  If one wants to translate the heliocentric picture of planets moving
uniformly on circular orbits about the sun to the perspective of a terrestrial
observer, using classical (ancient) geometric means only, one is naturally led
to the investigation of epicyclic constructions. The announcement of the
heliocentric hypothesis by Aristarchos of Samos and the invention of the method
of epicycles happened during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The latter developed
into the central tool of Hellenistic and Ptolemaic astronomy. In the present
literature on the history of astronomy the parallel rise of the heliocentric
view and the methods of epicycles is usually considered as a pure contingency.
Here I explain why I do not find this view convincing.
