Two Notes on the "Hippiatrica" I. Versions of Pelagonius Fischer, Klaus-Dietrich Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1979; 20, 4; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 371 Two Notes on the Hippiatrica Klaus-Dietrich Fischer 1. Versions of Pelagonius P ELAGONIUS' BOOK on horse medicine,l a main source of Vegetius' Mulomedicina, was composed around the middle of the fourth century. It was later incorporated in the Greek collection of hippiatric texts known as the Hippiatrica. 2 When a Latin manuscript of Pelagonius (originally copied in 1485 on behalf of Politian and bearing his subscriptio 3) was discovered and edited in the early nineteenth century, a dispute arose as to whether Pelago­ nius had written in Greek or Latin. Blunders and misunderstandings in the Greek version enabled Karl Hoppe, one of the modern editors of the Hippiatrica, to demonstrate the priority of the Latin text. 4 Apart from a small palimpsest fragment traceable to Bobbio, the tradition rests on the MS. copied for Politian. Since the text it offers is not marred in any serious way (except for a major lacuna), the importance of the Greek version (and, incidentally, of Vegetius) lies not so much in any critical contribution that it could make to the Latin text but in preserving a number of passages that have perished in the Latin version. 5 But, on the other hand, the Latin version of Pelagonius is of considerable value for the textual history of the Hippiatrica. This collection survives in four (or possibly more) distinct versions that all 1 Pelagonii artis veterinariae quae extant, recensuit praefatus commentatus est Maxi­ milianus Ihm (Leipzig 1892). My new Teubner edition is scheduled to appear in 1980. 2 edd. Eugenius Oder et Carolus Hoppe, 2 vols. (Leipzig 1924--1927). The Hippiatrica Berolinensia are contained in the first volume, the rest (Hippiatrica Parisina, Cantabrigiensia etc.) in the second. 3 The text of the subscriptio can also be found in L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars2 (Oxford 1974) 129. 4 Karl Hoppe, "Die Commenta artis medicinae veterinariae des Pelagonius," Veteriniir­ historisches Jahrbuch 3 (1927) 216-19; id., "Pelagoniusstudien. II. Die griechische Ubersetzung des Pelagonius," Veteriniirhistorisches Jahrbuch 4 (1928) 1-6. 5 The numbering of fragments (sections 471ff) differs in my edition and Ihm's, since some more passages have since been attributed to Pelagonius. 371 372 TWO NOTES ON THE HIPPIA TRICA differ in content (there are individual omissions and additions) and wording, so that the original collection (which, after Bjorck, I shall call A) cannot be reconstructed with certainty.6 Nevertheless, the Paris version (= Hipp.Par., represented by a single MS., M) is a much more reliable representative of A than the Berlin version (= Hipp. Berol.) , whose redactor (seemingly a layman) often introduces linguistic improvements and cuts out some redundancies. Of all the authors represented in the Hippiatrica, Pelagonius is unique in surviving and being available in a version going back beyond the compilation of the Rippiatrica,7 and so can be exploited for elucidating the relationship of the Ripp.Par. and the Ripp.Berol. Gudmund Bjorck has shown that the compiler of the Hipp.Berol. added to the text of A, using the book of Tiberi us and the anonymous 6 Oder, who was entrusted with the task of editing the Hippiatrica in the 1890s, took the Berlin version as basis, perhaps because the conviction that he was dealing with a de luxe copy made for the imperial court led him to believe that the text of such an edition would also be superior. Since the Hipp.Berol. are his basis, he and Hoppe print only those parts of the other versions that are not contained in the Hipp.Berol., where they give the variant readings of the other versions in the apparatus criticus. The picture that emerges from this procedure is by no