Author: Roger Pearse

How the end of a book was marked in ancient rolls

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Ancient works were frequently divided into many books.  What did the end of a book look like, in an ancient roll?[1]

To answer this question requires examining papyri which contain such items.  Francesca Schironi assembled a dossier, with photographs, of 55 papyrus fragments, 51 of them from Homer.  Her analysis is very dense, and her conclusions deserve to be more widely known.

Two symbols are used in a great many of the papyri in this context.  The symbols are mentioned among various forms of punctuation by Galen in Peri Alupias 14-15[2].  These are the paragraphos, and the coronis. 

The paragraphos is a horizontal line in the left margin, extending under the first few letters on the line.  It is used to divide chunks of text in various ways, of which the end of a book is just one.[3] 

A coronis looks like a bird standing upright and looking to the left, and has been connected with korwnh, or “crow”.  In the Palatine Anthology of Greek verse, Meleager says:

I, the coronis announcing the final lap, the most trustworthy guardian of the enclosure of written sheets, proclaim that Meleager has brought his labour to an end, having gathered all the works from all lyric poets into one collection and having wrapped them into this roll.  And that from flowers he has twined together one poetic wreath worthy of remembrance from Diolces.  And, curled in coils like the back of a snake, I am sitting here enthroned beside the conclusion of his learned work.[4]

An example from P. Berol. inv. 9875, column 5, may be found online here, courtesy of an anonymous papyrologist in Wikipedia.[5]  This dates from 400 BC, contains a part of the Persae of Timotheus of Miletus, and shows both the coronis and paragraphos:

A less good image of the same material may be found here.[6]  The paragraphos, from the1st century onwards, is always “forked” at one end.[8]

The end title is usually written in somewhat larger letters, usually after a line or two has been left blank.[9]

4 papyri have the symbols, but no end-title.  All are early (second half of 3rd century BC to second half of the 1st century BC), and tend to suggest that the use of the end-title in Homer developed in the Roman period.[10] Dramatic papyri of the Ptolemaic period do contain end-titles, however.[11]

One papyrus, numbered 2 by Schironi, has none of these signs or titles, and is one of the oldest, dated to the second half of the third century BC.  It does demonstrate that even early rolls of Homer contained more than one book.[12]  And it is the only Ptolemaic papyrus of Homer not to have some form of division markers.[13]

In the Roman period, a roll of epic poetry would be organised as follows:

  1. At the end of each book of Homer there was an end-title.  This consisted of the name of the word in the genetive (ILIADOS or ODYSSEIAS) followed by the letter ascribed to the book (not the same as a Greek numeral, for Homer) which had ended.  In the case of non-Homeric poetry, the end-title consisted of the name of the work in the nominative, followed by the author’s name in the genetive.
  2. As well as the end-title, there would be a marginal mark; a coronis or both a coronis and paragraphos, both rather ornamental.
  3. The last book was terminated by an end-title only.[14]

The same organisation appears in codices, of which examples appear from the 3rd century AD.

A 2nd century AD papyrus shows the end of book 24 (the last) of the Iliad, and has merely the end title and book number over two lines(i.e. ILIADOS | W), but no symbols.  Schironi notes that this is the only example of the end of the whole work among the rolls, but that a codex likewise marks the end of the whole work in a different manner.[15]

The remainder of the papyrus rolls are damaged in various ways, and so cannot be interpreted certainly as evidence.  None contradict the impression given by the data above.

