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Headword: *ou)ra/nios
Adler number: omicron,936
Translated headword: Uranius, Ouranios, Vranius
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
[Uranius] by name, Syrian by birth, he wandered about the imperial city, professing to follow the physician's craft; and, although he learned nothing in detail of Aristotelian doctrines, yet he bragged of knowing a great deal, while conducting himself arrogantly by being contentious at public gatherings. For often, going before the Royal Stoa or sitting in the bookshops,[1] he became engaged in quarrels and boasted to those gathered on the spot, and especially to those who kept recirculating their pet phrases about the Higher Power--most of those men, I think, not having been regularly educated nor having exhibited the best manner of living--about such things as this is its Nature, its Essence, its Disposition, and its Distinctness.[2] This man Uranius once came before [the] Persians, having been led by Areobindus the envoy.[3]
Greek Original:
*ou)ra/nios o)/noma, *su/ros to\ ge/nos, kata\ th\n basile/ws po/lin h)la=to, te/xnhn e)paggello/menos th\n i)atrikh\n metie/nai, tw=n de\ *)aristote/lous dogma/twn ou)de\n me\n e)s to\ a)kribe\s e)gi/nwsken, e)komyeu/eto de\ w(s plei=sta ei)de/nai, brenquo/menos, tw=| du/seris ei)=nai para\ tou\s cullo/gous. polla/kis ga\r i)w\n pro\ th=s basilei/ou stoa=s kai\ e)n toi=s tw=n bibli/wn h(/menos pwlhthri/ois dieplhkti/zeto kai\ e)megalhgo/rei pro\s tou\s au)to/qi a)geirome/nous kai\ tau=ta dh\ ta\ ei)qisme/na r(hma/tia tou= krei/ttonos pe/ri a)nakuklou=ntas, o(poi=on dh/ ti au)toi=s h(/ te fu/sis e)sti\ kai\ h( ou)si/a kai\ to\ paqhto\n kai\ to\ a)cu/gxuton: w(=n oi( plei=stoi ou)de\ e)s grammatistou= oi)=mai foith/santes, ou)de\ mh\n bi/w| a)ri/stw| e)kdedih|thme/noi. ou(=tos o( *ou)ra/nios h(=ke/ pote para\ *pe/rsas, u(po\ *)areobi/ndou tou= presbeutou= a)phgme/nos.
Notes:
The Syrian-born medical doctor and philosopher -- a combination of professions not uncommon in Late Antiquity (Westerink, pp. 169-177) -- Uranius (fl. mid-C6 CE, cf. PLRE IIIb s.v. Vranius) frequented legal and intellectual circles at Constantinople (kappa 2287).
This Suda entry on him comes from two passages in Agathias: see nn. 2-3 below.
[1] Many lawyers, among them Agathias himself (c. 532-c. 580; see alpha 112 and Cameron, p. 31), were employed at the Royal, or Basileios Stoa, a structure in Constantinople that has been located not far to the west of the Hagia Sophia cathedral, long also a mosque, but now a museum, in present-day Istanbul, Turkey (Frendo, p. 68). The bookstalls too were nearby (Rapp, p. 378).
[2] From Agathias, Histories 2.29.1-3 (p. 127 Niebuhr, p. 78 Keydell); cf. Keydell in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, pp. 68-71. Taking its clues from Agathias' hostility toward the loquacious Syrian intellectual, scholarship has generally cast Uranius as a "quack philosopher" (Cameron, p. 35 note) or the like; for a reassessment, however, see Walker, pp. 45-69.
[3] Agathias, Histories 2.29.9 (p. 128 Niebuhr, p. 79 Keydell). His diplomatic mission probably taking place some time after 532 CE, Areobindus (cf. PLRE IIIa s.v. Areobindus 3--perhaps identical with PLRE IIIa Areobindus 4--and alpha 3823) was the envoy to the Persian king Chosroes (ruled 531-79, cf. chi 481). [A more famous embassy, including seven Athenian philosophers, occurred earlier, about 531-2 (Athanassiadi, pp. 48-53), but a close reading of Agathias, Histories 2.30, suggests that the Suda errs (cf. pi 2251) by including Areobindus in that prior entourage (Martindale in PLRE IIIa, p. 110).]
References:
J.R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. IIIb, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992
L.G. Westerink, 'Philosophy and medicine in late antiquity,' Janus, vol. 51, 1964
Averil Cameron, Agathias, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970
J.D. Frendo, trans., Agathias: The Histories, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975
C. Rapp, 'Literary culture under Justinian,' in M. Maas, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 376-400, 2005
R. Keydell, 'Review of Averil Cameron, Agathias,' in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, vol. 64, pp. 68-71, July 1971
J.T. Walker, 'The limits of late antiquity: philosophy between Rome and Iran,' in The Ancient World, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 45-69, 2002
J.R. Martindale, The Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire, vol. IIIa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992
P. Athaniassiadi, ed., Damascius: The Philosophical History, Athens: Apameia, 1999
Keywords: biography; ethics; geography; historiography; history; law; medicine; philosophy; politics; religion
Translated by: Ronald Allen on 11 August 2010@02:26:14.
Vetted by:
David Whitehead (tweaks to tr and notes; more keywords) on 11 August 2010@03:29:09.
David Whitehead on 1 August 2013@09:43:04.
Catharine Roth (tweaked translation) on 1 March 2021@01:12:27.

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