Scholia Basileensia
Introduction by Ivana Dobcheva
Introduction
Scholia Basileensia received their named after the manuscript Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN IV 18. They are an abbreviated translation of the Catasterisms of Pseudo-Erathostenes that served as scholia to Germanicus' Aratea. Lactantius (fl. 4th c.) quoted them three times, which provides a terminus ante quem for their composition.
Recently Kristen Lippincott examined the character of the text comparing it with passages of Hyginus and the 'Alexandrian compilation'. She noticed the dependence on the work of Publius Nigidius Figulus who the scholiast used as a source for the catasterismic myths of the zodiacal constellations. Lippincott's caution suggestion is that the scholiast was a scholar with good Greek language skills, who had access to a Greek version of the Catasterisms and to a Latin text on the mythography of the zodiacal constellations by Nigidius Figulus, but not to Hyginus's De astronomia.Kristen Lippincott, ‘The Latin Aratea and Their “Fellow Travellers”’, in The Stars in the Classical and Medieval Traditions, ed. Alena Hadravová, Petr Hadrava, and Kristen Lippincott (Prague: The Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences/Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science/ Scriptorium, 2019), 271–359, here p. 304.
Incipit: Quaeritur quare ab Ioue coepit et non a musis ut Homerus
Explicit: et ostendisse lacte mirate effusum est circuli albi species.
Editions
- Dell’Era, Antonio, ed. ‘Gli Scholia Basileensia a Germanico’. In Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Memorie, Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche. Ser. 8, Bd. 23, Fasc. 4, 301–79. Romе, 1979.
- Robert, Karl, ed. Eratosthenis Catasterismorum reliquiae. Berlin: Weidmann, 1878, pp. 50-199. (as 'Schol. Germ', based on MSS Paris, BNF, lat. 7886 and Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN IV 18).
Literature
- Lippincott, Kristen. ‘The Latin Aratea and Their “Fellow Travellers”’. In The Stars in the Classical and Medieval Traditions, edited by Alena Hadravová, Petr Hadrava, and Kristen Lippincott, 271–359. Prague: The Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences/Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science/ Scriptorium, 2019.
- Le Bourdellès, Hubert. L’Aratus Latinus: étude sur la culture et la langue latines dans le Nord de la France au VIIIe siècle. Travaux et recherches. Lille: Université de Lille III, 1985.
Manuscripts
- Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 735 C
- Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN IV 18
- Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Phill. 1832
- Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 5239
- Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 7886
- Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, Ms 326
