stephan huller

I've been trying to track down the claim the very early claim (16th century) of an ancient Arabic translation of Livy at a monastery in Egypt. Where can I get a list of all the ancient authors whose works survive in Arabic?

Jeffrey Gibson

Post to the Classics List. CLASSICS-L@LSV.UKY.EDU

Jeffrey

stephan huller

Thanks!

Jeffrey Gibson

I've already posted your query there.

Jeffrey

stephan huller

There original reference is here from before 1616:

But there is also this oft repeated story of 'complete' texts of Plutarch and Herodotus in Arabic which can't be true:

http://books.google.com/books?id=a20...odotus&f=false

steve_bnk

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/oriental/arabic.htm

googped ancient Christian writings in arabic

stephan huller

There are various accounts of this story. I don't know what to believe:

stephan huller

This isn't what I am looking for. It's Christian stuff. I am looking for historical writers from Roman and Greek society.

stephan huller

First response from my NASCAS request on the subject

Dear Dr. Huller, The American doyen for Graeco-Arabic textual transmission is Dmitri Gutas at Yale, who continued the work of Franz Rosenthal in the same area. I am just not current in this area any more, but I don't have recollection of either BROCKELMANN's [G.A.L.] or Fuat SEZGIN's [G.A.S.] making reference to any notable Arabic translations from the Latin. Problem: Livy is extensively quoted "verbatim" in Greek translation by Eusebius in his Chronicon, which is written in Greek, but now survives in fragments; and fragments in Syriac; but a big part of it in Ancient Armenian. When an Arabic translation from the Syriac seemed to perfectly track the Latin of Livy, earlier scholars might have erroneously concluded that it was "an Arabic translation from Livy". That, I believe, could explain the older reports about it. But again, check with Dmitri Gutas for a definitive opinion. WSH

DCHindley

In The History of Rome, (Vol. 4, 1844, tr. Wm Smith & Leonhard Schmitz), Lecture VIII, History and manuscripts of Livey's work, page 41, my good friend, the late Barthold Georg Niebuhr said:

Thus we have thirty books [out of Livey's 142 books], and by far the greater part of the next five. After the work had gradually been completed thus far, great hopes were excited of discovering the whole; every body turned his attention to Livy and was anxious to make new discoveries, and many a one allowed himself to be imposed upon by the strangest tales and reports. In the time of Louis XIV., several adventurers came forward, and pretended to know where the missing books of Livy were to be found. Some said that they existed in the Seraglio at Constantinople,17 others that they were to be found in Chios, and some even pretended to know that there existed a complete Arabic translation of Livy in the library of Fez. [Pg. 41]

41n17) It is true that some books of the Greek emperors were left behind at Constantinople at the time the city was taken possession of by the Turks, but all of them probably perished in the great fire.—N.

Upon reading your inquiry, luck would have it that I was able to immediately pull the following work from my vast library of first editions of antiquarian lore, The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle for the Year MDCCC. Volume LXX, Part the First (London England)..

And lo, upon page 220, I find the following letter to the editor:

Mr. Urban, Mar. 13 (1800).

YOUR readers will recollect the account given in your vol. LIX. 158, LXII, 789, 903, of a collection of letters, written in Arabic, of the time of the Saracenic Emirs, and a complete translation of Livy’s Roman history into that language. The first of these was attacked by a Maltese, and defended by Professor Tychsen; and a wish was expressed for the publication of the latter. The expectation of the Literary World is now completely baffled by the detection of both these works as forgeries. Dr. Hager, by a long residence at Palermo, and attentive, examination of them, decided that the whole was an imposture. The particulars of this detection are thus given at large in Dr. [Johann Erich] Beister's Berlin Journal [Berlinische Monatsschrift sometime between 1791 when he became sole editor and 1796 when the magazine folded ... duh].

Joseph Vella, a native of Malta, and a titular chaplain, was at Palermo, 1782, when. Mohammed Ben Osman, embassador from the Emperor of Morocco, was driven in by stress of weather in his return from Naples to Mequinez. The books and monuments in the Arabic language in Sicily were shewn to him; and Vella, speaking the popular idiom of Malta, a dialect of the Arabic, served as interpreter. They frequently convened together. Vella commenced in his own imagination a compleat Arabic scholar; and his unparalleled assurance in explaining Arabic writings was only matched with his greatest suppleness in retracting his explanations. He gave out that he was possessed of 17 of the lost books of Livy in Arabic, a present from the Grand Master of Malta, to whom they had been given by a Frenchman, who took it from a shelf in the church of Sta. Sophia, at Constantinople. It has often been asserted, that Livy's History was preserved entire in Arabic either at Constantinople, the isle of Chios, or Fez. Vella was, however, too circumspect to expose his MS. by printing it, though the Dowager Lady Spencer, then on a tour through Italy, offered to defray the expences of printing. At length [1794] he published an Italian translation of the 60th book, by way of specimen, in one octavo page, being only the epitome ascribed to Floras ; which so deceived the professor of Oriental languages, that he re-published it with the following introduction : "What is here communicated of the Arabic translation Of Livy will be particularly acceptable."

DCH