Talk:Garamas

Poem: eating vs offering

@Michael Aurel: thanks for adding a newer translation for the final paragraph (very interesting footnote in that source too, that seems to say the original text is "τάρβαντα" and Schneidewin corrected it to Iarbas). My original thought was that because the poem text is quite difficult to interpret, it might help to have a version that thought Garamas/Iarbas was eating the food, rather than offering it up to Gaia (which I think Litwa—and most other translations—means?). I've found a couple more recent ones that aren't about offering:

• Francis Legge (1921, SPCK/Macmillan): "But the Libyans say Iarbas the first-born crept forth from the parched field to pluck Zeus' sweet acorn."
• Werner Foerster (1972, Clarendon Press): "But the Libyans say that Garamas was the first-born, who arose from the desert lands, and began upon the sweet acorn of Zeus." (also a plus for this article that it's another academic source that supports the Garamas reading).

What do you think? Could it be worth a paragraph with all of these translations, or would that be too close to OR (I've had a go at this for now at Iarbas § First man, but will change this based on feedback)? Maybe it's worth scrapping the final paragraph altogether? --Yodin^T 14:21, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

Nice work finding those other translations. Yes, I must have either misread Litwa's translation or missed the phrase rather than interpreting him ...! Now that we have a more recent translation which renders the name as "Garamas", what we could do is replace Cook's translation with Foerster's. Assuming we keep the quote from Litwa below, this would give us a translation which mentions the offering and one which doesn't. I don't necessarily see an issue with quoting other translations beyond those two, though that might not be needed. One other thought I have is whether "Earth" here necessarily refers to the Greek goddess Gaia, as opposed to a general personification of the earth; the Greek text does have Γῆ, though that word just means "Earth". I'm not sure if the offering the passage mentions is to Earth, though I'll note that the RE, s.v. Iarbas, Hiarbas says the following about that phrase: Die Worte ἀπάρξασθαι Διὸς βαλάνου bezeichnen I. vielleicht als Stifter des Götterkultes, als der er ebenfalls bei Verg. Aen. IV 199ff. erscheint. – Michael Aurel (talk) 08:04, 28 March 2026 (UTC)