Aratus

Aratus, (1) of Sicyon in Greece, who united his native city with the Achaean League, a federation of those of the Greek States of the Peloponnesus. He was elected General or President of the League in 245 B.C. (2) a Greek poet, who was born in Cilicia about 300 B.C., and flourished at the court of Antigonus Gonatas, King of Macedon. He wrote two didactic poems on astronomy, entitled Diosemeia and Phainomena, which Cicero translated and from which Virgil largely borrowed. He is quoted by St. Paul in his address on Mars' Hill (Acts xvii. 28).