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Just a quick note on a piece that I have found on Laudator Temporis Acti, Montaigne’s tower. It is always good to find a blog which is a scrapbook of fascinating stuff. After reading The foundation of all Greek scholarship, I found this, invoking the spirit of the French essayist Montaigne:
Geoffrey Grigson, Montaigne’s Tower:
Was it really here, in this tiled room
In this tower that Montaigne wrote?
I hope that it was so. Never was there
A place better for recalling, I would say —
For being benign and wise, for loving
In words. I see him back a chair
Across these tiles, and stand and stretch, and then
Descend this newel stair, and going
Slowly as if arthritically outside.
He looks down, with feeling he sees again
How exceedingly sweet is this meadowed
Small valley below and how half-reddening
Vines in such a light cast straight
Black bars of shadow in row after row.
Still busy with dull stuff, but I have been revising the Wikipedia article on Areimanios.
“Who he?” I hear you cry? Well Areimanios is the Greek name for Ahriman, the Persian evil spirit, used in descriptions of Zoroastrianism in Plutarch and the like.
Except … there’s more. There are some odd traces of a non-evil Areimanios. And there are five Latin inscriptions which seem to be all to a deity associated with Mithras, saying things like “To the god Arimanius in fulfilment of a vow”.
Some of the commentary I have read has said that it is fairly unlikely that anyone would set up altars to an evil god in their temples dedicated to good gods. But I’m not so sure about this, because, in a dualist world view, you might well say that both need to exist. We’ve all heard enough smelly hippies talking about “Yin and Yang, man”. Won’t a true dualist see both as a part of the world, necessary in their own way? Rather like having a toilet in the vestry, if you like?
I can see such a person making offerings and vows to the “dark side”, when in mortal danger — “let me off this time and I’ll give you a nice altar”?
We need to remember that we do not understand how ancient religion worked. We can only guess at much of it. I claim nothing for what I have just suggested — it is pure imagination — but we must avoid being too positive about what “must not” have happened.
On the other hand, maybe the critics are right. Maybe the name of Ahriman was transferred (in its Latin form) to a different deity, the lion-headed god found in Mithraea and usually anonymous. The name “Areimanios” appears (I am told) on the foot of one such statue, although that interpretation relies on expanding abbreviations and might be a personal name of a donor, not of the god.
If so, then perhaps there is a pattern. Roman Mithras, born from a rock and killing the bull, is not really at all like Persian Mithra, although they share the same name. Rather someone took the name of the Persian god and applied it to their “export version” religion, rather like the Hari Krishna’s did for Krishna. Did that same someone take the nice, authentic Persian “Areimanios” and apply it to their own made-up lion-headed god too? Is that how the cult was created?
I happened to see this claim in an online puff for the curious theories of Acharya S:
The salvific death and resurrection at Easter of the god, the initiation as remover of sin, and the notion of becoming “born again,” are all ages-old Pagan motifs or mysteries rehashed in the later Christianity. The all-important death-and-resurrection motif is exemplified in the “Parisian magical papyrus,” a Pagan text ostensibly unaffected by Christianity:
“Lord, being born again I perish in that I am being exalted, and having been exalted I die; from a life-giving birth being born into death I was thus freed and go the way which Thou has founded, as Thou hast ordained and hast made the mystery.”
This followed remarks about Easter being celebrated in pagan Mexico (!).
It is a golden rule, when dealing with supposed quotations in twaddle, always to verify those quotations. A look in Google books shows that these two paragraphs are quoted verbatim from Acharya S, Suns of god, 2004, p.503. A reference ’18’ is given, but unfortunately the preview does not include the references.
A quick search in Betz, The Greek Magical papyri in translation, reveals no matches for “born again”. Hmm.
Searching for the words reveals a possible source: the “Pagan Background of Early Christianity”, p.244 by W. R. Halliday (London, 1925: not a headbanger source) might be the source. I’ve not been able to find this book online, tho. But in a Google books preview it seems to refer to Dieterich’s publication of the so-called “Mithras liturgy”, so the words should be at the end of this. But I can find nothing relevant in Meyer’s translation here.
UPDATE: It is indeed in Meyer:
O Lord, while being born again, I am passing away; while growing and having grown, I am dying; while being born from a life-generating birth, I am passing on, released to death– as you have founded, as you have decreed, and have established the mystery…
I’m looking at Preisendanz’ edition of the Greek magical papyri. I thought some notes on one of them, PGM IV, also known as the great magical book, or the great spell-book, might be useful. This is the codex that contains the so-called Mithras liturgy — in reality merely a spell-ritual.
