Aelian

Claudius Aelianus (; ), commonly Aelian , born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "honey-tongued" ; Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself.

His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view. His De Natura Animalium is also the only surviving Greco-Roman work to name Gilgamesh.

De Natura Animalium On the Nature of Animals (alternatively "On the Characteristics of Animals"; , ; usually cited by its Latin title De Natura Animalium) is a collection,

Aelian's anecdotes on animals rarely depend on direct observation: they are almost entirely taken from written sources, not only Pliny the Elder, Theopompus, and Lycus of Rhegium, but also other authors and works now lost, to whom he is thus a valuable witness. He is more attentive to marine life than might be expected, though, and this seems to reflect first-hand personal interest; he often quotes "fishermen". At times he strikes the modern reader as thoroughly credulous, but at others he specifically states that he is merely reporting what is told by others, and even that he does not believe them. Aelian's work is one of the sources of medieval natural history and of the bestiaries of the Middle Ages.

Conrad Gessner (or Gesner), the Swiss scientist and natural historian of the Renaissance, made a Latin translation of Aelian's work, giving it a wider European audience. An English translation by A. F. Scholfield was published in 1958–59 in the Loeb Classical Library in three volumes. D.E. Eichholz observed that "Aelian's text, riddled as it is with corrupt passages and packed with interpretations, provides ample scope for reckless emendation", praising Scholfield for restraint in this direction.

Varia Historia

Various History (, )—for the most part preserved only in an abridged form perhaps so that his readers will not feel guilty, but Jane Ellen Harrison found survivals of archaic rites mentioned by Aelian very illuminating in her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903, 1922).

Varia Historia was first printed in 1545.

Other works Considerable fragments of two other works, On Providence and Divine Manifestations, are preserved in the early medieval encyclopedia, the Suda. Twenty "letters from a farmer" after the manner of Alciphron are also attributed to him. whose edition has been sharply criticized . The Letters are available in the Loeb Classical Library, translated by Allen Rogers Benner and Francis H. Fobes (1949).

Translations Aelian, On Animals. 3 volumes. Translated by A. F. Scholfield. 1958–9. Loeb Classical Library. , , and Aelian, Historical Miscellany. Translated by Nigel G. Wilson. 1997. Loeb Classical Library. Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus, The Letters. Translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. 1949. Loeb Classical Library. Aelian, On the Nature of Animals. Translated by Gregory McNamee. 2011. Trinity University Press. Ailianos, Vermischte Forschung. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston Ailianos, Tierleben. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston 2018, Claudius Aelianus, Vom Wesen der Tiere - De natura animalium. German and Commentary by Paul-Gerhard Veh, Philipp Stahlhut. 2020. Bibliothek der Griechischen Literaur. Anton Hiersemann Verlag Stuttgart 2020, ISBN