Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
I often find that these links get out of date pretty rapidly, so here is the latest one I have come across. The Ancient World Online links to the complete Patrologia Graeca in a pretty user-friendly downloadable pdf format. From the Library of Ruslan Khazarzar.
The PDF’s are not just images, but text.
NOTE: My collection of PDF’s of page images is here.
For the last few days I have been reading the epigrams of Martial, in the two volume Loeb edition with parallel Latin and English. Many of the epigrams throw a great deal of light on what it was like to live in ancient Rome. Some are intentionally obscene, and done in order to sell more copies, as Martial makes plain. The Loeb rightly gives an Italian version instead of an English one. Others say how copies of the books may be obtained, and so throw light upon the Roman book trade.
Others again describe events in the arena, and give an idea of how its religious purposes had been corrupted. Scaevola burned off his hand rather than betray the Republic; to entertain the crowd, a criminal is forced to do the same, by threats of being burned alive. In the process the value of Scaevola’s heroism is diminished in the eyes of everyone. Likewise other mythological events are re-enacted, and likewise debased. Thus did the Romans lose their own sense of identity.
But one element in the epigrams has attracted comment. Many of the epigrams flatter Domitian. In some cases, they ask the emperor directly for money or favours. In many others they refer to him as Lord and God, in fulsome tones. These grow more numerous and more fulsome as book succeeds book. Book eight, indeed, is dedicated to Domitian and begins with a letter of flattery so thick that we can only associate it with unfree societies.
Rome was a despotism. To incur the ire of the emperor was to risk property and exile, or even your life. In such a society, formal expressions of loyalty become essential. It is telling how these become more frequent as we read through the work. Early expressions of flattery are perhaps no worse than some that Pliny the Younger uses about Trajan. By book five, the servile note is strong. By book six, Martial is obliged to insert epigrams disclaiming any possibility that “poems dipped in venom” against the emperor are his, and repeat it in book seven. Each mention of the emperor is more lush than the last, each book contains more poems of flattery than the last.
Doubtless it was dangerous to do otherwise. But perhaps this too reflects the progress of Domitian’s tyranny. To praise the emperor for his reforms was one thing. Martial has fun with the way in which Domitian’s revival of the lex Julia restricting the first fourteen rows of seats in the arena for the knights has affected Romans who perhaps are not as wealthy as they pretend; and we can all enjoy this. But this note disappears after a while. It might be disrespectful, after all; and disrespect could only be dangerous.
After the overthrow of Domitian, Martial attempts to flatter Nerva and Trajan, but his heart is not in it. Doubtless he found that this was met with mockery. The victors in civil discord are always arrogant, and there was no lack of people with scores to settle. It is telling that he left Rome, and went to Bilbilis in Spain, his native country. Perhaps he feared exile. But he found it a poor substitute for the metropolis, and seems to have been lonely for the City. No doubt he was.
It was Martial’s misfortune to live and write in despotic times, and to find himself in a current of misplaced loyalty that in the end swept him away. Yet, had he not done so, who knows if he would have written anything? Whatever his own misfortunes, he managed to write something that men have not willingly let die.
All done by Brigham Young University, and are here. At the moment I think there is a problem with some of the links, but this will be fixed.
Most of the books are liturgical etc, but there is a Syriac New Testament, another containing Paul’s letters, a collection of Isaac of Scete and Cyriacus of Antioch, a couple of works by Barhebraeus including the “Chronicle of the ages”, and a Garshuni version of the world history of Michael the Syrian. Some unclassified “collections of religious works” might bear investigation.
At the court of the emperor Heraclius, the philosopher Stephen of Alexandria (or Stephanos of Alexandria) delivered a series of nine lectures on alchemical subjects. Translations of three of these were published in early issues of Ambix, a scholarly journal dedicated to early chemistry, before WW2. I found a first draft of a translation of the fourth among the papers of the translator, in the Oxford Museum of Science in Broad Street. Unfortunately the handwriting was beyond me, being on a technical subject unfamiliar to myself.
I had an email this morning from someone who reckons that he might be able to do better. I’ve emailed him the PDF of the scans and my opening shot at transcription.
