From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Aulus Gellius arrived today.  The most interesting thing so far is that, like Pliny the Elder, he has a collection of all the chapter titles at the end of the preface and before book 1.  This is useful, because book 8 did not reach us.  But we know what it contained, because the “capita” are listed.

I’ve been writing emails about the Armenian version of Michael the Syrian a lot today, and with luck the forthcoming English translation (by Matti Moosa) of the Syriac text of Michael the Syrian will be enriched thereby. 

The commission to translate Porphyry Ad Gaurum has fallen through — looks as if there was a misunderstanding.  Another time, no doubt.

Share

Armenian versions of Michael the Syrian

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The massive world chronicle of Michael the Syrian, composed during the crusader period, survives in a single manuscript in a box in Aleppo.  The box has two locks, each held by a senior figure in two different churches.  Access is difficult.

Making things worse is that J.-B. Chabot in the early 20th century somehow got access, and somehow surreptiously made a copy.  Quite how you can surreptiously make a copy of something the size of two telephone directories I don’t know, but he did.  He published it with French translation — we may all be grateful for this, since many Syriac books were destroyed in WW1 — but the owners still remember, and are still angry with him.

The opening portion of the chronicle is lost.  But an Armenian version preserves the preface, which Langlois’ edition of 1868 (French only) makes available online.

Few people seem to know much about the Armenian versions of Michael the Syrian.  But from Michael E. Stone, The Armenian texts of Epiphanius of Salamis De mensuris et ponderibus, CSCO 583, Subsidia 105 (2000) — an excellent text, fromwhat little I can see in the preview — on p.25, I learn this:

Vardan Arewelc’i translated Michael’s Chronicle into Armenian in the year 1246, with the assistance of the Syrian priest Ishox and at the request of the Armenian Catholicos Constantine.  See N. Bogharian, Armenian Writers, 296.

He also refers to an article by F. Haase, Die armenischen Rezensionen des syrischen Chronik Michael des Grossen, Oriens Christianus NS 5 (1915), 60-82, 211-284.  That ought to be online somewhere!  Apparently this indicates that more than one version exists or existed.  He also indicates that material from Moses of Chorene contaminates the translation of Vardan Arewelc’i.

 Another link indicates another article: Andrea Schmidt, Die zweifache armenische Rezension der syrischen Chronik Michaels des Grossen, Le Museon 109 (1996), p.299-319.  This seems to be inaccessible to proles like you and I, but searching around the web reveals that this has been mentioned to me before here in a useful set of comments.  Andrea Schmidt has a home page here, with a long bibliography.  I do wish that some of it was online.

I also find D. Weltecke’s article in English on the chronicle here in PDF form.  This useful introduction tells me that there are two versions, published in Jerusalem in 1870 and 1871 (but not what the titles etc are).  A book in German by Dorothea Weltecke, Die “Beschreibung der Zeiten” von Mōr Michael dem Grossen (1126-1199) is online in preview here, where on p.7 we read more about the history of these versions, and a review of previous research.

So … a rather inconclusive result.  I’ve gained a little impression of the subject, but not much.  I was hoping to locate an Armenian text online, although not with much hope.

Share

Galen’s preface to Hippocrates “On the workshop/laboratory of a doctor” in English

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Andrew Eastbourne has come through, and a .doc file of this text (De officina medici) arrived today and can be downloaded from here: Galen_-_Preface.   I have also uploaded it to the Fathers site here.  I’m placing this in the public domain — do whatever you like with it (except stick your own copyright notice on it!)

It is most interesting as a guide to the transmission of texts in ancient times, so I will do my best to post it here.

