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NEW FRAGMENTS FROM RUFUS OF EPHESUS' ON MELANCHOLY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

Peter E. Pormann
Peter E. Pormann*
Affiliation:
John Rylands Research Institute, Manchester
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Publishing a collection of fragments from a classical author is a risky business: the moment the book appears in print, it may already be outdated, as new fragments could have come to light. Or, in the words of Ecclesiasticus 18:7: ‘When a man hath done, then he beginneth; and when he leaveth off, then he shall be doubtful’ (Ὅταν συντελέσῃ ἄνθρωπος, τότε ἄρχεται, καὶ ὅταν παύσηται, τότε ἀπορηθήσεται). The same fate befell me shortly after the publication of my collection of fragments from Rufus of Ephesus' On Melancholy. Manfred Ullmann wrote to me that the late Rainer Degen had discovered a new fragment; in the course of my research, I came across some relevant quotations in the Hippocratic Treatments by the tenth-century author aṭ-Ṭabarī; and recently, Klaus-Dietrich Fischer published two related fragments. The following short note contains these new fragments together with an English translation and commentary. At the end, I also offer some addenda and corrigenda, partly in light of the reviews that have since appeared.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , December 2014 , pp. 649 - 656
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2014 

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References

1 See Ullmann, M., Wörterbuch zu den griechisch–arabischen Übersetzungen des 9. Jahrhunderts. Supplement Band I: A–O, Supplement Band II: Π–Ω (Wiesbaden, 2006–7)Google Scholar, 1.11.

2 Pormann, P.E. (ed.), Rufus of Ephesus: On Melancholy (Tübingen, 2008)Google Scholar; the fragments of Rufus' On Melancholy are quoted here according to this edition.

3 Letter, 9 December 2008; F 50a below.

4 FF 7a, 20a. I thank Professor Lena Ambjörn for kindly sharing her work in progress, which allowed me to discover F 7a; see also Ambjörn, ‘Book-Titles Mentioned in the 10th Century Medical Encyclopedia Al-Muʿālajāt al-Buqrāṭiyya’, Galenos 5 (2011), pp. 103–11.

5 Fischer, K.-D., ‘De fragmentis Herae Cappadocis atque Rufi Ephesii hactenus ignotis’, Galenos 4 (2010), 173–83Google Scholar, at 180–3; FF 13a–b.

6 Garofalo, I., Lettre d'informations: Médecine ancienne et médiévale n.s. 8 (2009), 95–9Google Scholar; P. Charlier, BMCRev, http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-06-17.html; Kahl, O., Journal of Semitic Studies 55 (2010), 278–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Strohmaier, G., Gnomon 82 (2010), 686–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 FF 13a–b.

8 F 3; for a full discussion of Rufus' On Melancholy, see Pormann (n. 2), esp. 1–23 (introduction).

9 See Savage-Smith, E., A New Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. Volume I: Medicine (Oxford 2011), 183–9Google Scholar, item no. 48b.

10 انصبابه ] conieci; codd.: انصبابها.

11 بأكثر ] MS S; MS M: بالاكثر.

12 إلى فم المعدة … الورم] om. MS M.

13 انتقلت ] MS M; MS S: .

14 على ] MS S; MS M: على أن.

15 بأن ] MS S; MS M: ان.

16 يحتبس ] MS S; MS M: ويحتبس.

17 منه ] supra lineam MS M; MS S ?.

18 الجنبين ] MS M; MS S: .

19 هذه ] MS S; om. MS M.

20 واحتدادها ] MS S; MS M: واضدادها.

21 وتعفنها ] scripsi; MS M: ويعقبها; MS S: .

22 السوداوية ] MS M; MS S: .

23 Omrani, Adel (ed.), Ishâq Ibn Imrân: Traité de la mélancolie, Beït al-Hikma (Tunis, 2010)Google Scholar, 31 (Arabic text), 22 (French translation).

24 Peter E. Pormann, ‘Melancholy in the medieval world: the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions’, in Pormann (n. 2), 179–96, at 184.

