Another 75 Greek manuscripts online at the British Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Stavros Niarchos foundation continue to fund the digitisation of Greek manuscripts at the British Library, who in consequence are still shovelling them online.  Thank you both, gentlemen: this is good news.  Long may it continue!

A new tranche of 75 was released today, bringing the total to 500.  Fortunately the library staff have started to give a summary of the contents of each manuscript, which can be found at the bottom of the post.

So, what goodies are there for patristic and classically minded people in this release?

  • There’s a 16th c. copy of Photius’ Bibliotheca cod. 1-222 — i.e. nearly all of it — in Harley Ms. 5591.
  • Hero of Alexandria, Pneumatica and De automatis, Harley 5605, with diagrams. (16th c.)  These are the texts in which he describes his machines.  Here’s one of the diagrams (fol. 10v).  I was curious to see whether these were copies of ancient diagrams.  But … they look more like modern ones to me.

Useful to be able to see what the manuscript contains, tho.

I wonder if there are online English translations of these two works?  Greek scientific literature is shamefully neglected.

  • Ms. Harley 5638 is not well catalogued, being given merely as “Plutarch and Philostratus”.  Here is where the limitations of the online viewer kick in — it really would not be a simple task to leaf through the book and discover precisely what it contains.
  • Harley 5643 contains a “patristic miscellany”, much of it from Chrysostom (and there’s a thought: given that you usually can’t breathe for codices of Chrysostom in any collection of Greek mss., isn’t he shamefully under-represented in the 500 mss we have had so far?)  There’s a scholion of Eusebius in there too — on what I cannot say.
  • Harley 5646 is another of the same, mostly 216 letters by Chrysostom.
  • Harley 5677 contains the Catena of Nicetas on the Psalms!  Now that is well worth having!  And almost immediately I learn something novel and interesting on fol. 1v, which is how the names of the authors excerpted appeared in 17th century copies of  the catenas.  For it is very hard to work this out, from editions of catenae like those of Cramer.

(How I wish it was possible to link to what I want to display, at the resolution I want, and to embed the precise view that I want, rather than having to screen-grab bits like this?  Surely it should be possible to pass a few parameters to the display engine?)

The sigla are in red in the margin.  The top one is “xru” — probably Chrysostom.  The lower one is “athana” — probably Athanasius.  I wonder what the bit above the name is, in each case?  What we need now, of course, is a list of authors and folio numbers for each.  That would be quite a task, tho!

  • Harley 5689 is a bunch of Chrysostom, including homiles 4-8 of the homilies against the Jews.  This one is 11th century.
  • Harley 6296 is the “impious Porphyry”, De Abstinentia.
  • Harley 6305 is medical works by Galen and Paul of Aegina.
  • Harley 6318 is two books of Stobaeus (and why hasn’t Stobaeus ever been translated?)

It would not be right to ignore two mss. containing work by Manuel Chrysoloras, such as Harley 6505.  Chrysoloras is the father of all modern Greek studies.  He was a Byzantine diplomat who was persuaded to come and teach in Florence at the very end of the 14th century, and who proved capable of reducing the myriad complexities of Byzantine grammars down to something that could be comprehended for the first time by a non-native speaker.  Before it, fol. 1v has with an alphabet, and a few marginal signs at the bottom.  Ever wondered how we know that a sign indicates “obelise”? —

Of course I am just scratching the surface here.  Go and explore!

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When libraries forget their mission

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Into town this morning, and into Suffolk Central Library in Ipswich.  My purpose?  To enquire as to the whereabouts of the copy of Vermaseren’s Mithras: the secret god.  A copy lives 40 miles away in the county reserve in Lowestoft, and I ordered it online on Tuesday.  Yet here we are on Thursday, and it has not arrived.

In I went, to find — to my astonishment — that a childrens’ playgroup had been set up in one corner of the main library.  The happy toddlers, and their parents, and some unspecified person in charge, were all singing childrens’ songs lustily.  This did mean, of course, that it was impossible for anyone to use the library for reading anything.  I had to queue, waiting to be served, so I had plenty of time to “enjoy” the caterwauling.  Hard-headed Andrew Carnegie, who funded the original library building, would not have approved.

At the desk, a smart-looking and helpful young lady told me that the book had been loaded into “the van” yesterday, and should be in Ipswich in 4-5 days.  I laughed, and asked whether they were sending the book by stage-coach.  (On reflection this was unfair: the stage-coach would have made that journey in a day).  The poor girl said that “the van” had to go around all the libraries in Suffolk, not just straight to Ipswich.  Even so, this is not a large county, and there are only 46 libraries, most of which are tiny and will probably have nothing on order.  It’s impossible not to notice that taking a book from the County Reserve to the County Library takes so long.  It is, in a word, inefficient.

I then ordered two more Mithras books.  The girl volunteered that the books would first search local libraries; and that this would take 4 weeks.  Again I felt a sense of unreality; why precisely does a search which could be undertaken in minutes take 4 weeks?  I declined this delay, and ordered the books from the British Library.  The price for a loan?  Now 5.40GBP each.  That’s not a lot less than the cost to buy many books.  Nor did the girl know who imposed the charge, supposing that it was the British Library.  But I know different: the British Library charges something like 15GBP, but the local authorities have a statutory duty to refund that to them.  Of course that means that each ILL costs the local council 15 GBP — so if they charge a lot to readers then that will deter people from borrowing books, thereby saving money which could be spent on buying votes!

Meanwhile the libraries themselves decay.  I was told on a previous visit that my emails were dealt with so very slowly because most of the staff were part-time, and so tended to leave things for someone else.

And so it went on.  Item after item of inefficiency, maladministration, neglect or wrong-headedness.  In real terms, there was nobody in charge.  Doubtless there is some woman somewhere who receives a salary to run the organisation.  (You can tell that it is a woman in charge because the conversion of Ipswich library into a playgroup is something that only a woman would do).  But she won’t have budgetary control.   All she will be doing is following “the rules”, doing the daily business of administration, but — this is the crucial bit — not in any way concerned with whether what is being done makes sense.

Why do we have libraries funded by compulsory exactions from ordinary people?  There is a reason, although you never hear it.

We live in a global economy.  We cannot compete on price for work.  We can and do compete on educational level.  When we have men out of work, it makes sense for them to skill themselves up by reading textbooks, so that they can obtain work and pay taxes.  Thus it makes sense for a small deduction on the salaries of us all in order to fund a supply of such books via local reading rooms.  It makes sense because in this way fewer people will be subsisting on those same public funds, and their wages will contribute to the local economy.  Supplies of textbooks cannot sensibly be held locally, so it makes sense to have a central depot which can speedily supply them as required.  The same facility can be used to encourage reading among the lower classes — the middle and upper classes can probably buy whatever they want — , again in order to ensure an educated workforce.

That’s it.  It’s not a question of philanthropy, but of cold hard self-interest.

And do Suffolk Libraries fulfil this mission?  Or have they forgotten it entirely, and do they now exist primarily to pay salaries to inattentive minor offcials?

The truth is somewhere in between.  But if we had to cost-justify Suffolk Libraries, could we do so?  I have my doubts.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still proofing the OCR of the English translation of Ibn Abi Usaibia, and reached p.639 last night.

The translation of Methodius De lepra is creeping forward.  I prompted the translator last night, and another couple of (short) pages arrived this morning, and I have just annotated them and sent them back.  These pages from the German need to be completed by a translation of a Greek fragment.  The translator has subcontracted that bit out, so it will need to be checked.  It will be interesting to see what that is like.

But great joy — a draft translation of John the Lydian’s section on December arrived this morning.  And in fact I had no comments on it, so it is pretty much done, and all I shall have to do is pay for it and upload it.

The translator of John also sent me a comment on the “cline” issue for the Sol Serapis post.

He’s also been working on the Origen Homilies on Ezechiel book, which I do hope we will manage to get out of the door sometime.  Most of it is done, and I think both of us will be glad to draw a line under it.

Meanwhile I’ve heard nothing from Chicago University since I accepted their price for digitising Loviagin’s Russian version of Methodius.  It’s hard to believe that any institution takes a week to answer an email.  I hesitate to nag them!