He entitled a medical [work], “Pertaining to the Surgery” (κατ’ ἰητρεῖον).[1]  But it would have been better for it to be entitled, “On the Things Pertaining to the Surgery” (περὶ τῶν κατ’ ἰητρεῖον), as some give the title for the [works] of Diocles, Philotimus, and Mantius.  For while these men wrote on the same subject, in each book, in the greatest number [of copies] the title lacks the preposition (περί) and the article (τῶν)—they are entitled, simply, “Pertaining to the Surgery”—in a few [copies], however, [it is given] with the preposition and the article:  “On the Things Pertaining to the Surgery.”  But whereas these men’s books give quite copious theoretical instruction, Hippocrates’ [book], after the catalogue of the things that are the components of surgery overall, gives a full explanation of bandaging, since the man considered it proper to practice this first.  And indeed, the practice of this can be pursued most especially with pieces of wood sculpted into human form, or if [this is] not [possible], on the bodies of children at least.

This much the book itself required me to say, before my interpretations of individual points; now, however, I will go through what is not required by the book, but by those who, in copying [2] them, readily received the writings of the ancients in whatever [form] they themselves wished.[3]  For some eagerly attempted to find 300-year-old copies of even very old books,[4] preserving some in papyrus scrolls, others on sheets of papyrus, others on parchment, like the [texts] that are with us in Pergamum.[5]

Therefore, I decided to examine all these things in the [commentaries of the] earliest interpreters, so that on the basis of the majority and the most trustworthy I might discover the authentic writings.  And the result turned out to surpass my expectations.  For I discovered that they nearly all agreed with each other—the treatises and the commentaries of the interpreters—such that I was struck with bewilderment at the audacity of those who have recently written commentaries or have made their own edition of all the books of Hippocrates, among whom are Dioscorides and his associates, and Artemidorus, called Capito, and his associates,[6] who made many innovations in the ancient writings.

It seemed to me that the account of the commentaries would be [too] long, if I mentioned all the writings, and so I imagined that it was better to write [about] the older ones only, adding to them some few others—those that show but little alteration—and of these, primarily those which have been acknowledged by the earlier commentators on the book.  There are four of them:  two, who wrote commentaries on all the books of Hippocrates—Zeuxis and Heraclides; and then Bacchius and Asclepiades, [whose comments], not on all [the books of Hippocrates, are] hard to understand.[7]

And now, enough of these matters.  By way of recovering the pleasure of a clearer exordium, I will speak briefly, as though I had not said anything already.  Hippocrates’ book, entitled “Pertaining to the Surgery,” contains at the outset a preamble to the whole art [of medicine], as I shall demonstrate a little later, and for this reason some have reasonably considered it proper to read it first of all, promising lessons very similar to what some later gave in the works they entitled “Introductions.”  And next in sequence after the common preamble, he teaches (regarding what can be effected in the surgery) the most useful things for those who are beginning to learn the medical art.  It will become plain to you that [all] this is the case as you apply your mind carefully to the explanations of the expressions themselves. 

From: Claudii Galeni Opera Omnia, tom. XVIII pars II, ed. D. Carolus Gottlob Kühn, Lipsiae (1830), p. 629-632. Title: ΤΟ ΙΠΠΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ ΚΑΤ̕ΙΗΤΡΕΙΟΝ ΒΙΒΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΓΑΛΗΝΟΥ ΕΙΣ ΑΥΤΟ ΥΠΟΜΝΗΜΑ Α.  The title of the Latin translation is:  Hippocratis De Medici Officina liber et Galeni in eum Commentarius I; Galeni praefatio. [Note by R.P.]
[1] “Surgery” here appears to refer to the physical set-up for a doctor’s operations, not the practice of surgery to which the English term most frequently refers.
[2] The Greek term, μεταγράφοντες, carries the implication that they changed them in the process of copying.
[3] Here Birt, Das antike Buchwesen, p. 503, suggests emending the odd ἢ (“or” [?]) to οἳ, yielding the following meaning for the sentence:  “…but by the copyists, who readily took…”
[4] In the Greek, it is the copying rather than the composition that is explicitly described as “300-years old,” since the participle γεγραμμένα—lit., “having been written”—is in the accusative case, whereas the books are in the genitive.
[5] Kuhn’s text (τὰδὲἐνδιαφόροιςφιλύραις, ὥσπερτὰπαρ’ ἡμῖνἐνΠεργάμῳ:  “others on various / excellent [sheets of paper made from] the under-bark of the lime tree, like the texts that are with us in Pergamum”) is problematic.  Although this under-bark is attested as being used for writing (Herodian 1.17.1; Cassius Dio 72.8.4), it has no connection with Pergamum.  Birt, Das antike Buchwesen, p. 503, cites Cobet’s emendation (ἐνδιφθέραις) with approval—I have adopted it here; Birt also mentions Marquardt’s suggestion (ἐνδιφθερίναιςφιλύραις:  “on [sheets of] parchment ‘bark'”).
[6] The phrasing here—”Dioscorides and his associates” (Gk. οἱπερὶΔιοσκορίδην)—is frequently used in Greek as a circumlocution for the simple “Dioscorides.”
[7] Gk. δυσλόγιστα; this can mean, literally, “hard to calculate” or “bad at calculating” and hence, either obscurity or shoddy commentating is the point.  

