ABSTRACT
Ptolemy was the last of only a handful of scientists who flourished in the three centuries following Archimedes’s murder. The Greek science was fatally wounded when in 212 BC, the sword of a Roman soldier ran through the delicate body of Archimedes, the prince of all Hellenic geniuses. After centuries of diligent observation, monumental discoveries, and ingenuous theoretical findings, the Greek political and economic system could no longer support science. However, unlike the earlier period, when the setting of the scientific Sun in the river civilizations of Egypt and Babylon heralded its rise in Hellas, Greek science could not find a rising horizon. The torch that Pythagoras and his forbears brought from Egypt and Babylon and passed on to such champions as Aristarchus, Euclid, and Archimedes, remained smoldering in the hands of Ptolemy until it burned itself out.