A further element at the end of the book is the versus reclamans.  This is the first line(s) of the next book, written immediately after the last line of the book.  It indicates, therefore, which is the next book; what the order of the books in the work may be.  5 Homeric papyri have these.  Two of these are clearly the end of the roll, indicating that the next book was in a different roll.[16]  The reclamans became unnecessary with the development of end-titles, and is not found in any example of Homer after the 2nd century AD.  Yet it persists in prose texts later, and indeed is found in medieval manuscripts of texts such as Herodotus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and the biblical book of Kings.[17]

In Ptolemaic papyri the beginning of a new book was not marked by the start of a new column.[18]  This is sometimes true in Roman rolls also, but more often a new book begins a new column.[19]

There are also sometimes stichometrical annotations at the end of a book — a count of the number of lines.  These indicate that some rolls contained 4 books.[20]

The end-titles in other types of literature had some differences.  They usually consisted of the name of the author in the genetive, following — often on a new line — by the title of the work in the nominative.[21]  Some texts circulated without an author’s name; sub-literary grammatical texts, glossaries, astrological texts.[22] There are cases of works by very well-known authors where only the title is given.  Homeric papyri do not name the author.  Likewise a papyrus of Sappho is known with no name, although another exists which does.  A collection of 8 oratorical manuscripts likewise fails to include any names of the authors; Demosthenes, Isocrates, Hyperides.  But the hypothesis is that these all consist of manuscripts containing works by only one author; and that the name, therefore, probably appeared at the beginning, or end of the whole volume.[23]

The name of the work can appear in these genres in a number of ways:

  1. The name of the work in the nominative, preceded by the genetive of the author: e.g. “Menander’s GNWMAI”, etc.
  2. Preceded by a preposition such as “Peri”, “Kata”, “Uper”.
  3. Like #1, but with the name in the genetive, and followed by a number: “Xenophon’s ELLHNIKWN | A”.
  4. Like #1, but just followed by the numeral: “Julius Africanus’ KESTOS | IH”.[24]

Schironi does discuss beginning-titles briefly.  16 manuscripts of hexametric verse display beginning-titles, but only 13 are certain (7 rolls and 6 codices), all dating from the 2nd-6th century AD.  The beginning title is not associated with any symbols.[25]

I think we may all agree that this is very interesting indeed.  The differences by genre are apparent; the text of Homer, the ‘bible’ of the Greek world, might be expected to differ in some respects from other texts. 

There is certainly room for a further study, to cover the same ground with respect to the Herculaneum rolls.  Let us hope that someone undertakes it!

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  1. [1]I am indebted to Peter Head, who directed me to Francesca Schironi, To Mega Biblion: Book-ends, end-titles and ‘coronides’ in papyri with hexametric poetry, American Society of Papyrologists, 2010.  The statements in this post are all derived from this extremely dense volume, which is also reviewed at Bryn Mawr here.  An earlier paper on the same subject is: Francesca Schironi, Book-ends and book-layout in papyri with hexametric poetry, in: “Proceedings of the twenty-fifth international congress of papyrology, Ann Arbor, 2007”, American studies in papyrology, 2010, p.695-704, which is online here.↩
  2. [2]Schironi, p.17↩
  3. [3]Schironi p.16.↩
  4. [4]AP 12.257, Schironi p.16-17 n.35.↩
  5. [5]Supposedly from W. Schubart, Papyri Graecae Berolinensis. Bonn, 1911.↩
  6. [7]↩
  7. [6]A companion to Greek studies, Cambridge University Press, 1931, p.707. [/ref]  In this very early example the two items mark the beginning of the sphragis or final portion of the text.

    Let us return to Schironi’s dossier of papyri.

    The end of a book, in a roll, is most commonly marked by a coronis, a paragraphos, and an end-title.  The dossier contains 11 examples of this (although one 1st century AD example omits the paragraphos), dating from the 1st century BC/1st century AD to the end of the 3rd century AD.  The end-title appears sometime between the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, and thereafter is always present.[7]Schironi, p.26.↩

  8. [8]Schironi, p.78.↩
  9. [9]Schironi, p.79.↩
  10. [10]Schironi, p.28.↩
  11. [11]Schironi, p.70.↩
  12. [12]Schironi, p.28.↩
  13. [13]Schironi, p.76.↩
  14. [14]Schironi, p.38.↩
  15. [15]Schironi, p.27.↩
  16. [16]Schironi, p.31-32.↩
  17. [17]Schironi, p.74.↩
  18. [18]Schironi, p.32.↩
  19. [19]Schironi, p.52.↩
  20. [20]Schironi, p.44.↩
  21. [21]Scironi, p.64-65.↩
  22. [22]Schironi, p.66.↩
  23. [23]Schironi, p.66-68.↩
  24. [24]Schironi, p.69.↩
  25. [25]Schironi, p.82-83.↩

