The Byzantine Tradition of Vettius Valens’s Anthologies DAVID PINGREE When Wilhelm Kroll prepared the first edition’ of the “complete” text of the astrological compendium composed by Vettius Valens? towards the end of the second century A.D.,° he relied basically on two late Byzantine manuscripts and their Western copies. The primary manu- script was and is Vaticanus graecus 191* (i) which (with its important apograph, Arch. Selden B. 19° (S) in the Bodleian Library, Oxford) provides the text for most of the nine books of the Anthologies; of great importance for the first two books is Marcianus graecus 314° (Af). In this paper I shall attempt to reconstruct the archetype of these two codices and to trace the history of its tradition back to the early Byzantine period. Alexander Turyn has carefully examined and described V,” a paper manuscript of folio size (34.5 x 24cm.) consisting of 397 folios. He has demonstrated that the manuscript consists of three codices gathered together by the latest scribe, whom he calls R. On folio 319v of V R has written a notice concerning the lunar eclipse of 18 May 1296 and the earthquakes that struck Constantinople on June 1 and both Constan- \ Antholegiaram libri (Bestia, 1908), 2 W. and H. Gundel, Asirologumena (Wiesbaden, 1966), pp. 216-21; D. Pingtee, The Yavanajéuake of Sphujidhvaja (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), vol. 2, pp. 4445 3 The latest horoscope preserved in the Anthologies is dated 3 February 173; see ‘0, Neugebauer and H.B. Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes (Philadelphia, 1959), pp. 130-31 See also O. Neugebauer, “The Chronology of Vettius Valens’ Anthologiae.” Harvard Theological Ssudies 47 (1954): 65-67. His main period of activity seems to have extended from ca, 150 to-¢a. 175. + G. Mercati and P. Franchi de Cavalieri, Coaices Vatfcani Graect, vol. | (Rome, 1923). pp. 226-27, and W. Kroll, Catalogus Codicum Asirologorum Graecorum (hereafier CCAG), V 2.(Brussels, 1906), pp. 3-23, 2S, Weinstock, CCAG IX 1 (Brussels, 1951), pp. 74-75 © W. Kroll and A. Olivieri, CCAG I (Brussels, 1900), p. 2. Note that the manuscript used by W. Hubner, Die Eigenschafien der Tierkreiszeichen in der Anuke (Wiesbaden, 1982), pp. 298-404, is a contaminated copy of Mf. * A. Turyn, Cedices Graect aticani saeculis XIE et X1¥ script annorumaue notis instruct! (Vatican City, 1964). pp. 89-97.BYZANTINE TRADITION OF VALENS'S ANTHOLOGIES 533 tinople and Asia Minor on July 17 of the same year. On folio I R gives the rules for converting a year in the Seleucid calendar into the corresponding year in the Byzantine calendar; he uses A.D. 1303 as an example, On folios 108-11 lv R gives examples for using the astronomical tables found on folios 112v-127 of V; these include the computations of the sun's longitude on 15 April 1302, the moon's longitude on 22 April 1302, and the longitude of the moon’s ascending node on 1 May 1302. In the course of these computations he mentions the Zij al“Ala7 which Gregory Chioniades had recently translated into Greek,® and states that he, R, was in Constantinople in April 1302. In this connection it is important to note that the astronomical tables in V that R uses are also associated with Chioniades. Turyn identifies the first codex that is incorporated into V as consisting of folios 2-172, and he associates it with the scribe, whom he dubs G, whose handwriting is much smaller, neater, and professional than is R's. G has inscribed on folios 170-170v of F two further examples illustrating the use of the astronomical tables in /; they are the computations of the longitudes of the sun and the moon on I4 April 1298. Following this, on folios 170v-172v, R has written a long and tedious explanation of the methods employed in performing arithmetical operations with sexagesimal numbers, in the course of which he refers to the sexagesimal multiplication table, the «Aetdtov, that Gregory Chioniades also uses.” ‘Thus it is clear