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The Salmasius-Elichmann edition of the "Tabula" of Cebes The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Lutz, Cora E. 1979. The Salmasius-Elichmann edition of the "Tabula" of Cebes. Harvard Library Bulletin XXVVII (2), April 1979: 165-171. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37363664 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Tl1e Sal111asius- Elichma1111Edition of tl1e Tabula of Cebes Corfl E. Lutz LA UDE DE SAUMAISE ( 1588-165 3) is genera11y kno,vn for a bad error jn judgment, \vhcn, in 1 649, at the instigation of Charles II~ he ,vrote a L.-'1tindefense of King Charles I.1 1,.his -- n1ight have receded into the limbo of comparable n1istakcs ,vhich do not affect the course of history, if John J\1lilton had not \vrit- ten a rcfut~tion of such bitterness and vchen1ence that the incident re~u 1t e d in the v ir tu a 1annihilation of Sa.u 1naise. Salmasius, as he ,vas kno,vn to .i\1ilton2nd is still kno,vn to the schol- arly ,vorld, \Vas the n1ost distinguished cla~-sicistof his generation 111 Europe. A native of Burgundy, he ,vas educated in Paris andin Iicidcl- berg, and eventually served as Professor of Latin at Leyden. Iiis chief in tcrest , vas in t cxtual criticism as I1c strove to produce good and -ac- cura t c texts of son1c of the Greek and Latin authors and to provide adequate commentaries on others. His greatest achievement ,vas his commentary on Solinus' Polyhistor, a vast con1pcndiun1 of natural his- tory largc1)· taken fron1 Pliny. Other classical texts \vhich he edited or commented upon include Florus' ,vork on Roman history and \Tirru- vius' /Je Arcbitectura. Tllrough a curious set of circumstanccs 1 Salmasius gained the ap- preciation of classical scholnrs b)' an act of devotion to the 1nc111oryof his friend and personal physician, Dr. Johannes Elichtnann ( 1600- 16 3 9) . This cn1inent scientist and lingu ist1 ,vho is said to have kno-\vn sjxrcen languages,,vas particu1arl)• interested in Arabic and Persian be- cause he ,vishcd to understand the achicvcn1ents of the Arabic ,vorJd 1 De{en1fo regfo, pro Carolo lt rege Anglinc (Leyd(;n? l650). j Iohannjs J\-tiltonis Def e1nio pro j)Ojntlo .:znglicanotcont1'a Claudii ano11j•Jui, tdias Sab11a;ii,,Defe11sioneu1 regimn (Paris, I 6j 1), Jn thE: Defenrio secunda ( ! 654), ~·Elton says,, uy t tl 1ere arc those who e \'-C n pl ace th c respo ns ihi1i ty for his death on me and 1 on those l, arbs of n1ine, too keen Iy s h-Jrpene d. - Co uzpl et e Prose JV orks of Jo bn Afilton (N~,V" l-lavc-n, u;.,ll6)1 I\T1 559, Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XXVII, Number 2 (April 1979) Harvnrd Library Bulletin in medicine.3 In the course of his studies he can1c upon an Arabic 1nann- script containing a paraphrase of the Greek text of the Tabula of Cebesj along \yjth that of Theophrastus' Golden Verses.~ The Arabic para- phrase ,vas the ,vork of a ]earned scholar, Ahn1ud ibn 1'vluhan1n1adibn 1\'1iska,vayh( d. lo 3o), ,vho also compiled a collection of lf' ise Sayings and ,vrote a number of treatises on ethical philosophy nnd history ..ti From this Arabic manuscript, Dr. FJichmann prepared an edition of the Tabula of Ce bes ,vith his o,vn Latin translation ,vhich he intended to have prin red along ,vith the Greek The short dialogue is an alicgory of human life, a kind of Pilgrini's Progress,in ,vhich a group of youthsi visiting a temple of Saturn~ sec a strange votive taolet depict~ ing a complex scene \Vhich is interpreted to thcn1 by an Old J\-1anas a representation of the journey of life. It ,vas reputed to have been the ,vork of Cebes the Theban, friend of Socrates, ,vho i~ n1cntioncd by· Plato in the I'baedo,and later by Diogenes I_}acrtiusand Aulus Gellius. After Elichmann's early death, Salmasius bad this ,vork pr1nted -and also E]ichn1ann's ArabicJ J....atin. and Greek vcrsjons of the Anrea Car- 1nhiaof Pythagoras. Prefaced hy an extensive Introduction by· Sal- rnasius,the book ,vas pub1ishedby· I. I\1-aircin Leyden in r640.ij Copies are no, v preserved as treasores in a nu rnber of rare book Iibra ri es, in- eluding Houghton.. · Salmasius ,v3s the ideal person to prepare· EHchmann 's edition for publication. Since he himself \Vas an experienced Arabic scho]ar, he \vent over the text very carefuHy~comparing jt with the Greek. He found, as Elichmann had said, tha.t the Arabic text represented a para- phrase of a Greek manuscript considerably older than those jn exis- tence in his time. To account for numerous inaccuracies ~nd ~ctua.1 errors in the Arabic, he suggests that this ,va.s not surprising since :eL. G. l\1ichaud1 Riogn1p1JieUniversellc, A'11ttcnneet Afoderne (Paris! 