The collected works of Ptolemy. Illustrated

Geography, Tetrabiblos

Ptolemy, Edward Luther Stevenson, Frank Egleston Robbins

• Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780880011532
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias antiguas y clásicas

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: GeographyThe TranslationsThe Greek TextTetrabiblos

The Translations

Geography

PREFACE

CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY (ca. 90 — 168 A.D.) holds a place among the foremost of those who have made contributions to the science of geography. It is not a little surprising that there has never appeared a complete English, German, or French translation of his work in this field, often as his name is to be met with in the literature which treats of the expansion of geographical knowledge and the cartographical records of the same.

In his Introduction Professor Fischer has called attention to the lack of a thoroughly satisfactory edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, and in the preparation of this translation based upon the generally recognized best Latin and Greek texts, and, it may be further noted, upon the critical texts and studies of Wilberg and Müller, this puzzling fact stands in the forefront of the difficulties with which it has been necessary to contend. No one edition is alone a safe guide.

There are doubtless imperfections in the translation; it, however, has been done with great care and labor. That there is a lack of exact agreement with this or that text will be noted by those who critically examine the translation. With very few exceptions geographical names have been given as in the original Greek or Latin texts. Occasionally the modern English word has been preferred. The intention has been to give that reading which, in the translator’s best judgment, is a faithful presentation of what Ptolemy intended to set down in his great work. As close an adherence to the original as possible has been the aim, never overlooking the fact that not a few of his sentences, particularly in Book I and also in Book VII, are considerably involved. It has been stated that this fact may have contributed much to deter readers from a critical study of his Geography, particularly of his Book I, but which, of course, must be read to be able to understand the remaining seven.

It is in the field of mathematical geography that Ptolemy’s fame as a geographer especially rests, into which field he was led through his interest in mathematical and astronomical studies. Herein, it may be stated, his was the most considerable attempt to place the study of geography on a scientific basis, giving to him, therefore, first place among the ancient writers on the subject. Perhaps it is the completeness of his system, as has been noted, that especially contributed to that end. There is in it the appearance of a finality, a complete summing up of what had been contributed by those who had preceded him — by Hipparchus, by Eratosthenes, and especially by Marinus. His work is indeed the main foundation of our geographical knowledge of the classical day. “The whole of modern cartography has developed from his Atlas.”

He made but little contribution to descriptive geography, noting, as he does, the imperfect character of his own information concerning many parts of the earth, chiefly because of their size and their remoteness, and the difficulty with which one is confronted in an effort to discriminate between statements made by geographers who had preceded him, and between statements also to be found in itinerary records, in the records of travelers and explorers.

Marinus (ca. 70-130 A.D.) appears to have been regarded his most reliable source and inspiration, whom he praises for his diligence and sound judgment, and whom he seems to have followed closely; yet he points out his many defects.

In chapters six to twenty of Book I we find his principal references to this noted Tyrian, his close contemporary, and it is from Ptolemy alone we have practically our only information concerning that great geographer.

Ptolemy considered it as his chief task to reform the map of the inhabited earth; perhaps we may well say the maps, considering, as he did, that the only trustworthy method in map-making had its basis in the determination of the latitude and longitude of places.

Professor Fischer, as will be noted, has presented a most admirable summary of Ptolemy’s assumed task as a geographer, his methods and achievements, his relation to Marinus and to certain others who were his predecessors in this particular field, to the relation of text and maps in his Geography, to the renaissance of Ptolemy’s Geography more than a millennium after his day, in which revival Donnus Nicolaus Germanus was a great leader.

In his Books II-VII he lists more than eight thousand localities, giving what he thought to be the correct latitude and longitude of each, in which, of course there are numerous errors, as we know to-day. The remarkable fact, however, is that he was so nearly accurate in his records; that Ptolemy purposely falsified his records is hardly to be entertained for a moment.

It would be a task of years to carry through to completion a comparative study of the geographical information which we find set down in the various manuscript and printed editions of his work.

Since the issue of the first printed edition of Ptolemy’s Geography more than fifty editions have appeared, varying greatly in contents and in value; in some of these the text is incomplete, and in many the maps do not appear.

Good editions of Ptolemy are regarded as items of great interest by those libraries and private collectors so fortunate as to possess copies.

More than forty manuscript copies of the geography are known, and here again there is great variation in the status. The number of those copies which can be considered fairly complete is not large; many are but fragments. The fine existing manuscript copies are in both Latin and Greek, the former dating from the Renaissance period or from the early fifteenth century, the latter as early as the eleventh century, and are the oldest ones known. Of his Geography in Arabic there is a fine copy in Constantinople dating from about the middle of the fifteenth century, and there are a few fragmentary copies extant.

