History of geometry lost. He was brought to the university at Alexandria by Ptolemy I, King of Egypt. "The Elements" began with definitions of terms, fundamental geometric principles (called "axioms" or "postulates"), and general quantitative principles (called "common notions") from which all the rest of geometry could be logically deduced. Following are his five axioms, somewhat paraphrased to make the English easier to read. Concepts, that are now understood as algebra, were expressed geometrically by Euclid, a method referred to as Greek geometric algebra. Archimedes (287-212 BC), of Syracuse, Sicily, when it was a Greek city-state, is often considered to be the greatest
Cosmas I of Alexandria not a Monothelete, this has been interpreted by modern scholarship as a garbled reference to Alexandria's recognition by the other Chalcedonian patriarchates. Cosmas I of Alexandria Cosmas I or Kosmas I () served as Greek Patriarch of Alexandria between ca. 727 and his death in 768. Cosmas was the first residential Chalcedonian (Melkite) patriarch to be established in Alexandria following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 640s. The see had remained vacant since, but Cosmas was appointed with the consent of both the Umayyad Caliph and the Byzantine Emperor. The chronicler Theophanes the Confessor reports that in 742/3, he