Apollonius of Perga: The Great Geometer

Born at Perga in Pamphylia around 240 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes and flourishing under Ptolemy IV Philopator (Heath 1896, p. lxviii), Apollonius of Perga studied as a young man at Alexandria under the successors of Euclid. As Geminus (quoted by Eutocius) records, his contemporaries held him in such awe for his mastery of conic sections that they named him simply ὁ μέγας γεωμέτρης — “The Great Geometer.”

Alexandria, Ephesus & Pergamum

From Apollonius’s own epistolary Prefaces (Unit 0), we trace an unusually vivid intellectual network across the Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean:

• At Alexandria, prompted by the visiting geometer Naucrates, Apollonius drafted the initial eight books of the Conics.

• At Ephesus, he conversed with the Epicurean mathematician Philonides.

• At Pergamum, home of the rival Attalid royal library, he forged a deep friendship with Eudemus of Pergamum (dedicatee of Books I–III) and subsequently addressed Books IV–VIII to Attalus.

Beyond the Conics

In addition to the Conics and the six two-book analytic treatises preserved in syllabus by Pappus (Unit 7), ancient sources credit Apollonius with:

• Planetary Epicycles & Eccentrics (Ptolemy, Almagest XII.1): Proving the equivalence of eccentric and epicyclic models and determining stationary points of retrograde planetary motion—ironically preparing the geometric astronomy that Kepler would replace in 1609 using Apollonius’s own ellipses!

• Comparison of the Dodecahedron and Icosahedron inscribed in the same sphere (preserved via Hypsicles as Euclid Elements Book XIV).

• Quick-Delivery (*Ὠκυτόκιον*), sharpening Archimedes' bounds on , alongside treatises on the cylindrical helix (Cochlias), unordered irrationals, and burning mirrors.