Alexander Polyhistor

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Alexander Cornelius
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Lucius Cornelius Alexander Polyhistor (

Polyhistor (very learned). The majority of his writings are now lost, but the fragments that remain shed valuable light on antiquarian and eastern Mediterranean subjects.[1]
Among his works were historical and geographical accounts of nearly all the countries of the ancient world, and the book Upon the Jews (
Ancient Greek
: Περὶ Ἰουδαίων) which excerpted many works which might otherwise be unknown.

Life

The

Hyginus, and according to the Suda wrote books "beyond number".[2]. Sometime after 40 BC he died in a fire at Laurentum.[2]

Works

The 10th-century Suda makes no attempt to list his works, asserting that he composed books "beyond number."[4]

Alexander's most important treatise consisted of forty-two books of historical and geographical accounts of nearly all the countries of the ancient world. These included five books On Rome, the Aigyptiaca (at least three books), On Bithynia, On the Euxine Sea, On Illyria, Indica and a Chaldæan History. Another notable work is about the Jews: this reproduces in paraphrase relevant excerpts from Jewish writers, of whom nothing otherwise would be known (see below). As a philosopher, Alexander wrote

Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.[5] None of Alexander's works survive as such: only quotations and paraphrases are to be found, largely in the works of Diogenes Laertius. Eusebius extracted a large portion in his Chaldean Chronicle.[6]

One of Alexander's students was Gaius Julius Hyginus, Latin author, scholar and friend of Ovid, who was appointed by Augustus to be superintendent of the Palatine library. From what Laërtius describes or paraphrases in his work, Alexander recorded various thoughts on contradictions, fate, life, soul and its parts, perfect figures, and different curiosities, such as advice not to eat beans.

Upon the Jews

Idumea, children of Semiramis
.

The text of the fragments preserved is in very unsatisfactory shape, owing to insufficient collation of the manuscripts. How much of his originals Alexander himself omitted is difficult to say, in view of the corrupt state of the text of Eusebius, where most of his fragments are to be found. Abydenus—the Christian editor of Alexander's works—evidently had a different text before him from that which Eusebius possessed.

Text of the fragments Περὶ Ἰουδαίων is to be found in Eusebius,

Praeparatio Evangelica, ix. 17; Clemens Alexandrinus, Stromata i. 21, 130, and Müller
, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii. 211–230; prose extracts, from a new collation of the manuscripts, in Freudenthal, “Alexander Polyhistor,” pp. 219–236.

Notes

  1. ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (1867). "Alexander Cornelius". In William Smith (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 115.
  2. ^ a b c d e Blakely 2015.
  3. ^ Montanari 2006.
  4. ^ Suda α 1129
  5. ^ Diogenes Laërtius, i. 116, ii. 19, 106, iii. 4, 5, iv. 62, vii. 179, viii. 24; ix. 61
  6. ^ Translation here.
  7. ^ See Freudenthal, "Alexander Polyhistor" 25.
  8. Praeparatio Evangelica
    , ix. 20, 3.

References

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Alexander Cornelius".
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ginzburg, Louis (1901–1906). "Alexander of Miletus". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. citing:
    • Freudenthal, Alexander Polyhistor, Breslau, 1875 (Hellenistische Studien, i. and ii.);
    • Unger, "Wann Schrieb Alexander Polyhistor?" in Philologus, xliii. 28-531, ib.xlvii. 177–183;
    • Susemihl, Gesch. der Griechischen Literatur, ii. 356–364;
    • Schürer, Gesch. 3d ed., iii. 346–349.
    • An English translation of the fragments is to be found in Cory's Ancient Fragments, London, 1876;
    • a French translation in Reinach, Textes d'Auteurs Grecs et Romains Relatifs au Judaisme, 1895, pp. 65–68.

Further reading

  • W. Adler, "Alexander Polyhistor’s Peri Ioudaiôn and Literary Culture in Republican Rome," in Sabrina Inowlocki & Claudio Zamagni (eds), Reconsidering Eusebius: Collected papers on literary, historical, and theological issues (Leiden, Brill, 2011) (Vigiliae Christianae, Supplements, 107),

External links

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