Hardy F. G. - Ancient Botany

The texts discussed in this book were written, for the most part, in ancient Greek and in Latin. Unless stated otherwise, all translations from the Greek and Latin were produced by Laurence Totelin. Within translations, square brackets are used to supplement words in English that are not found in the Greek or Latin text. Important Greek and Latin words are given in round brackets. Both Greek and Latin are languages with declensions. This means that the same noun or adjective has different endings according to its case (its grammatical function). When we give a Greek or Latin word within brackets in our translation, we give it in its original grammatical form.

We transliterate Greek terms, that is, we render them in the Latin alphabet. There are various systems of transliterations, all imperfect. Here, the letters eta and omega are rendered respectively as and . The letter upsilon is rendered as u. The letters kappa and chi are rendered as k and ch. The rough breathing at the beginning of words is rendered by the letter h. Accents are not rendered, even though ancient Greek is an accentuated language. All Greek personal names are Latinised. That is, we chose to talk about Theophrastus rather than Theophrastos.

We refer to ancient texts using an English title, and limiting our use of abbreviations to the strictest minimum, as this is probably the most confusing aspect of classical studies to the non-specialist. However, since it is customary among classicists to refer to both ancient Greek and Latin texts using Latin titles, we have mentioned these in bracket at the first occurrence of a text. For a handful of titles, we use a transliterated form of the Greek title: Alexipharmaka ; Theriaka ; and Geoponika .

It is conventional to refer to an ancient text by giving a book, chapter, and in some cases, paragraph within a chapter, as in the following example: Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 2.1.3, where 2 refers to book two, 1 to *******chapter one, and 3 to the paragraph. For other texts, additional conventions are used. Thus, it is conventional to refer to a passage in the works of Aristotle by giving a book number, a paragraph number and the Bekker number (in reference to the authoritative nineteenth-century edition of Immanuel Bekker), which consist in a number (a page number), the letter a or b (referring to a column), and a number between 1 and 35 (referring to a line number). For instance, Aristotle, Generation of Animals 1.18, 726a7, where 1 refers to the book number; 18 to the chapter number; 726 to the page in Bekkers edition; a to column a in Bekkers edition; and 7 to the line in Bekkers edition. Bekker numbers are printed in the margins of all modern editions of Aristotle. In the case of texts by Plato and Plutarch, it is conventional to give the Stephanus number, that is, a page number and page section (ad) in the sixteenth-century edition by Henri Estienne. For instance, we refer to Plato, Timaeus 77a, where 77 is the page in Etiennes edition, and a is the section of that page in Etiennes edition.

In the case of Greek and Latin medical texts, which are famously difficult to navigate, it is conventional to give a reference to one or several modern editions. This can be done in a number of ways. Here we have opted for the following. In the case of works from the Hippocratic Corpus, we have given a reference to the edition in the Loeb Classical Library (when available) and to the nineteenth-century edition by mile Littr (18391861). For instance, in the reference Hippocratic Corpus, Nature of the Child 22, Loeb 10.60 Potter = 7.514 Littr, Loeb 10 refers to volume 10 in the edition of the Hippocratic Corpus in the Loeb Classical Library; 60 refers to the page in that edition; and Potter refers to Paul Potter, the editor of that text; 7 refers to the volume in Littrs edition; and 514 refers to the page in Littrs edition. In the case of works attributed to Galen, we have given a reference to the nineteenth-century edition by Karl Gottlob Khn (18211833). For instance, in the reference Galen, Properties of Foodstuffs 1.37, 6.552 Khn, 6 refers to the volume in Khns edition, and 552 to the page in Khns edition. For the works of Oribasius, Aetius and Paul of Aegina, we have given references to the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum editions. For instance, in the reference Oribasius, Medical Collection 11.1.1, CMG 6.1.2, p. 80 Raeder, CMG 6.1.2 refers to the number given to this edition in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum , Raeder is the name of the editor of this text, and p. 80 is the page number in this volume of the CMG.

As the number of papyri mentioned in this book is relatively limited, we have referred to these in abbreviated form, as is conventional among classicists. All abbreviations are given in the list of abbreviations on p. xiv. When available, we have also given the Trismegistos number of the papyrus. Trismegistos is an online catalogue of papyri and inscriptions (www.trismegistos.org, accessed March 2015). In the case of literary papyri, and when available, we have also given the CeDoPal number of the papyrus. CeDoPal is an online catalogue of literary papyrus developed at the Universit de Lige (Belgium) (http://web.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal, accessed March 2015).