Nicomachus of Gerasa
Nicomachus of Gerasa
Flourishing 100 c.e.
Mathematician, astronomer
Pythagorean. Nicomachus was a famous writer on mathematics and astronomy, but practically nothing is known of his life. The Gerasa associated with his birth is likely the city by that name in Palestine. The philosophical lecturer Lucian of Samosata, a fortified city on the Euphrates, said, “You calculate like Nicomachus.” Lucian (born circa 120) indicates that when he wrote this line, Nicomachus was a famous man. A specialist on Pythagorean theory, Nicomachus wrote Introduction to Arithmetic, a text that influenced scholars in the Middle Ages. He also contributed to the study of harmonics, and several of his other mathematical works are lost.
Sources
Flora R. Levin, The Harmonics of Nicomachus and the Pythagorean Tradition (University Park, Pa.: American Philological Association, 1975).
G. J. Toomer, “Nicomachus” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, third edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 1042.