means clear, and one is often at pains to come to a conclusion about the reading of a particular MS. or about its completeness. A new edition of the CHG will, I think, have to print all versions in full. Oder and Hoppe had the misfortune of picking the most corrupted MS. for their edition of the epitome (called Excerpta Lugdunensia after the MS. they used). Also, they do not make use of all MSS. known to them, and they overlooked some interesting material in cod. Par. gr. 2244. The account of the Hippiatrica given by Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche prcifane Literatur der Byzantiner II (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft XII.5.2, Miinchen 1978) 268 & 306, is misleading and, in parts, quite wrong. One should instead consult the works of Gudmund Bjorck (Zum Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum [UppArsskr 1932.5, U ppsala 1932]; Apsyrtus, Julius Africanus, et l'hippiatrique grecque [UppArsskr 1944.4, Uppsala 1944]; and "Le Parisinus grec 2244 et l'art veterinaire grec," REG 48 [1935] 505-24) and Klaus Widdra, "Das Corpus Hippiatricorum Graecorum als QueUe fUr die Geschichte der antiken Veterinar­ medizin-Gedanken zu seiner Erschliessung," Tieriirztliche Umschau 29 (1974) 50--53. 7 The work of Theomnestus survives in Arabic (for known MSS., if. Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam [Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abt. I Ergbd. VLl, Leiden-Koln 1970] 221) but has not been edited. The passages from Anatolius in the Hippiatrica can be checked against the Geoponica, as Bjorck has pointed out (in the first book mentioned supra n.6, p.16). The text of the Mulomedicina Chironis, which is also mentioned by Bjorck in this connection, is frequently in such a desperate state that much caution must be exercised; it is difficult to say in how far it preserves the work of Apsyrtus (or rather passages from it) in the original form, since we can only compare the Apsyrtus of the Hippiatrica. The two books of Hierocles on horse medicine extant in a few Greek and Latin MSS. (also in an Italian translation, purporting to be the work of Ypocras [ = Hippocrates] and Damascenus) do not go back to the original but were extracted and reconstituted from the hippiatric collection (see Bjorck [supra n.6] in REG 48 (1935) 509-10). KLAUS-DIETRICH FISCHER 373 IIpoyvwcEtC Ka~ ldatc, and that the compiler of the Hipp.Par. prob­ ably drew on a magical work by Apsyrtus. 8 When comparing the Greek text of Pelagonius with the Latin original, I often felt that the text given by the Hipp.Berol. and the Hipp.Par. differed in more than just points of style and that the Hippiatrica may reflect at times two, rather than one, Greek versions of Pelagonius. 9 I shall try to prove this assertion by examining the Greek versions of Pelagon. 26. This passage happens to occur twice in the Hipp.Berol. and once in the Hipp.Par., and the double occurrence in Hipp.Berol. suggests to me that the compiler of the Hipp.Berol., in addition to Tiberius and the IIpoyvwcetc Kat lacHc, also had access to a Greek text of Pelagonius independent of A, which I assume to have been a second translation. Pelagon. 26 occurs, in the first instance, with other parts of the chapter Ad maciem (ch. 2 of our Latin text), and its heading is given, quite correctly, as &'\'\0 1TEpt lcxvoT'7]Toc. It is translated again in the pharmacopoeia of Hipp.Berol. 129 (§33), and the text preserved there agrees closely with the corresponding section of the Hipp.Par. (790).10 But now it is called IIe,\aywvLov 1TEpt avag'7]pav(UVToc OEPfwTOC, and there is no connection between the symptom (dry skin) and the diagnosis (macies). 11 Moreover, it is strange that in the Hipp.Par., Pelagon. 26-27 are separated from the other sections on macies taken from Pelagonius (found in Hipp.Par. 91-97). The explanation for this separation must be sought in the corruption am) KaV/LaTov (instead of Ka/LaTOV, which is the reading of Hipp.Berol. 