Still transcribing James of Edessa’s Chronicle. Was 21, now 16.
Author: Roger Pearse
Back to James of Edessa
I’ve gone back to my occasional task of transcribing the 7th century Chronicle of James of Edessa, to put it on the web. This is a continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, and is important for early Islamic history. It is in tabular form, which is why it isn’t already online. Let me tell you, formatting the dratted thing in HTML is NOT amusing.
The text survives in some badly damaged leaves in the British Library (from the Nitrian desert in Egypt) plus quotations in Michael the Syrian. The publication was frankly bad; first E.W.Brooks published a first stab at it, in Syriac and English. But he didn’t format the English in tabular form. Then he tried again in CSCO 5/6, in Syriac and in Latin. This time the Latin was in tabular form, but he still couldn’t read chunks of it. And he supplemented it, rightly or wrongly, from Michael.
Still, after a very stressful couple of weeks it is quite soothing to do! At the moment I h ave reached the reign of Theodosius II, ca. 450; Olympiad 307, according to James.
Quiet flows the don…
I have in my hands the complete Greek of Eusebius. The Syriac should be with me by next Monday. But I can’t do anything with either, from pressure of domestic urgencies. I don’t think I’ve had a single day without some kind of panic or disaster for a fortnight! I hope to get back to real life soon!
GCS electronic texts for free download
Stephen C. Carlson kindly points out here that some of the GCS Greek texts have been transcribed and are available for free download here. I’ve translated the German:
Starting with vol. 7 NF (= Daniel-Kommentar des Hippolyt) a selection of reading texts from the editions in the GCS series is available for free download.
Release of the material is generally carried out at the same time as the release of the volume. Some other types of documents are also here, which are otherwise not available and complement our selection.
To read the file (PDF format) on your screen or print them, you need “Acrobat Reader” which can be found on the Internet free of charge.
Suggestions would be gratefully received.
Anonyme Kirchengeschichte (Gelasius Cyzicenus) = 1,1 MB (PDF)
Daniel-Kommentar Hippolyts = 501 KB (PDF)
Handschriften-Register zu Albert Ehrhard = 768 KB (PDF)
Martyrium Clementis = 1,35 MB (PDF)
Miraculum Clementis – Codex Parisinus graecus 1510 (D) = 44 KB (PDF)
This is truly excellent news, and the GCS are to be commended very highly indeed. Nor is this all; for there is more about the Hippolytus material here.
For an online presentation of the GCS the Daniel commentary of Hippolytus (GCS NF 7) was chosen and partly indexed.
The data processing of the Greek text and the translation from the Church Slavonic, each with their own apparatus, has been conducted by Arnd Rattmann (GCS). He was also responsible for decyphering the difficult manuscript originals of Marcel Richard († 1976), which led to the new edition of the text of Bonwetsch.
We would like to thank the publisher Walter de Gruyter for permission to place the works fully on the Internet. We should point out that the book may be ordered from the publisher. This contains the detailed indexes and other valuable information for usage of the text.
We should emphasize that we are dealing in this project of the month with a trial. We are grateful for suggestions and comments and positive feedback.
We should definitely give them feedback and encouragement! But … anyone got any ideas how?
UPDATE: I’ve found some email addresses here. The transcriber, Arnd Rattmann, is one of them. There’s a whole section for the GCS. I have buzzed an email at three people.
Is the Patrologia Graeca bed-time reading, and should it be?
In a parallel universe where the sun always shines, the girls are all pretty, none of us grow sick or tiresome — and where I hold a prestigious and well-remunerated teaching post at a major university — one of the things I recommend to my better students is to buy or print copies of the Patrologia Graeca and take them to bed and read them. If they take a volume to bed every night, and read it, even if all they read is mostly the Latin, and they read a page or two, they will acquire almost by osmosis a command of what these volumes contain. In this way — I advise them, in my kindly but impressive way — they will acquire an inimitable knowledge of patristic literature, and a constant fund of unexpected knowledge that will serve them well all their days.
In this world, where things are less well-arranged, the idea is slightly fantastic, but still not without value. Imagine if we could print off a volume, or perhaps half or a quarter of a volume? Let it have wide margins, and let us take a pencil to bed with us, so we can scribble, and underline, and index. Would this work? I think it might.
