Person: Marinus Of Neapolis

Marinus succeeded Proclus as head of the Academy at Athens. He published some work on astronomy.

When Proclus wrote a commentary on the Myth of Er, he dedicated it to Marinus.
Marinus succeeded Proclus as head of the Academy at Athens in 485.
Marinus was a great believer in mathematics, something which he shared with fellow late Neoplatonists.
Although Marinus followed closely the views of his teacher, Proclus he did show originality which is much to his credit.
Yet when Marinus felt that Proclus was in error he was quite prepared to give his own views.
One concerns the Milky Way and Marinus discusses whether it is affected by precession.
However this was still not the accepted view in the time of Marinus, who argues against this hypothesis in this commentary.
Marinus did claim, however, that the Milky Way was part of the sphere of fixed stars and so underwent precession in the same way as the fixed stars.
Marinus makes use of ideas by Pappus in making his corrections.

Born about 450, Neapolis, Palestine (called Shechem in Bible, now Nablus, Israel). Died about 500, possibly Athens, Greece.

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Ancient Greek, Astronomy, Origin Israel

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive