[Footnote 1: 176, 20-177, 9; 177, 9-19; 274, 7-13; 275, 25-6. See Ibn al Kifti 165, 1-5 and 409, 3-14.] [Footnote 2: See Ibn al Kifti, 1711, 10-11.] Balazuri and Jabala ibn Salem have already been mentioned above. The first translated into verse a Book of the Counsels of Ardeshir and the second the Book of Rustam and Isfandiyar as well as the romance of Behram Chobin. In this way the themes handled by these writers may be called epico-historical and ethico-didactic. Purely historical questions interested the seven succeeding translators from Ishaq ibn Yazid to Mobed Behram. These persons are sufficiently known in their special departments of literature. They were the translators into the Arabic language of the _Khuday Nameh_.[1] Accordingly we may group them in a class by themselves. [Footnote 1: Compare the essay of Rosen mentioned above _On the question of the Arabic translations of the Khuday Nameh_, 173-176, and 182-186.] The next author mentioned at this place in the Fihrist as a translator stands by himself,--Umar ibn al Farrukhan. He is altogether unknown as a translator of historical works. Hence he was not included in the group of persons mentioned before. On the other hand, had he been set down in this passage of the Fihrist as a translator of scientific works he would have been assigned a place not at the close of the list but in the middle of the translators of this class of books, that is, after Ibn Muqaffa and in the midst of the descendants of Naubakht and other persons mentioned above. Therefore we think that Umar ibn Farrukhan was a translator of another species of work or, may be, works. In support of our assumption we must call attention to that place in the Fihrist where are enumerated the books of this author and to which an-Nadhin himself refers in the analysis of the number of translators from Persian into Arabic. Besides this place in the Fihrist, Umar ibn Farrukhan of Tabaristan has been mentioned in two other places. Once briefly,[1] (268, 25-26) as the annotator of the astronomical book of Dorotheya Sidonia and in another place (277, 14-18) in a few lines[2] specially devoted to him. Here he is mentioned as the annotator of Ptolemy as translated by Batrik Yahuya ibn al Batrik and as the author of two books, one of astronomical contents and the other entitled _Kitab al Mahasin_, that is the book of good qualities and manners.[3] This latter book demands a few lines from us. [Footnote 1: Ibn al Qifti 184, 9--10.] [Footnote 2: Ibn al Kifti 241, 20-242, 12. (This has been pointed out in the Fihrist Vol. II, 110-111, and in ZDMG XXV, 1871, 413--415.) Further mention of him in the same book 98, 9 and 184, 10.]