ANTHEMIUS

This article appears in Volume V02, Page 93 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ANC-APO

ANTHEMIUS , Greek mathematician and architect, who produced, under the patronage of Justinian (A.D. 532), the

original

ORIGINAL

and daring plans for the church of St

Sophia

SOPHIA (1630-1714)

in Constantinople, which strikingly displayed at once his knowledge and his ignorance. He was one of five, brothersthe sons of Stephanus, a physician of Tralleswho were all more or less eminent in their respective departments. Dioscorus followed his father's profession in his native place; Alexander became at Rome one of the most celebrated medical men of his time;

Olympias

OLYMPIAS

was deeply versed in Roman jurisprudence; and Metrodorus was one of the distinguished grammarians of the

great

GREAT

Eastern

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

. It is related of Anthemius that, having a quarrel with his next-door neighbour Zeno, he annoyed him in two ways. First, he made a number of leathern tubes the ends of which he contrived to fix among the joists and flooring of a fine upper-room in which Zeno entertained his friends, and then subjected it to a miniature earthquake by sending steam through the tubes. Secondly, he simulated thunder and lightning, the latter by flashing in Zeno's eyes an intolerable light from a slightly hollowed mirror. Certain it is that he wrote a treatise on burning-glasses. A fragment of this was published under the title IIep1 irapa66 cev pnxavgA6,ro.v by L. Dupuy in 1777, and also appeared in 1786 in the

forty

FORTY

-second volume of the Hist. de l'Acad. des Incr.; A. Westermann gave a revised edition of it in his lIapabot-aypacpaa (Scriptores rerum mirabilium Graeci), 1839. In the course of constructions for surfaces to reflect to one and the same point (1) all rays in whatever direction passing through another point, (2) a set of parallel rays, Anthemius assumes a property of an ellipse not found in Apollonius (the equality of the angles subtended at a

focus

FOCUS (Latin for " hearth " or " fireplace ")

by two tangents

drawn

DRAWN

from a point), and (having given the

focus

FOCUS (Latin for " hearth " or " fireplace ")

and a

double

ordinate) he uses the focus and directrix to obtain any number of points on a parabolathe first instance on record of the

practical

PRACTICAL

use of the directrix.
On Anthemius generally, see Procopius, De Aedific. i. 1; Agathias, Hist. v. 6-9; Gibbon's Decline and Fall, cap. xl. (T. L. H.)

End of Article: ANTHEMIUS

If you wish, you can link directly to this article.

<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/ANC_APO/ANTHEMIUS.html">
ANTHEMIUS
</a>

(Previous)
ANTHEMION (from the Gr. h.v8Epaw, a flower)

(Next)
ANTHESTERIA

JCSM was founded in 1997 and exists to help the community and bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that were sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
1-888-887-0417 or Email