Theon of Alexandria

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Theon (Greek: Θέων, ca. 335 - ca. 405 AD) was a Greek or Egyptian scholar and mathematician in Alexandria, Egypt, and the last director of the Library of Alexandria until it was closed by the patriarch Theophilus on order of the Christian Roman emperor Theodosius I in 391 AD. Theon was the father of the mathematician and pagan martyr Hypatia of Alexandria whose murder is attributed by Socrates Scholasticus to "political jealousy" which instigated mob violence.

Theon's most durable achievement may be his edition of Euclid's Elements, published around 364 and authoritative into the 19th century. The bulk of Theon's work, however, consisted of commentaries on important works by his Hellenistic predecessors. These included a "conferences" (Synousiai) on Euclid, and commentaries (Exegeseis) on the Handy Tables and Almagest of Ptolemy, and on the technical poet Aratus.

In one of the commentaries on the Handy Tables, he is the first author to describe the theory of trepidation of the equinoxes, as an alternative to precession. Theon described but did not endorse this theory.

Notes

References

• G. J. Toomer, "Theon of Alexandria," in Dictionary of Scientific Biography 13:321-325.

External links

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