Agathemerus

(Ἀγαθήμερος), the son of Orthon, and the author of a small geographical work in two books, entitled τῆς γεωγραφίας ὑποτυπώσεις ἐν ἐπιτομῆ (A Sketch of Geography in epitome), addressed to his pupil Philon. His age cannot be fixed with much certainty, but he is supposed to have lived about the beginning of the third century after Christ. He lived after Ptolemy, whom he often quotes, and before the foundation of Constantinople on the site of Byzantium in A. D. 328, as he mentions only the old city Byzantium. (2.14.) Wendelin has attempted to shew that he wrote in the beginning of the third century, from the statement he gives of the distance of the tropic from the equator; but Dodwell, who thinks he lived nearer the time of Ptolemy, contends that the calculation cannot be depended on. From his speaking of Albion ἐν ᾗ στρατόπεδα ἵδρυται, it has been thought that he wrote not very long after the erection of the wall of Severus. This is probably true, but the language is scarcely definite enough to establish the point. Works τῆς γεωγραφίας ὑποτυπώσεις ἐν ἐπιτομῇ (A Sketch of Geography in epitome)

His work consists chiefly of extracts from Ptolemy and other earlier writers. From a comparison with Pliny, it appears that Artemiidorus, of whose work a sort of compendium is contained in the first book, was one of his main authorities. He gives a short account of the various forms assigned to the earth by earlier writers, treats of the divisions of the earth, seas, and islands, the winds, and the length and shortness of the days, and then lays down the most important distances on the inhabited part of the earth, reckoned in stadia. The surname Agathemerus frequently occurs in inscriptions. Further Information

Dodwell in Hudson's Geograph. Scriptores Gr. Minores; Ukert, Geogr. der Griechen u. Römer, pt. i. div. 1. p. 236. [C.P.M]

(Κλαύδιος Ἀγαθήμερος), an ancient Greek physician, who lived in the first century after Christ. He was born at Lacedaemon, and was a pupil of the philosopher Cornutus, in whose house he became acquainted with the poet Persius about A. D. 50. (Pseudo-Sueton. vita Persii.) In the old editions of Suetonius he is called Agaternus, a mistake which was first corrected by Reinesius (Syntagma Inscript. Antiq. p. 610), from the epitaph upon him and his wife, Myrtale, which is preserved in the Marmora Oxoniensia and the Greek Anthology, vol. iii. p. 3811.224, ed. Tauchn. The apparent anomaly of a Roman praenomen being given to a Greek, may be accounted for by the fact which we learn from Suetonius (Suet. Tib. 6), that the Spartans were the hereditary clients of the Claudia Gens. Further Information

C. G. Kühn, Additam. ad Elench. Medic. Vet. a J. A. Fabricio, in "Biblioth. Gracca" eahibit. [W.A.G]