Dioscorides in Syriac
Résumé
Thirty years ago Rainer Degen plausibly identified three manuscripts of the Syriac version of a compilation ostensibly assembled by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq, and based on the Galenic treatise On the Properties of Foodstuffs. Ḥunayn supplemented Galen's text by the inclusion of pertinent extracts of various other Greek medical authors, including Pedanius Dioscorides of Anazarbus. This paper offers a survey of the Syriac passages attributed to Dioscorides preserved by this source, along with some preliminary commentary on the translational method employed, and on the relevance of this Syriac source for the history of the transmission of the writings of Dioscorides.