Pseudo-Aristotle - Epitaphs for the Heroes: Pepli Epitaphia - Appendix Planudea

by Pseudo-Aristotle, F G Munoz (Foreword)

The Pepli Epitaphia seem to have been of the predilection of Byzantine poets and scholars, as well as late-Renaissance editors. In spite of their editorial record during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were to be critically recovered only much later, in the nineteenth century. Made known and copied initially from a single thirteenth-century manuscript ({La in this edition), the corpus was in that century to be added with fifteen new components, identified among John Tzetzes' Scholia to the Carmina Iliaca. From this point on--and with the exception of some epigrams collected in other sources, namely the Greek Anthology--any edition or critical consideration of the text had to deal with two main manuscript branches (the anthological or Laurentiana, and the Tzetziana), a task this book performs in a rigorous way. By collating a total of 33 components from the two Matritenses ({M = Matrit. BN 4562, and {Md = Matrit. BN 4621), this edition adds two testimonies to the textual transmission of the corpus, an addition portrayed by stemma 2, a short and revised version of Leone's (1995) stemma for the Carmina Iliaca, where {M and {Md, as the author, are to be inserted as legitimate partial testimonies of Tzetzes' Scholia.



To summarise, what this book offers is a first autonomous and commented edition of the Pepli Epitaphia, a group of texts until now only published in the edition of Aristotle's Pseudoepigrapha or as appendix to the Greek Anthology. May scholars and students of Greek literature, religion and even archaeology make the best possible use of it.

Felipe Gonzalo Hernández Muñoz

106 pages, Paperback

Published December 18, 2015

About the author

"Pseudo-Aristotle is a general cognomen for authors of philosophical or medical treatises who attributed their work to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, or whose work was later attributed to him by others. Such falsely attributed works are known as pseudepigrapha.

The first Pseudo-Aristotelian works were produced by the members of the Peripatetic school which was founded by Aristotle. However, many more works were written much later, during the Middle Ages. Because Aristotle had produced so many works on such a variety of subjects it was possible for writers in many different contexts—notably medieval Europeans, North Africans and Arabs—to write a work and ascribe it to Aristotle. Attaching his name to such a work guaranteed it a certain amount of respect and acceptance, since Aristotle was regarded as one of most authoritative ancient writers for the learned men of both Christian Europe and the Muslim Arab lands. It is generally not clear whether the attribution to Aristotle of a later work was done by its own author or by others who sought to popularize such works by using his name.

In the Middle Ages more than a hundred Pseudo-Aristotelian works were in circulation. These can be separated in three groups based on the original language used for the work, namely Latin, Greek or Arabic. The category of Latin works is the smallest while the Arabic works are most numerous. Many Arabic works were translated to Latin in the Middle Ages. The majority of these cover occult subjects such as alchemy, astrology, chiromancy and physiognomy. Others treated Greek philosophical subjects, more often the Platonic and Neoplatonic schools rather than the thought of Aristotle. The Arabic Secretum Secretorum was by far the most popular Pseudo-Aristotelian work and was even more widely diffused than any of the authentic works of Aristotle.

The release of Pseudo-Aristotelian works continued for long after the Middle Ages. Aristotle's Masterpiece was a sex manual which published first in 1684 and became very popular in England. It was still being sold in the early twentieth century and was probably the most widely reprinted book on a medical subject in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century."

-- Wikipedia