Aratus

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There was also an Aratus of Sicyon.

Aratus (Greek Aratos) (ca. 315 BC/310 BC – 240 BC) was a Macedonian Greek poet, known for his technical poetry.

Biography

He was born in Soli in Cilicia, later spending time at the Syrian court of Antiochus I. His principal patron was the Macedonian king Antigonus II Gonatas, whose victory over the Celts in 277 BC Aratus set to verse. He died in the capital of Macedon, Pella (now located in the periphery of Central Macedonia, Greece).

Writings

Aratus' principal work, the Phaenomena ("Appearances"), versifies one or more works of Eudoxus of Cnidus. In 1,154 hexameters he lays bare the names and movements of the heavenly bodies, and the significance of various weather signs. Technical description is primary, but mythical digressions are frequent. The second half, on weather signs, has sometimes circulated under the title Diosemeia ("Signs from Zeus"), but was not originally separate.

Aratus also wrote a number of other poems, many of an astronomical or technical nature.

Later influence

Aratus enjoyed immense prestige among Hellenistic poets, including Theocritus, Callimachus and Leonidas of Tarentum. This assessment was picked up by Latin poets, including Ovid and Virgil. Latin versions were made by none other than Cicero (fragmentary), the near-emperor Germanicus (mostly extant), and the less-famous Avienus (extant). He was also cited in the New Testament, where, in the second half of Acts, 17.28, Saint Paul, speaking of God, quotes the fifth line of Aratus's Phaenomena (Epimenides gets credit for the first half of Acts 17.28):

Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.

For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.

Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.

Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.

For we are indeed his offspring... (Phaenomena 1-5).

Authors of twenty-seven commentaries are known; ones by Theon of Alexandria, Achilles Tatius and Hipparchus of Nicaea survive. An Arabic translation was commissioned in the ninth century by the Caliph Al-Ma'mun.

References

• The best edition of Aratus' work is now Douglas Kidd's Cambridge edition, with translation and commentary.
• The Apostle and the Poet: Paul and Aratus (Dr. Riemer Faber)
• Review of above by Mark Possanza, BMCR (September 1999).
• Hellenistic Bibliography, Aratus and Aratea compiled by Martijn Cuypers
• "Written in the Stars:Poetry and Philosophy in the Phaenomena of Aratus" by Richard L. Hunter, Arachnion 2.
• Suda On-Line: Aratus, with a list of works ascribed to Aratus.

The Suda is a Byzantine encyclopedia.

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