There are practical difficulties. Has anyone tried taking some of the digitised images of the PG and printing them? The results do not tend to be good. Let’s face it, Migne’s originals were not exactly well printed! But … would it be readable? Would it be possible? I think it might.
Another question is where to start. Should we start with PG1, which I imagine must contain the apostolic fathers. My instinctive first reaction is not. My second reaction is “maybe”. After all, Migne reprints all that scholarship from the 16-17th century, much of it very learned, and in many cases never superseded. We would still learn things, even from this.
Or should it be later volumes? Where should we start?
Come, gentlemen. Imagine yourselves in that parallel universe. What would YOU recommend to your students?
Hippolytus “Commentary on Daniel”
Tom Schmidt writes to say that he has started a translation of the Commentary on Daniel by Hippolytus, which he mentions here.
Fragments of the work appear in the ANF collection, but a nearly complete Old Slavonic version exists (used by the Sources Chretiennes) and likewise a Greek version, which was published by GCS. So this will be the first complete English translation.
Reference for the claim that only 1% of ancient literature survives
People sometimes make arguments from what our surviving collection of classical texts do NOT contain. I tend to reply by pointing out that only 1% of classical texts survive, which makes such a procedure very risky. This figure comes from a statement by N. G. Wilson on the Archimedes Palimpsest Project web page, although the site has changed and I couldn’t find it just now.
When I met N. G. Wilson by accident at the Oxford Patristics Conference some years ago I asked him about this, and he said that the figure came from Pietro Bembo, the renaissance scholar.
The discussion on CLASSICS-L of the same issue has now produced a quotation with a modern academic reference. I reproduce the post (by Atticus Cox) here:
In partial answer to Jeffrey B. Gibson’s original question — “What percentage/How much of pre-second century CE literature is lost to us and how has this figure, whatever it may be, been determined?”
Rudolf Blum in his Kallimachos : The Alexandrian library and the origins of bibliography (Wisconsin, 1991) [= transl. by Hans H. Wellisch of BLUM, R.: Kallimachos und die Literaturverzeichnung bei den Griechen : Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Biobibliographie (Frankfurt, 1977)] states as follows (p.8):
Literary criticism was made difficult for the ancient philologists (similar to what their modern colleagues experience when they deal with medieval literature) because among Greek authors as well as among medieval ones there are so many namesakes (Apollonios, Alexandros, etc.). Thus, for example, we find that Diogenes Laertios (3rd cent. A.D.) lists for 29 of the 82 philosophers with whom he deals in his work on the lives and opinions of famous philosophers (the most recent are from the end of the 2nd century A.D.) several known namesakes, most of whom had also been authors.[n.31] Quite a few bearers of the same name were active in the same field, were compatriots and contemporaries.[n.32] It also happened frequently that an author had the same name as his father, equally well-known as an author. In such cases the customary procedure for the identification of persons — complementing the personal name by an indication of the father’s name (in the genitive) and the place of birth or domicile (in adjectival form) — was not sufficient. One had to find further biographical details and to add them.
The large number of authors with the same name was a corollary of the large amount of Greek literature, the sheer bulk of which alone would have been enough to keep the ancient biobibliographers busy. The small nation of the Greeks was immensely productive in art and scholarship. Although it is impossible to ascertain the total number of all works written by Greek authors, there were certainly many more than those that have been preserved or are merely known to have existed. For example, we have no adequate idea of the multitude of works which Kallimachos listed in the 120 books of his Pinakes. Of the Greek literature created before 250 B.C. we have only a small, even though very valuable, part. We do not even have the complete works of those authors who were included in the lists of classics compiled by the Alexandrian philologists. Of all the works of pagan Greek literature perhaps only one percent has come down to us.[n.34] All others were in part already forgotten by the third century A.D., in part they perished later, either because they were not deemed worthy to be copied when a new book form, the bound book (codex), supplanted the traditional scroll in the fourth century A.D.,[n.35] or because they belonged to ‘undesirable literature’ in the opinion of certain Christian groups.
