The collected works of Ptolemy. Illustrated (eBook)

Geography, Tetrabiblos

Ptolemy (Autor)

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2021 | 1. Auflage
1870 Seiten
Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing (Verlag)
978-0-88001-153-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science. Ptolemy's astronomy that were popular among the Arabs and Byzantines alike. Contents: Geography The Translations The Greek Text Tetrabiblos

Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises

Textauszug

INTRODUCTION

ON the occasion of his visit in Feldkirch I first heard from Dr. Edward Luther Stevenson that he purposed translating the text of Ptolemy’s Geography into English. Since such a translation does not exist, either in English or in German, the information pleased me very much.

Of course I did not conceal from myself and my courageous and enterprising friend the difficulty of the task. A critical edition of the Greek text which would meet all justifiable demands has never yet appeared, nor is there any Latin, Italian or French translation extant that reproduces adequately the previously published Greek text. Dr. Stevenson knew all this; nevertheless he has taken upon himself the exceedingly meritorious labor of translating the eight books of Ptolemy’s Geography into English. After much painstaking toil the work is at last successfully completed.

Since in the course of these years I have always testified to a lively interest in the translation, it did not come to me as something unexpected when Dr. Stevenson asked me several months ago to write an introduction to his successfully completed translation of the Geography.

The wish of a scholar so illustrious for his investigations in the field of historical geography and cartography, that I would write an introduction to his translation, I could all the more readily comply with, since my own comprehensive introduction to the great Vatican publication of Ptolemy: Claudit Ptolemaei Geographiae Urbinas Codex graecus 82 phototypice depictus, has at length appeared in fair proof. The title of this introduction reads: Josephi Fischer S. J., Commentatio de Cl. Ptolemaei vita, operibus, influxu saeculari. References to this Commentary are indicated in the following pages by the word Commentatio.

In a manner deserving gratitude Stevenson offers, in addition to the text, a reproduction of the Ptolemy maps, from the valuable Codex Ebnerianus of the Lenox Library collection in The New York Public Library. The choice of the Codex Ebnerianus is a very fortunate one, since this Codex furnishes the original copy for the maps in the important Roman editions of Ptolemy of the years 1478, 1490, 1507, and 1508, in which the Ptolemaic maps are reproduced more accurately than in most other editions: see Jos. Fischer S. J., An important Ptolemy manuscript with maps, in The New York Public Library (United States Catholic Historical Society, Historical records and studies, New York, 1913, v. 6, part 2, p. 216 — 234), also Commentatio, p. 340-343.

That the maps essentially belong to the Geography of Ptolemy, and offer with essential accuracy the original Ptolemy maps, I have shown in the two treatises: Ptolemaus und Agathodamon (Kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien, Denkschriften, philos. hist. Klasse, Wien, 1916 Bd. 59, Abhandl. 4, p. 71-93); also Ptolemâus als Kartograph (Geographische Bousteine, herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Herm. Haack, Gotha, 1923, Heft 10, p. 113-129), as also in the Commentatio, p. 104 — 1J1.

Since the Commentatio is not yet published, and since the most important question for the right understanding and the accurate translation of the text is the question of the maps, we will first try to determine from Ptolemy’s own words whether he intended to add maps to the γεωγραφική ύφήγησις.

That Ptolemy himself wished to add maps to his “Guide to the drawing of the world map” is clear and evident from the often overlooked second sentence of the second chapter of Book I: Προκειμένου δ’ έν τφ παρόντι καταγράψαι την καθ’ ημάς οικουμένην σύμμετρον ώς ενι μάλιστα τη κατ’ αλήθειαν (But now as we propose to describe our habitable earth, and in order that the description may correspond as far as possible with the earth itself).

The choice of the word καταγράφειν, which Ptolemy always applied in the sense of representing graphically, or of drawing, as well as the exact designation of that which is to be represented (την καθ’ ημάς οικουμένην, “our inhabited earth”), and also the statement about the manner of the representation (σύμμετρον ώς ένι μάλιστα τη κατ’ αλήθειαν) with the utmost possible faithfulness of the real earth, prove incontestably that he regarded as his proper task the representation of our oekumene cartographically with the utmost possible accuracy.

How Ptolemy, toward the end of his life (about 150 A. D.), after the completion of his chief astronomical work, the Almagest, and of his great astrological work, the Tetrabiblos, in which he also treats important geographical questions (Commentatio, p. 33 — 56), came to devote himself to the cartographical representation of the habitable earth, this he himself tells us with all desired clearness in the sixth chapter of Book I.

