[2955] Peter was born about 1107 and was placed in the monastery of Monte Cassino by his parents in 1115. He became librarian. Monumenta Germaniae, Scriptores, VII, 562 and 565.
[2956] Chronica Mon. Casinensis, Lib. III, auctore Petro, MG. SS. VII, 728-9; Muratori, Scriptores, IV, 455-6 (lib. III, cap. 35).
[2957] Petri Diaconi De viribus illustribus Casinensibus, cap. 23, in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec., XIII, 123.
[2958] Yet modern compilers and writers of encyclopedia articles invariably repeat “Carthage” and “Babylon.”
[2959] BN 14700, fol. 171v, cited by Baur (1903), who also notes parallel passages in Al-Gazel, Phil. tr. I, 1; and Avicenna, De divis. philos., fol. 141.
[2960] Gundissalinus and Daniel Morley. Al-Farabi’s list of eight mathematical sciences, including “the science of spirits,” was also reproduced by Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth century, Speculum doctrinale, XVI.
[2961] Possibly there is some confusion with Galen’s similar experience with the physicians of Rome, which Constantinus may have reproduced in some one of his translations of Galen in such a way as to lead the reader to consider it his own experience.
[2962] The words are the same both in the Chronicle and Illustrious Men: “quem cum vidissent Afri ita ad plenum omnibus (omnium?) gentium eruditum, cogitaverunt occidere eum.”
[2963] Pagel (1902), p. 644, “Vorher soll er kurze Zeit noch in Reggio, einer kleinen Stadt in der Nähe von Byzanz, als Protosekretär des Kaisers Constantinos Monomachos sich aufgehalten und das Reisehandbuch des Abu Dschafer übersetzt haben.” But Pagel gives no source for this statement.
Apparently the notion is due to the fact that a Greek treatise entitled Ephodia, of which there are numerous MSS and which seems to be a translation of the same Arabic work as that upon which Constantinus based his Viaticum, speaks of a Constantine as its author who was proto-secretary and lived at Reggio or Rhegium.