In n.34 Blum explains that his figures are based on the counts of Hans Gerstinger [= GERSTINGER, H.: Bestand und Überlieferung der Literaturwerke des griechisch-römischen Altertums (Graz, 1948)] —
n.34: “According to Gerstinger (1948) p.10, about 2000 Greek authors were known by name before the discovery of papyri. But the complete works of only 136 (6.8%) and fragments of another 127 (6.3%) were preserved. Gerstinger counted, however, only authors whose names were known, not works known by their titles. The numerical relation between these and the works that are preserved wholly or partially would certainly even be much worse. Whether a count of known titles would serve any purpose remains to be seen. The main sources would be the biobibliographic articles in the Suda, but even the authority on which it is based, the epitomator of the Onomatologos by Hesychios of Miletos (6th century A.D.), no longer listed many authors which e.g. Diogenes Laertios (3rd century A.D.) had still named in his work.”
The other notes are as follows:
n.31: “He lists on average 5-6 homonyms, in one case 14 (Herakleides), in two cases 20 each (Demetrios and Theodoros).”
n.32: “E.g. in the fifth century B.C. there were two Attic tragic poets by the name of Euripides other than the famous one.”
n.33: “Despite the more precise Roman system of naming persons (/praenomen/, /nomen gentile/, /cognomen/) there were many homonyms, although relatively few among authors, because there were fewer of them than in Greece.”
n.35: “Widmann (1967) columns 586-603 [= WIDMANN, H. : ‘Herstellung und Vertrieb des Buches in der griechisch-römischen Welt’ in /Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens/ 8 (1967) 545-640].
Obscure material
When I look at older editions and translations of the classics, or indeed the fathers, I am sometimes struck by the way in which the authors make use of curious and recondite sources such as scholiasts. Never have I seen it explained, however, how they come to locate these.
Looking at 16th and 17th century editions, we quickly find that the indexes in these contain all sorts of references. How did they do it?
Demonax and the trolls, and other snippets from Lucian
I was reading Lucian’s Life of Demonax here and came across this remark, which seemed eminently applicable to much online posting:
He once saw two philosophers engaged in a very unedifying game of cross questions and crooked answers. ‘Gentlemen,’ said he, ‘here is one man milking a billy-goat, and another catching the proceeds in a sieve.’
In Lucian’s Remarks addressed to an illiterate book-fancier here, we find another comment appropriate to those who always have a quote from an ancient source at their hands.
There are two ways in which a man may derive benefit from the study of the ancients: he may learn to express himself, or he may improve his morals by their example and warning; when it is clear that he has not profited in either of these respects, what are his books but a habitation for mice and vermin, and a source of castigation to negligent servants?
Most of Lucian’s works seem to be here.
What percentage of ancient literature survives: some data
An interesting discussion is going on at CLASSICS-L at the moment.
Jeffrey Gibson: How much pre-second century CE literature is lost to us — and how has this figure, whatever it may be, been determined?
…
Patrick T. Rourke: Even if you limit yourself to the plays produced at the Greater Dionysia during the productive lifetimes of the three great tragedians (~485 bce – 406 bce), that would be 33 out of 12×79=948, or 3.5%. That number is not an estimate, but a ceiling, because of all the factors you have to ignore to get that nice clean number:
- I think the Rhesos is under the wrong name and is later than 406.
- At least 15% of the Iphigeneia at Aulis has been replaced with a later attempt at a reconstruction.
- There are fragments of hundreds of lost tragedies, enough to count as maybe 3 additional play equivalents.
- Tragedy officially started in 534 bce, though we might not consider the earliest plays to fit our definition of the genre, and the productions of tragedies continued into the common era, though after about 400 bce repertory productions of older plays could take the place of new plays
- We are counting satyr plays
- We are ignoring the Lenaia, and other feativals and cities where tragedy came to be performed.
- We are ignoring later book tragedies, which date to the mid 4th century bce.
As I said, that is a ceiling, amd a rough back-of-the-envelope number that my gut tells me is an order of magnitude too high (it’s probably closer to 0.4%), but it’s a nice way to demonstrate the problem.