Machine translating unknown texts – the copiale manuscript

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Via Dyspepsia Generation I find this story at Wired:

They Cracked This 250-Year-Old Code, and Found a Secret Society Inside

It was actually an accident that brought to light the symbolic “sight-restoring” ritual. The decoding effort started as a sort of game between two friends that eventually engulfed a team of experts in disciplines ranging from machine translation to intellectual history. Its significance goes far beyond the contents of a single cipher. Hidden within coded manuscripts like these is a secret history of how esoteric, often radical notions of science, politics, and religion spread underground. At least that’s what experts believe. The only way to know for sure is to break the codes.

In this case, as it happens, the cracking began in a restaurant in Germany.

The story has wide application:

On October 25, 2011,The New York Times published a story about the Copiale, focusing on Knight’s code-cracking techniques. A flood of media attention followed—along with hundreds of emails from people who claimed to have ancient ciphers of their own. In December, when I visited Knight, he had just received a picture from Yemen. Some Bedouins had found a stone with an unknown, squarish script. Perhaps Knight could tell them what it said?

Fascinating.

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A letter of Francisco Filelfo to Theodore of Gaza about Plutarch

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last night I started reading through a PDF of Legrand’s edition and translation of the letters of Francisco Filelfo.[1]  Filelfo was a 15th century Italian involved in the rediscovery of ancient Greek literature, who made trips to Constantinople and translated texts into Latin.

The version of the PDF available from Gallica is much better than the Google Books version, in that it has been OCR’d and the index of names painfully turned into bookmarks by some praiseworthy soul.

A lot of the letters are rather dull.  The following one caught my eye, and I’ve made an English translation from the French, therefore.  It is always interesting to see just how the classics were rediscovered and transmitted in this crucial period.

 Francisco Filelfo, to Theodore of Gaza, greeting.

My son Xenophon, the bearer of this letter, will make known to you various communications from myself.  He will tell you most specially that I desire very much the Lacedaemonian Apopthegmes.  It was, as you know, the wise Plutarch who endowed the Greeks with this book, and your Filelfo has translated it for the benefit of the Latins.  But I found the original was faulty in certain places, because of the ignorance of the scribe, so I am obliged to have recourse to your assistance in order to obtain another copy of the same text, if perhaps you have a copy, and it is correctly written.  Farewell.

This letter was written at Milan on 26 February 1454.  It is followed by a letter to none other than Mehmet II, the Turkish Sultan who had just conquered Constantinople, on behalf of Manfredina, the mother of his wife and widow of his teacher, John Chrysoloras.  The letter opens with compliments and then continues:

The errors of the Greeks have delivered Constantinople to you for the punishment of the guilty.   But as sometimes happens, the divine providence has allowed the righteous to suffer along with the wicked.  Thus Manfredina Chrysoloras, my mother-in-law, a chaste, sainted woman of illustrious birth, who has never given any offence either to God or to your glorious person, has been reduced to slavery with her two excellent daughters.  And by who?  By those eternal slaves, the Jews, those avaricious, pusillanimous, vilest and most wicked of men!

So I come to you, O great emir, to you whom God has sent to be the benefactor of the unfortunate, I come to seek your help.  I seek to reclaim my mother-in-law and her daughters, and I am ready to pay for their ransom, not what is demanded by the avidity of savage Jews, but what is equitable and within the measure of my means.  Your secretary Kyritzis can explain to you verbally the details of this business.

The author also sent a complimentary poem to the Sultan, and achieved his aim; his relatives were released and settled in Candia in Crete.  We need not condemn Filelfo for using flattery to obtain their release.  Let us instead hope that we are never in such a plight.

