Euclid (fl. third century B.C.E.?) is best known as the author of mathematical textbooks that were used in Europe, Asia, and North Africa for almost two millennia. There is little reliable information about his life and his scholarly activities. He is usually linked to the Mouseion at Alexandria under the Ptolemaic dynasty and thought to have been an elder contemporary of Apollonius (d. c.192 B.C.E.) and Archimedes (d. c. 212 B.C.E.), but the evidence for these claims is weak (Vitrac, Structure et genèse ).