 

UPDATE: Andrew Eastbourne writes to remind me that “duties” of a doctor would be “officiis”, and to say that “officina” is workshop/laboratory.

Share

Notes on the Laus Pisonis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

My copy of Texts and Transmissions is still lying beside my computer with a bookmark at the page on the manuscripts of Juvenal.  But over the page is a short entry on a Latin text previously unknown to me.  This is an anonymous Latin panegyric known as the Laus Pisonis (Praise of Piso).  Fortunately I find the text and a translation already present at Bill Thayer’s site, Lacus Curtius, here.

The work survived to the renaissance in a single manuscript, which in 1527 was found at the South German abbey of Lorsch.  The text was published by Johannes Sichard in that year at Basle (by Froben?), which is fortunate for the Lorsch codex has since disappeared.  Lorsch was founded in the middle of the Dark Ages, and was sacked, like the other abbeys of Southern Germany, during the Thirty Years War.  The manuscripts of Lorsch, such as survived, were taken to Heidelberg.  The collection of manuscripts at Heidelberg ended up in the Vatican collection, as the “Palatine” manuscripts.  But like the two volume Tertullian, listed in a medieval catalogue, the collection of minor Latin poets which contained the Laus Pisonis did not make it. 

Anyone wishing to edit the text is therefore dependent upon the fidelity of Schard’s edition.  This is not an enviable fate.  Even so good an editor as Beatus Rhenanus, who printed the editio princeps of Tertullian at Basle in 1521, was quite willing to simply mark up the manuscript for the printer and send it to the monkeys of the press to be typeset in the new moveable type.   Quite a number of errors could creep in, from such a hands-off policy.  Rhenanus did just this, in 1520, with the only manuscript of Velleius Paterculus (since lost).  But in that case, once sample sheets had been printed, errors were noticed — and one of Rhenanus’ associates recalled the manuscript from the printer, and collated it against the print.  The collation was then itself added to the edition.

The process also led to the loss of manuscripts.  A careless editor might well feel that the parchment manuscript, by now considerably defaced, was of no further interest, now that he had a nice new clean copy.  It is a lamentable fact that quite a few unique manuscripts survived the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages, only to be chopped up for parchment once printed.  However we happen to know that the manuscript of Velleius survived this treatment and existed as late as the 18th century.  Similarly the manuscripts of Tertullian used by Rhenanus did not perish at that point; one, indeed, survives today among Rhenanus’ papers in the little town of Selestat in Alsace.  But we can only speculate whether the only manuscript of the Laus Pisonis perished in 1527, cut up to line baking dishes, or suffered some other fate somewhat later.

Fortunately a second source is available, in the form of a 12th century anthology of texts, the Florilegium Gallicum.  This contains 75% of the Laus Pisonis, and so can be used to correct the text.

The poem itself praises a young Calpurnius Piso, one of a number of that name.   The references to Maecenas suggest a date in the mid- to late-first century.

Share

A thought on the end of Juvenal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The 16th and last satire breaks off mid-flow.  The ending is lost, therefore, or perhaps was not written.

Ancient books were written on rolls.  One modern author theorized that the end of a text ought to be safer than the start, because it should be inside the rolled up scroll.  He seems to think that a roll would normally be stored ready to read.