The so-called “great Paris magical papyrus”, Bibl. nat. suppl. gr. 574. A papyrus book of 36 leaves, written on both sides. Foll. 1r, 3v, 16 and 36r are blank, described in the auction “Catalogue d’une collection d’antiquites egyptiennes par M. Francois Lenormant (Paris, Moulde et Renou 1857) Pap. IV” under No. 1073 as “manuscrit sur feuilles de papyrus pliees en livre, formant 33 feuillets ecrits de deux cotes.” The auction catalogue number is still written on fol. 1r, together with the Anastasi number 1073.
The manufacturer of the book had 18 double sheets, which he folded in order to make the book. The small Coptic item on page 1 may be a later addition. [The sheets have become disarranged]. The leaves vary in size between 30.5cm and 27cm high, 13 and 9.5cm wide. Margins have been left on all sides.
C. Wessely suggests that the copyist wrote during the fourth century AD, and more towards 300 than 400 AD, when the technology to make such papyrus codices was available. See also Wiener Studien 8, 1886, p.189, which suggests the period of Tertullian, an origin of Upper Egypt, in Herakleopolis. Dieterich felt the time of Diocletian was the terminus ante quem, and that the “liturgy” must belong to the period when Mithras was most in vogue. Adolf Deissmann in Light from the ancient East 217-225 placed the composition of lines 2993-3086 before the fall of Jerusalem and the reference to the emperor in 2448 as referring to Hadrian.
E. Miller published some portions of the hymns: Melanges de Litterature grecque (1868),437-458.
It would be nice to know more up-to-date information on this subject.
The revised cover design now seems OK to me. I’ve asked Ben, who is doing the revising, to make sure it’s exported to PDF precisely as Lightning Source want. Once that’s done, I’ll reupload, order a new proof, and … hopefully … we can go to print.
The process has been delayed by a fortnight because I was starting a new job, and then starting a house purchase. Neither will be of importance in the long run. But of such delays and difficulties is the stuff of life made.
On a different note, I am hoping to have John the Lydian’s chapter on the month of March from On the Roman Months book IV available and online in English soon.
In my post yesterday I discussed an online quotation from Eusebius in an anti-Christian diatribe:
#300
#Noted Catholic Bishops declare science to be of no interest to Christians
The attitude of most of the Church Fathers towards science, however, was one of indifference or hostility. Bishop Eusebius, the noted historian of the early Christian Church, says of scientists: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things“. Basil of Caesarea declares it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave like a fan”. Lactantius calls the study of astronomy “bad and senseless”. Like many other churchmen, he combats the pagan Greek notion that the earth is round and argues on scriptual grounds that it must be flat.
The Eusebius I traced back to an article in Popular Science, Vol. 8, No. 25, Feb. 1876. Pp.385-409, by Andrew D. White, and it turns out to be from the Praeparatio Evangelica book 15, chapter 1. It has, of course, no relation to science at all, but rather to the endless noodlings on all sorts of subjects of the sophists.
This morning I decided to search for the Basil quotation. And immediately I turned up another article in Popular Science! It turns out to be a revised version of the earlier article, by the same Andrew D. White, now an “ex-president of Cornell university”. On p.447-8 of the August 1892 issue, we find the following:
But as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth’s sphericity. The Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them. These ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these germs began struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe.+
The footnote fails to note who these “few thinking men” of the first to fourth centuries might be, however. The footnote is worth giving, as indicating the real sources that White had at his disposal:
+ The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of the earth’s sphericity is generally acknowledged, but the first clear and full utterance of it to the world was by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too, was the statement of the new theory given by Plato in the Timaeus; see Jowett’s translation, New York edition, 62, c. Also Phaedo, pp. 449 et seq. See also Grote on Plato’s doctrine of the sphericity of the earth; also Sir G. C. Lewis’s Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1802, chap, iii, section i, and note. Cicero’s mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the passage in the Timaeus are even more remarkable than the original, in that they much more clearly foreshadow the modern doctrine. See his Academic Questions, ii; also Tusc. Quest., i and v, 24. For a very full summary of the views of the ancients on the sphericity of the earth, see Kretchmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, Wien, 1880, pp. 85 et seq.; also, Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For citations and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and St. Martin, Hist. de la Geog., Paris, 1873, p. 96; also, Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, Firenze, 1851, chapter xii, pp. 184 et seq.
