Armenian Version H

The Armenian Seven Sages narrative is variously titled Պատմություն Եօթն իմաստասիրացն (Patmut’yun Yeot’n imastasirats’n, The History of the Seven Sages) or Գիրք պատմության կայսերն Փոնցիանոսի եւ կնոջն եւ որդվույն Դիոկղետիանոսի եւ յոթանց իմաստասիրաց (Girk’ patmut’yan kaysern P’vonts’ianosi yev knojn yev vordvuyn Diokghetianosi yev yot’ants’ imastasirats, A book of the history of the emperor Pontianus and his wife and his son Diocletian and of the seven sages). It survives in eight manuscripts primarily from the 17^th century, and ten prints from the late 17^th to 19^th centuries.

The oldest surviving manuscript dates from 1616, but colophons in several other manuscripts cite a composition date of 1614, when a translator named Hakob Tʽoxatʽcʽi ( )) living in Zomość, Poland, translated a Latin Historia Septem Sapientum text into Armenian. Scholarship has not firmly identified one specific Latin source text. However, according to Akinean (1921), the Armenian version of the narrative bears striking similarities to the Polish version, translated by Jan z Koszyczek, including an anomalous episode in the introduction of both narratives, in which the prince has a distinctive dream that foretells his fate (rather than reading it in the stars). This appears in some early Latin versions (Mussafia p. 86), but not the later Latin texts. Akinean suggests there are also some clear similarities between both the Polish prints, the Armenian text, and that of the Strasbourg 1512 print edition, inferring that the Polish and Armenian redactions might have shared a Latin source text, similar to that of the Strassburg print.

According to Akinean, all but one of the manuscripts may be understood to be part of a single redaction, following the Hakob Tʽoxatʽcʽi translation. The exception is Paris Sup. Arm. 51 (Macler no. 309); this manuscript, produced in 1696, represents a distinct redaction of the narrative, and the print tradition follows this text’s model. One of the key changes is that the emperor is anomalously named Modolos (Մոդոլոս), and Pontianus seems to be his commander-in-chief. The 1847 Russian translation of the Armenian text comes from this redaction.

The Armenian text was also translated into Armeno-Turkish (Turkish rendered in Armenian script), and reportedly Ottoman-Turkish in Arabic script and Georgian, according to Akinean (though we have not yet located these manuscripts or prints).