Byzantine Sinbad

"The figure of the philosopher Sinbad, rendered in Greek as Syntipas, was introduced into the Byzantine literary tradition in the late eleventh century through two works translated from Syriac into Greek by Michael Andreopoulos. Both of these works, The Book of Syntipas the Philosopher (BSP) and a collection of sixty-two fables (Fables), are contained in this volume. Taken together, the BSP and Fables represent the character and the wisdom of Syntipas as they would become known to Byzantine readers. Although Andreopoulos translated both texts in the Middle Ages, they are distantly related to earlier Greek traditions as old as the fourth century BCE and, more immediately, to a complex development of medieval wisdom literature written in Persian, Arabic, and Syriac. The BSP and Fables made their way into Greek by different paths, but once united by Andreopoulos's translations, they were probably assumed to belong together. Of the three oldest manuscripts that form the basis of our Greek texts, two transmit both the story of Syntipas and the fables that were attributed to him"--