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Babylonws Africanus I Africanus the Babylonian an Interpolatici in the Cyranides Emended

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Babylonws Africanus I Africanus the Babylonian an Interpolatici in the Cyranides Emended BABYLONWS AFRICANUS I AFRICANUS THE BABYLONIAN AN INTERPOLATICI IN THE CYRANIDES EMENDED In Kaimakis's text of the Cyranides] the section on the medicinal and magical powers2 of the hare ends as follows: eòe; 5è Baputaóvioc; ó 'A<|)piKavóc; <pr\aiv òxi ei QéXr] rcai5orcoif|oai TIC;, rcpò xf|c; ODve^eòoeeoc; xf|c; yovaiKÓc;3, fjyouv òxav [léXXr] eie; o-ovovjoiav èX0eiv4, èrcixpioàxeo xò pópiov aòxoò aipa Àcxyeooò5, Kai rcoirjoei rcaiSa àppeva. ei 8è Xfjveiov oxéap èrcixpiorj, rcoirjoei6 Qf\X\) (Cyr. II 24,38-41). This passage is to be found in just one of the seven manuscripts which Kaimakis used when editing the chapter: it is omitted by IODNWS and transmitted only by the Parisian manuscript K7. Nor is it reflected in the Latin Version which renders in this chapter a text somewhat different from that of Kaimakis8. Unfortunately what corresponds to book two of the Cyranides in the recently discovered Venetian manuscript M9 terminates in the middle of the letter kappa. Since Ruelle, the first editor of the Cyranidesi0, did not use K, the first time this passage appeared in ' See Kaimakis 155. 2 On the medicai uses of hares see Gossen 2484f. and Rathbone. 3 An perà xfic, yuvaiKÓc,? 4 According to the report in Bidez-Cumont 1924-1932, K simply has ouvoooiav é^Geìv. This is because the editor Lebègue has misread péA.A.rj eiq as pé^Acic,. See J. Irigoin ap. Vieillefond 321 n. 4. 5 Panayiotou 312 comments on the construction of two accusatives with énixpieo which he describes as 'new'. He does not comment on the status of this passage or consider the possibility that caga is a corruption of caperci (cf. the Psellus passage). The construction is, in any case, not a surprising one: see Bjòrck 58 n. 1 who refers to Lòfstedt 249ff. 6 In the report in Bidez-Cumont 1924-1932 the reading is KOÙ rcoirioei. If this is a correct report, it probably represents a corrupt text, the KOÙ intruding from the same phrase above. 7 Parisinus gr. 2286 (Boudreaux's P): see Boudreaux 68ff.; CCAG III 23; Bidez-Cumont 1924-1932, I 180-191; and Kaimakis 7f. 8 On the Latin translation, the second earliest witness for the text, see Bain 1990, 297f. Inits version of the chapter on the hare (Delatte 117-119) there are differences in the order of items and there is nothing to correspond to Kaimakis's lines 8-14 (which are also omitted by IO) or 17f. (fi 5è nmia ... (3on.0ei). In the equivalent of I8f. it is only the bile that is used in the mixture which induces conception (in Kaimakis's text the ingredients also include the rennet and the brain). " See Meschini and Bain 1993. 10 CE. Ruelle's edition appeared in de Mély. 210 BAIN print was in the report of the contents of the manuscript in the catalogue of Greek alchemical manuscripts". Until 1976 and the appearance of Kaimakis's edition it was absent from the published text. Who is Ba(3o?ieóvioc; ó 'AtJipiKavóc;? I had decided that the words in question probably contained a reference to Julius Africanus12, the author of the Cesti, long before I belatedly consulted Vieillefond's edition. The passage quoted above is found there as fragment IX 4'\ Vieillefond pointed out (p. 314) that this passage is a paraphrase of part of Michael Psellus' Tlepì irapaSó^cov àvayvcoGpcxxcov: oòÀ.A.r|\|/iv èpyàt^exai pèv Geòc; Kai <}>òoic;, eoe; èyeoye rcérceiopai, 'A<|)piKavòc; 8é òrioiv òxi Kai xe^viKT^ xic; èoxi yévvrioic;, Kai yevvr)0rjoexai xe^viKeuc; ei ó àviìp péÀAeov eie; ouvovjoiav èA.0eiv èrci^pioei xò pòpiov àipaxi ?iayeooò fj Xr|veieo oxéaxr à^A.' èKeiveoq pèv àppev, oòxeoc; 8è OfiÀ/o14. Africanus was no Babylonian'\ Vieillefond convincingly explains the puzzling ethnicon with reference to the next section of Psellus' work. There the astrologer TeÒKpoc; Ba(3i>À.eóvioc; is mentioned16. The interpolator in the Cyranides has confused the two authorities cited by Psellus17. There remains a problem. Surely the Greek for 'Africanus le babylonien' is not BaPo/Uóvioqò 'AtJipiKavóq, but 'A())piKavòc;ó BaPuÀcóvioc;? Read, accordingly, in the opening of this passage which has been inserted into the Cyranides, 'A<j)piKavòc; ò BaP"u?ieóvioc;'\ It is worth noting that, somewhat surprisingly, considering its subject matter, references by name to authorities in the Cyranides are almost non-existent. In it This catalogue includes appendices on manuscripts of the Cyranides. See Bidez-Cumont 1924-1932. I 1 851. 