Because of its importance in the history of western astronomy, several modern translations of Ptolemy’s Mathemateke Syntaxis have appeared in the past couple of centuries.
We list these in the order we encountered them.
R.C. Taliaferro
Taliaferro’s was our first exposure to Ptolemy. Many libraries have a set of the Britannica Great Books, usually in the Reference section; our local library allows users to check out individual volumes. We ordered a ‘used’ copy for our collection via an on-line marketplace; received a volume printed decades ago, still in its plastic wrap. (Best guess: this was sourced at a local estate sale. A lot of people bought sets of the BGB in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s in the US, many volumes of which were never opened.)
Taliaferro’s translation is mostly unannotated, a simple rendition in English of the text of Heiberg’s definitive Greek text (see below). On one hand, this is a fair representation of what astrologers had used for centuries as the basis for creating ephemerides; on the other hand, most modern readers haven’t the time to sort through all the maths.
We suspect that this is not the translation RCT had in mind.
The print copy cites this work as ‘Copyright 1938, 1939, 1948
by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.’
There’s a story, a history hiding in those dates.
We can imagine that somebody with good linguistic skills
might have been distracted by other pursuits
around about the late ’30s – early ’40s.
G.J. Toomer
GJ Toomer’s annotated translation of Almagest (1st ed. 1984; current ed. Princeton Univ Press) is the benchmark translation of Ptolemy to English. We’ve spent many hours scanning the text and the star catalogue (with a few corrections to suggest . . . ).
A marvelous work of scholarship, and a dreadful work of graphic design.
We were there in the late ’70s – early ’80s when x-y plotters were a thing.
The figures in the published text are a snapshot of an era worth remembering
–but elsewhere.
With the advances in computer graphics since that time,
it should be easy to generate figures as good
as those in the RCT/Britannica edition from the 1950’s.
Hey, Princeton University Press – how about it?
Karl Manitius
Before Toomer, the definitive edition of Ptolemy was the German translation of Manitius, published in 1912 (volume 1) and 1913 (volume 2).
PDF copies of both volumes are provided here .
link to heiberg
Copies of Ptolemy’s Almagest
Almagest VII.i (Greek text/Heiberg)
We also have a link to the (very large) complete pdf file of Heiberg’s compiled Greek text
Almagest (German translation/Manitius)
A complete pdf copy of the German edition of Manitius
Almagest VII.i (English translation)
An excerpt from the English translation by RC Taliaferro
Peters and Knobel — Ptolemy’s Star Catalogue
An annotated edition of Ptolemy’s star list