Well! I have finally reached the end of chapter 19 of the Annals of Eutychius. Of course I skipped chapters 1-7; and a long theological excursus in chapter 16 (?). But it’s still very pleasing to get to the end of the interminable Muslim section. Thank you, everyone who has offered encouragement.
I probably ought to gather together the Islamic stuff, while it is still current in my mind, and sort it out into a more final form. There are issues with how to represent names. What Pirone gave as “Ga`far” should probably be “Jafar”. What do I do with “Abd Allah” – render it as “Abdullah”? There are points where I changed my mind part way through, rendering “commanders” as “officers”. These two chapters – the Ummayads and the Abbasids – could use more footnotes also.
So there is a job of work to do there, and I will probably do that next.
The translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Luke is still alive, and the translator tells me that another chunk will be coming my way shortly. It will be good to get that done.
I have some tweaks to do with my Mithras site, uploading some useful photographs that I have stumbled across. There is also an article that I need to get, which apparently has evidence of repair work to a Mithraeum in the early 5th century, at Hawarte. This would be unprecedented if so – the cult seems to have expired completely with paganism – but the article will require a visit to a research library.
I also have four books on the side that I need to convert to PDF form, by means of the guillotine.
And of course it is summer, and there are strawberries to be purchased and eaten! Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Please, sir, I want some more, perhaps chapters 1 to 7, please.
These chapters are of particular interest because they show what information was available to Eutychius in the 10th c. via Syriac sources, and the alterations of the texts from their Greek sources.
Ha! True of course. Let’s see.