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Dec 6, 2009
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Dictionary of Phrase and Fable—P

Ptolemaic System

The system of Claudius Ptolemæus, a celebrated astronomer of Palusium, in Egypt, of the eleventh century. He taught that the earth is fixed in the centre of the universe, and the heavens revolve round it from east to west, carrying with them the sun, planets, and fixed stars, in their respective spheres. He said that the Moon was next above the earth, then Mercury, then Venus; the Sun he placed between Venus and Mars, and after Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, beyond which came the two crystalline spheres.

This system was accepted, till it was replaced in the sixteenth century by the Copernican system.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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