One of those winter viruses laid its cold hand on me at the weekend, so I’ve been a little under the weather since.  This morning the sun came out, and, feeling rather more normal, I drove up to Cambridge and visited the university library.  I think I got the very last free car parking space there!

It’s been a while since I’ve been — my pass ran out in June.  They will only issue me a pass for 6 months, which is tiresome.  There’s some noodle in the library administration with the fidgets — every time I turn up and reapply for another 6 months, there is some extra demand for evidence of this or that or the other.  But I got through the assault course OK.

I went to have a look at Vermaseren’s Mithras: the secret god.  I’ve only ever seen extracts of this, and I was looking to see whether he gave any sources for some of the line-drawings of reliefs.  And … he doesn’t!  I have a copy on order by ILL from my local library, so I will look at this some more then.  Curiously Cambridge did not have the original Dutch version of the book, nor the German translation.

Another item that I went to look for was the German original of Manfred Clauss’ The Roman cult of Mithras.  This was indeed present, but I couldn’t make much of it — I think the virus was trying to make a comeback at that point and my head grew fuzzy.

But what I did find was Reinhold Merkelbach’s Mithras; and I also found next to it the two volumes of Mithraic Studies edited by John R. Hinnells, Turcan’s book, and a few other items.  I was impressed with Merkelbach’s book — it looked very sound.  He surveys the data about Persian Mithra, and then starts a new section for Roman Mithras and states plainly that the latter was a new cult, using systematically elements borrowed from the Iranian mythology.  That seems to me to hit the nail on the head.

Finally, a bit of vanity: I went to the catalogue and searched for my own name, to see if the Eusebius book had been added to the library.  And it had!  Off I went, to find it next to all the other editions and translations of Patristic literature, but sadly minus its beautiful dustjacket.  I felt quite indignant for a moment at the loss of what had cost me so much time and labour; but then they do the same with all their books.  Nice to see it there, anyway.

I think I shall spend some time on the sofa now.  It’s been a busy day!

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C. S. Lewis died today

Posted on by Roger Pearse

N. S. Gill points out that today, 48 years ago, on Friday 22nd November, C. S. Lewis died at the age of 65.

I do not know what can be said about C. S. Lewis that has not been said many times before.  As with most Christians of my generation, my bookshelves are studded with his books.  The Narnia stories shaped my imagination at a young age — too young, indeed, and too isolated even to know that there was such a thing as Christianity.  Many years later, after my conversion, the slim cream-coloured paperbacks published by Fontana helped to form my understanding, while the outer space trilogy and The Great Divorce gave nourishment to my imagination again.  So it was with many of us.

A few years ago I picked up one of the Narnia books.  I was grieved to discover that the clear and transparent prose now seemed dated, and that it was not longer so simple to pass through it into Narnia.  I fear that they will not last much longer.  Can children today even enter Narnia?

Changes in language may mean that in a few decades the door to Narnia will be shut, and that learned pedants, and self-important scholars who have never been to Narnia, will write fanciful theories about the “meaning” of things that they do not understand with the utter certainty today reserved for books that no longer please the general public.

A few years ago, in a shop, I was turning over the pages of some jumped-up edition of The innocence of Father Brown.  The second story in the collection, The Secret Garden, ends with a flourish, as the murderer is proved to be the detective, Valentin and they rush to confront him:

The great detective sat at his desk apparently too occupied to hear their turbulent entrance. They paused a moment, and then something in the look of that upright and elegant back made the doctor run forward suddenly. A touch and a glance showed him that there was a small box of pills at Valentin’s elbow, and that Valentin was dead in his chair; and on the blind face of the suicide was more than the pride of Cato.

The annotated edition included a footnote here on the last word.  The exact words escape me, but they confidently informed the reader that here Chesterton meant the Devil, as only his pride was greater than the pride of Cato.

