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Bibliographical Information

Michaelis Apostolii Proverbiorum.

(Collected Paroimiai - proverbs, sayings and adages - of Michael Apostolios, of Byzantium and Cyprus, c. 1422-1480 AD).

It appears that Apostolios collated the works of previous compilers of paroimiai, principal amongst whom were:

1. Aristotle, and his followers: Clearchus, Chrysippus, and Theophrastus, all 4th - 3rd century BC.
2. The Alexandrians: Demon, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Didymus, Lucillus, all 2nd - 1st century BC.
3. Zenobius (2nd century AD). The main compiler with his "Corpus Parœmiographorum Græcorum" and
4. Later writers such as: Gregory of Cyprus (13th century AD), and Macarius (14th century AD).

Each compiler seems to have built on at least one of his predecessor's works. Michael Apostolios, being the last, probably provides the fullest compilation.

[Source: The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd Edition]

Little seems to be known about Michael Apostolios. He is referred to briefly in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd Ed.) under "paroemiographers". The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III (Edition of 1999), under "Catenæ", is equally brief, mentioning Apostolios as being one of a number of Byzantine collectors of ethical sentences and proverbs deriving partly from Christian and partly from pagan sources.


The Source Material.

The source of Apostolios's paroimiai used for this web site is a printed compilation of various works in Latin and Greek. The title page and at least one of the final pages of this printed edition are missing, so the identities of the editor(s), publisher, printer, and the date of publication, are at present uncertain, but other information appears to match the edition to Document 10086968 in the Vatican Library Catalogue, which would indicate a publication date of 1655. It is also known, from a catalog in the Ashmolean Library in Oxford, England, that there was a 1619 printed edition of Apostolios together with a Latin translation. The catalogue names the Latin translator of the paroimiai in the 1619 edition as "Petrus Patinus". It is reasonable to assume that the Latin translation of the 1619 edition is in the source material for this web site.

The source material I am using contains, bound together and in partially numbered page order,

  1. Clavis Homerica. (256pp). An explanation of words occurring in Homer's Iliad, line-by-line.
  2. Appendix de Dialectis. (30pp) . A discussion of the differences between the main Greek dialects: Attic, Ionic, Doric, Æolic, and Bœotic. The page numbers follow on from the Clavis Homerica.
  3. Michaelis Apostolii Proverbiorum. (62pp), the page numbers following on from the Appendix de Dialectis. Apostolios made his compilation in Greek, containing the text of the paroimiai arranged in Greek alphabetical order as twenty-one "centuriae", a centuria being a list consisting nominally of one hundred items. In the printed edition the lists are set out in columns with a Latin translation alongside each Greek text.

    4. On this web site I have reproduced the Latin translation firstly in conjunction with an unaccented romanized transliteration of the Greek (for easy reading), and secondly in conjunction with a fully accented romanized transliteration of the Greek text (this is not quite so easy to read, but all the accentual and diacritical information in the original is retained). For a discussion of the transliteration please see the Technical Notes page.

    The Latin translator (presumably Patinus) of my source of Apostolios's paroimiai left a small number of them in the original Greek, perhaps because he was unable to translate them. In the Latin text, I have transliterated this untranslated Greek content into italics enclosed within square brackets "[...]". I have inserted line numbers into the paroimiai.

    I have given the Latin text as printed, including one or two obvious errors, e.g. in Centuria 2, "Aliena jacere" occurs twice in separate lines. Any other errors are probably my own, and I should be very grateful if readers would draw to my attention anything that is obviously inco