# Untranslated ancient greek texts **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 29, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565 "2013-10-29T16:35:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565/41 "2014-06-26T19:52:41Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Really, there are works by, for example Galen, that have never been translated? > > I suppose since Latin was taught in high school until a few decades ago, it’s not been necessary? I still find that incredulous. Someone, somewhere would translate these. Heck, classes probably did pages of it as an assignment. > > (My grade 9 class, 1968, was the last one to get Latin as a part of the curriculum. After that, it was one of several options for a few years (didn’t take it) and then no longer offered. My brother-in-law, quite a bit older, still had textbooks in Latin of the Aenid, Virgil, Caesar until he moved about 20 years ago…) Although Galen spent much of his career in 2nd century AD Rome, he was from the eastern part of the empire, which always remained primarily Greek speaking, and wrote in Greek. In fact, most “scholarly” writings from throughout the Roman period were in Greek, and, in fact, the Byzantine Empire, which succeeded the Roman (and, in fact, continued to think of itself as The Roman Empire through its many centuries of existence, despite having its capital in Constantinople, not Rome) was Greek speaking. Like you, I am a bit surprised to hear that much of Galen’s work remains untranslated, but then again, he did write a fuck of a lot, and by no means all of it was about medicine, where he had some idea what he was talking about. He wrote extensively on philosophy and other subjects. I do not think he is generally reckoned to have been a very good philosopher. Even so, though, his philosophical works are probably of interest to historians of philosophy because they probably contain information about the views of more important philosophers whose own works do not survive. I think it worth noting that the stuff that **roger\_pearse** seems to be talking about is Greek from the Roman Empire period, plus, perhaps, from the Hellenistic era that preceded it and the Byzantine era that followed it. (Indeed, being more recent, there is probably much more that survives from the Byzantine era.) I think that there is little or nothing that survives untranslated from the earlier era of _Classical_ Greece (the era of Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, etc.), let alone the pre-classical era that preceded that. For instance, despite their huge historical importance, none of the writings of the presocratic philosophers from the pre-classical and early classical era have survived, except for short fragments - generally brief quotations or paraphrases found in the works of much later (mostly Roman Empire era) writers. Likewise, the works of famous and influential pre-classical era poets, such as Sappho, survive only as fragments. (Despite its fragmentary nature, however, this stuff, both philosophical and poetic, _has_ been translated, and is generally readily available in English.) I think when most people (probably including the OP) ask about “Ancient Greek texts” they are thinking of ones from classical or pre-classical Greece, not from second century Rome (like Galen) or 8th century Byzantium, and probably not even ones from Hellenistic Egypt or Pergamon. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565/42 "2014-06-27T12:22:18Z")
So perhaps part of the problem is that translating philosophy is not as mechanical as translating a play or history. The nuances of what someone is trying to say may be more complex, and therefore their choice of words and how they use them requires a lot more attention? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565/43 "2014-06-27T12:24:27Z")
> [@Mr.Milton](#): > > MD2000, FWIW I was pleasantly surprised to discover that at least some of the High Schools in Frederick MD are teaching Latin and apparently have been dong so for some years. for I think almost a decade after 1968 Latin was one of 4 tracks offered for our high school (Latin, Spanish, Italian, or Geography!) Of course, by the 70’s interest in Latin was at an all-time low. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565/44 "2014-06-27T15:46:29Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > So perhaps part of the problem is that translating philosophy is not as mechanical as translating a play or history. The nuances of what someone is trying to say may be more complex, and therefore their choice of words and how they use them requires a lot more attention? Well maybe, but literary texts can be quite nuanced too, and they have done it for Plato and Aristotle, and even for philosophers like Plotinus, and the fragments of the presocratics. I think the problem is that nobody at the time (or since) ever really thought Galen was much good as philosopher. He was great at medicine, and maybe should have stuck to that. However, I think **roger\_pearse** is saying that most of his medical texts have not been translated into any modern language either. I guess the potential audience (basically, historians of medicine) is simply too small, and most of those who need to know will have learned enough Greek not to need a translation. Back when Galen’s works were important for medicine itself, rather than merely its history, (i.e., late antiquity and the middle ages) those who needed it would either have learned Greek, or (perhaps more likely) have read it in translations into medieval Latin or classical Arabic. I do not actually know, but I would not be surprised if a lot of Galen’s medical works were translated into Latin or Arabic (or even, as happened with some of Aristotle’s works, first into Syriac, then from Syriac into Arabic, and then from Arabic to Latin). There may be a few of those translated versions still around, but they will not be much use to someone who speaks only modern English (or French, German, Spanish, whatever). Latin versions might even be pretty impenetrable for someone who only knows classical, but not medieval, Latin. Given that something is always lost in translation, you would be far better off learning Greek (which is still useful for other things) and reading it in the original. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565/45 "2014-06-27T20:33:01Z")
I realize that this is an older thread, but I haven’t seen it before. There certainly are plenty of texts that haven’t been translated, and others that were never translated into English, or which haven’t even ben reprinted in a long time. They sure as heck aren’t on the Internet, as far as I can tell. Personal experience – try to find a translation of the commentaries of Olympiodorus. It was hard enough to locate a Greek text. Even the Loeb Classical Library hasn’t got a copy – I had to find a 19th century edition and photocopy what I wanted, then find someone familiar with ancient Greek to learn exactly what it said. > **[Olympiodorus the Younger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympiodorus_the_Younger)** > > Olympiodorus the Younger (Greek: Ὀλυμπιόδωρος ὁ Νεώτερος; c. 495 – 570) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 AD which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools. Olympiodorus was the last pagan to maintain the Platonist tradition in Alexandria (see Alexandrian School); after his death the School passed into the hands of Christian Aristotelians, and was eventually moved to Constan... And Olympiodorus is _famous_ – he has a Wikipedia entry. There are lots of more anonymous untranslated bits [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/untranslated-ancient-greek-texts/672565.md?page=2)