The letters of the humanists deserve to be better known.  But how wonderful it is that we can access such  material!  Ten years ago I read the letters of Poggio to Niccolo Niccoli, and these were filled with footnotes to works like Legrand.  This was utterly frustrating, because such books were inaccessible.  But today, a few minutes searching produces a neat, handy PDF.

We live in an age of miracles, where scholarship is concerned.  Who can predict what the same scope of years will bring?

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  1. [1]E. Legrand, Cent-dix lettres grecques de Francois Filelfe, Paris, 1892.↩

Phaedrus and Tiberius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I have been reading the Fables of Phaedrus, in five short books, available from Gutenberg here.  These are adaptations of the older Aesop literature, as the prologue to book three makes clear.

Few will know that the fables contain sidelights on the Rome of Tiberius. 

Tiberius Cæsar, when on his way to Naples, came to his country-seat at Misenum, which, placed by the hand of Lucullus on the summit of the heights, beholds the Sicilian sea in the distance, and that of Etruria close at hand.

One of the highly girt Chamberlains,whose tunic of Pelusian linen was nicely smoothed from his shoulders downwards, with hanging fringes, while his master was walking through the pleasant shrubberies, began with bustling officiousness to sprinkle the parched ground with a wooden watering-pot; but only got laughed at.

Thence, by short cuts to him well known, he runs before into another walk, laying the dust. Cæsar takes notice of the fellow, and discerns his object. Just as he is supposing that there is some extraordinary good fortune in store for him: “Come hither,” says his master; on which he skips up to him, quickened by the joyous hope of a sure reward. Then, in a jesting tone, thus spoke the mighty majesty of the prince: “You have not profited much; your labour is all in vain; manumission stands at a much higher price with me.”

This is the only overt example, but there is also a reference to Augustus, and one to Sejanus.  As to why the author should write in fables, this he tells us himself:

Now will I explain in a few words why Fabulous narrative was invented. Slavery, subject to the will of another, because it did not dare to say what it wished, couched its sentiments in Fables, and by pleasing fictions eluded censure.

The historical value of the book is low, all the same.  But it is worth a brief glance, I think.

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Aesopica: the horse and the stag

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Fables of Aesop reach us through many derivative collections, such as those of Phaedrus and Babrius.  To edit a collection of them is no doubt a serious business.  But the fables are not lacking in contemporary relevance.

In Britain the Exclusive Brethren church is being attacked by the Charities Commission, which seems to want to set itself up as arbiter of “allowed” and “not allowed” churches.  The Exclusive Brethren are a reclusive lot, not without some suspicion of being cult-like, and ex-members feel quite a bit of antipathy towards them.  Some of the stories that one may read online are hair-raising.  In consequence there are ex-members who are wildly cheering on the Commission, without considering whether this is in their own interests.  

I do wish that these people — who may well have legitimate grievances — would look at the larger picture.  Their grievances will not be addressed by this method.

I do not believe that this is about the Exclusive Brethren, and still less about those who may have been injured by it.  The Charities Commission does not give a damn about either of them.  All of them, to a London-based organisation, are nobodies.  The Commission does not care whether the Exclusive Brethren is a cult. 

I suspect — I am not alone in so suspecting — that the Commssion chose the organisation, in order to create a precedent, to create case-law.   This precedent would give it very considerable powers, to decide which religious groups would, and would not be allowed to operate without crushing financial penalties.  So it chose a small, not very popular, little known group as the object of its attack.  It may well have hoped that the Brethren would just take it, or be unable to afford lawyers.   

The question we all need to ask here is not whether we like the Brethren.  Rather it is this.  Is it a good idea to create a Soviet-style “Commission for Religious Cults”, with whom churches must register, and who can apply financial penalties if it chooses?  Few of us would think so.  That is the issue before us.

This all reminded me of a fable, which, after some hunting around I found.  Interestingly there is a retelling of it by Isaac Asimov, which I will give first.