68.13 and the Latin text [labore]) and the absence of a subheading which would have allowed grouping this section with the rest of the chapter on macies (Hipp.Par. 91-97). The compiler of the Hipp.Berol., when copying section 129.33, did not notice that he had copied a somewhat different version of the same prescription previously in Hipp.Berol. 68.13 and also felt provoked to 'correct' the obvious fault Kav/LaTov-by writing KaV/LaTOC! 12 8 Bj6rck, Zum CHG (supra n.6) 30. 9 Such suspicious passages are Pelagon. 7, 36, 51, 68, 353, 487. 10 However, £KacTov Tel LCOV is omitted by Hipp.Par. and in our Latin text ofPelagonius. 11 I am convinced that macies must be understood as a nosological term rather than as a symptom (as we would assume). But ancient notions differed considerably: all doctors knew the illness 'fever' ! 12 Incidentally, the compiler of Hipp.Par. must also have thought that KaV/LaTOV was 374 TWO NOTES ON THE HIPPIATRICA It seems safe to conclude that Hipp.Berol. 68.13 must orIgmate from an uncorrupted text which had KaILaTov in place of KavILaTov, since we would expect that otherwise the compiler would have introduced a correction in both passages. Moreover, the theme of Hipp.Berol. 68.13 is identifiable as 7TEPL lCXVOTTJTOC, whereas the head­ ing of Hipp.Berol. 129.33 sounds decidedly makeshift but is vouched for by Hipp.Par. Therefore, while everything points to a common origin for Hipp.Berol. 129.33 and Hipp.Par. 790, Hipp.Berol. 68.13 reflects a different source. These observations can be accounted for by two alternative hypotheses. Either the compiler of the Hipp.Berol. had access to an independent version of Pelagonius (i.e. either a different translation, or the same translation that was incorporated in the archetype of our hippiatric collections [A], transmitted independently and offering a better text than A), or he used two descendants of A which had been corrupted to different degrees. I favour the first hypothesis. 13 On a different level, the variation in choice of Greek equivalent for the Latin compositio may be seen as additional proof. compositio is usually rendered as KaTaCKEV7].14 cvYKaTacKw~ (where the cuv- is obviously inspired by the com- of compositio) is employed just once.15 In two passages 7Tp07roncILa is met with instead,16 and it fits the context well. cKEvada is used once. 17 In another two sections, compositio is rendered as CVVOECLC,18 which is of course a perfect synonym of KaTacK€v~. It is remarkable, however, that the sub­ heading compositio emplastri 19 appears once as "AAATJ KaTacKEv~ the same as or a mistake for Kavp.aToc, since he goes on to copy Pelagonius' remedies against Kavcwv (Hipp.Par. 792-95/Pelagon. 191, 192, 186, 187). 13 In Italy, several texts were translated twice from Greek into Latin (Oribasius being the most prominent example), so that would not be unparalleled. 14 Pelagon. 320/Hipp.Berol. 130.29= Hipp.Par. 844; Pelagon. 323/Hipp.Berol. 130.87= Hipp.Par. 946; Pelagon. 338fHipp.Berol. 130.86= Hipp.Par. 945; Pelagon. 344fHipp.Par. 290; Pelagon. 390/Hipp.Berol. 130.172; Pelagon. 446/Hipp.Berol. 130.33=Hipp.Par. 857. 15 Hipp.Berol. 96. 15= Hipp.Par. 1002. The only other instance of cVYKaTaCKEV~ that has come to my notice is the one given by Lampe 1269 from Chrys. Hom. 3.3 in II Thess. There, it is a variant reading of KaTaCK€V~ (Lampe translates 'accompanying pre­ paration') and different in meaning from compositio. 16 Pelagon. 288/Hipp.Berol. 129.35= Hipp.Par. 797; Pelagon. 383/Hipp.Berol. 22.54= Hipp.Par. 523. 17 Pelagon. 257/Hipp.Berol. 52.20=Hipp.Par. 141. 18 Pelagon. 340/Hipp.Berol. 130.89; Pelagon. 401fHipp.Berol. 125.59=Hipp.Par. 820. 19 Pelagon. 