The work of Claudius Ptolemy, as the epitome of the Macedonian Legacy in History, and of the Hellenistic and Alexandrian Science and Civilization

Abstract

We propose to investigate the Hellenic, as well as the Hellenistic and Alexandrian Legacy, a direct product of the Macedonian legacy, and through the study of the life and work of the Alexandrian Giant of Astronomy Claudius Ptolemy. Claudius Ptolemy, as a historical Figure, as a Polymath, as an Astronomer, and as a Symbol, represents the World-Picture and the Civilization Alexander the Great offered to the Global Cultural Heritage. Macedonia, already Hellenic from its pre-historic times, conquers the Hellenic World, inherits all the great peaks of the Hellenic Culture and spreads through the world, generating the Hellenic Oecumene, and encompassing all the other Great Civilizations it meets. Within this sociocultural setting Alexandria in Egypt, the Capital city, the Cosmopolitan Metropolis, is founded. Alexandria becomes a central node of the cultural semantic web and an economic center, unifying East and West through the trading routes and the cultural osmosis, for many generations that followed, in the Hellenic and Roman civilization. Claudius Ptolemy is a full representative of this Civilization, an “Epitome” of the Hellenistic civilization, and the Hellenic Worldview, while his works reflects the cultural achievements of this civilization within the realm of Astronomy and other branches of Knowledge.