Thus Aristarchus’ forerunners are given credit in the book, but not Aristarchus himself – just as the names of Rheticus, of Brudzewski, and Novara, the teachers to whom Copernicus owed most, are omitted. He had to mention the fact that the heliocentric idea was known to the ancients, in order to prove its respectability, as it were; yet he confused the trail, as was his habit, by leaving out the most important among them.
