Aratus

Supposedly the most popular ancient work after the Iliad and the Odyssey, Phaenomena is a “didactic” (instructive) poem explaining the constellations and providing weather prediction advice; sort of a cross between a star atlas and The Old Farmer’s Almanac. It was apparently a popular exercise for Romans to translate this from Greek to Latin; versions are attributed to Cicero, Ovid, Germanicus and Tiberius. It would be interesting to take Aratus’ “weather signs” – for example, “Halos around the Sun mean trouble. The more tightly wound and dark they are the worse the storm will be” and compare them to actual weather at, say, Athens. A project for a classicist meteorologist. An extensive introduction and endnotes; illustrated with woodcuts from a 15th century star atlas.… (mehr)

Λυκόφρων descries a mind that is intense and clever like that of a wolf. Lycophron's "Alexandra" is so astute as to have aroused the invidia of Byzantine critics.
Καλλίμαχος, whose name reads 'fighting nobly', was responsible for the cataloging of that famous Library of Alexandria which was a bulwark against obscurantists.
Ἄρατος ὁ Σολεύς means the desirable (or wanted) man from Soli. Aratus' "Phaenomena" was translated by Marcus Tullius Cicero "in his early youth."… (mehr)