Peri Alypias - Misplaced Pages

Ancient philosophical writing genre

Peri Alypias (Ancient Greek: Περὶ Ἀλυπίας, lit. 'On Consolation from Grief'), also known as De indolentia, is the name of a number of treatises, the best known of which was composed by Galen after a massive fire in the centre of Rome in 192 AD. Galen's original Greek text was considered lost until it was discovered in 2005 in the library of the Vlatadon Monastery in Thessaloniki by then-PhD student Antoine Pietrobelli.

Prior to its rediscovery, Galen's Peri Alypias was only known from fragmentary references and quotes in Arabic and Hebrew, and the title was mentioned in Galen's On My Own Books (De Libris Propiis).

History

Although the inspiration for Galen's Peri Alypias was the fire of Rome in 192 and the loss of many of Galen's books, the genre of writing on the prevention and cures of grief date back to 5th century BC Greece with Antiphon the Sophist's Peri Alypias.

Sophistic writings

The genre of philosophical writing that discuss the avoidance of grief or dispelling of sorrow dates back to the 5th century BC with Antiphon the Sophist, as described by Plutarch. Other treatises under the same name or genre include those (now lost) by Eratosthenes of Cyrene and another by Diogenes of Babylon, a preserved Greek text by Maximus of Tyre, the third book of Cicero's Tusculanae Disputationes, and Plutarch's On Tranquility of Mind.

Galen

Galen's Peri Alypias was written as a letter to an anonymous friend in Galen's hometown of Pergamon describing the destruction of his books and surgical tools in the fire of 192 and how he endured their losses. It accounts for Galen's losses as a practicing physician and offers remedies rooted in Stoicism, including a frugal life, disdain for human affairs, preparation for loss, rejection of politics, and an insistence of logic and proof over subjective opinion. Galen provides a list of where his books were located, their fate in the fire, and an account the books owned by others that were also destroyed which Galen had re-edited and commented upon. Books destroyed included those by Aristotle, Anaxagoras, Andromachus, and Theophrastus. Most distressingly, he reported the loss of his pharmakon (recipes for drugs, remedies, and prescriptions).

Galen's work was likely written in the early months of AD 193, after the death of the emperor Commodus, as Peri Alypias includes critical remarks around his reign. Letter writing was a conventional form in antiquity for works that addressed the "therapy of emotions", as followed by Plutarch and Seneca.

Galen recorded the treatise in his De Libris Propiis among his other ethical treatises. Parts of it survived in translation into Arabic, from Syriac, and into Hebrew in the 12 and 13th centuries.

Later works

The 7th century Christian philosopher John Climacus published a work On Tranquilitiy of the Soul, or Rather on Avoiding Distress (Περί Απροσπαθείας ήγουν Αλυπίας), subsuming Stoic moral ideas into Christian ethics.

Arabic translations

There is evidence that Galen's Peri Alypias was read by Arab and Iranian philosophers, including Al-Kindi, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and Abu Bakr al-Razi, in the 9th and 10th centuries. A letter of Al-Kindi's, On Dispelling Sorrow, survives from the 9th century and a chapter of Razi's Spiritual Medicine is devoted to the topic. The last evidence of Galen's work, prior to its rediscovery, was in the 13th century by a physician named Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin. None of the translations of Galen's work into Syriac and Arabic survive today.

Discovery

In 2005, Antoine Pietrobelli discovered a Galenic manuscript in the library of Vlatadon Monastery that contained four Galenic items, one of which was the entire text of Peri Alypias. As of 2022, at least seven editions or translation of Peri Alypias have been published in English, French, Greek, and Italian since Galen's manuscript was rediscovered. The Greek text had been copied from an unknown original in the decade prior to the fall of Constantinople by Andreiôménos, a student of John Argyropoulos at the Xenon of the Kral, a hospital in Constantinople.

Vivian Nutton started that the discovery of the manuscript in Thessaloniki "must rank with one of the most spectacular finds ever of ancient literature".

References

Petit, Caroline (2018-12-13), Petit, Caroline (ed.), "A Long Lost Text: Galen's Περὶ Ἀλυπίας", Galen's Treatise Περὶ Ἀλυπίας (De indolentia) in Context, BRILL, pp. 1–9, doi:10.1163/9789004383302_002, ISBN 978-90-04-38328-9, retrieved 2024-04-22
^ Warkentin, Germaine (2022). "Galen's De Indolentia and The Fire of 192 CE: Through the Eyes of Book History". Book History. 25 (1): 1–30. doi:10.1353/bh.2022.0003. ISSN 1529-1499.
Nicholls, Matthew C. (November 2011). "Galen and Libraries in the Peri Alupias". Journal of Roman Studies. 101: 123–142. doi:10.1017/S0075435811000049. ISSN 0075-4358. JSTOR 41724875.
^ Pietrobelli, Antoine (2018-12-13), Petit, Caroline (ed.), "Arabic Περὶ Ἀλυπίας: Did al-Kindî and Râzî Read Galen?", Galen's Treatise Περὶ Ἀλυπίας (De indolentia) in Context, BRILL, pp. 265–284, doi:10.1163/9789004383302_013, ISBN 978-90-04-38328-9, retrieved 2024-06-19
^ Xenophontos, Sophia (2024-01-04). Medicine and Practical Ethics in Galen. Cambridge University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-009-24780-1.
^ Sider, David (2016). "Galen's De Indolentia: Essays on a Newly Discovered Letter ed. by Clare K. Rothschild, Trevor W. Thompson (review)". Classical World. 109 (2): 274–275. doi:10.1353/clw.2016.0003. ISSN 1558-9234.
Strohmaier, Gotthard (2002). "The Uses of Galen in Arabic Literature". Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies. Supplement (77): 113–120. ISSN 2398-3264. JSTOR 43768037.
^ Polemis & Xenophontos, p. 3.
Polemis & Xenophontos, p. 4.
^ Rothschild, Clare K.; Thompson, Trevor W. (2012). "Galen's On the Avoidance of Grief : The Question of a Library at Antium". Classical Philology. 107 (2): 131–145. doi:10.1086/664028. ISSN 0009-837X. JSTOR 10.1086/664028.
Singer, P. N. (2018-12-13), Petit, Caroline (ed.), "Note on MS Vlatadon 14: a Summary of the Main Findings and Problems", Galen's Treatise Περὶ Ἀλυπίας (De indolentia) in Context, BRILL, pp. 10–37, doi:10.1163/9789004383302_003, ISBN 978-90-04-38328-9, retrieved 2024-04-22

Bibliography

Polemis, Ioannis; Xenophontos, Sophia, eds. (2023-09-05). 'On Avoiding Distress' and 'On My Own Opinions'. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-132081-6.