 A horse having a wolf as a powerful and dangerous enemy lived in constant fear of his life. Being driven to desperation, it occured to him to seek a strong ally. Whereupon he approached a man, and offered an alliance, pointing out that the wolf was likewise an enemy of the man. The man accepted the partnership at once and offered to kill the wolf immediately, if his new partner would only co-operate by placing his greater speed at the man’s disposal. The horse ws willing, and allowed the man to place bridle and saddle upon him. The man mounted, hunted down the wolf, and killed him.

The horse, joyful and relieved, thanked the man, and said: ‘Now that our enemy is dead, remove your bridle and saddle and restore my freedom.’

Whereupon the man laughed loudly and replied, ‘The hell you say. Giddy-ap, Dobbin,’ and applied the spurs with a will.[1]

The ex-members are the horse; the wolf is the Brethren; and the man is the Charities Commission.

Searching for this, I came across a website dedicated to the Aesopica, run by Laura Gibbs who published a translation.  It’s rather wonderful!  It includes the Greek and Latin.  Here is Gibb’s translation of the original:

47. THE STAG, THE HORSE AND THE MAN

Perry 269 (Aristotle, Rhetoric 1393b)

There was a horse who was the sole owner of a meadow. Then a stag came and wreaked havoc in the meadow. The horse wanted to get revenge, so he asked a certain man if he would help him carry out a vendetta against the stag. The man agreed, provided that the horse took the bit in his mouth so that the man could ride him, wielding his javelin. The horse consented, and the man climbed on his back but instead of getting his revenge, the horse simply became a slave to the man.

Note: In some versions of this story, it is a boar, not a stag, who provokes the horse’s reckless anger (e.g., Phaedrus 4.4). There is an interesting version of this story in a fragment of the Greek historian Conon (cited in van Dijk 7T3), and the fable is also found in Horace, Epistles 1.10.34 ff.[2]

 The Greek text of Chambray’s edition is also online here.  Gibbs adds:

Chambry published a multivolume edition of the fables for the Belles Lettres series in 1925/6 (Paris). He later revised this into a single volume, omitting hundreds of the fable variants. In addition, the numeration between these two volumes is not consistent. The texts here are taken from the 1925/6 edition, but the numeration follows the stanard single volume edition.

Like most people, I have only a hazy idea of the transmission of the Fables.  But how very, very useful to have a reliable source online!

UPDATE: The Chambry text seems to be entitled Fabulae recensuit Aemilius Chambry.

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  1. [1]Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy, part III, chapter 8.↩
  2. [2]Aesop’s Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World’s Classics): Oxford, 2002. http://www.mythfolklore.net/aesopica/oxford/47.htm↩

Plymouth Brethren banned in Britain

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Or they might as well be, if their members have to pay 33% tax on every penny they donate, and the church then has to hand over 20% of all donations to the state.

From the Daily Mail:

MPs are demanding an inquiry into the Charity  Commission after the watchdog banned a Christian group from charitable status on  the grounds that religion is not always for ‘public benefit’.

More than 50 MPs from all the main parties  have signed a Commons motion calling on the charity regulator to think again,  amid fears that hundreds of religious groups could be stripped of their  tax-exempt status, threatening their very existence.

They accuse the Charity Commission of ‘politically correct bias’ against faith groups after it ruled that the Preston  Down Trust of the Plymouth Brethren Church – which has 16,000 members across  Britain – is not entitled to charitable status because it does not do enough  good works in the community.

MPs say the ruling is ‘outrageous’ because it  ignored the way the group, which has enjoyed charitable status for 50 years,  runs soup kitchens for the poor and hospital visits for the sick.

Tory MP Robert Halfon said: ‘There is  something rotten in the Charity Commission. I cannot understand why the  Brethren, good people who do so much in their communities, have been singled  out.

‘I believe an inquiry is needed into the role  of the Charity Commission, to consider how it came to make the decision. What  has happened is unjust and is creating fear in many churches across the  country.’

