Complete Works of Claudius Ptolemy, Vol. II (1898) - Page 15

II. Hypotheseis ton planomenon Hypotheses of the Planets

A — the archetype of the codices Vatican gr. 208, Marcian 323 and 324, which is either lost or hidden, but can be restored without any doubt from those three copies.

codex Vatican. gr. 208, paper, 14th century, written by various hands, contains: f. 1—4r an astronomical tract without a title (in the preceding Vatican index: syntomos didaskalia peri ton isemerinon kai kainikon horon, ekthesis aitias, di' hen ta nychthemera tou etous anomala estin Short teaching concerning equinoctial and seasonal hours, an exposition of the cause why the day-and-night cycles of the year are uneven), f. 4v blank (following is 1 unnumbered blank leaf), f. 5—20 Treatise of Isaac the monk Argyros on new synodic and panseleniakon full moon tables converted from those in the Syntaxis Almagest and adjusted both to Roman years and to the meridian through Byzantium, and furthermore having as a chronological beginning the year 6876 i.e., 1368 AD from the creation of the world, f. 21—22 Tradition of Theon of Alexandria on the handy tables of astronomy (to Epiphanius, fragment), f. 23—132 Claudius Ptolemy’s Handy Tables (with scholia, see Prolegomena chap. III),*) f. 133—186r Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos (conclusions), f. 186v blank (upper margin first hand: 52), f. 187—191r On the so-called centers, epanephoroies ascendant signs and apoklimaton declinations and the naming and power of each of the 12 places, f. 191v blank,

*) This part of the codex is of the exact same kind as cod. Paris. gr. 2342, which was written on Mount Athos (see Apollonius of Perga, Works II p. LXIX). There are two watermarks of the paper, nearly those which are represented in Keinz, The Watermarks of the 14th Century (Munich 1896), table XXII no. 223—26 and table XXX no. 286—87. The numbers of the quaternions are placed in their order on fol. 21—196 (1—22 on the last leaf), 197r 23, 208v 22 first hand upper margin, 23 added later lower margin, 209r 24, 218v 24, 219r 25, 230v 25 (thus two sets of six leaves with a set of five leaves inserted). Furthermore, the leaves of the individual writings are numbered f. 132v 135, f. 186v (see above), compare f. 230v 231 leaves, in nearly the same way as in Vatican 318, which I also suspect to be from Athos. compare Catalog of Greek Astrological Codices V p. 63 ff.