From this folly I learned instead that the annotator was a man without literary taste, unable to read or appreciate the text about which he was writing a commentary for the benefit of others.  For nothing of the kind is intended here; the reference to Cato merely informs us that this was a suicide, and “more than the pride of Cato” is merely a splendid literary flourish.  I myself read The Innocence of Father Brown long ago for enjoyment, as it was meant to be read.  I doubt that unhappy man enjoyed a line of the book.

No doubt similarly foolish people will soon write equally fatuous notes on The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.  It is a warning to us, in a way, to beware of learned ignorance.

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Notes from the preface to the 3rd edition (1913) of Cumont’s “The mysteries of Mithras”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Until this evening I was not aware that Cumont’s The mysteries of Mithras existed in a 3rd French edition, published 10 years after the English translation of the 2nd edition.  But it may be found on Archive.org, and the note to the 3rd edition on p.xiii contains a couple of interesting remarks.

In response to the wish expressed by some correspondents, we have, as in the second German edition, added some concise notes which will permit the reader to verify  quickly the evidence on which our assertions are based.  These “texts and monuments” will be found reproduced in our editiomaior.   Those which have been found or reported since 1900 have been briefly listed in the appendix, as far as they have become known to us.  This small volume will serve thus to some degree as a supplement to our Mithraic Corpus.  For the same reason we have introduced some new illustrations of statues or bas-reliefs, which have come to light recently.  The index has been brought up to date and a good number of new names have been added to it.

The lack of footnotes to some pretty bold statements is one of the frustrations of the English edition; the French version was better equipped, but it will be interesting to see how useful the 3rd edition was from this point of view.

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Canada to repeal thought-crime law?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Regular readers will be aware that I post, from time to time, on threats to freedom of speech online.  Over the last few years there has been a definite trend towards censorship in the west.  While incitement to violence has always been an offence, and quite properly too, a new series of offences have been created, usually under the guise of banning “hate speech”.

The term is Orwellian — who can forget the Ministry of Love from 1984?  A moment of critical thought tells us that the use of the term “hate” is merely designed to disarm opposition.  For in truth, what business is it of the government to regulate emotion?  And surely you have to hate people pretty badly to lock them up because you disagree with them?

The practical effect of these laws has been to permit and encourage denunciations of “wrong thinking”.  The laws are vaguely drafted.  What is, or is not allowed, depends on the climate of opinion in the establishment at the time.  Curse one group, and you are a freedom fighter; curse another, and the police will be at your door.

All this has allowed favoured groups to drag those who disagree with them through the courts, and so place themselves and their actions above criticism — a desirable place to be, if you have an agenda to change society for your own purposes.  It has created inquisitorial bodies — calling themselves “Equalities Commisions” or “Commissions for Human Rights” — and it has created professional informers, making money out of denunciations.

Worse still, just being denounced is a punishment.  Indeed “the process is the punishment”, as one victim found.  The threat of “investigation”, conducted at a leisurely pace over years, at state expense on behalf of the informer and the inquisitor, while the victim must pay lawyer’s bills, is enough to intimidate most people from risking it.

Little of this has made its way into the mainstream media, but it has nevertheless become a serious problem in Canada, and in the United Kingdom, and in other countries also.  There are people in prison in Britain today, for no greater offence than posting on Facebook something critical of another group of people.

So it is very good news to read on the blog written by Canadian publisher and broadcaster Ezra Levant that in Canada the evil is being rolled back.

No more witch hunts – Persecuted sure to win reprieve from ridiculous, costly hate laws

The entire law is a corruption of justice — it creates a kangaroo court, run by non-judges, that does not follow the same rules and procedures of real courts, but has massive powers to punish and fine people who aren’t politically correct.

But the worst part of the law is Section 13, the censorship provision. Section 13 creates a word crime — the crime of publishing or broadcasting anything that can cause hurt feelings.

So it even covers things like whatever you post to your Facebook page. Section 13 says “it is a discriminatory practice … to cause to be … communicated … any matter that is likely to expose a person … to hatred or contempt.”

So if you publish anything on Facebook, or on your cellphone voice message, that might make one person feel bad about another, you’ve just broken the law.

Truth is not a defence to being charged with “hate” under Section 13. Fair comment is not a defence. Religious belief is not a defence. Telling a joke is not a defence. The law has nothing to do with truth or the right to have an opinion. It’s about whether or not you’ve offended someone or hurt their feelings.

