Talk:Seleucus of Seleucia

Greek or Chaldean (or both)?
I consider Jagged's reference to Strabo convincing, and that Seleucus was Chaldean. I doubt he wrote his work in cuneiform though.IAC-62 (talk) 12:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I gave all sources in the reference section to allow the reader to form his ows opinion. To me, it is plainly obvious that he came from a cultural contact zone and cannot exclusively be attributed to any single ethnicity to the exclusion of the other. For example, his name "Seleukos" is purely Greek, and the city he came from, Seleukia, was also a colony founded and populated by Greeks. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 17:43, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Do you have access to the Van der Waerden article hardcopy? As far as ethnicity goes, I don't think a personal name is a certain indicator. George Saliba has an English personal name, writes in English and is a professor in New York, but he is, in ethnicity terms Arab, in fact of Palestinian Christian background.IAC-62 (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have access to all articles I cited. I think modern terms like "ethnicity" may overblow the whole thing. Fact is that we know very little even of his main thesis, and nothing more about him as a person but what his ancient name "Seleukos of Seleucia" contains. But it is very important to note that, while older Chaldaean astronomers like Kidenas and Naburianos also had Babylonian names (Kidinnu resp. Naburimannu), Seleukos had not one. It is a pure Greek name, not one translated by the ancient Greeks into their own language. That is a very strong argument that he was of Greek ethnicity, even though Strabo calls him "Chaldaean". In the end, I hope the compromise I set out in the lead is acceptable to all. Gun Powder Ma (talk) 12:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Views on Tides
The claim that "Strabo (1.1.9)" attributes the discovery that the moon causes the tides, or any mention of the moon at all, to Seleucus appears to be simply wrong.


 * "In support of his opinion that the ocean does not behave uniformly he appeals to the authority of Seleucus of Babylon." - Strabo, Geography, Book 1, Ch 1, section 9

--MugaSofer (talk) 00:24, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Having looked into this further, I think there was simply a typo in the source that we've reproduced; the intended passage they're referencing is probably Strabo (3.5.9), i.e. vol 3 ch 5 section 9, viewable here. --MugaSofer (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Cool, seems the correct reference, I am adding it and removing the tags. FranzXYZ (talk) 13:16, 26 January 2023 (UTC)