I think we may suppose that White did not consult much of this. But on he goes:
A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of them took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture. Among the first who took up arms against it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament texts indicating the immediately approaching end of the world, he endeavored to turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies into contempt. Speaking of investigators, he said, “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things.” Basil of Cassarea declared it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave in the middle like a fan.” Lactantius referred to the ideas of those studying astronomy as ” bad and senseless,” and opposed the doctrine of the earth’s sphericity both from Scripture and reason. St. John Chrysostom also exerted his influence against this scientific belief; and Ephrem Syrus, the greatest man of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the “lute of the Holy Ghost,” opposed it no less earnestly.
But the strictly Biblical men of science, such eminent fathers and bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, Clement of Alexandria in the third, and others in centuries following, were not content with, merely opposing what they stigmatized as an old heathen theory; they drew from their Bibles a new Christian theory…*
* For Eusebius, see the Praep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see the Hexameron, Hom, ix, cited in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 96, note. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div., lib. iii, cap. 3; also, citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, London, 1867, vol. i, p. 194, and in St Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217. For the views of St John Chrysostom Eph. Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap. i.
It’s worth remembering that the Praeparatio Evangelica did not exist in English at this date, and I suspect that it is a safe bet that all the sources referenced are being quoted at second hand. The error in the reference (xv, 61 instead of xv, 1) is preserved here, for instance. Indeed White does not conceal that his knowledge of Basil is second hand.
We are not concerned with White’s foolish and slightly unpleasant attempt to demonise the better element among his contemporaries by proving that their coreligionists of 18 centuries earlier did not happen to have attended Cornell University, and — worse! — did not share the shibboleths of the late 19th century, views which White himself held only because he lived when he did.
But it would be most interesting to see what Basil actually said. Fortunately these homilies are online in the NPNF series 2. Homily 9 begins as follows:
1. How did you like the fare of my morning’s discourse? It seemed to me that I had the good intentions of a poor giver of a feast, who, ambitious of having the credit of keeping a good table saddens his guests by the poor supply of the more expensive dishes. In vain he lavishly covers his table with his mean fare; his ambition only shows his folly. It is for you to judge if I have shared the same fate. Yet, whatever my discourse may have been, take care lest you disregard it. No one refused to sit at the table of Elisha; and yet he only gave his friends wild vegetables.
I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to snake them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth. If it be spherical or cylindrical, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the forth of a winnowing basket and is hollow in the middle; all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes; he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself whilst the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us.
Shall I then prefer foolish wisdom to the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Shall I not rather exalt Him who, not wishing to fill our minds with these vanities, has regulated all the economy of Scripture in view of the edification and the making perfect of our souls? It is this which those seem to me not to have understood, who, giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture. It is to believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and to bring forth their own ideas under a pretext of exegesis. Let us hear Scripture as it has been written.
Does Basil attack science? It seems not: surely he is attacking the allegorical interpretation of scripture?
Is he attacking scientists, having viewed and rejected the science of late 19th century America, or so White suggests, doubtless by time-machine? Again, the answer is no: he writes against contemporary Christians who get tangled up in the speculations of the philosophers, rather than concentrating on what the bible has to say.
It is, in fact, the words of a preacher, declining to involve himself with issues other than the text before him. And surely that is a praiseworthy habit, rather than the reverse?
Browsing a usenet forum today, I came across a vitriolic post attacking the Christians by quoting all the ancient Christian authors who did not happen to hold the same views of science as those living nearly a score of centuries later. For some reason the poster did not include the ancient non-Christian authors in his survey. Nor, of course, did he provide references for any of his “quotations”. Instead he was repeating an usenet post from sci.physics from May 10, 1993, by a certain Gregory Aharonian, who wrote as follows:
Recently Will Brandt at Caltech posted a very excellent timetable of significant historical events in the field of science. Given that science is a much a search for the new as a fight against the old (or at least that’s my opinion), I thought I would post a list of historical events where religion did something against science or unscientific. There is no particular significance to the events I have included, other than I came across them while researching various things. Incidents touch on physics, mathematics, engineering, medicine and computers.
After a quantity of stuff, arranged by date, there is this:
#300
#Noted Catholic Bishops declare science to be of no interest to Christians
The attitude of most of the Church Fathers towards science, however, was one of indifference or hostility. Bishop Eusebius, the noted historian of the early Christian Church, says of scientists: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things“. Basil of Caesarea declares it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave like a fan”. Lactantius calls the study of astronomy “bad and senseless”. Like many other churchmen, he combats the pagan Greek notion that the earth is round and argues on scriptual grounds that it must be flat.
It is always a good idea to verify such things. First, for the Eusebius quotation, I did a google search for “the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless”. This indicated that the text was widely used on a certain kind of website, such as this one.