328, 340. KLAUS-DIETRICH FISCHER 375 ip.7TAaC7pov 20 and another time as "AAA7] eVv8ecLc Ep.7TAac7pov. 21 The same variation exists between KaTacKEV~ AL7Tapac 22 and cvv8ecLc AL7Tapac,23 and finally in two passages now lost from the Latin original and preserved in the Greek version only, KaTacKev1} 24 and eVv8ecLc 25 must be translations of compositio. It is well known that our aversion to word repetition was not shared by the Greeks and Romans. Furthermore, it seems reasonable to expect that any translator would strive to adhere to the same translation of a word if it occurs again in the same circumstances, especially if it is part of a heading. But we must not overlook the fact that the problem of the several translations of compositio differs from the case of Pelagon. 26 dis­ cussed above: whatever the Greek word employed for compositio, Hipp.Berol. and Hipp.Par. are in agreement, i.e. the variation goes back to A, and it would have been the compiler of A who made use of two different Greek translations (or versions) of Pelagonius. This may appear a fairly remote possibility, but if e.g. the compiler had to use two copies of Pelagonius that were both defective, mutilated or otherwise unsatisfactory, he may have had to go about his task in this way to incorporate all the Pelagonian material he considered usefu1.26 20 Hipp.Berol. 130.86=Hipp.Par. 945. 21 Hipp.Berol. 130.89=Hipp.Par. 948. 22 Pelagon. 346 (there, the title is just Item aliter, but the preceding section (345) is headed Compositio liparae)fHipp.Berol. 130.167. 23 Pelagon. 247fHipp.Berol. 130. 124= Hipp.Par. 1050. 24 Pelagon. 491fHipp.Berol. 129.54=Hipp.Par. 816. 25 Pelagon. 517fHipp.Par. 961. 26 Another possibility is that the Pelagonius Graecus was 'edited' in some fashion and that both the 'edited' and the 'original' version were drawn on for the original hippiatric collection. This would resemble the fate of the Pelagonius Latinus (for details, see the pre­ face of my edition mentioned supra n.l). Of course, a close and careful study of how the Latin of Pelagonius was rendered in prescriptions hypothetically attributable to different versions is needed. But can this be achieved, and will it provide a firm basis for deciding the issue? All versions of the hippiatric texts (Hipp.Berol. etc.) underwent some editing (although I agree with Bjorck that the Hipp.Par. come closest to the original, as can easily be proved by a comparison of the Berlin and Paris texts of passages from Pelagonius), and all of them add and omit material, so that one faces the impossible task of distinguish­ ing correctly between the effects of editing, textual corruption, contamination and the possible use of different sources. It is also patent that the Latin text of Pelagonius (and its secondary tradition in Vegetius' Mulomedicina; Vegetius is responsible for a con­ siderable amount of reshaping and rearranging), as it is preserved now, cannot have formed the basis of the Greek translation. It must be used with some caution by those who want to compare the Greek. Two Notes on the "Hippiatrica" II. New Words from Apsyrtus Fischer, Klaus-Dietrich Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Winter 1979; 20, 4; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 376 376 TWO NOTES ON THE HIPPIA TRICA II. New Words from Apsyrtus T HE GREEK VETERINARY SURGEON Apsyrtus 1 is the author of the most detailed account on dentition in the horse that has been handed down from antiquity.2 After describing the shedding and replacement of the first and second incisors,3 he says CPV€LV OE OOK€£ Kat TOVC KvvOOOVTac Ton (i.e. at 3! years 4). €TEPOLC OE , '" ' ' ''' , .1..' \' '" , , " ,~ JLTJG OVOK(xtO€Ka TOV KaTapTLCJLOV ",V€L. T€I\€LWCac O€ 7T€VT€ €TTJ Kat TOV " '\ Q' 5' \' " , "t:." " , €KTOV €7Ttl\afJoJL£voc Kat 7T1\'TJpwcac TOV £VtaVTOV, £~€L tca Ta aVtCWJLaTa, , '" r , '" , , (j ~,~ '\ , , "A h Kat OVK €CTt PCfOWV €7TLYLVWCK£C aL TWV £TWV TOV I\OL7TOV XPOVOV. t t at time, common opinion has it that the canines are grown. In another twelve months, he grows the katartismos. When he ends five years and starts the sixth, ( ... ) and finishes this year, he will have the anisomata equal, and hereafter it is not easy to recognize the years (of age)." KaTapTLcJLoc occurs twice more in our chapter in the phrase (bd TOU KaTapTLcJLou (Hipp.Berol. 