March in the calendar of Antiochus of Athens

Here’s the next chunk of the astrological calendar of Antiochus of Athens.

Μὴν Μάρτιος March
αʹ. ὁ κοινὸς Ἵππου καὶ Ἀνδρομέδας ἑσπέριος ἀνατέλλει. 1. The common region of the Horse and Andromeda arises in the west.
γʹ. ὁ ἔσχατος τοῦ Ποταμοῦ <…> καὶ Ἰχθὺς νότιος ἀνατέλλει · ἐπισημασία. 3. The end of the River <…> and the Fish arises in the south : weather change.
εʹ. Ἀρκτοῦρος ἀνατέλλει · ἐπισημασία. 5. Arcturus arises : weather change.
ιαʹ.  Ἵππος δύνει · ἐπισημασία. 11. The Horse sets : weather change.
ιβʹ. ὁ Στάχυς ἑσπέριος ἐνατέλλει. 12. Spica Virginis [1] arises in the west.
ιδʹ. ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς οὐρᾶς τοῦ Λέοντος ἑῷος δύνει. 14. The region next to the tail of Leo sets in the east.
ιϛ̕. Ὑάδες ἀνατέλλουσιν · ἐπισημασία. 16. The Hyades rise : weather change.
κβʹ. ἰσημερία ἐαρινή. 22. Spring equinox.
κζʹ. ὁ Στάχυς ἑῷος δύνει · ἐπισημασία. 27.  Spica Virginis sets in the east : weather change.
λʹ. ὁ λαμπρὸς τοῦ Περσέως ἑῷος δύνει. 30.  The radiance of Perseus sets in the east.

1. I learn from Liddle and Scott that Stachys is the “name of the chief star in the constellation Virgo, Spica Virginis, Arat. 97, Ptol. Alm. 7.5 : in pl., Man. 2.134 .”

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February in the Calendar of Antiochus of Athens

Here’s the next portion of the calendar.
Μὴν Φεβρουάριος. February
αʹ. ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς καρδίας τοῦ Λέοντος ἑῷος δύνει. 1. The region over the heart of Leo sets in the east.
δʹ. ὁ λαμπρὸς τῆς Λύρας ἑσπέριος δύνει · ἐπισημασία ἀκινδυνος. 4. The radiance of the Lyre sets in the west: harmless weather change.
ϛ̕. ὁ λαμπρὸς τοῦ Ὄρνιθος ἑσπέριος ἀνατέλλει. 6. The radiance of the Bird arises in the west.
ιγʹ. ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ δεξιοῦ Βραχίονος τοῦ Κενταύρου ἑῷος δύνει. 13.  The right arm of the Centaur sets in the east.
ιθʹ. ἡ Παρθένος δύνει · ἐπισημασία. 19.  Virgo sets: weather change.
κγʹ. ὁ κοινὸς τοῦ Ἵππου καὶ τῆς Ἀνδρομέδας κρύπτεται · ἐπισημασία. 23.  The overlap between the Horse and Andromeda is hidden: weather change.
κεʹ. ὁ ἔσχατος τοῦ Ποταμοῦ < … > καὶ Ἰχθὺς νότιος ἀνατέλλει · ἐπισημασία. 25.  The final bit of the River <…> and the Fish arises in the south: weather change.
κζʹ. ὁ Ἀρκτοῦρος ἄρχεται ἀνατέλλων · ἐπισημασία. 27.  Arcturus begins to rise: weather change.
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A translation of January in Antiochus’ Calendar

Μὴν Ἰαννουάριος. January
αʹ.   Ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ ἡγουμένου τῶν Διδύμων ἑῷος δύνει. 1st. The head and leg of Gemini set in the east.
εʹ.  Δελφὶς ἐπιτέλλει. 5th. The Dolphin rises.
ζʹ.  ὁ κατὰ τοῦ γονατος τοῦ Τοζότου ἐπιτέλλει. 7th.  The portion of Sagittarius above the knee rises.
ιαʹ.  ὁ λαμπρὸς τῆς Λύρας ἑσπέριος ἀνατέλλει· καὶ ποιεῖ ἐπισημασίαν ἀκίνδυνον.  11th.  The radiance of the Lyre arises in the west: and causes harmless changes to the weather.
ιεʹ.  ὁ λαμπρὸς τοῦ Ὑδροχόου ἑῷος δύνει. 15th.  The radiance of Arcturus sinks in the east.
ιηʹ.  ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ Λέοντος ἑσπέριος ἀνατέλλει. 18th.  The head-portion of Leo rises in the west.
κβʹ.  ὁ Ὑδροχόος ἀνατέλλει· ἐπισημασία. 22nd.  Aquarius rises: weather change.
κϛʹ . ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ στήθους τοῦ Λέοντος δύνει · ἐπισημασία. 26th.  The breast of Leo sets: weather change.
λαʹ.  ὁ Κάνωβος ἑσπέριος ἀνατέλλει. 31st.  Canopus arises in the west.

