Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
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Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
In Josephus' Against Apion (1:18) he writes in the name of Menander the Ephesian that Matgenus was one of the Tyrian kings, but I have seen other sources (like Wikipedia, et al.) refer to this king as Mattan. Why is he sometimes called Matgenus and sometimes called Mattan? Who decided that Matgenus means Mattan?
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Re: Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
At a guess Mattenus (or Mettenos) is a Greek form of the Phoenician Mattan. Matgenus is a corruption of Mattenus.Reb Chaim HaQoton wrote:In Josephus' Against Apion (1:18) he writes in the name of Menander the Ephesian that Matgenus was one of the Tyrian kings, but I have seen other sources (like Wikipedia, et al.) refer to this king as Mattan. Why is he sometimes called Matgenus and sometimes called Mattan? Who decided that Matgenus means Mattan?
Andrew Criddle
Re: Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
Against apion , page212 , line 125Reb Chaim HaQoton wrote:In Josephus' Against Apion (1:18) he writes in the name of Menander the Ephesian that Matgenus was one of the Tyrian kings, but I have seen other sources (like Wikipedia, et al.) refer to this king as Mattan. Why is he sometimes called Matgenus and sometimes called Mattan? Who decided that Matgenus means Mattan?
https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L186.pdf
The original Greek says :Mettenos
Re: Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
That webpage goes on to show "five fragments from Menander (and one corroborating text from an author named Dius), taken from Josephus's Jewish Antiquities and Against the Greeks, in the translation by William Whiston."When he was writing the first books of his Jewish Antiquities, the Greek-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus essentially retold the story of the Bible. He believed that the Jewish sacred literature was historically accurate, but he also realized that non-Jews might reasonably ask questions about the reliability. Therefore, he sometimes quoted from other sources, like the Egyptian priest Manetho, the Babylonian official Berossus, and a Greek author who had published a book about ancient Phoenicia, Menander of Ephesus.
No scholar has ever claimed that Manetho did not exist, and Berossus can be identified with a šatammu of the Esagila named Bêl-re'ušunu. Menander must have been a real person as well, although he is otherwise unknown. It has been assumed that the "Menander of Pergamon" mentioned by Clement of Alexandria is identical to "our" Menander, and it has also been assumed that the Menander that is mentioned in the Byzantine dictionary Suda as pupil of Eratosthenes, is also identical to our scholar. But these are mere assumptions.
Still, it is possible that Josephus quotes him through an intermediary; we know that he quoted Berossus through an author named Alexander Polyhistor, who, in the first half of the first century BCE, collected many rare texts about ancient Judaism. Menander may have been part of this collection as well, and this is problematic because we know that Alexander embellished the stories every now and then.
http://www.livius.org/sources/content/m ... f-ephesus/
Re: Why is Matgenus, king of Tyre, sometimes called Mattan?
Both these below say Menander of Ephus is probably Menander of Pergamum -
- https://ryanfb.github.io/loebolus-data/L186.pdf - footnote c, p.289
The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2012