ABSTRACT
RE 17.2 (1937) 1881-1883, W. Kroll. Alexander Jones
Ofell ius Laetus (ca 50 — 95 CE) In his Quaestiones naturales, PLUTARCH cites a certain Laitos on the effect of rainfall on plants (911F) and the harmful effect of dew on human skin (913E). Plutarch’s wording suggests personal encounters with Laitos. He is probably identical with the Platonic philosopher Ofellius Laetus, known from two 1st c. inscriptions, from Ephesos (J. Nollé, ZPE 41 [1981] 197-206) and Athens (IG II2 3816). Ofellius Laetus is the author of a hymn extolling the
OKIANOS
heavens and is called a theologian. He probably belonged to the Ephesian Ofellius family. He is possibly also identical with Laetus the author of lives of philosophers, and the transla tor of historiographies of Phoenicia by Theodotos, HUPSIKRATĒS and Mōkhos (Tatianos ad Graec. 37; FGrHist 784). The “opening of heaven” mentioned in IG II2 3816 could then be an allusion to a cosmogony attributed to Mōkhos by DAMASKIOS: Prim. Princ. 3 (p. 166.11-20 W - C ) . Ofellius Laetus may also be the same person as the physician Ofillius/Ofilius con sulted by PLINY regarding the benefits of saliva against snakes (1.ind.28; 28.38). G.W. Bowersock, “Plutarch and the Sublime Hymn of Ofellius Laetus,” GRBS 23 (1982) 275-279; DPA
4 (2005) 79, B. Puech. Jan Opsomer
Oinopidēs of Khios (450 — 420 BCE) According to EUDĒMOS (DK 41A7), the first to identify the region of the zodiacal circle and the cycle of the Great Year, attributed to many others and plausibly adopted from Babylonian astronomy. However, his particular innovation may have been to distinguish geometrically the west/east revolution of the Sun on the ecliptic circle from the daily east/west motion of the entire kosmos, the basic model of most subsequent Greek astronomy. As to the Great Year, this was probably a terminological innovation to name a minimum integer of years and synodic months. His Great Year was 59 years (AELIANUS VH 10.7), and more dubiously a solar year of 365 22/59 days (CENSORINUS 19). PROKLOS credits him with two geometrical problems, the construction of a perpendicular, which he called “gnomonwise,” according to Proklos from the gnomon of a sundial (In Eucl. pp. 283-283 Fr; cf. E U C L I D , Elements 1.12), and, according to Eudēmos (Proklos, ibid. p. 333), the construction of an angle equal to a given rectilinear angle on a given line at a given point (cf. Euclid, Elements 1.23), both of which exhibit the growing contemporary interest in geometrical constructions.