It’s no surprise that this law had a 100% conviction rate in Canada for the first three decades of its existence.

I found out about this the hard way. In February of 2006, I published a magazine called the Western Standard. We reported on the major news story that month — riots around the Muslim world purportedly in response to some pretty banal Danish newspaper cartoons of Mohammed. Those riots killed more than 200 people, and we wanted to show our readers what all the fuss was about. But a radical Muslim imam in Calgary named Syed Soharwardy complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

He said I violated his human right not to be offended. He wanted to ban the cartoons, and his hand-scrawled complaint even bitched about the fact that I dared to publicly defend my right to do so.

I laughed off that little nut-bar. I mean, get a life — you’re in Canada now, not Saudi Arabia. But to my surprise, the Alberta Human Rights Commission took his complaint and ran with it.

The Alberta government, using its provincial version of Section 13, prosecuted me for 900 days, with no fewer than 15 government bureaucrats and lawyers. It spent $500,000 prosecuting me, before dropping the case — and leaving me with my $100,000 legal bill. But sometimes freedom wins a round.

Last week, the federal justice minister, Rob Nicholson, stood up in the House of Commons and answered a question about Section 13.

The question was about a private member’s bill, put by Brian Storseth, an MP from northern Alberta. Storseth has introduced a private member’s bill, C-304, to repeal Section 13. But private member’s bills have little chance of passing without the endorsement of the government.

But Nicholson did endorse it. He called on all MPs to support it, too. Bill C-304, Storseth’s bill, is now effectively a government bill. And with a Tory majority in both the House and Senate, this bill is as good as done.

No more witch hunts by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. No more persecuting their political and religious enemies.

This is the best thing the Harper government has done in five years. Freedom is on the march.

Fortunately for him, Ezra Levant is a lawyer and a well-connected man.  The Canadian bureaucrats were accustomed to bullying poor, isolated pastors and the like.  So when the bureaucrats called him in and demanded to know what he was thinking when he published the “offending” article, he took them apart in an interview which was videoed and published online.  Their revenge — foolishly — was to subject him to three years of “investigation”.  His response was to expose them and lobby for their abolition.

Let us hope that this is indeed the beginning of the end of this evil.  Let us hope that the thought police are put out to grass.

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Finding Cumont’s “Textes et Monuments” online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been looking at another story about Mithras originating with Franz Cumont.  In the process, I find that the PDF’s I have of his master-work, Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra, 2 vols, 1899- are not that good where the pictures are concerned.

A Google Books search reveals nothing.  But I suspect this is the well-known problem that results returned are different, depending on whether you are in the US or in the Outer Darkness.

On Archive.org, there is only volume 2, in a copy with rather poor images — the one I already have.  Where I got the similarly poor volume 1 I don’t know.  Both look as if they came from the Microsoft-digitised books donated to Archive.org when they decided not to go down that route after all.

In Europeana a search for “Cumont” brings up various letters to Cumont, but none of his works.

In the end, by a circuitous route, I get these links to volumes scanned at the University of Michigan in 2010:

Volume 1: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Textes_et_monuments_figur%C3%A9s_relatifs_au.html?id=dYnXAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

Volume 2: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jUAKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PP5

Both are better than the images that I was trying to use on Saturday.

I’ve also been looking at his Les mystères de Mithra, whose English translation has been so fruitful in creating urban legends.  This book was a separate publication of the “conclusions” which appeared in volume 1 of Textes et Monuments.  This appeared in 1900.  But I wasn’t aware that Cumont revised this material several times.  A second edition appeared in 1902, which was translated into English by T. McCormack in 1903, and a third edition appeared in 1913.

2nd: http://books.google.com/books?id=O0LwEqKXgxsC

3rd: http://www.archive.org/details/lesmystresdemi00cumo

I suspect that consulting the various editions may prove profitable.

