Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/975

Rh SYNESIUS. vertit, Notisqne illustravit Jo. Steph. Bernard. Accedit Viatici Constantino Africano interprete lib. vii. pars." The medical contents of this little work do not require any particular notice here. It is probably the earliest Greek medical work con- taining a distinct account of the Small Pox and Measles (c. 9, p. 288, Hepl rrji (pAvKTaiuoixnis Aoi/xiKris, Kal rrjs irepas eirTrjs Koi irvKvijs Aoi^t- K'^s), and the author's description of these diseases and his directions respecting their treatment, agree upon the whole very nearly with those given by Rhazes. [Rhazes.J There are several questions respecting the date and authorship of this work which have never hitherto been completely and sa- tisfactorily settled, and which therefore require to be discussed here. Bernard published the work under the name of Si/nesius, because the author is so called in the Leyden Catalogue (p. 394. § 65 and also at the buck of the MS. (Bernard's Pref. p. xviii.) ; but» as there appears to be no good autho- rity for attributing it to a physician of this name, we must first try to determine who was the author of this Greek fragment, — for the very first lines show that it is not a complete work in itself. There exists in MS. in several European libraries rather a long Greek medical work, divided into seven books, and entitled, BiSAos Aeyo/xevrj Td 'Ecpodta Tov 'AirodrffxovvTOS^ (Twredeifiivr} rrapa "'Eirpov By^a<pap tov ''Egr; 'EAfrj^ctp, fjLeTa§ii]de7aa els rr]v 'EAAciSo yXwffaav irapcL KwvaTaPTivou irpooTa- arjKpi^Tou TOV 'Piqyivov, a full account of which may be found in Lambecii Catal. BMloth. Vindob. vi. p. 284 &c. ed. KoUar, and Bandinii Catal. Biblioth. Laurent, vol. iii. p. 142. There is a MS. of this work in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Laud, Gr. 59), which the Writer has had an opportunity of examining, and he finds that the printed work corresponds to the commencement of the seventh book of the MS. He has collated the printed book partially with the MS. from beginning to end, and finds that two of the chapters are trans- posed, and that the differences of reading are very numerous ; but that the substance, and in general the words also, are so exactly the same that there can be no doubt about the identity of the two works, unless (which is just possible,) they should turn out to be two different (but very literal) trans- lations of the same original treatise. It is there- fore tolerably certain that the Pseudo-Synesius is, in fact, the writer commonly known by the de- signation of Constantinus Africanus, of whom it is necessary to say a few words here, as he is not men- tioned in the first volume of this work, because all his published works are written in the Latin language, and he himself lived later than the date fixed on for the admission of Roman writers. He was a native of Carthage in the eleventh century, who spent nearly forty years in travelling in dif- ferent parts of Asia, where he acquired a knowledge of many useful sciences, and also of several Eastern languages. Upon his return to Africa he was forced, apparently by the jealousy of his country- men, to leave once more his native land, and settled in Calabria, where he was taken into the service of the Duke Robert Guiscard, and whence he is some- times called in Greek MSS. Kcdvctt. 6 'PrjyTuos. Hence also his title of TlpwTaariKpriTis or UpatTaar}- KftiTis, that is, Protosecretarius, a word whose meaning may be found in the glossaries of Du Cange and Meursius, and which, in the case of -Constantinus, has occasioned his being sometimes SYNESIUS. 963 called (by a curious series of errors) *• Asyncritus" and " Asynkitus." (See Lambec. loco cit. p. 295.) At last he became a monk in the Monastery of Cassino, A. D. 1072, where he employed part of his time in writing and translating various medical works, and where he died at a great age, a. d. 1087. It is not necessary to mention here all his numerous works, a list of which may be found in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. vol. xiii. p. 124, ed. vet., and in Chou- hint's Handb. der Dncherhmde fur die Aeltere Medicin. They were collected and published in 2 vols. fol. Basil. 1536, 1539. The only one of his writings with which we are at present concerned is that which consists of seven books, and is entitled, " De omnium Morborum, qui Homini accidere pos- sunt, Cognitione et Curatione," or in some other editions simply " Viaticum." This work is the same as the 'E^tJSto tov 'AiroSffinovvTos mei>tioned above, and consequently contains (at the beginning of the seventh book) the Pseudo-Synesius '* De Febribus." It appears also that Constantinus is the author of both works, or, in other words, that he translated the original work into both Greek and Latin. The Latin work indeed (at least as we now possess it,) does not profess to be merely a translation, and this circumstance, added to a similar omission in the case of one of his other works, has exposed Constantinus to the charge of plagiarism and dishonesty, — but whether the ac- cusation be altogether well-founded or not, the Writer is unable to decide, as he has never had occasion to examine the other work alluded to with sufficient minuteness to enable him to form an opinion on the subject. (See Russell's Nat. Hist, of Aleppo, Append, p. xii. &c.) It only remains to detennine the name and author of the original work ; for, even if we had not the title of the Greek MSS. to aid us, it would be sufficiently evident from the inspection of the Pseudo-Synesius that the fragment is translated from the work of some oriental author ; the writer not only making constant mention of the natural productions of Eastern countries, but also having preserved two Arabic words in Greek characters.* The name of the writer so strangely metamorphosed in the titles of the Greek MSS. of Constantinus is Abu Jafar Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abi dialed, who is also called Jy?^' [jV Ibnu-l-Jezzar. Constantinus never gives his author's complete name, but calls him sometimes Abu Jafar Ibnu- l-Jezzdr, sometimes Ahmed Ibn Ibrahim Urn Abi CMled ; which has led Lambecius and Bandini, in their excellent catalogues, to state that the original work " partim ab Epro filio Zaphar nepote Elgzezar, specting one of these words, it may be stated that ti/Tcuxe (p. 76) should be written ivT^x^, that is, p^i Intihd, as appears from Avicenna, Canon, i. 2, 2. § 7 (vol. i. p. 38,i. ult. ed. Arab.). The other word, efj.ovd€ (p. 120), should of course be written eA/ioi/0eAAe0, that is, y^ 4*. 4]*, AU mntJuillath ; see Avicenna, ii. 2. 436 (vol. i. p. 20^' I. 41, ed. Arab.) 3q 2
 * As some difference of opinion has existed re-