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A new fragment of Posidonius?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Galen's intellectual autobiography, On my own opinions, has challenged, and frustrated, potential editors for over a century. It is preserved in Greek excerpts, in a Latin translation made from the Arabic and with a spurious conclusion, and, for its last three chapters, in a passage of continuous Greek that circulated under the misleading title of On the substance of the natural faculties. Around 1340, the Italian translator Niccolo da Reggio made an extremely faithful Latin version from a Greek manuscript of the last two chapters. Although by itself no one source offers a complete text of the treatise, together they apparently cover it in its entirety. The Latino-arabic version, called variously De sententiis, De sententiis medicorum, and De credulitate Galeni, is the most extensive, but, as a comparison with the surviving Greek shows, it frequently departs considerably from the wording, and even general meaning, of the Greek. Indeed, without the availability of many parallel passages elsewhere in the Galenic corpus, much of this Latin translation would remain unintelligible.
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References
1 For a general description of this treatise and the manuscripts, see Nutton, V., ‘Galen's philosophical testament: On my own opinions’, in Wiesner, J., (ed.), Aristoteles. Werk und Wirkung. Band II Kommentierung, Überlieferung, Nachleben (Berlin and New York, W. De Gruyter, 1987), pp. 27–51Google Scholar.
2 See in particular, Temkin, O., Galenism. Rise and decline of a medical philosophy (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 51–94Google Scholar.
3 The Greek was first published by Helmreich, G., ‘Galeni Пερ тν ανтᾠ δοκούνтων fragmenta inedita”, Philologus lii, 1893, 433Google Scholar; important corrections and new readings were provided by K. Kalbfleisch, ‘Zu Galenos’, ibid., lv, 1896, pp. 691–2.
4 Ch. 6,9–10 in my forthcoming edition. Relevant MS. variants are: et ante ita add. DE fisodis B: fisedis OEC; fesedis D sensibilitatem] insensib-B verumptamen… carnosum om. C.
5 Ruska, J., ‘Turba Philosophorum. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alchemie’, Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin i (1931), pp. 18–30Google Scholar, offers a valuable guide to the vagaries of the transcription of Greek proper names via Arabic into mediaeval Latin. Latham, J. D., ‘Arabic into Medieval Latin’, J. Semitic Studies xvii (1972), 30–67, esp. 31–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is also useful. In general, the Arabic copyists paid attention only to the first three roots of the name, and endings and vowels are often confused or omitted, e.g. in On my own opinions Chrysippus is represented throughout as some variant on ‘Chresis’.
6 Kidd, I. G., Posidonius, Volume II: Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 140–42Google Scholar. Specific studies on Posidonius' theories of sense perception are unhelpful on this point: e.g. Cherniss, H., ‘Galen and Posidonius' theory of vision’, Am. J. Philology liv (1933), 154–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laffranque, M., Poseidonios d'Apamee (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1964), pp. 431–5Google Scholar.
7 Rufus, , Anat., p. 185Google Scholar Daremberg-Ruelle; Galen, , Meth. med. x.7: 10, pp. 851–3Google Scholar K. Cf. Vallance, J. T., The lost theory of Asclepiades of Bithynia (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1990), p. 37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.