Adrastus of Cyzicus (born 500 BCE)
Born 500 BCE.
Adrastus of Cyzicus () is an individual who is mentioned along with Dion of Naples () in a work of Augustine of Hippo. He was apparently an ancient Roman astronomer. Although, from Augustine's brief and second-hand account, we can know very little of his life or works, he was cited as an authoritative astronomical observer from antiquity. According to Augustine's De Civitate Dei contra Paganos, Varro (116 BC – 27 BC) the Roman scholar and writer, cited Adrastus and Dion as authorities for the dating of an astronomical phenomenon involving Venus, describing them as mathematici nobiles (distinguished astronomers, or possibly astrologers). Again according to Augustine, Varro recorded this in his work De gente populi Romani. Although Varro's writing is now lost, Augustine quoted from it: There occurred a remarkable celestial portent; for Castor records that, in the brilliant star Venus, called Vesperugo by Plautus, and the lovely Hesperus by Homer, there occurred so strange a prodigy, that it changed its color, size, form, course, which never happened before nor since.
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