Commentary on Diophantus’ Arithmetica

Introduction

Diophantus’ Arithmetica is a Greek collection of number problems from late antiquity (its date is uncertain; it is often placed in the third century CE) that solves what we would now write as algebraic equations. The tenth-century Byzantine lexicon known as the Suda lists a commentary on it among Hypatia’s writings, next to an astronomical table and a commentary on Apollonius’ Conics; nothing of it survives. Of the thirteen books of the Arithmetica, six survive in Greek and four more in an Arabic translation preserved in a manuscript in Mashhad. Whether the careful checking of solutions in the Arabic books goes back to Hypatia is still debated.