Claudius Aelianus
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Claudius Aelianus (Template:Langx;<ref>Η φυσιογνωμία ενός λαού θεμελιών. Μύθοι για την Ελιά. Retrieved June 5, 2011, from http://www.etwinning.gr/projects/elia/muthoi.htm</ref> Template:Circa), commonly Aelian (Template:IPAc-en), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "honey-tongued" (Template:Lang Template:Lang); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself.<ref name="EB1911">{{#if: |
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}}{{#ifeq: ||}} This cites:
- Editio princeps of complete works by Gesner, 1556; Hercher, 1864-1866.
- English translation of the Various History only by Fleming, 1576, and Stanley, 1665
- Translation of the Letters by Quillard (French), 1895</ref>
His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view. De Natura Animalium is also the only Greco-Roman work to mention Gilgamesh.Template:Citation needed
De Natura Animalium
On the Nature of Animals (alternatively "On the Characteristics of Animals"; Template:Langx, Template:Lang; usually cited by its Latin title De Natura Animalium) is a collection,<ref name="EB1911"/> in seventeen books, of brief stories of natural history. Some are included for the moral lessons they convey; others because they are astonishing.Template:Citation needed
The introduction to the Loeb Classical Library translation by A.F. Schofield characterizes the book as "miscellany of facts: genuine or supposed, gleaned by Aelian from earlier and contemporary Greek writers (no Latin writer is once named) and to a limited extent from his own observation to illustrate the habits of the animal world," which, based on Stoicism, is designed "to entertain and while so doing to convey instruction in the most agreeable form".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Aelian's anecdotes on animals rarely depend on direct observation: they are almost entirely taken from written sources, not only Pliny the Elder, Theopompus, and Lycus of Rhegium, but also other authors and works now lost, to whom he is thus a valuable witness.<ref>The third volume of the Loeb Classical Library translation gives a gazetteer of authors cited by Aelian.</ref> He is more attentive to marine life than might be expected,Template:According to whom though, and this seems to reflect first-hand personal interest; he often quotes "fishermen". At times he strikes the modern reader as thoroughly credulous, but at others he specifically states that he is merely reporting what is told by others, and even that he does not believe them. Aelian's work is one of the sources of medieval natural history and of the bestiaries of the Middle Ages.<ref name="Cohen2008">Template:Cite book</ref>
Conrad Gessner (or Gesner), the Swiss scientist and natural historian of the Renaissance, made a Latin translation of Aelian's work, giving it a wider European audience. An English translation by A. F. Scholfield was published in 1958–59 in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes. D.E. Eichholz observed that "Aelian's text, riddled as it is with corrupt passages and packed with interpretations, provides ample scope for reckless emendation", praising Scholfield for restraint in this direction.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Varia Historia
Various History (Template:Lang, Template:Lang)—for the most part preserved only in an abridged form<ref name="EB1911"/>—is Aelian's other well-known work, a miscellany of anecdotes and biographical sketches, lists, pithy maxims, and descriptions of natural wonders and strange local customs, in 14 books, with many surprises for the cultural historian and the mythographer, anecdotes about the famous Greek philosophers, poets, historians, and playwrights and myths instructively retold. The emphasis is on various moralizing tales about heroes and rulers, athletes and wise men; reports about food and drink, different styles in dress or lovers, local habits in giving gifts or entertainments, or in religious beliefs and death customs; and comments on Greek painting. Aelian gives accounts of, among other things, fly fishing using lures of red wool and feathers, lacquerwork, and serpent worship. Essentially, the Various History is a classical "magazine" in the original sense of that word.Template:Explain He is not perfectly trustworthy in details, and his writing was heavily influenced by Stoic opinions,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> perhaps so that his readers will not feel guilty, but Jane Ellen Harrison found survivals of archaic rites mentioned by Aelian very illuminating in her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903, 1922).
Varia Historia was first printed in 1545.<ref name=":0" /> The standard modern text is that of Mervin R. Dilts (1974).<ref name=":0" />
Two English translations of the Various History, by Fleming (1576) and Stanley (1665) made Aelian's miscellany available to English readers, but after 1665 no English translation appeared, until three English translations appeared almost simultaneously: James G. DeVoto, Claudius Aelianus: Ποικίλης Ἱστορίας (Varia Historia) Chicago, 1995; Diane Ostrom Johnson, An English Translation of Claudius Aelianus' "Varia Historia", 1997; and N. G. Wilson, Aelian: Historical Miscellany in the Loeb Classical Library.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Other works
Considerable fragments of two other works, On Providence and Divine Manifestations, are preserved in the early medieval encyclopedia, the Suda. Twenty "letters from a farmer" after the manner of Alciphron are also attributed to him.<ref name="EB1911"/> The letters are invented compositions to a fictitious correspondent, which are a device for vignettes of agricultural and rural life, set in Attica, though mellifluous Aelian once boasted that he had never been outside Italy, never been aboard a ship (which is at variance, though, with his own statement, de Natura Animalium XI.40, that he had seen the bull Serapis with his own eyes). Thus conclusions about actual agriculture in the Letters are as likely to evoke Latium as Attica. The fragments have been edited in 1998 by D. Domingo-Foraste,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> whose edition has been sharply criticized<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>. The Letters are available in the Loeb Classical Library, translated by Allen Rogers Benner and Francis H. Fobes (1949).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
References
Translations
- Aelian, On Animals. 3 volumes. Translated by A. F. Scholfield. 1958–9. Loeb Classical Library. Template:ISBN, Template:ISBN, and Template:ISBN
- Aelian, Historical Miscellany. Translated by Nigel G. Wilson. 1997. Loeb Classical Library. Template:ISBN
- Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus, The Letters. Translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. 1949. Loeb Classical Library. Template:ISBN
- Aelian, On the Nature of Animals. Translated by Gregory McNamee. 2011. Trinity University Press. Template:ISBN
- Ailianos, Vermischte Forschung. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston Template:ISBN
- Ailianos, Tierleben. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston 2018, Template:ISBN
- Claudius Aelianus, Vom Wesen der Tiere - De natura animalium. German and Commentary by Paul-Gerhard Veh, Philipp Stahlhut. 2020. Bibliothek der Griechischen Literaur. Anton Hiersemann Verlag Stuttgart 2020, ISBN Template:ISBN
Further reading
- Smith, Steven D. (2014). Man and animal in Severan Rome. The literary imagination of Claudius Aelianus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Template:ISBN.
- Stamm, Caroline (2003). Vergangenheitsbezug in der Zweiten Sophistik? Die Varia Historia des Claudius Aelianus [Reference to the past in the Second Sophistic? The Varia Historia of Claudius Aelianus]. Frankfurt: Lang, Template:ISBN.
External links
- Template:Internet Archive author
- Template:Librivox author
- Ποικίλη ἱστορία – bibliotheca Augustana
- Raw Greek OCR of Hercher's 1864 Teubner edition of Aelian's works at the Lace repository of Mount Allison University: vol. I, vol. 2
- Various History at James Eason's site (excerpts in English translation)
- English translation of Aelian's fragments at attalus.org
- Some quotes from Aelian's natural history Template:Webarchive (English)
- Aelian from the fly-fisherman's point-of-view
- The Evidence for Aelian's Katêgoria tou gunnidos regarding Aelian's presumed invective against Elagabalus
Aelian's Characteristics of Animals
- Greek with English translation
- Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books I-V (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1958)
- Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books VI-XI (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1959)
- Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books XII-XVII (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1959)
- HTML version of Scholfield's English translation at attalus.org
- Latin translation
- De natura animalium at LacusCurtius (complete Latin translation)
- Greek