That’s my first effort at translating some Greek.  Corrections very welcome!

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More on the calendar of Antiochus

I’ve been looking at the portion of the calendar of Antiochus of Athens which I posted earlier, and trying to work out what the meanings of the words are.  I can feel the jargon behind some otherwise innocuous phrases, and Mark Riley’s glossary of terms confirms that at least one of them does have a specialised meaning in ancient astrological circles.

To start with, I need to be sure what two very common words mean, namely:  Περὶ ἀστων νατελλντων καδυντων — concerning the rising and setting of the stars.  That is, I think it is “rising” and “setting”, but I want to be sure.

I thought I’d do a google search on  νατελλντων and δυντων and see what I  got.  After a few Greek pages, I got an ancient work, Geminus Rhodius, Introduction to the Phaenomena.  Apparently this is a work of the 1st century B.C.  The HTML is here.  The Wikipedia article for Geminus Rhodius tells me that an English translation does exist, but, made recently as it was, it’s offline and so inaccessible to anyone.  But this site has a PDF of a Greek/German text.  I’m OCR’ing this at the moment, and it may help.  Chapter 2, in which the text is used, is about the 12 parts of the zodiac.

The HTML gives me this:

Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς συζυγίας διημαρτημένας εἶναι συμβέβηκεν. Ἐκδηλότατον δὲ γίνεται τὸ ἁμάρτημα περὶ τὴν συζυγίαν τοῦ Κριοῦ. Ἀποφαίνονται γὰρ κατὰ συζυγίαν Κριὸν Ζυγῷ ὡς τούτων τῶν ζῳδίων ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ τόπου ἀνατελλόντων καὶ εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν τόπον δυνόντων. Ἀλλ’ ὁ μὲν Κριὸς βόρειος ἀνατέλλει καὶ δύνει· τοῦ γὰρ ἰσημερινοῦ κύκλου πρὸς ἄρκτους κεῖται· αἱ δὲ Ζυγοῦ νότιαι καὶ ἀνατέλλουσι καὶ δύνουσι· τοῦ γὰρ ἰσημερινοῦ κύκλου πρὸς μεσημβρίαν κεῖνται. Πῶς οὖν δύναται Κριὸς Ζυγῷ κατὰ συζυγίαν εἶναι; Ἐκ διαφόρων γὰρ τόπων ἀνατέλλουσιν, ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ δύνουσιν.

and the German is (chapter II, nearly at the end, on p.35):

Am deutlichsten zeigt sich die irrtumliche Annahme bei  dem Paarscheine des Widders. Den Widder nehmen sie namlich als mit der Wage im Paarschein stehend an, da diese Zeichen angeblich aus demselben Orte auf- und in denselben Ort untergehen. Allein der Widder geht nördlich auf und unter, weil er nördlich vom Äquator liegt, wahrend die Wage sildlich aufgeht und untergeht, weil sie südlich vom Äquator liegt. Wie kann also der Widder mit der Wage in Paarschein stehen? Gehen sie ja doch aus verschiedenen Orten auf und auch entsprechend unter. Es können also diese Zeichen nicht von denselben Parallelkreisen eingeschlossen werden.

Again we have rising and setting.

Next I try a search for dunei.  I get a parallel Greek-English Septuagint from Ecclesiastes 1:5, here.

καὶ ἀνατέλλει ὁ ἥλιος καὶ δύνει ὁ ἥλιος καὶ εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτοῦ ἕλκει

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. 

OK, that fits with my understanding also.

I then found an article online which not merely uses the word, but references the calendar of Euctemon — one of the other three calendars published by Boll together with that of Antiochus!  — Pritchett (etc), Thucididean time-reckoning and Euctemon’s seasonal calendar, Bulletin de correspondance hellénique , vol 85 (1961) pp. 17-52. It starts here.  I learn from it, indeed, that Euctemon’s calendar actually is appended to the manuscripts of Geminus Rhodius!  And Pritchett actually translates a portion of Euctemon, from which we may see some of the terminology in use:

And indeed there are several more pages of translation.

I had already worked out that Kwon — so frequent in Antiochus — must be Sirius, the dog-star, but it is nice to get confirmation of it.  epitellei = rises and holos epitellei = completely rises are likewise useful.  Delphis, it seems, is the “Dolphin”.  Pritchett renders hesperios as “vespertinal” (what?!), i.e. “in the west”.

So this has been productive.  I now have some ideas about the language being used by Antiochus.