2 On Africanus' name see the discussion in Vieillefond 14ff. On Africanus generally see also Kroll and Bjòrck 13ff. P. 321: he does not acknowledge that the passage belongs to the Cyranides. napaSo^oypdcpoi. Scriptores rerum mirabilium Graeci, ed. Westermann 146f. (Vieillefond IX I |p. 317]) = Psellus. Op. 32,14-16 (p. 110 Duffy, whose text I cite here and on n. 16). The work's title in Duffy is Flepì napaòó^cov dKovopdreov. For a discussion of his provenance see Vieillefond 17. Kai xaoxa pèv KoppoTiicd TE KOÙ (KoppoxiKeóxepa KOÙ Westermann) dpoootx. òrco 5è xtov TeÓKpoo TOO BaPoA.covio\j fjipXiwv noXXà TIC, exv eopoi eaopaaitóxaxa, ànó xe xcòv èv oòpavep t;cp5icov Kaì arcò xcóv rcapavaxeAAóvxeov étcdcxeo xoóxtov Kaì ànò xéov Xeyoyiévcùv 8eKavwv na.vxoòanàc, d0oppàq èv Sia^ópoic, Tcpdc^eoi nopi^ópevoi; (o.c. 32,91-95, cf. 99 [p. 1 12 Duffy] = Westermann 147). «Pselle cite, après Africanus, TeÒKpoc; BafJoA.eóvio<;. L'excerpteur aura attribué au premier l'origine du second» (Vieillefond 314). On Teukros see Gundel. His fragments are edited by Boll 1-52. Teucer the Babylonian will most likely have been a native of Babylon near Cairo: cf. Pingree II 442f. Alternatively, as Nigel Wilson has suggested to me, one might assume that the scribe has misplaced the article and, in that case, read ó BapoÀtóvioq 'A<(>piKavó<;. BABYLONIUS AFRICANUS I AERICANUS THE BABYLONIAN 9 1 1 personal proper names hardly occur at ali and their presence in the text suggests interpolation'\ The prologue makes mention of the two authors of the work, Harpocration and 'Kyranos' (there are also some references in the prologue and in other parts of the work in some manuscripts to the work's Hermetic origins). Two other humans, Magnus and Marcellinus, appear in hiding in the acrostichs found in the poems in book one20. Apart from the passage quoted above, however, the only references by name to other persons (other than gods and supernatural figures like Gello' ) in the work as edited by Kaimakis are to Alexander the Great (prologue 37) and to the poet Theocritus, a line of whose verse is quoted22. The edition of book one by Cardinal Pitra which appeared in 1888 and was based on a Moscow manuscript23 contains a reference to Galen following the title of the twenty fourth chapter: òxi ó rà^nvoc; (sic) èv xeó flepì xpocpcov aòxoò rcpaypaxeteo àvaxpércei xoòxo, \|/eo8èc; ())àoKeov eivai ... (I 24,3). The Arabie translation24 of book one is studded with references to Galen. These have been introduced for exegetical purposes by the translator. As with the reference to Africanus in K, we are justified in these instances in speaking of interpolations. The reference to Galen in Pitra's manuscript subverts the whole work by calling into question what has been presented as holy •«.25 wnt . The manuscript M has revealed two further references to historical human 19 If one can use such an expression of a text of a work which is itself a compilation of a compilation and has been happily described as a «texte vivant» (by R. Halleaux in Halleaux- Schamp 193). The kind of additional information supplied here seems to me different in kind from the additional articles and additional recipes found in certain manuscripts or groups of manuscripts of the Cyranides. 20 See West and Fiihrer. For the significance of these names for the dating of this work see West; Alpers 20f.; Bain 296; Bowersock 244f.; and Barnes 57ff. (contro Fowden XVIII and 87 n. 54). 21 For Gello see II 32,21 and II 40,36ff. 22 See Alpers 17 who attributes the introduction of the citation of Theocr. 2,17 at I 10,6 to the redactor who combined the book of Harpocration which was the source of the first book of 'Kyranos' with the three books of Cyranides. 23 Mosquensis, Synode 11 (no. 468 in Vladimir). The manuscript Z (Parisinus gr. 2510) begins book four with references to Dioscorides, Hippocrates and Galen: AiooKopiSooq KOÙ 'Ijt7toKpdxoi)i; Kai raA.n.voó" Jiepi ìaxptKfjc; èjaaxrjprn; èK lèv xf\q Oa^do-oric, c^wtov Kai xeov TrK Y?l? <l>oévxtov eie, 9epa7t£tav xwv dv0peo7iivcov ooipdxcov, Ttóvn,pa Kaì cò4>éA.r)pa. 24 For the Arabie version of book one which is actually our earliest witness for the text see Ullmann and Bain 1990, 299. 25 See the prologue 7ff. and cf. I 1,24 and I 24,1 14. It is only in the prologue and first book that this claim to be relating a divine revelation is more or less consistente maintained. One might have expected to find references to human authority in the more heterogeneous and secular books two to four. 212 BAIN beings" . They both occur in a section that does not appear elsewhere, Tlepì yvvaiKÓg. Òaoi 8è oi rcepi 'Ooxàvriv (II 14,15 M); eoe; AripÒKpixoc; Xéyei (II 14,21 M)27. Manchester DAVID BAIN References Alpers K. Alpers, Untersuchungen zum griechischen Physiologus und den Kyraniden, «Ves­ tigia Bibliae» VI (1984) 13-87. Bain 1990 D. Bain, 'Treading Birds': an Unnoticed Use of naréco (Cyranides, 1.10.27, 1.19.9), in E.M.
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