that Vis closely associated with Chioniades. I believe it to be likely that G and R are indeed Chioniades himself writing, respectively, in his scribal and in his cursive style; alternatively, one or the other or both scribes might be members of a circle of astronomers associated with him during his stays in Constantinople (if such a circle ever existed). In any case, G's notations indicate that the first codex in already cxisted in 1298, though the palacography indicates that it was not copied much earlier than that. Since R has added the quire marks throughout the volume, the three codices were originally bound together not too long before or after 1302/3. © See D. Pingree, “Gregory Chioniades and Palacologan Astronomy,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers (hereafter DOP), 18 (1964): 133-60; my edition of Chioniades’s version of the Zij alAl&T and associated texts will appear in the Carpus Astronomiae Byzantinae, On Chioniades’ career see further L.G. Westerink, “La profession de foi de Grégoite Chioniades," Revue des érudes byzaruines 38 (1980) : 233-48, “AlG'T 3S, ets.5o DAVID PINGREE Five scribes shared in the copying of the first codex of . What is left of Valens’s text— quires 14-18 (folios 89-107) —were copied by Turyn’s third scribe, C (quires 14-16; now folios 89-104), and his first, A (quires 17-18; now folios 105-107). The composition of this section of V as it is presently bound is as follows (the page and line numbers refer to Kroll’s edition, the chapter and sentence numbers to my forthcoming edition): quire 14, folio 89 (I 5,1 - 117,22 and I 21,41 -1 22, title : p. 22, 29 p. 32,17 and p. $3,1-5). six folios lost. folio 96 (II 37,39 - IL quire 15. one folio lost. folios 90-95 (IIL 3,7 - 1V 25,2: p. 136,27 - p. 201,2p. one folio lost quire 16. folios 97-104 (W 2,10 - VIET 3,9: p. 211,16 - p. 297,34). 10 105 (VIII 3,9 - VIIE 5,45: p. 297.34 - p. 303,32). six folios lost. folio 106 (Addit. p. 364,2 - p. 366,10). quire 18. folio 107 (Addit. p. 366,11 - p. 372,41). .3: p. 112,23 - p, 124.8). Fortunately, before V was so wretchedly reduced it was copied into S in the early sixteenth century for the French humanist and lawyer Christophe de Longueil, who was born at Malines in 1488 and died at Padua on I September 1522. V, which had belonged to Cardinal Isidore of Kiev, apparently entered the Vatican Library upon his death on 27 April 1463. From the registers of the Vatican Library we know that V was borrowed by Dominus Petrus Bembus on 4 February 1518,!° and by Petrus Paulus Arretinus on 6 July 1522, who returned it on 8 August of the same year''—a month before de Longueil's death. Perhaps S was copied on one of these occasions, though the length of 5, which origmally also included Arch. Selden B. 17 so that it consisted of 324 folios, makes the second alternative less likely, though certainly not impossible'? From S we know that the lost folios of quires 14-17"? were still included with V, in their proper order, when it was copied. It is also evident from the status of the text that V, when complete, presented. neither an accurate nor a full version of the Anthologies. Particularly noteworthy are the space of eleven lines left blank on folio 90v after III 6 10M. Bertdle, I due primi regisiri di prestito delta Bibliotheca Apostotica Vaticana (Vatican City, 1942), p. 55. "Bertola, p. 50, "2 CCAGIX b. p. 74. \9 The text preserved in 5 and printed on pp. 304-363 of Kroll’s edition could just be made to fit in the 6 folios that followed folio 105 in quire 17 of ¥.BYZANTINE TRADITION OF VALENS'S ANTHOLOGIES 335 (p. 145,22), the space of thirteen lines left blank on folio 99 to hold the table of V 7,18 (p. 233,23), and the space of thirty-one lines left blank on folio 105v after VIII 5,45 (p. 303,32); and S ends abruptly seven lines before the end of folio 176v in IX 19 (p. 363,25). None of these gaps, but those at the beginning of the text (I 1 - 1 4) and in the middle of the first book (I 17,22 - 1 21,14) can be filled in and the text of the first two beoks improved by consulting M. This manuscript of 286 folios was copied at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, and so is contemporaneous with V. ‘On folios 256-286 (presumably quires 33-36) are preserved Vettius Valens, Anthologies 11 - 15; 17 - 115,16; 1 16 - 11 20; and II 23 - 11 28,4 (p. 1,4 + p. 23,15; p. 24,23 - p. 30,18; p. 31,2 - p. 82,5; and p. 87,7 - p. 95,8). Folio 286v was originally blank; it now bears an index and an indication of Bessarion’s ownership. Since the text of M shares numerous wrong readings with V, both are clearly descended from a single source, which I shall dub a. The physical arrangement of a can be established by a comparison of its two descendants. For this purpose we must consider the following data: A. 11-14 contain 5,746 words (only in M). B. 15-1 17,22 contain 2,955 words, but I 15, 17-27 (omitted by Af and clearly a clumsy interpolation in P) contain 151 words; therefore this segment of a contained 2,804 words (V and M). C, 117,22 - 121,41 contain 5,588 words (M only), D. 121,41 - 11 28,4 Gneluding [1 21-22) contain 11,071 words (M:; also in ¥S). From this we hypothesize that one page of a contained about 350 words, so that a quite of sixteen pages contained about 5,600 words. Then A above (I I - 14) filled one quire in a; this was lost before V.was copied. B was contained on four folios, which was the first gathering when V was copied. C filled another quire, which was missing when V was copied ‘And D-was contained in two quires af a; when the scribe of M completed copying them, he stopped. M, therefore, or its ancestor was copied from a before V, and a was damaged in the interim. But before that happened another copy was made of at least parts of a; this is now known to us through the excerpts in Vaticanus graecus 1066'* (¥). This is a manuscript of 175 folios copied in the fifteenth century. It is already known that v (folios 103v-124) shares with the '* F, Comont and F. Bbll, CCAG V 1 (Brussels, 1904), pp. 74-79,536 DAVID PINGREE second codex in V (folios 248v-286v) and with Parisinus graecus 2506 !* (B) (folios 156-158v and 173v-175v) the distinction of preserving what remains of the Byzantine translation of Abii Ma'shar's Kitéb ahkdrm tahdwil sini al-mawdlid,’® though for this text v is certainly not copied. from V. The same is true with regard to Valens, since preserves some of the text of a that was missing when was copied. Unfortunately, » contains only excerpts, but these are extremely valuable in providing a check on M. Folios 14-16 of vcontain I 18, 6-70, on computing the longitudes of the five star-planets, in a version that in several cases preserves the correct reading when M does not. Folios 26-32v of v preserve I 19, 1 - 1 20,8 and folios 33-34 [ 20,33-41; and folios 34-35 contain IV 12, 1-3. The gap of 1,564 words between folio 32v and folio 33 of v is due to the loss of a number of leaves from that manuscript; 1,564 is not close to being an integer multiple of 350. Manuscript B, which shares with V and v the responsibility for preserving Abi Ma’shar, also contains, as does Marcianus graccus 335'7 (H), Epitome IV of Rhetorius,"* a work put together in Byzantium in the late tenth or early eleventh century, perhaps by that Demophilus who cast the horoscope of Constantinople in about 990 and who displays a familiarity with the works of Dorotheus, Ptolemy, Valens, and Porphyrius'* as does the compiler of Epitome IV. The author of Epitome IV frequently cites both book and chapter numbers of the Anthologies; these correspond quite consistently with the chapter numbers in V and in S insofar as they are preserved (and not with the chapter numbers in Kroll's edition). For example, in its chapter 16 Epitome IV refers to Valens III 8, VI 2, and VII 4, 5, and 6 correctly, though also to II 3 as III 5 (a scribal error because of his correct reference to III 8); in chapter 18 he refers to VI & as VI 10(etacism); and in chapter 21 to IV ¢1>4, IV <25), and VIII 6 correctly. This demonstrates that the text of the Anthologies was divided into the same chapters in ca. 1000 as they were in ca. 1300. "2 F, Cumont, CCAG VIII | (Brussels, 1929). pp. 74115. "© Ed. D. Pingrec, Leiprig 1968. 