95.2 and 95.3). There, it is obviously used as a point of reference, i.e. 'from the katartismos onward' or 1 1 agree with Gudmund Bjorck, Apsyrtus, Julius Africanus et l'hippiatrique grecque (UppArsskr 1944.4, Uppsala 1944) 7-12, that Apsyrtus must be dated earlier than the first quarter of the fourth century, the date traditionally advanced. However, the grounds put forward by Bjorck for assigning him to A.D. 150-250 still seem to need corroboration. 2 Corpus hippiatricorum Graecorum, edd. E. Oder and C. Hoppe, 1 (Lipsiae 1924) ch. 95= pp.323-25. 3 1 I and 12, called centrals and intermediaries. The facts about dentition are set out in The Merck Veterinary Manual4 (Rahway [N.J.] 1973) 78-81 [hereafter, MERCK] and Black's Veterinary Dictionary12 ed. Geoffrey P. West (London 1976) 213-17 [hereafter, BLACK'S], which the curious reader should consult. I have given a fuller account of dentition in the horse in the introduction to an edition of a hitherto unpublished Byzan­ tine treatise (K.-D. Fischer and J. A. M. Sonderkamp, "Ein byzantinischer Text zur Altersbestimmung von Pferden, aus Ambrosianus H 2 inf.," Sudhoffs Archiv, forthcoming). 4 This is at least half a year too early by our reckoning, if. Black's 214. Merck even opines that the canines are grown at 4!-5 years, Merck 79. The discrepancy cannot be explained away by blaming the not uncommon confusion between canines and comers (13), which seems to be at the root of the trouble in Columella 6.29.4. 5 I suspect a lacuna in which Apsyrtus told us about the cups. Varro, Rust. 2.7.3 incipiunt nasci, quos vocant columellares (= Kvv68oVT£C). quinto anno incipiente item eodem modo amittere binos, cum cavos habeat tum renascentes, ei sexto anno inpleri, septumo omnes habere solet renatos et (et perhaps to be deleted) conpletos. Bertha Tilly, Varro the Farmer (Foxton 1973) 260, is mistaken if she thinks "These new teeth are hollow when they first grow but are gradually filled in with ivory." The translation in the Loeb edition of Varro (p.383), "has a full set of permanent teeth," is as wrong as the reference to Xenophon, On Horse­ manship ch. I; perhaps Simon §11 (his fragments in CHG II [Lipsiae 1927] Hipp.Cant. 93.1-11 pp.228-31) was intended. Copyright (c) 2003 ProQuest Information and Learning Company Copyright (c) Duke LJniversity, Department of Classical Studies KLAUS-DIETRICH FISCHER 377 'after the katartismos'. Of the meanings given for KaTapTlcp.,oC in LSJ and Lampe, 'restoration' (LSJ 9lO, Lampe 717) and 'perfecting' (Lampe 717) seem to fit best; better still is a direct derivation from KaTapT{~w in the meaning 'complete, finish, make perfect' (Lampe 717). The KaTapTlcfLoc that is grown at 41 years must refer to the corners (13), since the only possible other candidates, the canines, have already been dealt with. The gaps left by the shedding of the milk corners are 'completed', and the set of teeth is now 'perfect' or 'finished'. KaTapTlcfLoc, then, means 'completion, perfection (of teeth after shedding the milk teeth)', i.e. 'completion of dentition'. 6 The other word that needs defining is aVLcwfLaTa. The article in LSJ suggests that it occurs very rarely. Its meaning in our passage becomes clear if we compare another account of dentition, the one falsely ascribed to Apsyrtus 7 (Geopon. l6.l.15-16) TEAEw"cac OE TeX 8' " \ ~ " \ f3' \ \ " f3 '\ \ ' 8 ,,, 8 ETTJ Kat TOV E E7T£lla 0fLEVbC TOVC 1l0L7TOVC EK allllH KaTW EV Kat avw EV , C < , " '~',J.' '\" , f3' (' \ , \ E", EKaTEpov Eva' TOVC OE 'f'VOfLEVOVC KOLIlOVC LCXEL. Ep., aVTOC OE HC TO ., " , \ ~ - , '\' , \f3' ~, EKTOV ETOC ava7TIlTJpOVVTaL TWV 7TPWTWV Ta KOLIlWfLaTa. E7TLlla OfLEVOC OE ~