Peri Poleon / De Urbibus ["Of Cities": Fragments of Stephanus' work of geography]. Translated from Greek into Latin and annotated by Thomas de Pinedo Lusitanus.

STEPHANUS (BYZANTINUS)

Jacobi de Jonge

Amsterdam

1678

FIRST EDITION. Title in Greek and Latin. On title, pastoral scene, above which Hebrew words: HaTovim mikol Bakharti (“the best of all I chose.”) The Epistola Dedicatoria also contains Hebrew quote from Job 31:26-27. Text in Greek and Latin in parallel columns, with Latin footnotes.

Stephen of Byzantium was a sixth-century grammarian of Constantinople (Byzantium). His geographic dictionary, Ethnica, contains a wealth of topographical, historical, mythological and religious information concerning Ancient Greece. Unfortunately, the work survives in only fragmentary form. From the surviving fragments we see that the work abounded in quotations from the Greek authors Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Strabo, et al. The translator, Thomas de Pinedo (1614-79) was born in Trancoso, province of Beira, Portugal (thus the sobriquet "Lusitanus"). His father's surname was Pinheiro, his mother's Fonseca. Though raised by Jesuits in Madrid, Thomas was persecuted by the Inquisition's tribunal, forcing him to flee to Amsterdam. His commentary to the fragmentary work of Stephanus won for him renown as a philologist. See Kayserling, Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica, p. 90.