But far more usefully, it led me to an article in Popular Science, Vol. 8, No. 25, Feb. 1876. Pp.385-409 (and “to be continued”!) contain an article entitled The Warfare of Science, and written by a certain Andrew D. White, stated to be “President of Cornell University”. On page 387 appears something very like our material.
But we must start on page 386 to see the context:
Among the legacies the thought left by the ancient world to the modern, were certain ideas of the rotundity of the earth. These ideas were vague; they were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and, after the barbarian storm which ushered in the modern world had begun to clear away, these germ ideas began to bud and bloom in the minds of a few thinking men, and these men hazarded the suggestion that the earth is round — is a globe. [1]
The greatest and most earnest men of the time took fright at once. To them, the idea of the earth’s rotundity seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture: by which, of course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture.
Among the first who took up arms against the new thinkers was Eusebius. He endeavored to turn off these ideas by bringing science into contempt. He endeavored to make the innovators understand that he and the fathers of the Church despised all such inquiries. Speaking of the innovations in physical science, he said: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things.”[1]
The first footnote refers to Plato and the Timaeus; and also to Cicero’s works. The second footnote may be given in full.
1. See Eusebius, “Praep. Ev.,” xv., 61.
There is a certain confusion in Dr White’s eloquent paragraphs, for he seems to suppose that Eusebius lived, not in ancient times, but in the Middle Ages; and in days when society was entirely Christian, rather than in the days of the persecution of Diocletian. But doubtless this is merely an accident.
But what does Eusebius say?
Well, in the days when I was scanning large quantities of literature, one of the items I scanned was the only English translation of the Praeparatio Evangelica. This is a large and scholarly work, stuffed to the gills with word-for-word extracts of Greek philosophy. Book 15 may be found here.
The book consists of listing the opinions of a whole range of Greek philosophers on a wide range of subjects, and thereby showing that they cannot be used as an authority, since they disagree violently among themselves on all of them. The quotations run to some 50 chapters, and are too long to reproduce here. Let us merely give the last section, from chapters 59-61 (I have abbreviated the chapter titles, which may not be authorial anyway):
So much, then, concerning the Sea.
But as to those who professed to give physiological explanations about the whole world, and things celestial and ethereal, and the conception of the universe, how little they knew even of their own nature, you may learn from their discordant utterances on these points also, as follows.
LX —- OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.
PYTHAGORAS, Plato: in the first analysis the Soul has two parts; for it has one part rational and another irrational. But in close and exact consideration, its parts are three: for they distinguish the irrational into the irascible and the appetitive.
‘The Stoics: it is composed of eight parts; five senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch; and a sixth, speech; a seventh, generation; and an eighth, the actual ruling principle, from which proceeds the extension of all these through their proper organs, in a similar manner to the tentacles of the polypus.
‘Democritus, Epicurus: the Soul consists of two parts, its rational faculty being settled in the breast, and the irrational diffused over the whole complexity of the body.
‘But Democritus thought that all things, even dead bodies, naturally partake of a certain kind of soul, because in an obscure way they have some warmth and sensation, though the greater part is dissipated.’
LXI. ‘PLATO, Democritus: it is in the head as a whole.
‘Straton: between the eyebrows.
‘Erasistratus: about the membrane of the brain, which he calls the epicranis.
‘Herophilus: in the cavity of the brain, which is also its base.
‘Parmenides: in the breast as a whole.
‘Epicurus, and all the Stoics: in the heart as a whole.
‘Diogenes: in the arterial cavity of the heart, which is full of breath.
‘Empedocles in the composition of the blood.
‘Others in the membrane of the pericardium: and others in the diaphragm. Some of the more recent philosophers say that it reaches through from the head to the diaphragm.
‘Pythagoras: the vital power is around the heart; but the rational , and intelligent faculty in the region of the head.’
So far, then, as to their opinions on these matters.
Eusebius then draws the natural conclusion. For if these men are authorities, what use is their authority to anyone?
Do you not think therefore that with judgement and reason we have justly kept aloof from the unprofitable and erroneous and vain labour of them all, and do not busy ourselves at all about the said subjects (for we do not see the utility of them, nor any tendency to benefit and gain good for mankind), but cling solely to piety towards God the creator of all things, and by a life of temperance, and all godly behaviour according to virtue, strive to live in a manner pleasing to Him who is God over all?
