The Classics Graduate Cluster hosted a guest lecture by Professor Francesca Schironi (University of Michigan) on April 11.
April 11, 2025
The Department of Classics and the Graduate Classics Cluster welcomed Professor Francesca Schironi (University of Michigan) to deliver a guest lecture, "Beautiful but Wrong: Hipparchus on Aratus' Phaenomena and their Ancient Reception," on Friday, April 11. The abstract for the talk can be found below.
Aratus’ Phaenomena (ca. 270 BCE), a poem about constellations, enjoyed an enormous success in antiquity. In this talk I will focus on the reception that this poem had among ancient commentators, translators and editors, with a focus on Hipparchus’ Exegesis of the Phaenomena of Eudoxus and Aratus (more generally known as the Commentary on Aratus’ Phaenomena). Hipparchus’ work is a polemical commentary aimed at Aratus’ Phaenomena and his scientific source, Eudoxus. The analysis of some examples of Hipparchus’ criticism on Aratus will outline the development of astronomy in the Hellenistic period, while also raising some important questions about the best way to communicate science. The analysis of other two examples of the later reception of Aratus’ Phaenomena in the Roman and Byzantine times will show how such questions remained important through the centuries—and why they are still important today.