He pointed out indeed that the so-called "third motion," introduced by Copernicus to account for the constant parallelism of the earth's axis, was a superfluous complication.
At the same time the texts of ancient authors supplied hints which led to discoveries so far-reaching in their results as those of Copernicus, Columbus and Galileo.
Sometimes he misunderstood the astronomical science of the ancients, sometimes that of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe.
Most noteworthy, however, in this connexion is the fact that he anticipated Copernicus by maintaining the theory of the rotation of the earth.
Further, Copernicus could not have known of Aristarchus's doctrine, since Archimedes's work was not published till after Copernicus's death.
