or.

sexagesimally written
35.0.7;2.3W = 5.44;58,45 sid. rot. (2 a)
Thus one finds by simple division
1 sid. rot.=365;15,35,29.28 .... d~3651/41/100 (3)
for the length of the sidereal year.
The corresponding difference between sidereal and tropical year is therefore
At = 365;15.35,29 - 365;14.48 =0;0,47.29d
requiring a solar motion of
0;0.47.29.0;59,8 =0;0,46,47,51°.
Hence (2) implies
precession per year: 0;0,46.48° or 1° precession in 77 Eg. y. (4)
It seems hardly possible to assume that Hipparchus in his investigations of the
differences between sidereal and tropical years could have overlooked such a
direct consequence of some of his basic parameters. Hence one must conclude
from the coexistence of (4) and of the previously mentioned limit of 1° precession
per century that Hipparchus did not exclude a priori the possibility of variations
in the lengths of the years. either sidereal, or tropical, or both. This conclusion is
fully supported by Ptolemy's discussion of Hipparchus' methodology. 5
Variations in the length of the year can equally well be expressed as variations
in the value of the constant of precession. It is also plausible to assume that any
such variation would have been considered to be periodic. In fact we know the
existence in pre-Ptolemy times of a theory of a periodic change in the motion of
precession. recorded by Theon,6 conventionally named "trepidation of the equinoxes".
This early theory assumes
precession per year: 0;0,45° or 10 precession in 80 Eg. y. (5)
Not only is this parameter practically identical with (4) but the periodic variation
in the sidereal longitude A.* of the vernal point is assumed to follow a linear zigzag
function with the maximum A. * = 8° in the year Augustus -127 (i.e. -157), i.e. in a
time exactly coinciding with Hipparchus' investigations of the equinoxes.7 All
this seems to suggest Hipparchus as the inventor of the theory of trepidation. a
theory which Ptolemy preferred to disregard in silence.
5 Above p.295.
6 Cf. for the details below IV B 2, 3.
7 Cf. above Table 28, p. 276