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From my diary

I written a couple more emails this morning. 

The first is to a certain Ellen Black, who is apparently one of those in charge at the Project Hindsight website.  They sell what I believe are photocopies of translations of Hellenistic and Roman astrological texts, made by Robert Schmidt during the 80’s and 90’s.  There are none in the UK, and people have trouble even buying from the Project.  So I’ve asked whether they would consider placing the material online in PDF form, and offering to help with the conversion process.  After all, if no-one actually buys these things — and it seems questionable whether anyone does — there is no loss to them in putting them where people can use them.

The second is an interesting discussion that I am having on Coptic matters.  I keep feeling the urge to learn some Coptic, after all that transcribing.  I’d like to see a morphologised Coptic text or two.  The obvious choice is the New Testament, but the Gospel of Thomas is apparently of wide interest too.  I believe that electronic texts of the NT exist. I don’t know whether there is an electronic Coptic text of the GoT available.

What I want to see is something like this, only in Coptic:

010101 N- —-NSF- βίβλος βίβλος
010101 N- —-GSF- γενέσεως γένεσις
010101 N- —-GSM- Ἰησοῦ Ἰησοῦς
010101 N- —-GSM- Χριστοῦ Χριστός
010101 N- —-GSM- υἱοῦ υἱός
010101 N- —-GSM- Δαυὶδ Δαυίδ
010101 N- —-GSM- υἱοῦ υἱός
010101 N- —-GSM- Ἀβραάμ Ἀβραάμ
010102 N- —-NSM- Ἀβραὰμ Ἀβραάμ
010102 V- 3AAI-S– ἐγέννησεν γεννάω
010102 RA —-ASM- τὸν ὁ
010102 N- —-ASM- Ἰσαάκ Ἰσαάκ
010102 N- —-NSM- Ἰσαὰκ Ἰσαάκ
010102 C- ——– δὲ δέ
010102 V- 3AAI-S– ἐγέννησεν γεννάω
010102 RA —-ASM- τὸν ὁ

This is the start of Matthew’s gospel in Greek — book, chapter, verse, then whether it is a noun, then whether it is nominative singular or genetive, then the word as it appears in the NT, and then the base form of the word (nominative singular, or whatever). 

This extract is from the MorphGNT file, made by James Tauber at who knows what effort and released very generously for us all to use in computer analyses of the text and much else.  The German Bible Society responded to his generosity by threatening to sue him, on the absurd basis that they “own” the Greek New Testament (!). Rather than pay lawyers, he withdrew it and is reworking it to use the SBL Greek New Testament instead.

Something of this kind for a Coptic text would be a very useful thing to have.

Likewise we really need a Coptic-English dictionary in XML form.  Crum’s dictionary is the obvious choice.  I wonder whether the Andrew Mellon Foundation could be induced by a Coptic scholar to fund such a transcription?  They did, for the Greek dictionary of Liddell and Scott, which is part of the Perseus Hopper.  Indeed Perseus ought to know who could do it and what it would cost to do.   I wonder if it is possible to find a Coptic scholar who would cooperate?

My third email was to the Packard Humanities Institute, with a PDF of an application form for a copy of their Latin corpus CDROM.  Let’s hope that goes through OK!

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The Robert Schmidt translations of Roman astrological works

There is a list of these translations here.  It is not at all obvious from the site, but these are still available for purchase. 

On the “Price list” page at Project Hindsight, right at the bottom, is the following statement:

Preliminary Translation Series (re-prints)

Retail Price: $45.00 per volume plus shipping

All of the titles listed under Hellenistic Track Translations as well as ABU MASHAR: ON SOLAR REVOLUTIONS, Part II are available as re-prints for $45 each. Note that ANONYMOUS OF 379: ON THE FIXED STARS and ANTIOCHUS OF ATHENS: FRAGMENTS FROM HIS THESAURUS were published as half volumes (Volume IIa and IIb), so their price is $25 each.

These prices are high, but are not fixed.  I was told copies were available at $30.

But I don’t really want to buy lots of paper books any more.  What I want are PDF’s.

I have written to the Warburg library in London, suggesting they obtain a set.  It’s worth a try!

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Vettius Valens now online in English

Prof. Mark Riley has uploaded his translation of the 2nd century astrologer, Vettius Valens, to the web!  From his website:

Vettius Valens: Find a link here to a translation of Vettius Valens Anthologiai, the longest astrological text from Greco-Roman antiquity.

What you find here is a preliminary translation completed in the 1990’s and not perfected since. It is based on Wilhelm Kroll’s 1908 edition (page numbers of this edition are marked with bold-faced K in my pdf) and on David Pingree’s 1986 edition (page numbers marked with P), a great improvement on his predecessor’s. The angled brackets (< >) indicate words added in the translation for clarity or (sometimes) to correct errors in the text.

