Публикации автора

The paper analyzes Ch. 24 of the 11th book of Aelian’s De natura animalium devoted to the so-called sea-leopard (πάρδαλις) and the oxyrrhynchus fish, both living in the Red Sea. Aelian compares the body colour of the sea-leopard to the mountain leopard, i. e. the snow leopard or the ounce (Panthera uncia Schreber, 1775). This comparison clearly demonstrates that the sealeopard is to be identified with the sand tiger shark or the spotted ragged-tooth shark (Carcharias taurus Rafinesque, 1810). This fish usually resides and hunts in the depths of the sea, but also swims to the coast and sometimes attacks the swimming people. The attacks of sand tiger sharks must have taken place in ancient times, so the fish was easily recognizable not only by the Greeks but also by the inhabitants of the Red Sea’s seashore. The Greek ichthyonym ὀξύ(ρ)ρυγχος refers to five different species of fish, but Aelian uses it to denote an oriental kind of shark existing in the Red Sea (NA 11, 24). The oxyrrhynchus shark has an elongated mouth, golden eyes and white eyelids, i. e. nictitating membranes, typical of sharks belonging to the order Carcharhiniformes. Its tail is oblong in shape and its fins are black and white. There are also pale and green parts of its body. On the basis of Aelian’s description it is possible to suggest that the unknown fish should be identified with the bignose shark (Carcharhinus altimus S. Springer, 1950).

The present article aims to elucidate an interesting narrative that forms a portion of Aelian’s paradoxographic work Περὶ ζῴων ἰδιότητος (On the Characteristics of Animals, Lat. De natura animalium). The passage under discussion describes some horned animals of oriental origin that were involved in the annual fighting contests during a one-day competition held on the initiative of a “great king of India” — probably Chandragupta (4th–3rd c. BC), the founder of the Maurya dynasty. Aelian’s chapter (NA 15, 15) was perhaps taken from Megasthenes’s Ἰνδικά (Description of India). The passage includes two hapax legomena referring to two species of animals: †μέσοι† and †ὕαιναι†. The first of these should be identified with the Ladakh urial (Ovis orientalis vignei Blyth); cf. Prasun məṣé ‘ram, urial’ (< Vedic mēṣá- m. ‘ram’). Aelian’s exact description of the horned animals called †ὕαιναι† clearly demonstrates that the alleged “striped hyena” (Gk. ὕαινα) must represent the chinkara, i. e., the Indian gazelle (Gazella bennettii Sykes). The Indo-Aryan term for ‘chinkara’ (Ved. hariṇá- m ‘Indian gazelle’, hariṇī́- f. ‘female gazelle’; cf. Pa. and Pk. hariṇa- m., hariṇī- f.) suggests that the corrupted form in Aelian’s passage should be emended as ὑάριναι [hyárinai]. This seems a near-optimal adaptation of the Pali or Prakrit appellative háriṇā pl. ‘chinkaras’

The Greek grammarian and lexicographer, Hesychius of Alexandria (5 th–6th c. CE) included a Pamphylian gloss: βουρικυπάρισσος ἡ ἄμπελος. Περγαῖοι in his dictionary of rare and dialectal words. Based on a microphilological and lexical analysis, I suggest that the Greek text should be read as follows: βουρίꞏ κυπάρισσος ἢ ἄμπελος. Περγαῖοι (“bourí: cypress or grapevine. Citizens of Perge”). The Pamphylian gloss in question represents two different borrowings of terms originating in the Near East. The first item βουρίꞏ κυπάρισσος (‘cypress’) seems to have been borrowed from Akkadian burāšu(m) ‘a kind of conifer tree; juniper or cypress’ with a Lycian intermediary (Akk. burāšu → Luw. *burašiš > Lyc. *burehi > *burhi → Pamph. βουρί), whereas the second one βουρίꞏ […] ἄμπελος (‘grapevine’) reflects a separate loanword from an Anatolian source, cf. Hitt. and Luw. muriš c. ‘a grapevine, a vine, a cluster or bunch of grapes or other fruit’. The Pamphylian dialect of Ancient Greek represents an extraordinary idiom, which was used in the neighbourhood of numerous Anatolian languages such as Lycian, Milyan, Sidetic, Pisidian and Cilician. It is therefore not surprising that the Pamphylian Greeks borrowed a number of cultural terms for plants from an Anatolian Indo-European source, as well as from Akkadian or other West Semitic languages via Luwian and Lycian. Additionally, other possible Anatolian borrowings into Ancient Greek (e. g. Gk. dial. βωληνή ‘a type of grapevine’, μῶλαξ ‘id.’ vs. Hittite maḫlaš c. ‘grapevine, Vitis vinifera L.’) are mentioned and reviewed