Transmission of the Greek Classics on music ("De institutione musica libri quinque", unfinished) contributed to medieval education. "De arithmetica", begins with modular arithmetic, such as even and odd, evenly even, evenly odd, and oddly even. He then turns to unpredicted complexity by categorizing numbers and parts of numbers. His translations of Euclid on geometry and Ptolemy on astronomy, if they were completed, no longer survive. Boethius made Latin translations of Aristotle's "De interpretation" and "Categories" with commentaries. These were widely used during the Middle Ages. In the Western Provinces (what today is considered the Western Europe's heartland), the collapsing Roman empire lost many Greek manuscripts
Ptolemy II Philadelphus and dissolute, intellectual and artificial, has been compared with the Palace of Versailles of Louis XIV of France. Ptolemy deified his parents and his sister-wife after their deaths. Ptolemy II began his reign as co-regent with his father, Ptolemy Soter, from c. 285 to c. 283 BCE, and maintained a splendid court in Alexandria. Egypt was involved in several wars during his reign. His maternal half-brother Magas had declared himself king of Cyrene in 276 and began a war against Ptolemy's government in 274 BCE. Magas managed to keep Cyrenaica independent of the Ptolemies until his death in 250 BCE.