We have 33 surviving tragedies (including satyric and pro-satyric plays):
7 of Aeschylus*
7 of Sophocles
19 of Euripides*1 play ascribed to Aeschylus by all ancient authorities has been challenged on stylistic grounds, but I believe the skeptics still think it was anciently produced. 1 play ascribed to Euripides was challenged in antiquity on stylistic grounds – and we have a much better sample for Euripides; those theories would place production after 406 bce. Those three between them wrote slightly over 300 plays (123 for Sophocles, 91 or 95 for Euripides, ~ 88 or 92 for Aeschylus), so we have 10% of their work; 24 of the plays survive due to their use in schools, and 9 of Euripides plays survive due to an historical accident of transmission. It is possible that some of the surviving plays were produced at the Lenaia, which would add an additional several plays a year to those totals (obviously I don’t know, and can’t quickly find, the actual number; and we know that some of the lost plays for the big three for which we have titles were produced at the Lenaia, and at least four outside Athens altogether.)
The two dates I’ve chosen are the year before Aeschylus’ first recorded first prize and the year of Euripides’ and Sophocles’ deaths. That gives an active period for the three great tragedians of 79 years. The actual active life of the Greater Dionysia was closer to 700 years, but only some of the plays produced before Aeschylus would fit our definition of tragedy, and after the death of Sophocles, it became common to revive older plays. By the mid-4th century ther were only 9 new plays per Dionysia, and we can assume that the late 1 st and early 2 nd century had no new plays, so we might average out at 4 new plays per year for the last 500 years, which would raise the total closer to 3000 plays and lower the percentage to a little over 1%. Throw in the Lenaia and the number drops well below 1%.
The number twelve refers to the fact that three poets were chosen for each Greater Dionysia to present four plays: three tragedies and a satyr play. We believe that in some festivals in the 5 th century the satyr play was replaced by another kind of play, a prosatyric play, and that Euripides’ Alcestis is an example. By the mid 3rd century the satyr play is gone.
Aristotle mentions what I’ve called book tragedies – closet dramas that take the form of tragedy. They were apparently popular by the mid 3rd century, and there is no way of estimating them. None survives.
Other cities came to imitate Athens’ genre, but there is no way to quantify that. We hear about dramatic productions in Alexander’s camp, but at least some were revivals (I think at least one was a new play).
I’m also ignoring the rural Dionysia on the assumption (possibly quite wrong) that it was repertory only.
The sources include the scholia, hypotheses, lives of the poets, inscriptions, a couple of contemporary speeches, allusions throughout the history of Greek literature (including Aristophanes the comedic playwright), the Suda, numerous literary essays from Roman times, &c. The most accessible collection of evidence is Csapo and Slater, *The Context of Ancient Drama*. One book that experts use a lot for ancient evidence is probably Pickard-Cambridge, *Dramatic Festivals of Athens*, though even in its updated form, it is quite old now and so doesn’t take into account the past 40 years if research. For the whole discussion, I’d recommend as a starting point for general readers is the popular account in several brief sections of Stuart Kelly’s *The Book of Lost Books*. Reynolds and Wilson’s book from the 70s (and that may be the second edition), *Scribes and Scholars*, is the best in depth discussion of the transmission of classical texts that I know about.
I’d guess that the numbers for all other genres are worse than for tragedy – we are lucky that we have so much of it!
Gene O’Grady: I’m being lazy and not checking, but I seem to recall that toward the end of this period there were reproductions of old plays (Aeschylus) at the festivals, so that would reduce the number of plays in the corpus, thus raising the percent that survive.
Also, do we know for sure that there was a satyr play every year? And the site of original production of some plays (Andromache, Archelaus, Aetnaeae) apparently wasn’t Athens.
Patrick T. Rourke: I had forgotten about Andromache, so my “at least 4” should be “at least 5”.
I admit that I know nothing about Greek tragedy. So this is all out of period for me. Nor do I know anything of the Greater Dionysia. I’ve asked for some clarification for us late-antiquity buffs, but it looks as if we have some information that a play was performed 12 times a year for 79 years. I’d want to see the data, of course.
But this sort of quantifiable stuff is invaluable.