La notizia di Fozio sulla Kaine historia di Tolemeo Chenno (Bibl. 190, p. 146a, 41 – 146b, 16 Bekker = III p. 51 Henry)

Photius’ prefatory note on Ptolemy Chennos’ Eis polymathian kaine historia (Bibl. 190, p. 146a, 41 – 146b, 16 Bekker = III p. 51 Henry) has the character of a ‘testimony’ and a ‘fragment’ at the same time. Indeed, it allows us to identify several contents of the original proem of Ptolemy’s work: the dedication to Tertulla the philologist and polymathes and the targeting of readers who, like Tertulla, were already initiated to polymathia; the methodological insistence on the construction of polymathia and the effort it implies; the polemic with predecessors who had not dedicated themselves properly to the subject. Although it is his tendency to dismiss the work as a collation of far-fetched mythical tales, Photius allows us to understand that Ptolemy’s work was much more than this, and that Ptolemy himself insisted on the value of erudition as construction of knowledge and not ‒ or at least not only ‒ as fruition of information. This, above all, can help us translate the work’s original title, and thus understand it no longer as a “New History” or “New Histories”, but rather as a “Particular Investigation for the Purposes of Erudition”.