Ptolemy-el-Garib (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, more correctly ''al-gharīb'', "Ptolemy the foreigner," explained as meaning "Ptolemy the unknown") (fl. c. 300 AD) was a

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

pinacographer, probably of the

Peripatetic school The Peripatetic school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece. Its teachings derived from its founder, Aristotle (384–322 BC), and ''peripatetic'' is an adjective ascribed to his followers. The school dates from around 335 BC when Aristo ...

, who wrote a ''Life of Aristotle'' notable for its catalog of

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

's works. This work survives in an Arabic manuscript in

Istanbul Istanbul ( , ; tr, İstanbul ), formerly known as Constantinople ( grc-gre, Κωνσταντινούπολις; la, Constantinopolis), is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, serving as the country's economic, ...

. A critical edition, with French translation was published by Marwan Rashed.Ptolémée "al Gharib", ''Épître à Gallus sur la vie, le testament et les écrits d’Aristote'', Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2021.

Historical context

The excerpts known prior to this discovery were collected in

Ingemar Düring Ingemar Düring (2 September 1903 - 23 December 1984) was a Swedish Classical Philologist. From 1945 to 1970 he was a professor at Gothenburg University The University of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs universitet) is a university in Sweden's se ...

's ''Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition'' (Göteborg 1957), pp. 221–231.

Marian Plezia Marian Plezia (b. 1917 in Kraków, d. 1996) was a Poles, Polish historian. He was an expert in medieval Polish history and author of a Latin-Polish dictionary and a Lexicon Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis Polonorum, Medieval Latin-Polish dictionary ...

has cast doubt on the idea that Ptolemy-el-Garib's ''Life'' was an important source of later

Neoplatonic Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ide ...

lives of Aristotle.

Notes

References

*Hans Gottschalk, "The Earliest Aristotelian Commentators," in ''Aristotle Transformed'' (ed. Richard Sorabji, 1990), pp. 56f. n. 5.

, "The spurious and the authentic in the Arabic Lives of Aristotle," in ''Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages: the Theology and other texts''. Edited by Ryan William Francis, Kraye Jill, and Schmitt Charles Bernard. London: Warburg Institute. University of London 1986. pp. 15-36 (Reprinted as Chapter VI in D. Gutas, ''Greek philosophers in the Arabic tradition,'' Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000). *Marian Plezia, "De Ptolemaeo pinacographo," ''Eos'' 63 (1975), pp. 37–42. *——, "De Ptolemaei Vita Aristotelis," in ''Aristoteles: Werk und Wirkung'', vol. 1 (''Aristoteles und seine Schule''), ed. Jürgen Wiesner (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1985), pp. 1-11.

External links

The Ancient Catalogues of Aristotle's Writings: Hesychius and Ptolemy al-Garib. A Survey of Current Research

contains a list of studies on Ptolemy-el-Garib Ancient Greeks Peripatetic philosophers Works about Aristotle {{Philosopher-stub

Historical context

Notes

References

Further reading

External links