Aratus

  • Member since October 2007
  • 3174 contributed posts
About Aratus

I was born on 3rd March 313 BC at Soloi in Cilicia, now part of modern Turkey.   I spent my formative years as a pupil of Menecrates at Ephesus.    In 292 BC I joined a fraternity of poet/scholars under the headship of Philitas at Cos.  There I learned about logic and paradoxes.    In 282 BC, after the death of Philitas I joined Praxiphanes at a seminary on the island of Rhodes specialising in grammar.     In 279 BC I became restless to learn how I could bring all these disciplines together and I sought the lugubrious Zeno at Athens, and I studied at the Alexandrian library as well as sessions at the Eretrian school of philosophy.
In 276 BC I got my first real job, setting the victory of King Antigonus II of Macedonia over the Gauls, to poetry.    The poem was so well received that King Antigonus set me another task of turning his favourite text,  Eudoxus’ ‘Phenomena and Mirror’, into poetry.   This was a poem about the stars, constellations and planets.    This was my first introduction to the subject of Astronomy.     My third poem for Antigonus was ‘Diosemeia’, about the weather, taking my research from several well known books on the subject.
In 269 I worked for the Syrian King, Antiochus I.   It was here that I rewrote ‘Phaenomena’ using my own observations.   I also gained new insight into the subject of medicine, which again I made the subject of several poems.   It was here I made an amazing discovery - the ‘elixir of life’, which means I would never die.   In 261 BC I returned to Macedonia, where King Antigonus desired to have his wars put to poetry.    For the next 20 years I dedicated my self to Astronomy, Weatherlore and Medicine.   In 240 BC I realised that people would grow suspicious if I lived much longer, so I faked my own death and started a new life in Hispania.   I’ve given up remembering how many times I have had to do this, but I am currently posing as an eccentric Englishman born in the middle of the 20th century.

Profile Details
Birthday: 0001-01-01 00:00:00
Gender: Male
Language: English
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