You're talking about two people who don't seem to have contributed a single new theorem, proof, conjecture, or formula to mathematics. That bar is cleared by th

You're talking about two people who don't seem to have contributed a single new theorem, proof, conjecture, or formula to mathematics. That bar is cleared by their contemporaries Pappus and Diophantus. I don't think your idea that being "one of the best of the age" makes you "first-rate" holds any water. A reenactor at a local Renaissance Faire who has never worn a suit of plate armor or ridden a war horse is probably one of the best jousters of the current age, because it's not really pursued any more, but I would never call them a "first-rate, formidable jouster". The medieval scribes who wrote dry annals of what happened each year were among the best writers of their age, because writing was rare, but I wouldn't call them "first-rate, formidable writers". There is an objective component to this kind of language.