In a ruling that sent shockwaves through even  the established church, the Charity Commission ruled that its decision ‘makes it  clear that there was no presumption that religion generally, or at any more  specific level, is for the public benefit, even in the case of Christianity or  the Church of England’.

It’s great news!  Yes, the establishment has rediscovered the Test Act and the Act of Uniformity!!!!

I was so missing the days when the state decided which religions were “authorised” and “not authorised”.  We got rid of that around 1850.  Now, at last, once again we can sneer at people as “dissenters” and subject them to discriminatory taxes and legal penalties.

And that should show these dissenters which way their bread is buttered.  After all, if they aren’t a charity, they will have to pay 20% corporation tax on all donations.  David Cameron will take 20% of every church collection.  And …. those donations won’t be eligible for gift aid either.  So church members will have to pay 33% tax on every penny they donate, and then the church will have to pay 20% of whatever pennies they receive.  That’s teach them not to conform, the vile dissenting creeps!  Hang them!  Burn them!

Cracking!

More seriously, this is evil news.  It has been a long, long time since we have had state servants operating a system of “approved” and “unapproved” churches, with legal penalties and discrimination against the latter.  Abolishing all that sort of thing in the mid-19th century allowed half of England back into public life.

This is, of course, a political case.  The Charities Commission — whoever that is — made their decision based on political grounds.  The political left has a deep hatred for Christianity.  The Exclusive Brethren look like a small, powerless group, unlikely to have friends at London dinner parties.  No doubt the inquisitors decided that they looked like suitably helpless victims.

The Charities Commission used to be an innocuous group.  But there is very little practical difference between banning an organisation which relies on donations, and levying on it the brutal taxation to which small businesses in Britain (but not big ones like Vodaphone, Google, Starbucks, and so on) are subjected.  Indeed that is rather the point; to persecute while disclaiming the name, to harass while claiming to be impartial.

I am not a member of the Brethren, about whom I know little.  But I do know that they are a small and harmless group who cause no-one any trouble and who have been quietly doing their own thing for decades.  Only a complete shit would decide to attack them.

Evil days indeed, these.

UPDATE:  The New American also reports on this.

Two members of Parliament have defended the Brethren. The first is Charlie Elphicke, who called the attack on the church “anti-religion,” LifeSiteNews reported. Elphicke, a member of the committee that uncovered the letter from the commission, told members of the Brethren that the charity bureaucrats “are committed to the suppression of religion and you are the little guys being picked on to start off a whole series of other churches who will follow you there.”

Another member of parliament, conservative Bernard Jenkin, explained a larger purpose in the government’s attack on the Brethren, said LifeSite:

“The Commission seems to be using the group as a test case to establish the meaning of the public benefit requirement in charity law,” he said.

“Picking a relatively vulnerable organisation and putting you through huge time and expense is a rotten way to decide what charity law means,” Jenkin said.

Indeed.

There is a useful article at the Third Sector site here.

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Soliciting donations

Posted on by Roger Pearse

For some years now I have commissioned translations of previously untranslated texts.  These I make freely available on the web.

A correspondent has suggested that I should make it possible for generous-minded people to contribute.  As an experiment, I’ve added a “Donate” button on the right hand side.

Not quite sure how I feel about this, but if you would like to contribute, feel free to click the button.

At the moment we have a number of translations going forward.  Ephraem Syrus, Hymns against heresies 23 and 24 are in the works.  I have today commissioned a translation of “February” from John the Lydian’s, De mensibus book 4.  Just so that you know where funds go!

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A new review of the Eusebius “Gospel problems and solutions” book

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A fresh — and kind — review has appeared of the text and translation of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Gospel problems and solutions (Quaestiones ad Stephanum et Marinum) which I published last year.  It is by Michael F. Bird and can be found here at the Review of Biblical Literature site.  (h/t here).