25 Pormann, P.E., ‘Medical education in Late Antiquity: from Alexandria to Montpellier’, in Horstmanshoff, H.F.J. and van Tilburg, C.R. (edd.), Hippocrates and Medical Education: Selected Papers Read at the XIIth International Hippocrates Colloquium, Universiteit Leiden, 24–26 August 2005 (Leiden, 2010), 419–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 424.

26 Scarborough, J., ‘Agnellus of Ravenna’, in Keyser, P.T. and Irby-Massie, G.L. (edd.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists (London, 2008), 46–7Google Scholar.

27 8.189–90 Kühn; text and translation are taken from Ph.J. van der Eijk and P.E. Pormann, ‘Appendix 1: Greek text, and Arabic and English: translations of Galen's On the Affected Parts iii. 9–10’, in Pormann (n. 2), 265–87, at 282–3.

28 Van der Eijk and Pormann (n. 27), 265.

29 Sideras, A., ‘Rufus von Ephesos und sein Werk im Rahmen der antiken Welt’, ANRW ii.37.2 (1994), 1080–1253Google Scholar, at 1235.

30 CMG v. 10.1, p. 207, line 45–p. 208, line 17; Madrid, Escorial, MS árabe 804, fol. 58b, lines 5–3 ab imo.

31 Following, with Fischer (n. 5), 182, the reading of manuscripts B and C in Pritchet's terminology; Pritchet himself adopted the corrupt reading rursus.

32 Seminar Classics 609, State University of New York at Buffalo (ed.), Agnellus of Ravenna: Lectures on Galen's ‘De sectis’ (Buffalo, NY, 1981), x–xiGoogle Scholar.

33 See Pormann, P.E., ‘Jean le grammarien et le De sectis dans la littérature médicale d'Alexandrie’, in Garofalo, I. and Roselli, A. (edd.), Galenismo e medicina tardoantica: fonti greche, latine e arabe (Naples, 2003), 233–63Google Scholar; Pormann, P.E., ‘The Alexandrian summary (Jawāmiʿ) of Galen's On the Sects for Beginners: commentary or abridgment?’, in Adamson, P., Baltussen, H., and Stone, M.W.F. (edd.), Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, BICS Supplement 83, 2 vols (London, 2004), 2.11–33Google Scholar.

34 Fischer (n. 5), at 182–3; the variant reading ne me ledas (‘do not harm me’) also exists in some of the manuscripts, and it could be a scribal attempt to correct the corrupt rapias.

35 بالوثوب ] MSS O, S; MS M: بالوثب.

36 ويهز ] MSS O, S; MS M: ويهد.

37 يلقب] conieci; MS O: فالقب; MSS M, S: ما يلقب.

38 فهلك] MSS S, M; MS O: فيهلك.

39 أحد] MS M; MSS O, S: أحدا.

40 In other authors, sirsām ḥārr and q/farānīṭis are used synonymously; see Pormann, P.E., ‘Theory and practice in the early hospitals in Baghdad: al-Kaškarī On Rabies and Melancholy’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 15 (2002–3), 197–248Google Scholar, at 223–4. For more information about phrenîtis in the Greek sources, see G.C. McDonald, ‘Concepts and treatments of phrenitis in ancient medicine’ (Diss., Newcastle University, 2009). ʾAbū l-Ḥasan aṭ-Ṭabarī discussed qarānī ṭis in chapter 28.

41 Discussed in chapter 29.

42 See ‘Tollwut’, in Leven, K.-H. (ed.), Antike Medizin: Ein Lexikon (Munich, 2005), 870–1Google Scholar.

43 See now the excellent study by Käs, Fabian, Die Mineralien in der arabischen Pharmakognosie: eine Konkordanz zur mineralischen Materia medica der klassischen arabischen Heilmittelkunde nebst überlieferungsgeschichtlichen Studien, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 2010), 1.149–53Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 1.154–9.

45 Following Strohmaier (n. 6), 687; Ullmann (n. 3).