But it seems to me, in my ignorance, that the reverse is the case.  The average ancient reader would get to the end of his reading, and find his roll almost fully rolled-up.   It is possible, of course, that some readers would then unwind the whole roll and roll it back up the correct way.  But human nature being what it is, surely most of the time the reader will just pop the roll back in its cylindrical case.  A reader who takes up a roll to read and finds it is back-to-front has an incentive to rewind it.  A reader who wants his lunch has none.

I suggest, therefore, that as a rule most rolls were stored with the end hanging out.  This would explain quite simply why so many ancient texts are mutilated at the end, without requirement for the hypothesis that they were written in codex form.

Share

The manuscripts of Juvenal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

L. D. Reynolds, Texts and Transmissions: A survey of the Latin classics, Oxford 1983, is the first port of call for any enquiry into the transmission of any of the Latin classics.  On p.200-3 is the article by R. J. Tarrant on Juvenal.

Juvenal went through a period of obscurity after his own times.  Not cited by Donatus, or Jerome, he is referenced more than 70 times in the commentaries on Virgil by Servius.  Some of the manuscripts include subscriptions which suggest Servius may have been connected to their rediscovery: ms. K, for instance, contains Lego ego Niceus apud M. Serbium Romae et emendavi — I, Nicaeus, read this at the house of M. Servius in Rome and corrected it, and ms. L a version of the same.

More than 500 manuscripts later than the 9th century exist.  Unfortunately, by the 4th century, a considerable number of spurious lines  had already found their way into many copies of the text.  Difficult language was sometimes replaced by simpler expressions.  The vast majority of the medieval manuscripts derive from such corrupted copies.

As a rule we tend to find that medieval manuscripts go back to a single Dark Ages exemplar, or perhaps a few.  In the case of Juvenal, however, we can clearly see that two ancient families of manuscripts both gave rise to medieval children.  For in addition to the majority, we have a few manuscripts which preserve a more correct and less interpolated text, although the text itself is often rather more corrupt than in the interpolated copies.

The better mss. are:

  • P:   Montpellier H 125, first quarter of the 9th century, from Lorsch (online here).  Once owned by Pierre Pithou, who used it for his edition of 1585.  The Pithoeanus is the best and most important manuscript of Juvenal.  It also contains Persius.
  • Arou.:  Aarau, Stadtarchiv I, Nr. 0. The fragmenta Arouiensia.  These are five leaves from a destroyed manuscript of the 10th century, written in Germany, and broken up to use in bindings.  They are now in the Stadtarchiv in Aarau  (website here) An enquiry by email to them got the reply: “Das Juvenal-Fragment befindet sich im Stadtarchiv Aarau, I Nr. 0, vgl.: Katalog der mittelalterlichen Handschriften des Klosters Wettingen ; Katalog der mittelalterlichen Handschriften in Aarau, Laufenburg, Lenzburg, Rheinfelden und Zofingen, S. 195f.”.  It also contains scholia, which are important for several reasons.  Firstly each scholion is introduced by a quotation of a few words from the text.  These headwords or lemmata are themselves valuable for the authentic text.  Secondly the scholion itself sometimes reflects a different version of those same words, showing that the two were put together at different times.
  • Sang.:  St. Gall ms. 870, second quarter of the 9th century.  This is a florilegium — an anthology — which contains 280 lines of Juvenal.  Pp.40-326 contain the ancient scholia.
  • R:  Paris latin. 8072, from the end of the 10th century, probably French, containing long sections of the text.
  • V:  Vienna 107, end of the 9th century, containing book 1, line 1 – book 2, l.59 and book 3.107-5.96.

P, Arou. and Sang. are very closely related.  The first two are almost identical, with the text even laid out in the same manner on the page.  R and V are less reliable, and V has been much influenced by the other family.

The remaining manuscripts — hundreds of them — are hard to classify.  No stemma can be constructed because cross-contamination is so general, and even geographical groupings are pretty blurred.  This will not surprise any manuscript enthusiast.  For heavy lumps of wood and parchment, manuscripts travel about just as much as rock groups on tour, or so it seems sometimes.

