In 2014 Das argued that in a phrase from Paul of Aegina’s Pragmateia, τὰ δὲ μικρὰ ὅσον δακτύλου, ἃ δὴ καὶ μυωτὰ καλοῦσιν κατ’ Αἴγυπτον (‘the short [arrows] are one finger long and also called myōtá in Egypt’), we should read ΜΥΩΠΑ instead of ΜΥΩΤΑ.Footnote ¹ For, she argued, an Arabic source contains the following parallel passage: ‘some of them are the length of one finger, and are called gadfly-like (ḏūbābīya)’. As Greek μύωψ (‘gadfly’) is routinely translated into Arabic as ḏubāb (‘gadfly’), including in the Arabic version of Paul’s encyclopaedia, this is a natural and easy emendation.Footnote ² The scribal error must have occurred prior to manuscripts being transliterated into minuscules, so probably before the ninth century, predating the extant manuscripts.

Two years later Moseley cast doubt over this emendation.Footnote ³ He argued that μύωπα (‘gadfly’) is a noun and would have been translated as a noun into Arabic, namely ḏubāb (‘gadfly’) rather than the adjective ḏūbābīya (‘gadfly-like’). Therefore, this emendation is unlikely. What must have happened is this: the Arabic translator read μυιατά (a variant in some manuscripts), and interpreted it as μυῖα (‘fly’) with the suffix ‑τά, which he understood to mean ‘fly-like’, another possible meaning of ḏūbābīya.Footnote ⁴ Moseley’s teacher, Dimitri Gutas, pointed out to him that denominal adjectives are not normally formed with ‑τός, and Moseley solved this problem by suggesting that the original reading was ΜΥΙΑΚΑ rather than ΜΥΙΑΤΑ, and that the kappa was later corrupted into a tau.Footnote ⁵

Moseley’s first point, namely that a Greek noun must be translated by an Arabic one, is without merit. In translations the syntactical features of source and target language can differ, and translators often expand and rephrase. This is also the case for Arabic translators, as the following example from Galen’s Simple Drugs shows. The Greek phrase παμπόλλην εἶναι τὴν διαφορὰν τῶν ὀρείων καλουμένων, παρά τε τὰ κατὰ πεδία καὶ ἕλη καὶ λίμνας (‘that [in all animals] there is a great difference in those called “mountainous”, and those [living] in fields, swamps and marshy lakes’) is rendered into Arabic as ka-ḫtilāfi l-ḥayawāni iḏ kāna minhā l-ǧabalīyu wa-l-barrīyu wa-l-baḥrīyu wa-nahrīyu (‘animals differ, for instance, as there are mountain, land, sea and river ones’).Footnote ⁶ In particular, the Greek adjective ὄρειος is rendered with the Arabic adjective ǧabalī (literally, ‘belonging to the mountain’), whereas the three nouns πεδίον, ἕλος and λίμνη are all rendered with Arabic adjectives (barrī, baḥrī and nahrī). This is just one of many such examples that one could produce.

Not much then remains of Moseley’s argument. One is reminded of Occam’s Razor. Which is more likely? That Paul read μυωτά, an Egyptian term we cannot understand? Or that he read μύωπα, which is independently supported by the Arabic evidence, and would make an attractive metaphor, the small arrows being called gadflies as they fly and sting?