Aethicus Ister


Aethicus Ister was the protagonist of the 7th/8th-century Cosmographia, purportedly written a man of church Hieronymus, who purportedly censors an even older work for producing the book as its censored version. It is a forgery from the Middle Ages.
It describes the travels of Aethicus around the world, and includes descriptions of foreign peoples in usually less than favourable terms. It displays a flat Earth cosmology, maybe for making sport of it. There are also numerous passages which deal directly with the legends of Alexander the Great. Aethicus is believed by Franz Brunhölzl to have been a Scythian that lived in the region of nowadays Dobrogea, Romania.

Criticisms

The Latin of the work is sometimes vulgar and facile, other times cryptic and opaque, owing in part to Jerome's extremely difficult vocabulary of Graecisms and Latin/Greek compounds.. Anagram games, and etymological 'jokes' and other ludic elements are found throughout. The Latin spelling of the work seems to suggest also that the author was a Merovingian Frank, but the idea of "Merovingian" spellings has recently been attacked as an unreliable measure of origin. Furthermore, only one manuscript of the work appears to have been written in Tours, while the majority can be traced to centres in what is now Germany.
Jerome may have been associated with the Frankish translator of Pseudo-Methodius. There are several passages which seem to be borrowed one way or another, suggesting perhaps a parallel relationship rather than one of dependence. Nevertheless, Jerome's knowledge of Greek may indicate an association with the Canterbury school of Archbishop Theodore in the late 7th century. See a recent article by Michael Herren on a possible Anglo-Saxon connection for Jerome. What seems clear is that Jerome was not limited to a single locale throughout his working lifetime.

Editions