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How do we know that Mithras’ sidekicks were called “Cautes” and “Cautopates”?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Every temple of Mithras had a bas-relief at one end depicting Mithras killing the bull.  On either side stand two figures carrying torches, one with the flame pointing up, the other with it pointing down.  Every textbook refers to these as “Cautes” and “Cautopates”, although no literary text mentions either.

So how do we know that these were their names?  And which is which?

In Cumont’s Textes et Monumentes, vol. 1, p.207 we find the following statement about the torch-bearers or dadophores.  (The reader should bear in mind that in vol. 2, for some curious reason, Cumont gave the inscriptions first, with numerals; and then the monuments, with fresh numbers; and that a relief or statue with an inscription would be listed twice).

By a happy accident we know the barbarous names that the two dadophores bore in Mithraic ritual.  Two pairs of statues accompanied with inscriptions have recently come to light, and demonstrate that the being with the raised torch is named Cautes and the one with the lowered torch is named Cautopates.[5]  Elsewhere the statues themselves have not been preserved, but the pedestals on which they stood have survived, grouped in pairs, and on one is engraved the dedication Caute or Cauti and on the other Cautipati. [6]

The footnotes:

5) Monument 248 c, discovered in 1851, which bears the inscription D. I. M. Cautopati, was supposed at this period by Dieffenbach and by Ring to indicate that the dadophor with the lowered torch was called Cautopates, but that Cautes and Cautopates were synonymous.  New discoveries permit us to rectify this mistake.  Cautes and Cautopates are the two dadophores at Sarmizegetusa: mon. 140 (inscr. 259); at Heddernheim: mon. 253 i, 2, 4 (inscr. 441 b, c).

6) Aquileia: inscr. 165 a, b; Aquincum: mon. 213 d, inscr. 329, 330 — Similarly in the temple recently discovered at Pettau by Gurlitt, an altar has been brought to light with the dedication Cauti, another with Cautopati. — Were there two dedications to Caute at Heddernheim?  Cf. Lehner, Korrespondbl. Westd. Zeitsch., XVII, no. 89, p.129 — The complete list of inscriptions mentioning these deities is given in vol. 2, p. 533, col. a. — The only forms that are encountered are Caute or Cauti or Cautopati or Kautopati.  The dative Cauto and therefore the nominative Cautus does not exist (inscr. 165 a, note). — The abbreviation C. P. for Cautopati, does not prove that we should decompose this name into two words.  Rather it serves to distinguish it from Caute, for which the abbreviation is a simple C. (inscr. 371, 434).

That is a lot of material packed into a couple of lines and a couple of footnotes; but Cumont was a great man, which is why his work in some respects has yet to be superceded, 110 years later.  Let’s look at some of these references.

Sarmizegetusa

In vol. 2, p.283-4, under monument 140 we find these images of statues of the two figures, taken from the Mithraeum at Sarmizegetusa (see.p.280 f.) or Varhély (Gréditchjé) in Hungary in 1881-3.  Happily for us, they have inscriptions on the base.

These are described as follows:

Mithraic dadophores, in the usual costume and pose.  They carry in their right hands, one a lowered torch, the other a raised torch, but both are broken … in the left hand the first carries a scorpion, the second the head of a bull.  On the bases are inscriptions 259.

The inscriptions 259 can be found on p.135 of the same volume, where they are listed as CIL III 7922.

a) Cautopati sac(rum) | Synethus adiu[t(or)] | tabul(arii)  | v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito)

b) . . . . v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito)

That identifies “Cautopates” as the object of the votive offering on the first statue-altar.

Heddernheim

Monument 253 is in vol. 2, p.372, and covers the third Mithraeum found at Heddernheim, in 1887.  There is a mistake in Cumont’s note in vol. 1; it should be item j, not i, that is referenced.  This is the stela, carved on three sides.  Cumont gives fig. 298, 290 and 291, from photographs:

Inscription 441 is vol. 2, p.155-6, transcribing the above.  On the front:

D(eo) inv(icto) Mit(hrae) | Senilius Car|antinus | c(ivis) Mediom(atricus) | v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) l(aetus) m(erito) | Sive Cracissius.

Under a representation of Mithras born from a rock are the words:

Petram g[e]ne[t]ricem.

