This article discusses the extract from Galen’s treatise “Protrepticus” which contains a description of the goddess Tyche. In the extract, Galen contrasts Hermes (a male master of the arts) and Tyche (a capricious and irrational woman). The fragment is considered in the context of the entire treatise (“Protrepticus” was intended as a polemical statement against the empirical school and their method) and its purpose (exhortation to the study of arts). G. Kaibel has previously shown that many details in the description of Tyche coincide with similar descriptions in the treatise “Tabula Cebetis’’. As a result, the scholar came to the conclusion that Galen and the author of “Tabula’’ relied on the same source. The fragment from the poem by Pacuvius provides additional evidence. However, in addition to the similarities in the description, it is worth considering the differences that appear in Galen’s treatise. For example, Galen replaces the term μανία (μαινομένη in “Tabula Cebetis’’) with the term ἄνοια, depriving it of medical connotations. The translators, apparently, did not attach any importance to this replacement, and therefore we have different translations of the term ἄνοια: folie, mancanza di senno, inanity. Since the replacement of the term μανία is not commented on in the editions and the existing translations demonstrate different interpretations, the author of the article provides an additional commentary, including a comparison of “Protrepticus” with other texts of Galen and the works of Plato, and also draws attention to the parallel passage from Pacuvius
This article opens a series devoted to investigating the sources of the ample zoological excursus (vv. 916–1223) in the Hexaemeron by George of Pisidia, a 7th-century Byzantine poet. Since the two attempts to find a general formula for George of Pisidia’s treatment of his models have led to directly opposite results (according to Max Wellmann, the poet distanced himself from pagan zoologists; according to Luigi Tartaglia, on the contrary, he drew material from them, favouring Aelian), it seems that the question of the poem’s sources should be addressed by a step-by-step examination of passages, paying attention to such evidence as the coincidence of minor details or words. In v. 1116 the unusual metaphor “aithyia, bending its winged cloud” (in the sense of “spreading its wings”) makes one think of an (unconscious?) association with Arat. Phaen. 918–920, where “a stretching cloud” is mentioned in the catalogue of storm’s signs in immediate juxtaposition to the flapping of the wings of seabirds. In vv. 1117–1124 (the self-cleansing of the ibis) the reference to Galen is not a mere metonymy (= “the most skillful physician”), as interpreters have hitherto thought, but points to the poet’s source: in the Galenic corpus this story is attested three times, and the passage closest to George of Pisidia’s account is [Galen.] Introd. 1.2. In vv. 1154–1159 (the structure of the web) the confused sequence of the stages of the spider’s work (first concentric circles, then radial threads), that contradicts both reality and (which is more important) the ancient tradition going back to Book IX of Historia animalium, seems to betray the influence of John Philoponus (De opif. mundi, p. 257, 24 sqq. Reinhardt). In Philoponus’ text this sequence is justified by the fact that his rhetorical passage describes, strictly speaking, not the web itself, but a drawing of it made by a “diligent geometer”.