Berossus - Life and Work

Life and Work

Using ancient Babylonian records and texts that are lost to us, Berossus published the Babyloniaca (hereafter, History of Babylonia) in three books some time around 290-278 BC, by the patronage of the Macedonian/Seleucid king, Antiochus I Soter (during the third year of Antiochus I, according to Diodorus Siculus). Certain astrological fragments recorded by Pliny the Elder, Censorinus, Flavius Josephus, and Marcus Vitruvius Pollio are also attributed to Berosos, but are of unknown provenance, or indeed are uncertain as to where they might fit into his History. Vitruvius credits him with the invention of the semi-circular sundial hollowed out of a cubical block. A statue of him was erected in Athens, perhaps attesting to his fame and scholarship as historian and astronomer-astrologer.

A separate work, Procreatio, is attributed to him by the Latin commentaries on Aratus, Commentariorium in Aratum Reliquiae, but there is not any proof of this connection. However, a direct citation (name and title) is rare in antiquity, and it may have referred to Book 1 of his History.

He was born during or before Alexander the Great's reign over Babylon (330-323 BC), with the earliest date suggested as 340 BC. According to Vitruvius's work de Architectura, he relocated eventually to the island of Kos off the coast of Asia Minor and established a school of astrology there, by the patronage of the king of Egypt. However, scholars have questioned whether it would have been possible to work under the Seleucids and then relocate to a region experiencing Ptolemaic control late in life. It is not known when he died.