The eighth-century Latin manuscript Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, L 99 Sup. contains fifteen palimpsest leaves previously used for three Greek scientific texts: a text of unknown authorship on mathematical mechanics and catoptrics, known as the Fragmentum Mathematicum Bobiense (three leaves), Ptolemy's Analemma (six leaves), and an astronomical text that has hitherto remained unidentified and almost entirely unread (six leaves). We report here on the current state of our research on this last text, based on multispectral images. The text, incompletely preserved, (...) is a treatise on the construction and uses of a nine-ringed armillary instrument, identifiable as the “meteoroscope” invented by Ptolemy and known to us from passages in Ptolemy's Geography and in writings of Pappus and Proclus. We further argue that the author of our text was Ptolemy himself. (shrink)

In 1877 Erwin Rohde suggested the conjecture Argino instead of the manuscript reading argiro in Ampelius 8, 16. His conjecture did not find approval among editors of the late antique author and is virtually forgotten. A fresh look at Rohde’s suggestion shows, however, that it is convincing with regards to palaeography and consents with literary and epigraphical evidence. With Argino instead of a conjecture like Bargyliis, the passage is no more a testimony for the Carian city of Bargylia, but for (...) the Ionian Erythrae and its religious history (Aphrodite, Heracles, and the Sibyl). (shrink)