8 CCAG M, pp. 37-70, “ D. Pingree, “Antiochus and Rhetarius,” Classical Philology (hereafter CPA). 72 (1977); 203-223, especially 216-19. *° DD. Pingree, “The Horoscope of Constantinople,” Iptowara (Wiesbaden, 1977), pp. 305-315,BYZANTINE TRADITION OF VALENS'S ANTHOLOGIES 537 More substantial excerpts from Valens are found in Byzantine manu- scripts whose contents go back to the period of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, including especially B and Has well as Marcianus graecus 334° (C); these are generally reworkings and rearrangements of Valens’s material, and its mixture with excerpts from Ptolemy, Anubio, and others. The excerpts are derived primarily from books I, II, IV, and V of the Anthologies; they will be edited as appendices to my edition. Unfortunately, we know nothing of their author, but he clearly had a text very similar to that of a. Other Valentian excerpts which belong to the Middle Byzantine period are direct copies (sometimes abbreviated) of one or more manuscripts belonging to the a tradition. Among these excerpts are those of Anthologies 1 11 and 13 and III 5 that a member of the School of John Abramius,?! who had access to manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, copied into Laurentianus 28,147? (J) in the 1380s, and that of III 6 in Vindobonensis phil. gr. 115?* (5), a manuscript copied not very long before 6 October 1241, Perhaps also from an ancestor of a is the chapter on transits found in Parisinus graecus 2419? (G), which was copied by George Midiates in 1461,?* and in Vindobonensis phil, gr. 108#* (U), a manuscript of the sixteenth century; this chapter has been published from these two manuscripts by F. Cumont,?” who did not realize that a sentence from it is cited as Valens’s on folio 156 of Vaticanus graecus 10567* (X), a fourteenth-century manuscript based on eleventh- and twelfth-century sources.?” U/ also contains brief reworkings of chapters from books VIII and IX. Several of these manuscripts (notably B and ¥) as well as others also contain spurious texts (e.g., because they are based on Islamic sources)*° attributed to Valens. 24D. Pingree, “The Astrological School of John Abramius.” DOP 25 (1971): 189-215. 22 A. Olivieri, CCAG | (Brussels, 1898), pp. 20-37 2) W. Kroll, CCAG VI (Brussels, 1903), pp. 16-28, 3 CCAG VIII 1, pp. 20-63, 3 For the date, see D. Pingree, ed, Hephacstionis Thebani Aposielesmatica, vol. 2 (Leipzig, 1978), p. xvi, fn 5 29 COAG V1. pp. 1-16, CAG VILL, pp. 161-7b 2 J, Heeg, CCAG V 5 (Brussels, 1910), pp. 7-64. 35° For the date of the sources of X, see DOP 18 (1964): 138-39, and: Hephaestio, 2: XXI-XXIL, 2 Such is the text edited in CCAG V 3, pp. 110-21, which is based om a horoscope that can be dated 7 November 939; see Mplopata, p. 34, This misattribution is another demonstration of Valens's noteriety in the tenth century in Byzantium,538 DAVID PINGREE, A more curious witness to the Byzantine interest in the Anthologies is the reworking of his rather absurd rules for determining the longitudes of the planets found in I 4 and 17-18.