In Europe during recent years a very considerable amount of scholarly research activity has been turned to an investigation of the character and influence of Ptolemy’s Geography. Prominent among those who have labored diligently within this field may be named my very good friend Professor Fischer, Paul Dinse, Gudmund Schütte, Otto Cuntz, Carl Müller, Curtius Fischer, Lauri O. Th. Tudeer, and there are yet others.

It perhaps first would be observed by one who critically examines his maps, that in what were remote regions his most striking errors are to be noted. Important and lengthy lists of errors have been well referred to by certain Ptolemy students; that is, to certain coasts, for example, set down as rivers, to the names of certain mountains given as those of tribes, to a number of actually mistaken names, to certain names doubled or trebled, to the addition of an initial letter to certain names. One can easily become confused in an attempt to search out what we may call the correct spelling of very many of the names as set down in the various editions of his Geography. No special attempt, in this translation, has been made to pass upon the relative merit of the variations; it indeed will be found that many of the names recorded in the text do not exactly agree with the Ebner manuscript map records. That has been selected which, as before noted, has seemed to the translator to be the preferable one. Here again the reader may be referred to such critical studies as those of Wilberg and Müller and to the studies of a number of modern investigators of high rank.

A reference may well be made to his recorded length and breadth of the inhabited earth. He seems to have been the first to give to the terms length and breadth the designation longitude and latitude. He greatly exaggerated the total longitude of the inhabited earth, and yet he reduced this from that given by Marinus and by others who had preceded him. He increased by almost one third the length of the Mediterranean; he makes the Indian Ocean an enclosed sea by joining the south-eastern region of Asia to southern Africa, and by those who accepted his geography this might well have been the reason for less vigorous and less early effort to reach the Indies of the East by an attempt to circumnavigate Africa; he increased very greatly the size of the island Ceylon (Taprobana). Yet who is there who will not be remarkably impressed with the near approach to accuracy of his records, in the main, not forgetting the time in which he lived? Let the concluding paragraph of Professor Fischer’s Introduction here be read.

To this translation there has been added, in full size reproduction, the twenty-seven maps of the Codex Ebnerianus now belonging to The New York Public Library, to the very remarkable importance of which manuscript attention has been called. Two other maps have been added: the Ruysch Map in the 1508 printed edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, and the New World Map in the 1522 printed edition, having the name “America” conspicuously appearing across what we now call South America, where Waldseemüller, in his great World Map of 1507, had placed it.

The Codex Ebnerianus is a copy of the Geography prepared by Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, great indeed as a geographical editor and copyist, the maps in this manuscript being largely taken as a basis for the earliest printed editions. (Mention may be made here of the study of “Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, sein Kartennetz, seine Ptolemaus-Rezensionen und -Ausgaben... zur Erinnerungandie 450.

Wiederkehr des Ausgabejahres 1482 der Ulmer Ausgabe,” by Wilhelm Bonacker and Dr. Ernst Anliker, in Schweizerisches Gutenbergmuseum Zeitschrift fur Buchdruck-, Bibliophilieuni Pressegeschichte, Bern, 1932, Jahrg. 18, nos. 1 — 2.) Excepting the published reproduction of the Codex Athous graecus in 1867, but not of great value, the reproduction in connection with this English translation is the latest complete modern reproduction of Ptolemy’s maps from a manuscript copy. (To the forthcoming issue of the Codex Urbinas graecus 82, Professor Fischer has called attention.)

It perhaps will not be without interest here to note that it has been my very great pleasure, but recently, to have issued, in a limited number of copies, a complete facsimile edition, photographed and hand colored, of one of the finest Donnus Nicolaus Germanus manuscripts of Ptolemy’s Geography known. A typical renaissance dedication of a great scholar, that of Donnus Nicolaus [Nicholaus] to Duke Borso of Modena, his illustrious patron, as found in this edition, and written at a time when Ptolemy’s Geography was approaching the period of its greatest influence, is presented with this translation as a second Introduction immediately preceding Book I.

It is the sincere hope that this first English translation of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography may find favor particularly with Ptolemy students, and lend some inspiration to those who seek pleasure and profit through a wider acquaintance with the great geographers of antiquity.

EDWARD LUTHER STEVENSON

Yonkers, N. Y., 1932

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...