Finally there are some fragments of ancient books containing Juvenal.  Two pages of a 6th century volume exist in ms. Vatican lat. 5750, with scholia, and also a portion of Persius.  More pages from a different 6th century book exist in Milan in ms. Ambrosianus Cimelio 3.  Finally a parchment leaf from Antinoe, ca. 500 AD, contains 49 lines of book 7.  None of these fragments agrees consistently with either of the medieval groups, unfortunately.

By the last decade of the 4th century, Juvenal had been equipped with a substantial commentary, which is the source for our scholia vetera (there are also Carolingian scholia), found in the three mss. P, Arou. and Sang.  Mommsen discussed the date of the commentary in his Gesammelte Schriften 7 (1909), p.509-11: Zeitalter des Scholiasten Juvenals.  The scholia must post-date 352-3, since there is a reference in the scholion on Juvenal book 10, l.24 to a praefectus urbis named Cerealis.  But much of the material must be older, or so the footnote says.  It can hardly date later than the abolition of paganism — the scholiast shows little knowledge of Christianity, and resorts to quoting Tacitus.  It is difficult to believe that the compulsory state religion could be unknown in the 5th century, and indeed the writer says that the gods are still worshipped.  The festival of the Matronalia is a state festival, as it still is shown in the Chronography of 354, but not in that of 449.  Likewise the term used for the silver coinage is not the silliqua of the 5th century, but the older terms argenteolus or nummus.

Mommsen concludes  that the commentary was composed ca. 400 AD, and that later, as is usual with ancient commentaries, it was pillaged for the materials to create the scholia in the margins of the new-fangled codex-style books.

Share

The scholia on Juvenal

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few days ago I managed to find an edition of the “scholia vetera” on Juvenal, in an 1839 edition .  It starts on p.153, here.   It’s not a critical edition.  Indeed I believe the critical edition is that of 1937, but this is not accessible to me.  So … let’s make do with what we have.

The scholia begin with a vita.  Then the scholia begin, starting with some remarks on Semper ego…? (Why should I always…?)  I can’t help feeling that the scholia could usefully be translated.

Share

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Lots of emails yesterday and today.

Firstly and most importantly, the PDF containing Eusebius has come back.  This should be the last, final version.  I will check it over at the weekend — otherwise the translator will lynch me — but that means the book is done.  The next stage will be creating a cover, sending it off to Lightning Source, and stuff like that.  I expect to get some free time in 2 weeks, so it may work out quite nicely.  Many thanks indeed to Bob the typesetter!

An email reached me from the translator of Michael the Syrian, asking what a “sar” or “saros” might be.  These terms occur in the Babylonian history of Berossus, as a measure of time.  Berossus is lost, but the Chronicle of Eusebius quotes it, and so these curious terms drift down the centuries.  I offered my best suggestion, and a selection of materials that I gathered on the subject.  Eusebius reckons that a “sar” is 3,600 years, but I suspect it was 18 years.

Another email arrived from a translator, and we may do the Ad Gaurum of Porphyry, on the creation of the soul.  I need to look again at the text and work out a price, and reply (probably tomorrow).

Share

UV light to reveal colours of ancient statuary?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An interesting article here via Dyspepsia Generation:

Original Greek statues were brightly painted, but after thousands of years, those paints have worn away. Find out how shining a light on the statues can be all that’s required to see them as they were thousands of years ago.

Something about this reporting — reproduced widely on non-scholarly sites — makes me nervous.  It’s not very coherent, and no sources are quoted, no researchers given.  The source for the images is supposed to be a certain Venzenz Brinkmann, and there is yet another non-scholarly item — a PDF — here.

Share

Problems with Eusebius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Three weeks ago I sent a dozen corrections — the last! — to the Latin and the Coptic to Bob, who is typsetting the book.  I’ve heard nothing since, although I’ve sent a reminder.  I greatly fear that they went into the spam folder.

Bob, if you’re reading this, could you confirm you received the two emails?

Share