in Gale ̄n CMLoc
3.1 (12.625 K.), records (and uses) his ear remedy compounded from myrrh, frankincense,
Ptolemy’s version of part of the
theorem of Menelaus. Given: great
circles AB and AG on the face of a
sphere, cut by great circles GD and BE,
which meet at Z, and where each of the
arcs is less than a semicircle. Then the
chord (CRD) of arc 2GE : CRD arc
2EA is combined from (CRD arc 2GZ :
CRD arc 2ZD) and (CRD arc 2 DB :
CRD arc 2BA), where “A is combined
from B and C” can be treated in mod-
ern terminology as “A = B × C”. ©
Lehoux and Massie
MENELAOS (PHARM.)