Aratus
Aratus (Greek Aratos) (circa 315 B.C./310 B.C. - 240 B.C.) was a Macedonian Greek poet, known for his technical poetry.
Life and Writings
Aratus was born in Soli on the island of Cyprus. He spent time at the courts of the Egyptian court of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and the Syrian court of Antiochus I. His principle patron was the Macedonian King Antigonus II Gonatas, whose victory over the Celts (277) Aratus set to verse. He died in Pella, the capital of the Macedonian Kingdom (today central Macedonia in Greece).
Aratus principle work, the Phaenomena (Appearances), versifies one or more works of Eudoxus of Cnidus. In 1154 hexameters he lays bare the names and movements of the heavenly bodies, and the significance of various weather signs. Technical description are 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 enjoyed immense prestige among Hellenistic poets, including Theocritus, Callimachus and Leonidas of Tarentum. This assessment was picked up by Latin poets, including Ovid and Vergil. Latin versions were made by none other than Cicero (fragmentary), the near-emperor Germanicus (mostly extant), and the less-famous Avienus (extant). He even earned a quotation in the New Testatment, where, in Acts, 17.28, Saint Paul, speaking of God, quotes Aratus' line "For we are indeed his offspring." Authors of 27 commentaries are known; ones by Theon of Alexandria, Achilles Tatius and Hipparchus of Nicaea survive. An Arabic translation was commissioned in the nineth century by the Caliph Al-Ma'mun
Aratus wrote a number of other poems, many of an astronomical or technical nature.
To moderns, the almost unalloyed praise that Aratus' work received in Antiquity is a matter of bottomless puzzlement.
Bibliography and Links
- The best edition of Aratus' work is now Douglas Kidd's Cambridge edition, with translation and commentary.
- by Mark Possanza, BMCR (September 1999).
- compiled by Martijn Cuypers
- by Richard L. Hunter, Arachnion 2.
- , with a list of works ascribed to Aratus.
- The Suda is a Byzantine encyclopedia.
