It is an extraordinary fact that, if ostracism was introduced in 598 B.C. for the purpose of expelling Hipparchus it was not till twenty years later that he was condemned.
The problem of determining an orbit may be regarded as coeval with Hipparchus, who, it is supposed, found the moving positions of the apogee and perigee of the moon's orbit.
Hipparchus, the famous astronomer, on the other hand, (c. 150 B.C.) proved a somewhat captious critic. He justly objected to the arbitrary network of the map of Eratosthenes.
A few latitudes had indeed been observed, but although Hipparchus had shown how longitudes could be determined by the observation of eclipses, this method was in reality not available for want of trustworthy time-keepers.
Hipparchus is not known to have compiled a map himself.