Greek angles from Babylonian numbers (Q1956487)

In recent years, adaptations of Babylonian models for the phenomena of the planets and the moon have been found in Greek papyri from Roman Egypt (see e. g. [\textit{A. Jones}, Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society. 233. Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society. (1999; Zbl 0935.01001)]). The author therefore supposes that there may have been Hellenistic astronomers who understood enough of Babylonian ``System A'' models to use them to estimate the parameters of Greek geometrical models of planetary movements. As he says, ``in the context of the geometrical models used by the Greeks, the practical difficulty is to somehow isolate the motion of the epicycle center of the deferent from the motion of the planet on its epicycle. One way to isolate the motion of the epicycle center is to determine the longitude and time of oppositions of the planet with the mean Sun.'' Instead of collecting observations of such oppositions, a Greek astronomer might have used the values predicted by System A tables. The author outlines the basic assumptions of System A and then shows how the parameters needed for a geometrical model of the outer planets could be derived from them. Similarly, the Babylonian System A for the Moon could have been used successfully to support a geometrical model. It is possible ``that a Greek astronomer \dots could have used those models to estimate the zodiacal variation of the equation of center for each planet, and from this, approximate values for the eccentricity and longitude of apogee required for geometrical models''. While we cannot be certain because the sources do not inform us about such considerations, the author succeeds in establishing their possibility.