SERAPION’S ASCARACON 185 
been out of his range of travel and so never seen) ; or was Simon 
Januensis’ name for our Aster Amellus (which may have been 
familiar to him in his life in northern Italy) ; and may have been in- 
troduced by Simon in translating, as his understanding of Serapion’s 
original ; or whether Centum capita was used by Serapion or by 
Simon or both, for a small blue-flowered species of Eryngium, by 
extension from its white relative ; certainly without access to the 
text, these are but conjectures. But probably in one of these three 
ways it came that Pandectarius and de Manliis understood Serapion’s 
identification to be with the common Centum capita, a white spiny 
plant, the Eryngium of most authors then and since. So it hap- 
pened that Pandectarius identified Aster Atticus with a white Eryn- 
gium, an impossibility which de Manliis pointed out, c. 1450, and 
which Fuchs exposed again,” 1531. 
XXVIII. Oruer ARABIC WRITERS 
The translation of Dioscorides into Arabic early brought the 
knowledge of Aster Atticus into lands far remote from its nativity. 
The first translation by Stephanos, son of Basilios, was made at 
Bagdad in the reign of Motawakkil, 847-861, and revised * by the 
learned H’onain Ben Ish’aq,} court physician to the caliph Motaw- 
akkil. Under Abd Arrah’man III. of Spain, 948-9, a new copy of 
Dioscorides in Greek with figures of plants and with a Latin trans- 
lation, was sent to Spain from the emperor of Constantinople, 
Romanus IL., and was followed, 951-2, by the learned Nicolaos, 
“to give instruction to Arabic physicians in Cordova and to ex- 
pound the Greek names in Dioscorides.”’ A new translation into 
Arabic followed, completed 982, by Ibn Dscholdschol, probably 
at Cordova. Another later translation was by Ibn Walid. 
“ne hundred Arabic medical writers are listed by Wirsten- 
A MS. copy is in the Bodleian Library and another in Paris ; and a copy with- 
out translator’s name, in the Escurial, may be the same, Meyer, 3: 139. 
Ysaac, or Honain Ibn Ishak, born, it is said, 809 A. D., died 873, son of an 
6 
Nicolaus Damascenus. He was the Arabic translator of Hippocrates, Galen and of 
sam Aegineta. He or his son of the same name was author, 7. ¢., translator, “ 
porn hives Simplicibus medicamentis, printed 1515 at Lyon. His nephew H’obaisch 
made translations. His daughter also, was author of medical commentaries, 
