Hicetas

Hicetas was a Greek philosopher of the Pythagorean School. He was born in Syracuse, Magna Graecia. Like his fellow Pythagorean Ecphantus and the academic Heraclides Ponticus, he believed that the daily movement of permanent stars was caused by the rotation of the Earth around its axis. When Nicolaus Copernicus referred to Nicetus Syracusanus in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) as having been cited by Cicero as an ancient who also argued that the Earth moved, it is believed that he was actually referring to Hicetas. Copernicus, searching for ancient views on earth motion, said that he "first ... found in Cicero that Hicetas supposed the earth to move."