EUTOCIUS

, a respectable Greek mathematician, lived at Ascalon in Palestine about the year of Christ 550. He was one of the most considerable mathematicians that flourished about the decline of the sciences among the Greeks, and had for his preceptor Isidorus the principal architect of the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople. He is chiefly known however by his commentaries on the works of the two ancient authors, Archimedes and Apollonius. Those two commentaries are both excellent compositions, to which we owe many useful circumstances in the history of the mathematics.

His commentaries on Apollonius are published in Halley's edition of the works of that author; and those on Archimedes, first in the Basle edition, in Greek and Latin, in 1543, and since in some others, as the late Oxford edition. Of these commentaries, those rank the highest, which illustrate Archimedes's work on the Sphere and Cylinder; in one of which we have a recital of the various methods practised by the ancients in the solution of the Delian problem, or that of doubling the cube. The others are of less value; though it cannot but be regretted that Eutocius did not pursue his plan of commenting on all the works of Archimedes, with the same attention and diligence which he employed in his remarks on the sphere and cylinder.

Pa. 507, line 5 from the bottom, for 3 + 1 read 3 + 1/7.

Pa. 551, line 22 from the bottom, for 7/50 read 7/30.