After praising highly his contemporary Marinus (ca. 70 — 130 A.D.) who had devoted himself all his life with great zeal and good judgment to the revision of his world map (της τού γεογραφικού πίνακος διορθώσεως,) and after he had made in several editions (έκδόσεις πλείονες) the results of his comprehensive preliminary labors accessible to the contemporary world, Ptolemy continues as follows: “If the latest edition of the ‘Emendation of the world map’ of Marinus left nothing further to wish for, except that the map was missing, then we would be content to draw the map of the oekumene in accordance with the Commentaries of Marinus (ποιεϊσθαι την της οικουμένης καταγραφήν) without adding anything else (μηδέν τι περιεργαζομένοις).” Since, however, Marinus (1) has assumed some things without sufficient reason, and (2) has not with sufficient care seen to it that the drawing of the world map is (a) made easier, and (b) that it should be as nearly accurate as possible, then apart from the main task, namely, the drawing of the map, two subordinate problems are to be solved in order to make the work of Marinus more nearly perfect (εύλογώτερον) and more useful (εύχρηστοτερον).

The positive reference to the words of Ptolemy just cited, which in my study, Ptolemâus und Agathodâmon, p. 71 — 93; Separatabzug, p. 1 — 25,1 established still more decisively, has found approval among those of my professional colleagues, who earlier had publicly espoused the opposite view. Thus Professor Theodore Schône, whose excellent study: Gradnetze des Ptolemaus, in the first book of his Geography ((hemnitzer Gymnasialprogram, 1909) is often quoted, wrote me, February 10, 1917, “that Ptolemy proposed drawing a map of the oekumene is so evidently stated in I, 6, 2, that I do not quite understand how, under Berger’s influence, I was able to doubt it, The map, of course, was not to serve merely for his private use, but was to be a contribution to the work as had been the case with Marinus. The study of your work will, I think, induce other doubters also to consult I, 6, and this passage joined with your other reasons, surely will produce universal conviction.” (Commentatio, p. 119, note I.)

The fact that Hugo Berger, Geschichte der ‘wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen, 2. Auflage, Leipzig, 1903, and some of his pupils believed that they must contest the Ptolemaic authorship of the maps transmitted with the text, has its chief support in the Agathodamon legend. Literally this runs: εκ των κλαυ- δίου πτολεμαίου γεωγραφικών βιβλίων όκτώ την οικουμένην πάσαν αγαθός δαίμων άλεξανδρεύς μηχανικός υπετυπωσα (Urb graec. 82, ρ. no, v. 2, 47 — 52); in other manuscripts, as for example in the Greek Codex 1401 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, we find ύπετυπωσε instead of υπετυπωσα. This legend is found both in the A- and the B-redaction, that is, both in the Ptolemy manuscripts which, besides the map of the world, exhibit twenty-six provincial maps, and in those which besides the map of the world, present sixty-four small provincial maps and sometimes in addition four general maps. As to the various Ptolemy redactions, see: Joseph Fischer, Die handschriftliche Ueberlieferung der Ptolemaus-Karten (Verhandlungen des achtzehnten Deutschen Geographentages zu Innsbruck, Berlin, 1912, p. 224 — 230) of which a condensed summary is given in Petermanns geographische Mitteilungen, August, 1912, p. 61 — 63; also Ptolemaus und Agathodamon, p. 81 — 89; Commentatio, p. 103, and p. 209 — 213; Der Codex Burney anus graecus HI in the Festschrift: 73 Jahre Stella Matutina, Feldkirch, 1931, v. 1, p. 131 — 139, and in the same work the further bibliographical references on p notes 1 — 4. The legend is found, as said, in Codex Urbinas graecus 82, at the end of Supplements, which refers to a world map that differs in many respects from the world map of Ptolemy. Since these Supplements have been accredited by certain students to Ptolemy himself (see Nobbe, in his critical edition of the text of Ptolemy: Claudii Ptolemaei Geographia, Lipsiae, 1913,v. 2,p. 1J6 — 190, 233 — 264), it is not to be wondered at that they did not recognize, without looking into the manuscript copies of the tradition, that they had ascribed to Ptolemy what did not belong to him (the Supplements), and had denied to him what is incontestably to be acknowledged as his, i.e.. the maps, except the map of the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.10.2021
• Übersetzer: Edward Luther Stevenson, Frank Egleston Robbins
• Verlagsort: Mikhailovka village
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte / Antike
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Vor- und Frühgeschichte
• Schlagworte: antique literature • Astronomy • English • Geography • History • Mathematics • Philosophy • Science • Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing • texts • Theorist
• ISBN-10: 0-88001-153-X / 088001153X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-88001-153-2 / 9780880011532