1880 ), XIIl 1 14-15, and N e-ue lJeutscbe 11iograpbii?(Berlin, 1959 ), IV, 440. 4 Rijksur1i,·ers-itcit.Bihliotheca Acaden1iae Lugduno-Batav:-lc, Catt1logtH todictan arabicorun1, IV, 19r,. n. r93-3, · 0 i\t Stcinschneider 1 Die rtrahircben Vhersetzungen aus den Griechiscben ( Graz.1 J960), pp. 43~44. App3rently Elichn1~no did not 1<now th~ :.unhor of the paraphrase. See Praef atio, pp s _and 31. Tabula Cebetit 1 Graece, Arnbicet Laiiuet Item Aure.1 Can-11inaPJ·tl1agorae cum parap hrasi Ara b~ca, A ucto re Io han nc EU chman no, l\1.D. Cum Praef ad one Cl. Sal- m asii. L ugd uni Ih ta von11nt Typ is Io h annis 1\·1aire Cl:; I=- C XL. In another vo lu1nc printed i r1the s:ame y.e~I', this occurs as a third volume bound in \\'"ith s~1rn ~s i us' ed i~ tion of Simplidus' Co1JnJ1entary on the E11cbiridian of Epictetus, and a second vol- u ntc of S:aln1asiusi no tcs on th is te.xt. Harvard University - Houghton Library / Harvard University. Harvard Library bulletin. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library. Volume XXVII, Number 2 (April 1979) Sal111asius~Elicb1ni1J~11_Edition of _t(JeTabula of C ebes 1 6 7 Arabic scholars learned Greek fro1n Greek-speaking people "'ho lived many centuries after the classical pcrjod and in lands far removed from ancient Grcece. 1 Apparently the notes and cornmentary ,vhich Elich- mann had expected to publish \Vith the triple texts \Vere not a,Tailablc, so Sal1n a si us himscl f cxa1nincd the text in dctai 1 and furnish cd no tcs on the textual problems he encountered. In scores of instances of ques- tionable rcadingsr he cited cxarnplcs of the classical Greek usage and the findings of the lcxicographcrs. 8 In making his comparisons hcr,vecn the Arabic and the Greek) he depended not sole!y upon the readings from the Greek 1nanuscript used by Elichmann, but he also included those found in other Greek manuscripts to ,vhich he had access.g; II is com men ts .are not Iimi ted to linguistic questions, ,but h c g ivcs his 1n- tcr pr cta tion of the setting of the dialognc~ the participant.s1 the 1neaning of the allegory, and the value of its instruction. Besides .serving as a high tribute to the· 111cn1oryof his friend and tcstin1onial to his rc1narkablc achievements in con1parative linguis- tics/0 the edition of the triple text of the Tabula rightly seen1~d to Sa.hn~siusto constitute a significant ~dvancc in the study of this little book ,vhich had a remarkah]c impact upon scholars fron:i the time of the Renaissance into the eighteenth century·. Briefly, the history· of the text before Elichmann'.s tin1e is this. Apparently the dialogue composed hy· the Thehan Cebcs, frjend of Socr,ates.,,v:1s lostJ but in the first century of our era, a short composition of the same namet ,vritten in simple, classical Greek~ made its appcar~ncc and ,vas n1cntioned by J..,.ucianand TcrtuHian, ,,,.ho considered it the originaL It is preserved in thirteen Greek manuscriptstonly t,vo of ,vhich ,vcrc copied before the fifteenth centut)T· In addition to the jntrinsic appeal of the lively dialogue) the interest of the hu1nanists in the Platonic School n1ay account in :son1e degree for the \vidc popularity of the Tahu!«. It \Vas first trans]ated 1 Sal1nasiu~'I'raef ~tio covcr.s 3 3 unnulnbc.rcd pages. llis rcnr.irks on the faulty kno,vkdgc of GrQck by the A:r~hic scho1~rs occurs on p1gcs 7 and 8 of my nun1bcr- in g. On p~gcs 6 and 9 he note~ :.:1.n instance of a s trio us error '-V hen the Arabic calls the niai(l hltcrlocuwr of the di~loguc. 1-3:cr~dcs instead of the Old l'vlan. s 14 pages of the Praefntio arn given to a consideration of individual words and phrascs of the dial o guc. Praefraloi p, 14. 10 On page 4 of the Fraefatio, Salinasius dfacusses Elich1nann's theory of the rela- tionship of the Persian and Arabic 1angua gcs ,vi th Gre ck, -a.nd a l:so the common an- c:e~try of these and the GE:rrn-an languages.
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