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Sabbadini on the discovery of Greek and Latin codices in the 14-15th century

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Anyone at all interested in manuscripts knows that the definitive account of the rediscovery of classical texts is that of R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne’secoli 14 e 15 (1905).[1]  But these volumes have always been hard to obtain; and worse, were in Italian, a language few of us speak with fluency.  Those two problems always stopped me accessing the text.

This evening I was reading an article on Paul the Deacon when it referred to Sabbadini, and I suddenly noted the date of the latter’s publication: 1905.  That means that it is out of copyright in the USA.  That in turn meant that it ought to be in Google Books or Archive.org.  A quick search later revealed copies of both volumes, as well as other works by Sabbadini.

Better was to follow.  By opening the “Full Text” link in Google Chrome, I got a page with a button at the top inviting me to translate the page.  I did so; and suddenly I have an English version of Sabbadini!

Alright, it’s definitely very mangled; but I can definitely get some good out of it, if not everything.  The table of contents emerges, more or less:

  1. The discoverers of Verona (first half of the 14th century)
  2. The Florentine triad (second half of the 14th c.)
  3. The discoveries of Greek codices (15th c.)
  4. Discoveries during the Council of Constance (1415-1417)
  5. Exploration in Italy (1420-30): the Florentine humanists; the humanists of the north.
  6. Exploration outside of Italy (1425-1430)
  7. Discoveries during the Council of Basle (1432-1440)
  8. Anonymous discoveries
  9. Later explorations (second half of the 15th century).  The manuscripts discovered at Bobbio (1498)
  10. Counterfeit discoveries
  11. 15th century collections and libraries.

That by itself gives you an idea of the process of the rediscovery of the classical heritage.

Try it.  Open up Chrome, and start reading bits of Sabbadini.  It works!

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  1. [1]Volume 1 and volume 2 are online at Archive.org.↩

A bit more from Festus’ lexicon

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few more extracts might be of interest.

MERCURIUS, so-called from merces.[1]  In fact they consider him as the god of all commerce.

MEDIALIS they call a black sacrificial victim which they immolate at mid-day.

MACELLUM.  This place is so-called from a certain Macellus, who carried out robberies in the City.  After he was condemned, the censors Aemilius and Fulvius ordered that his house be turned into a food market.

M. MANILIUS.  It is not allowed for anyone from a patrician family to bear this name, because of a Manilius who expelled the Gauls from the capitolium, but attempted to become king and was put to death.

MARCULUS, a diminutive from Marcus.

MATRONAE they call those women who have the legal right to wear the stola.

MAXIMUS PONTIFEX is so-called because he is the judge of matters relating to sacred things and religions, and prosecutor of violations by private citizens or magistrates.

MAXIMI ANNALES are so-called, not because of their length, but because the pontifex maximus writes them.

MULTA they say is a kind of penalty in Oscan.  M. Varro says that it is a penalty, but a financial one, which he discusses carefully in book 1 of his Epistolary Questions.

MAGNUS ANNUS (=Great Year).  The astronomers call the great year in which the seven wandering stars[2], each having finished its individual course, are gathered together again.

MAIORES FLAMINES are called those of patrician origin, minores those of plebian.

MARTIUS MENSIS.  The month of March was the beginning of the year both in Latium and after the foundation of Rome because its people were very warlike.  This is shown by the fact that the later months which end the year are named after numerals, the last being December.[3]

MALEDICTORES[4] is what the ancients called those whom we call maledicos.  Cato, when he was about to depart for Spain, said: “The maledictors must be got rid of.”

MAXIMA DIGNATIO.  The Flamen Dialis[5] held the highest rank among the fifteen flamines, and while the rest had their degrees of importance, the lowest grade was the Pomonalis, because Pomona presided over the least important things from the fields, tree-fruits.

There is much more of interest in this section, relating to the customs of the Roman Republic, and quoting many lost authors.

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  1. [1]Merces = merchandise.↩
  2. [2]The planets.↩
  3. [3]December from decem, ten; this being the tenth month.↩
  4. [4]Evil-speakers, calumniators.↩
  5. [5]Priest of Jupiter.↩