*! This revision, whose epoch is | January 906 (cf. the horoscope of Constantine Porphyrogenitus cast for 3 September 905),?? is found in three manuscripts: Parisinus suppl. gr. 464 (not seen by me), Waticanus Rossianus graecus 897 (a note at the end of the text gives the present date as 1295), and Vaticanus graecus 184 {a note at the end of the text in this manuscript gives the present date as 1270). A further abbreviation of the redaction of 906 is found in J (a note at the end of this gives the present date as 1292). The dates of these subscriptions clearly indicate that scholars of the carly Palacologan period were interested not only in the text of the Anthologies themselves (as is evident from the existence of V, M, v, and their early fourteenth- century copies), but as well in this abortive attempt to make sense of some of its astronomical passages in the early tenth century, Unfortu- nately, the text of that attempt has been so transformed from Valens’s exposition that impossible to determine whether or not a manuscript of the a class was its basis. Another compilation, probably of the ninth or tenth century, possibly attests to the existence in Byzantium at that time of a different recension of Valens's work than that which a has preserved. This is the Liber Hermetis published by W. Gundel,** which is a thirteenth-century Latin translation of a Byzantine compilation closely related to Rhetorius, of whose work it is Epitome V.°* Its chapters IV-X¥ are closely related to a's V, 1-8; but the Liber presents a more logically ordered and internally consistent text than does a. In particular, the Liber omits V 6-¥V 8, 22, which, while genuinely Valentinian, are misplaced in a (cf. the repetition of V 3,12 at the end of V 5); and Liber XIV is no longer found in a, though it clearly had a Greek source and is used in the Liber's version ‘of Valens V 8, 24-108, which probably represents the original more closely than does @. It seems very probable, then, that a better text of Valens existed in ca. 900 than can be recovered from a, but it remains a question whether a and the Liber are descended from the same or >. Edited by A. Tihon, “Le calcul de la longitude de Vénus (des plandtes) d'aprés un texte anonyme du Vat. gr. 184," Bulletin de I'Insritur Belge de Rome 3% (1968): 51-82, und 52 (1982) : 5-29; see also O, Neugebauer, A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (New York, 1975), pp. 799800. 2D. Pingree, “The Horascope of Constantine VIT Porphyrogenitus.” DOP 27 (1973) NI. 3) Neue astrologisehe Texte des Hermes Trismegisios (Munich, 1936), 28 CPA 72 (1977): 219-20BYZANTINE TRADITION OF VALENS'S ANTHOLOGIES 539 different minuscule transliterations of the Anshologies. Unfortunately, the other Latin translations of Valentian chapters in the Liber (XVII from Valens II 38 and XXII from II 30) shed no light on this problem. Rather, we must seek for only a hypothetical answe: noting the felationship between the Liber, which, as has been seen, is a represen- tative of the Rhetorian tradition, and the Valentian excerpts preserved in Laurentianus 28,34°* (2), an early eleventh-century manuseript*® which contains, inter alia, Epitome II of Rhetorius,’” and in Parisinus graecus 242528 (R), a fifteenth-century codex that preserves both Epitome 13% and Epitome III*° of Rhetorius. These excerpts include 1 15 (R VI 10)*" and III] 8 (R VI 19) as well as the well-known collection of zodiacal geographies gleaned from Ptolemy, Paulus, Hephaestio, and Valens (R ‘VI 20).*? The chapter of Valens that was utilized by the author of R VI 20 was Anthologies 1 2. In @ the geographical localities dominated by Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius are omitted ; this is also the case in R VI 20, which therefore, whether it was compiled in the early seventh century by Rhetorius himself or only at some time anterior to the copying of Z in the early eleventh century, attests to the fact that some of the defects of @ already existed in a manuscript of Valens in the early Middle Byzantine period. If one were certain that Rhetorius himself was instrumental in transmitting both R VI 20(R V1 17 and 18 are directly attributed to him, but this could mean that he was nor invelved in the other sections of R VI) and the compilation that was translated as the Liber, one might contend with more conviction that the Liber represents an carlicr stage than does a in a single line of transmission that originated in the seventh century. In the present uncertainty concerning the exact nature of Rhetorius’s labors, this solution remains only one of several that are possible. 