There was a further reason why I did not proceed; the material in Ambix is all in copyright, so cannot go online. Nor can this translation, without the permission of the family. I don’t place online material owned by others. So what could I do with it? Yet… why all these restrictions? Is there a single person in the world other than myself who even knows who Stephen is?
is here.
I am continuing to revise the Wikipedia Mithras article. I’ve added a whole load of material about the earliest archaeological remains, none of which can be securely dated earlier than 80 AD as far as I know. There is quite a lot to be gleaned from books present in limited preview on Google books, and fortunately “Fullstop” continues to send me pointers and citations, which helps quite a lot. I hope that this effort will dispose of some of the sillier “Jesus=Mithras” stuff that goes around.
Mind you, my heart sank yesterday at a brand new piece of idiocy; someone is now claiming that loads of pagan deities were betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. It is, of course, untrue.
I’ve also returned to translating Firmicus Maternus work against the pagans, which isn’t online (but will be when I’m done). It is a storehouse of minor snippets about paganism. There are many such sources, which we don’t ever think of.
Plenty to do!
I have been reading this 1853 book by Charles Anthon, of which I obtained an off-print some time ago. In fact I’ve been reading it from the back forwards, as I wanted to know about Greek writers of the Imperial and Byzantine periods. Most of the book concerns the classical period, padded with a great deal of information of no real use.
Anthon devotes 50 or so pages to the Roman and Byzantine-era writers. Unfortunately he doesn’t give the writers in chronological order, but instead lists by subject, and only then in chronological author. So Claudius Ptolemy the author of the Almagest appears twice, once under astronomical writers and once under geographers.
The general approach is that of the patrologies: give an introduction, then an entry on the first writer, then a bibliography, then the next writer, and so on. In reading such a thing, dry as it may seem, hard concise information pours into the reader. It’s like exploring a strange land, full of byways, and holding a map in your hand containing directions to all parts of it.
The entries may be outdated, but they are still full of interest to the ordinary reader, listing writers of whom I have never heard and their extant works. There are sections on scientific and geographical writers, philosophers, grammarians, historians. I learn something every time I pick it up.
Is there any modern equivalent today, that covers the same Roman and Byzantine-era Greek writers, in concise and chronological order? I don’t know of one. But … why not?
Delightful to see Robert Harris in the Daily Mail drawing parallels between the corrupted politics of Westminister and the session of the Senate that dealt with the conspiracy of Catiline in 63 BC. One part caught my eye:
That debate … was a turning point in history. Three of the speeches made during it – by Caesar, Cicero and Cato – survive. They read as fresh today as they must have sounded more than 2,000 years ago.
The speeches of Cicero we all know, although I’m not sure if they’re all online in English. But where are the other two to be found?
Ghost of a Flea (Neither racked by guilt nor enslaved by passion) quotes a salient passage from the article:
… the speaker who really won the day was Marcus Cato. His is the first parliamentary speech in history that has come down to us more or less intact, thanks to the scribes who took it down in shorthand. ‘In heaven’s name, men, wake up!’ he thundered. ‘Wake up while there’s still time and lend a hand to defend the republic!
‘Our liberty and lives are at stake! At such a time does anyone here dare talk to me of clemency and compassion?
‘Do not imagine, gentlemen, that it was by force of arms that our ancestors transformed a petty state into this great republic. If it were so, it would now be at the height of its glory, since we have more subjects and citizens, more arms and horses, than they ever had.
‘No, it was something else entirely that made them great – something we entirely lack.
‘They were hard workers at home, just rulers abroad, and to the senate-they brought minds that were not racked by guilt or enslaved by passion. That is what we’ve lost.
History can teach us lessons, if we choose to listen.
There is a very useful list of links to the ROC, with details of the Syriac materials in them, here. The volumes are all at Archive.org in complete form, and the scanning was sponsored by Gorgias Press, who thereby deserve our gratitude. I thought the list could usefully appear here also:
Because of an error in printing, some pages of this volume are out of order.
At the end of this volume there is an index of vols. 1-10.
An email this morning tells me that the English translation of the Greek text of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Quaestiones ad Stephanum/Marinum and the catena fragments are all revised and pretty much done. I expect the finished text tomorrow. I must hurry up the Syriac reviser! And then begins the task of getting the thing into printed form and selling it.