My studies in ancient mathematical literature, and (more important) in the Syriac and Arabic copies of Valens did not proceed far enough to put the finishing touches on this translation. Moreover I have moved on to other work. (See here.) So there are no guarantees of accuracy. You might also find some typos. Use at your own risk. In addition I am not prepared to answer questions about the translation. You are on your own.

When studying Valens, also consult my Survey of Vettius Valens (on this webpage) and Neugebauer and Van Hoesen, Greek Horoscopes (Philadelphia 1987). Most of the horoscopes listed in Valens are translated by Neugebauer and Van Hoesen.

Thank you, Mark, for this — this is excellent news!

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The Mark Riley translation of Vettius Valens

Mark Riley has sent me PDF’s of his entire unpublished translation of the second century astrological handbook, the Anthology of Vettius Valens.  This was translated from the Kroll edition (which is online) and the revised Pingree text (which is not).  I’ve combined them into a single file and emailed them back, and he’s going to make it available online.

It’s a marvellous piece of work.  The sheer labour that must have been involved is staggering.  It is a terrible shame that this never turned into a publication.  Mark tells me that the reason for this is that, to perfect it, he needed to consult the Arabic versions of the text, and lacked the necessary language skill and time to acquire it. I have suggested to him that he post the translation on his website.  It will be of interest to anyone interested in Vettius Valens.  It is very clear and well translated.

Unfortunately the text itself is only of specialist interest.  I read through it this morning, hoping for snippets of information on the ancient world.  But these are lacking.  Vettius Valens is only interested in showing students how to calculate astronomical things in order to cast horoscopes.  He derides the bombast and obscurity of other such handbooks.  But otherwise it is all calculations.

The book should be useful to those interested in ancient astronomy, and to those who must work out how mathematics was presented in an age without proper numerals.  But it is not of interest to most of us.

I’ve also heard back today from Project Hindsight about the Robert Schmidt translations of ancient astrological writers.  These are $45 a volume, which is dear — too dear for me.  I said so, and was told there might be volumes available at $30, which is a possible. price  Why any of these are more than $20 a go I do not see, tho.  I have suggested to them that Dr Schmidt might like to consult Dr Riley about Vettius Valens.

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Griechische Kalender: the four calendars published by Franz Boll

I’ve now uploaded PDF’s of four ancient Greek calendars to Archive.org.  All were edited by Franz Boll, and published in Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, vols 1 (1910), 2 (1911), 4 (1913) and 5 (1914).  Here are the links:

Franz Boll, who edited them, died in 1924, so these are all well out of copyright everywhere.

The important one for our purposes is the Calendar of Antiochus of Athens.  Looking at it, all the entries are astronomical, and concerned with the risings and settings of constellations.  I didn’t see any other kind of entry.  The notice on 25 December — “Birth of the sun.  The light increases” — has no significance, I think, except for the astrological one.  It certainly is not a witness to the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, therefore.

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Vettius Valens at Mark T. Riley

Back in the 70’s a young scholar named Mark T. Riley made a translation of Tertullian’s Adversus Valentinianos.  So obscure a work suddenly came alive, in a marvellous manner!  Who would have thought that the work still lived, had things to say to us all, based on the dull ANF version?

I have been reading bits on astrological writers, and I came across Dr Riley’s page again, with a PDF:

A Survey of Vettius Valens” – Vettius Valens’ Anthologiae is the longest extant astrological work from antiquity. It is unique in several respects: the author was a practicing astrologer; the work includes more than 100 authentic horoscopes of Valens’ clients or associates, including his own, which is used as an example many times throughout the work; the work also includes tables and the description of algorithms used by astrologers and mathematicians. My paper was finished in 1996 and does not take account of scholarship since that time.

The PDF article is invaluable.  It tells us about the manuscripts — three, all later than 1300 — and editions, and the sort of stuff in the text.

But I then saw the next entry:

A short dictionary of Greek terms used in the astronomy and astrology writers can be found here . I made this wordlist for myself while translating Vettius Valens’ Anthologiai, a translation that was never perfected. Some abbreviations in the definitions are GH = Greek Horoscopes by Neugebauer and van Hoesen; HAMA = Neugebauer’s History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy; Pt = Ptolemy; Cumont = Cumont, L’Egypt des astrologues. The others should be obvious.

This excited me, for there is no translation of this work online (or anywhere else).  I have written to Dr Riley, asking if perhaps it might be placed online.  After all, the hardest thing in working with a text is getting the first translation made.  Every subsequent translator stands on the shoulders of that first effort.  Even if not perfect, it ought to be online.  Translations that sit unpublished tend to get lost!

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