3° CCAG I. pp. 0-72 3% Evidence that the scribe of £ had access (o a ninih- ot tenth-century manuscript is provide by his copy of a confused scholium of Leo the Philosopher (CCAG I, p. 139% ef. Dictionary of Sciersific Biography, vol. 8 [New York, 1973], p. 198) and by his reference to the banishment of the Patciarch Photius in 867 (CCAG I, p. 140; the text attributed, rightly ‘or wrongly, to Valens ends before this, on line 15). 27 Ph 72 (1977): 206-208. 2 P. Boudreaux, CCAG VIII 4 (Brussels, 1922). pp. 2242 2° CPh 72 (1977): 205-206. + CPh72 (1977): 210-12, "Edited by F. Cumont, CCAG VIN 4, p. 239 “2 Edited from Eby A. Ludwich, Maxim et Ammonis Carminum ... religuiae (Leipzig, 1877), pp. 112-19:540 DAVID PINGREE In any case, however, Rhetorius’s use of Valens seems certain, since the latter is cited in Epitome I 13 and III S7, 78, and 79; further, if the usual interpretation of the ascription in Berolinensis graecus 1734? (D) is accepted as correct, Rhetorius wrote a new version of Valens T |. Unfortunately, none of this material allows us to characterize definitively the status of the manuscript of the Anthologies that was available to Rhetorius. Whatever may be the true account of the transmission of the Valentian text in the Middle Byzantine period, it is clear that a is descended from an archetype of the late fifth century; for it contains explanations of some of Valens’ obscurities illustrated by two horoscopes that can be dated, respectively, 2 July 419 and 9 January 431. Undoubtedly many of the corruptions in a go back to the misunder- standings of Valens's peculiar techniques and style to which this fifth- century redactor was subject. He, like the many Byzantine scholars who struggled with the text and the remains of whose efforts are the subject of this paper, valiantly attempted by deletions, additions, transpositions, repetitions, and emendations to make sense of it, Though some help is available for an eventual recovery of Valens's ideas from the use of his. work in such texts as the mid-fourth century Greek antecedent of the first section of the Praeceptwm canonis Ptolemaei*® and, more impor- tantly, from the Arabic translations*’ (and their Latin derivatives)** of the Pahlavi version of the Anthologies,** a critical edition of the Greek text can only hope to establish the form that it had when a was transcribed — perhaps as late as the early Palaeologan period —with a judicious restoration of certain elements (particularly in the astronomical sections) that we can be sure were stated differently by Valens than they © Edited with many unwarranted conflations by F. Boll, CCAG VII (Brussels, 1908), pp. 192-224 “4 Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes, pp. 13638; Valentinian III. +3 Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, p. 140, “© Praeceptum | 23 is based on Anshalogies 117; the author of the Pracceptuen wses a computation for 354 5 an example. © Some of the Arabic material (but by mo means all) is referred to by F. Sexgin, Goschichte des arabisehen Schrifitums, wol. 7 (Leiden, 1979), pp. 38-41 “2 Particularly important are the quotations from Valens, Rhetorius, and others given in the Liter Aristo‘elis De 255 indorwn voluminibus, translated by Hugo of Sanctalla in the carly twelfth century; an edition and commentary are being prepared by C. Burnett and myself. “For this see C.A. Nallino, “Tracce di opere greche giunte agli Arabi per trafila pehlevica,” in 4 Volume of Oriental Studies Presenied to Professor E.G. Browne (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 345-63BYZANTINE TRADITION OF VALENS'S ANTHOLOGIES 541 were by the scribe of a. But at least the investigation of the Byzantine struggles with this impossible author should demonstrate that, however imperfect their tools, they did not shrink from the scholar's task of rescuing, preserving, and “improving” the absurd. Brown University