On the right-hand side, under the torchbearer holding a torch up:

Caute.

Under the person on an urn:

Oceanus.

On the left-hand side, under the torchbearer holding a torch pointing down:

Caut(o)p(ati).

Under the eagle on a sphere:

Celum.

That seems fairly final: we have the image, and a label underneath.

An afterthought: inscription 442, Friedberg, (mon. 248) reads “D(eo) I(nvicto) M(ithrae) | Cautopati” which would seem to suggest that Cautopates (and therefore Cautes also) was an aspect of Mithras himself.

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An inscription dedicated to “Sol Serapis”

Posted on by Roger Pearse

You can learn quite a lot from looking at non-English versions of Wikipedia.

For instance the German Mithras article is quite a bit superior to the English one in several respects, handling the Mithra-Mithras dichotomy well.  It lacks the heavy referencing that I added to the English one; but since all that work did not save the article from deliberate poisoning by a troll, it has to be asked whether it was a good idea anyway.

Looking around these articles, I am struck by the number of images of tauroctonies which are language-specific.  There were some quite useful images of various sorts.

But quite accidentally, I came across something else.  We’re all familiar with “Soli Invicto Mithrae” in inscriptions — “to the unconquered sun Mithras”.  But did anyone know that Serapis is also treated as a sun-god?  This image says so:

 

Apparently (for this is Wikipedia, remember — the encyclopedia edited by anybody) this is CIL XIII, 8246.  The text is:

SOLI SERAPI
CVM SVA CLINE
IN H(onorem) D(omus) D(ivinae)
DEXTRINIA IUSTA
L(uci) DEXTRINI IUSTI
FILIA AGGRIPP(inensis) D(ono) D(edit)

To Sol Serapis
And his  throne
In honour of the imperial house,
Dextrina Justa,
Daughter of L. Dextrinus Justus, from Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne), gives (this) as a gift.

It indicates how “sol” as a descriptive term has very little distinguishing power, between one deity and another.

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London Mithraeum to be reconstructed on original site

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A truly interesting article at Past Horizons:

Temple of Mithras to be restored to its original location.

Plans to dismantle and move the  reconstructed Roman Temple of Mithras to temporary storage, ahead of a more  faithful reconstruction, will begin on the 21 November 2011 by Museum of London Archaeology.

The temple, which is located at Walbrook Square, was discovered by chance in  1952 by archaeologist WF Grimes as the site was being prepared for  redevelopment.

On the final day of excavation – September 18th 1954 – the marble head  of  the god of Mithras was unearthed.  Several more amazing artefacts,  including  some sculptures, were later found – these are now on display  in the Museum of  London’s Roman gallery.

The temple was dismantled at that time and the Roman building material put  into storage.  In 1962 the temple was reconstructed on a podium adjacent to  Queen Victoria Street, 90 metres from its original site, nine metres above its  original level and set in modern cement mortar.

In December 2010, Bloomberg LP, purchased the Walbrook Square site to build  its new European headquarters building. Listed building consent was granted for  the dismantling of the current Temple of Mithras reconstruction and expert stone  masons have been commissioned by Bloomberg to carefully extract the Roman stone  and tile from the 1960s cement mortar. The temple is due to be carefully  packaged up and moved to storage for the second time.

Bloomberg LP will restore the temple to its original Roman location and in a  more historically accurate guise. Upon completion of Bloomberg’s new  development, the new reconstruction of the Temple of Mithras will be housed in a  purpose-built and publicly accessible interpretation space within their new  building.

There are two rather splendid pictures too — one of the original excavation, and the other is an aerial shot of the rather forlorn looking current site.

The Museum of London Archaeology site has the same article here.   The MOLA (terrible acronym, sets your teeth on edge) site is well designed and looks like a good one with which to keep abreast of excavations in London.

The Museum of London site is rather less good, largely aimed at school-children, although I did find this reasonably useful article on the Mithraeum here, and one showing some of the finds here.  (On the other hand a bad article on Mithras is here, mistakenly supposing  that Mithras was the same as Mithra).  There is an image of a Tauroctony from the site here.

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