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Flourished(Italy), 360 BCE

Helicon of Cyzicus is said to have predicted an eclipse of the Sun, which took place as predicted.

Helicon was an astronomer and mathematician who studied with Eudoxus. He went to Syracuse, in Sicily, to teach the despot Dionysius II; while he was there, and during the third visit of Plato to Sicily, Helicon predicted an eclipse of the Sun. This took place as he had foretold. (It is identified with the annular eclipse of 12 May 361 BCE.) Dionysius was so impressed that he gave Helicon a talent of silver. Helicon is also said to have been able to solve the mathematical problem of the duplication of the cube, which perplexed many Greek mathematicians.

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  • Anon. (1912). Paulys Real‐Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler.

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© 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

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Bracher, K. (2007). Helicon of Cyzicus. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_593

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