Lots of emails yesterday and today.
Firstly and most importantly, the PDF containing Eusebius has come back. This should be the last, final version. I will check it over at the weekend — otherwise the translator will lynch me — but that means the book is done. The next stage will be creating a cover, sending it off to Lightning Source, and stuff like that. I expect to get some free time in 2 weeks, so it may work out quite nicely. Many thanks indeed to Bob the typesetter!
An email reached me from the translator of Michael the Syrian, asking what a “sar” or “saros” might be. These terms occur in the Babylonian history of Berossus, as a measure of time. Berossus is lost, but the Chronicle of Eusebius quotes it, and so these curious terms drift down the centuries. I offered my best suggestion, and a selection of materials that I gathered on the subject. Eusebius reckons that a “sar” is 3,600 years, but I suspect it was 18 years.
Another email arrived from a translator, and we may do the Ad Gaurum of Porphyry, on the creation of the soul. I need to look again at the text and work out a price, and reply (probably tomorrow).
In Jewish Aramaic the word shin-resh-shin means ‘to take root’ and is used in relation to units of time. That’s probably not helpful but it’s the best I could think of.
I looked it up. It appears to be a corrupt terminology which has no real meaning in Babylonian. Here’s the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Jx0GAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA164&dq=saros+%223600+years%22+corruption&hl=en&ei=L6hQTaK3FoWesQPMkKyBBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=saros%20%223600%20years%22%20corruption&f=false