Transmission of the Greek Classics
The transmission of the Greek Classics to Latin Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe.[1] Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the Early Middle Ages, but as traffic to the East increased, so did Western scholarship.
Classical Greek philosophy consisted of various original works ranging from those from Ancient Greece (e.g. Aristotle) to those Greco-Roman scholars in the classical Roman Empire (e.g. Ptolemy). Though these works were originally written in Greek, for centuries the language of scholarship in the Mediterranean region, many were translated into Syriac, Arabic, and Persian during the Middle Ages and the original Greek versions were often unknown to the West. With increasing Western presence in the East due to the Crusades, and the gradual collapse of the Byzantine Empire during the Late Middle Ages, many Byzantine Greek scholars fled to Western Europe, bringing with them many original Greek manuscripts, and providing impetus for Greek-language education in the West and further translation efforts of Greek scholarship into Latin.[2]
The line between Greek scholarship and Arab scholarship in Western Europe was very blurred during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Sometimes the concept of the transmission of Greek Classics is often used to refer to the collective knowledge that was obtained from the Arab and Byzantine Empires, regardless of where the knowledge actually originated. However, being once and even twice removed from the original Greek, these Arabic versions were later supplanted by improved, direct translations by Moerbeke and others in the 13th century and after.
Direct reception of Greek texts[edit]
As knowledge of Greek declined in the West with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, so did knowledge of the Greek texts, many of which had remained without a Latin translation.[3] The fragile nature of papyrus as a writing medium meant that older texts not copied onto expensive parchment would eventually crumble and be lost.
After the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) and the Sack of Constantinople (1204), scholars such as William of Moerbeke gained access to the original Greek texts of scientists and philosophers, including Aristotle, Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria and Proclus, that had been preserved in the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire, and translated them directly into Latin.[4]
The final decline and collapse of the Byzantine empire in the fifteenth century heightened contact between its scholars and those of the west. Translation into Latin of the full range of Greek classics ensued, including the historians, poets, playwrights and non-Aristotelian philosophers. Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1355–1415) translated portions of Homer and Plato. Guarino da Verona (1370–1460) translated Strabo and Plutarch. Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459) translated Xenophon, Diodorus, and Lucian. Francesco Filelfo (1398–1481) translated portions of Plutarch, Xenophon and Lysias. Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) translated Thucydides and Herodotus. Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) and his Platonic Academy translated Plato. Poliziano (1454–1494) translated Herodian and portions of Epictetus and Plutarch. Regiomontanus and George of Trebizond translated Ptolemy's Almagest.[5] Important patrons were Basilios Bessarion (1403–1472) and Pope Nicholas V (1397–1455).
Armenia harbored libraries of Greek classical literature. An Armenian codex of Aristotle (†Δ) is one of the main sources in the text-critical apparatus of today's Greek text.[6]
Syriac translations[edit]
Syriac plays an important role in modern textual criticism even today. The Oxford Classical issue of the Greek text of Aristotle's Organon uses the sigla Ρ, Ι, and Γ, which are texts dating from Christian possessions from the 6th to 8th century.[6]
Syriac translations played a major role for the later reception into Arabic. These translators from Syriac were mostly Nestorian and Jacobite Christians, working in the two hundred years following the establishment of the Abbasid caliphate. The most important translator of this group was the Syriac-speaking Christian Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (809-873), known to the Latins as Joannitius.