De utilitate mathematicae
Smyrna
T
Theon Smyrnaeus
Theon Smyrnaeus
c. 70 CE–c. 135 CE · Smyrna
Theon of Smyrna (active early 2nd century CE) was a Greek mathematician and Platonist philosopher, author of a work explaining the mathematics (arithmetic, music, and astronomy) considered useful for understanding the writings of Plato. His treatise is an important source for ancient mathematical and astronomical ideas in the Platonic tradition. He is distinct from Theon of Alexandria, the later mathematician.
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SmyrnaIonia (Asia Minor)
We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.
About Smyrna
Smyrna, modern İzmir on the Aegean coast of Turkey, was a leading Ionian Greek polis and a major center of rhetoric and learning under Rome. The sophist Marcus Antonius Polemon taught there, the orator Aelius Aristides was closely associated with the city, and it was one of several places claiming to be the birthplace of Homer. The mathematician Theon of Smyrna and the epic poet Quintus Smyrnaeus take their names from it.
In Smyrna at the same time
Across the traditions, in Smyrna at the same time
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Theon Smyrnaeus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Theon Smyrnaeus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.