Who was Claudius Ptolemy?
He was an Astronomer and a geographer. He lived 85AD to 165AD. He was a Greek. He lived in the Greek community of Alexandria, Egypt. Rome had conquered Egypt. Ptolemy was probably a Roman citizen, judging from his given name Claudius. He never visited Britain or Gaul. IT is thought that he got his information by interviewing the captains of ships that had sailed there and prominent military men that had lived there, and from the gazettes of his day. We will look at two of his maps. The first is of Ancient Aquitaine. Aquitaine is located on the Bay of Biscay in France. Linguists today believe the ancient Aquitainian language, which is now a lost language, is the ancient Basque language. Caesar visited Aquitaine around 56AD during his conquest of Gaul. Here is Ptolemy’s map of Aquitane.