But if even you from malice and envy hesitate to admit our true testimony, you shall be again anticipated by Socrates, the wisest of all Greeks, who has truthfully declared his votes in our favour. Those meteorological babblers, for instance, he used to expose in their folly, and say that they were no better than madmen, expressly convicting them not merely of striving after things unattainable, but also of wasting time about things useless and unprofitable to man’s life. And this shall be testified to you by our former witness Xenophon, one of the best-known of the companions of Socrates, who writes as follows in his Memorabilia:
LXII. [XENOPHON] ‘No one ever yet saw Socrates do or heard him say anything impious or unholy. For he did not discourse about the nature of the universe or the other subjects, like most of them, speculating upon the condition of the cosmos, as the Sophists call it, and by what forces of necessity the celestial phenomena severally are produced: rather he used to expose the foolishness of those who troubled themselves about such things.
…
‘Such, then, was the nature of his remarks about those who busied themselves with these matters: but he himself was always discoursing of human interests, inquiring what was, pious, what impious; what noble, what base; what just, what unjust; what sanity, what madness.’
These, then, were the opinions of Socrates. And next after him Aristippus of Cyrene, and then later Ariston of Chios, undertook to maintain that morals were the only proper subject of philosophy; for these inquiries were practicable and useful, but the discussions about nature were quite the contrary, neither being comprehensible, nor having any use, even if they were clearly understood.
For it would be no advantage to us, not even if soaring higher in the air than Perseus,
‘O’er ocean’s wave, and o’er the Pleiades,’
we could with our very eyes survey the whole world, and the nature of all ‘beings,’ of whatever kind that is.
For we certainly shall not be on that account wiser, or more just or brave or temperate, nay, not even strong, or beautiful, or rich, without which advantages happiness is impossible.
Such are the remarks of Eusebius.
Is this an attack, in desperate fear of novelty, on the idea that the world is round? It is not. The subject is remote from the author’s mind. He is concerned with one thing, and one only; to prepare men to hear the gospel, to point out that the teachings of the Jews are of no value, and those of the Greeks also except insofar as they point men to the need for moral improvement.
It is meaningless to complain that Eusebius attacks “science”. In his day nothing of the kind existed. Our own modern systems were unknown to him, and equally unknown to those he attacked. He attacked, rather, the Greek philosophers, or rather Sophists, the peddlers of ideas to those willing to pay to be entertained thereby.
We remember Pythagoras for his theorems. But in the ancient world he was just another teacher, with a set of invented ideas and rituals, such as not eating beans.
But to return to Dr. White: are his words found here? There are not. Rather they are found in chapter 1 of book 15:
As we have been deferring up to the present time our final discourse hereon, which is the fifteenth Book of the treatise in hand, we will now make up what is lacking to the discussions which we have travelled through, by still further dragging into light the solemn doctrines of the fine philosophy of the Greeks, and laying bare before the eyes of all the useless learning therein. And before all things we shall show that not from ignorance of the things which they admire, but from contempt of the unprofitable study therein we have cared very little for them, and devoted our own souls to the practice of things far better.
I suspect that Eusebius would have been amused by A. D. White. For after all, Eusebius has already answered White’s objection by quoting Socrates. It is not an attack on the value of science to point out the futility of empty speculation. It is not an attack on learning and reason to follow the path of moral self-improvement advocated by all the best philosophers of antiquity, and the moralists of every age and country. Only a man of White’s limited sympathies could suppose it.
As for the modern poster with whom we started, we may feel confident that he had never read a line of Eusebius, nor verified whether what he said was true. Eusebius was not discussing “scientists”, nor science.
When I read the epigrams of Martial or the satires of Juvenal, what strikes me more than anything else is the sheer discomfort of living in ancient Rome. Martial himself had no running water laid on at his home. Juvenal describes the risk of a poor man on his way home being crushed in the mass of people, making their way through the streets, and how his slaves — everyone has slaves, it seems — await him in vain while he sits shivering on the banks of the Styx, without a copper to pay the ferryman.
The abuse of those enslaved is endless, as Martial makes plain, yet, as in a modern office, the human element breaks through. Some “owners” are in fact under the thumb of their slaves; others again refuse to allow their slaves even to sleep at night.
At the other extreme, we read the letters of the younger Pliny, of a life of retirement in one of a number of rural farms, interspersed with a public career. Even Martial, who wears a bad cloak, acquires a farm of some kind from a benefactor.
None of us, I suppose, would truly choose to live in ancient Rome. And yet … the fascination with it is endless.
An email this evening asks where the Greek text of the Greek Magical Papyri might be found. The wikipedia article tells me that Karl Preisendanz published them between 1928-31, and that a revised edition came out in the 70’s.
Interestingly someone has placed the first edition online here. I wonder whether they are indeed out of copyright?