The Challenges (and Obligations) in Translating ps.-Ptolemy’s Aphorisms

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I will use á┬¢ÔÇ░ ├Ä┼í├Ä┬▒├Å┬ü├ÅÔé¼├Å┼Æ├ÅÔÇÜ, the Greek version of ps.-Ptolemy’s collection of astrological aphorisms, as an opportunity to reflect on some of the challenges one encounters in translating texts. Some of these challenges are linguistic, e.g., technical vocabulary, ambiguous terms, conceptual distinctions that we have lost or now impose on words, while others arise from the aphoristic form that provides little context. Some challenges stem from the variations in the surviving copies of the text, variations we often consider errors, corruptions, omissions, or accretions, variations that are sometimes noted in the manuscripts but rarely resolved. It is tempting to throw up our hands and either avoid translating a text or outsource our decisions to the editor of a critical edition. I want to discourage taking either approach and, instead, think about how struggling to make sense of and to translate the texts we encounter enriches our historiographic project.

Darin Hayton is the Associate Professor of History of Science at Haverford College. He studied History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame. He has held fellowships in Vienna, Munich, London, and Wolfenb├â┬╝ttel. Professor Hayton was also Research Officer at the History of Science Museum (Oxford), where he worked extensively with their collection of astrolabes. His research focuses on the various rhetorical and material ways scientific knowledge is recognized, articulated, and rendered authoritative. In particular, he studies the interplay between astrological practices and political authority in premodern Europe. His first book explored the place of astrology at the Holy Roman Court under Emperor Maximilian I. Dr. Hayton is currently working on a series of case studies on the sciences of the stars that will illuminate the nature and practice of astrology in the later Byzantine Empire. This talk comes from a specific part of that project, his efforts to make sense of pseudo-Ptolemy’s á┬¢ÔÇ░ ├Ä┼í├Ä┬▒├Å┬ü├ÅÔé¼├Å┼Æ├ÅÔÇÜ (Ho Karpos).

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Co-hosted with: Princeton Institute for International & Regional Studies

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