Locating the Golden Bough online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the primary sources of material used by atheists for “Jesus = <insert god here>” is J. Frazer’s The Golden Bough, 1911.  In my experience, whenever I look at this kind of material, it is always worth checking what Frazer said.  In my case I want to find the origin of some curious statements about the Adonia.

His book is well referenced, if you go directly to it.  He’s the only author I have ever come across to know of 6th century Syriac author Thomas of Edessa, or to have read the Latin version — the only version ever made — of his De nativitate.  Yet read it he must have done, for he refers (correctly) to the fact that Thomas says the pagans even in his day celebrated a solar festival at Christmas-time.

A single volume abridgement is accessible at Gutenberg.  But it came as rather a shock to discover that the original was actually in twelve volumes!  I tried to locate this on Google books in vain; a search on Archive.org was better.

To locate all 12 volumes, use this link.

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What is Bombycin?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I mentioned that one of the manuscripts of Photius’ Lexicon was written on ‘bombycin’, and a commenter has asked what this is.   It’s Arabic paper, used widely in Byzantium from the 9th century onwards until superceded by western methods of paper manufacture.

One of the key references is J. Irigoin, Les premiers manuscrits grecs écrits sur papiers et le problème du bombycin, Scriptorium 4 (1950), 194-202; and this was reprinted in Dieter Harlfinger’s Griechische Kodikologie, p. 132.  And I happen to own a copy of Harlfinger.  Here is a quick translation of the opening portion of his article:

Ever since Bernard de Montfaucon, textbooks on Greek paleography have distinguished two types of paper used in manuscripts; bombycin paper, of oriental origin, and western paper.

Until the end of the 19th century, it was believed that bombycin paper was made with cotton, which neatly distinguished it from western paper which was made from old rags (hence the name, rag paper) made of linen.  Around 1885, the work of Briquet, at Geneva, and of Wiesner and Karabacek at Vienna has shown that “cotton paper” is a myth; oriental paper was made with linen fibres, and bombycin is a linen paper just like western paper.  The only difference between the two papers is the choice of product used to hold it together; starch in the east, and gelatine in the west.

Paleographers have all the same continued to use the adjective bombycinus to designate manuscripts written on paper of oriental origin, in opposition to chartacei, written on paper made in the west.  All the same, the distinction between the two papers is far from simple and recent catalogues of Greek mss. label as chartaceus all manuscripts on paper, without giving any indication of the origin of the material.

As a general rule, paleographers state that bombycin is of a more or less obvious brown colour.  It is thick and opaque, often fluffy at the edges of the leaves; it is this which gives it sometimes the appearance of blotting paper, and it happens sometimes that the bombycin disintegrates at the surface, which is very unfortunate for the text written on it.  Western paper is less obviously coloured, thinner and better glued together, and on holding up to the light the marks left by the manufacturing process, the mesh, and eventually the watermark.  The latter appears sporadically in the last 20 years of the 13th century, and generally from the 14th century on.

This rule appears clear and certain.  In fact it is not so clear, and it often  happens that one hesitates as to whether thick paper does or does not show the marks of the process, and in cases of doubt it tends to be called bombycin.

My work has made it possible for me to study a certain number of Greek mss.  I have examined with care those which are said to be written on bombycin, and this has led me to the following conclusion: many of the manuscripts listed as bombycins in the most recent publications show watermarks and are thus written on western paper.  I shall limit myself to three series of examples.

Irigoin then goes on to detail his work, and to draw up more precise guidelines for identifying bombycin.  After studying more than 200 Greek paper manuscripts written before 1300, he felt able to state with confidence which was which.  The blotting paper effect was unusual rather than characteristic, for instance.  He also looked at Arabic manuscripts, which used paper from the 9th century onwards.  There he found that most used the same kind of paper, suggesting that they were written in the Near East, in the region from where the Byzantine empire imported its paper at that period.

He also points out that paper sizes were different in the orient and in the west.  The oldest manuscript he could find written on western paper was from 1255 A.D.    He also mentions the first known Greek ms. written on paper — Ms. Vatican. gr. 2200, written at Damascus ca. 800 A.D., in an archaising cursive, and suggests that it was a one-off.  The next known ms. is Vatican gr. 504, from 1105, written partly on paper and partly on parchment.  But literary references indicate that paper was being used by the middle of the 11th century.  Western paper, imported from Italy, starts to appear in Byzantium in the middle of the 13th century.  In the 14th century, and especially after 1340, paper replaces parchment almost entirely.  Oriental paper declined in quality during the first years of the 14th century, and disappears.  It is used rarely after 1350, and hardly ever after 1380.  Political and economic factors prevented the Byzantines from trading to the east, and the Turkish threat forced them to look west.  Irigoin adds:

In conclusion, a manuscript written on oriental paper must be placed between the middle of the 11th century and 1380.

and finishes by listing technical details.

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The Lexicon of Photius

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the references to the festival of the Adonia is supposedly in “Photius”.  Perhaps his Lexicon would help, perhaps under Adonis or Adonia?  This led me to wonder where this text might be found.  I quickly found that a Google search needs “lexicon photii” to find anything at all.  Is there no Wikipedia article, even, for this text?

Google books showed me an 1823 edition here.  But unfortunately there is a lacuna of ca. 100 pages at precisely the point we want.  More modern editions exist.  But an 1864 edition has the same problem.   All these are based on the Codex Galeanus (Cambridge, Trinity College, O.3.9/5985, once no. 306), a 12th century parchment ms. of 149 leaves.

A preview of a much more modern edition (1982, De Gruyter, vol. 1 – A-D) by Christos Theodoridis is here.  And this has a much fuller text, and much of the introduction is also online, from which the following notes are taken.

It seems that in 1959 an academic at the university of Thessalonika named Linos Politis made an journey into western Macedonia for research purposes, and discovered at the monastery of Zavorda a manuscript (codex Zavordensis 95) of the 13-14th century, containing the complete text of the Lexicon.  The editor comments (p.ix) that a find of this kind, outside of papyri, is a rarity.  But it was 1974 before editing began.  The manuscript is 406 leaves, written on bombycin in two columns.  It is the only complete manuscript of the text.  The manuscript contains other items also.

Besides the Cambridge and Zavorda manuscripts, there is also a manuscript in Berlin: ms. Berolinensis graec. oct. 22, a 13th century parchment ms. of 111 leaves, mostly of miscellaneous contents.  It was bought in 1901 from Valentin Rose, and contains a portion of the text.  It was thought lost in World War 2, but Theodoridis set out to locate it.  During the war the mss. of the Prussian Staatsbibliothek were first sent to Furstenstein for safety, and then to the Benedictine monastery of Grüssau (now Krzeszow) in Silesia.  The monastery escaped the war, and the manuscript ended up in 1946 in Krakow, in the Jagellonen University Library there.

There are a couple of other sources: Atheniensis 1083, a 15-16th century paper ms. containing a 4 leaf extract of the work; and a manuscript in Mar Saba in Jerusalem, Sabbaiticus 137, a miscellaneous ms. of the 14-15th century of 169 leaves, with an extract on f.162-9.  A couple more minor sources are also given by Theodoridis.

But back to the Adonia in Photius.  In the 1982 edition, on p.46 – 47 we get the following, which gives us exactly what we want:

Anyone care to do a translation?  The latter entry (401) clearly identifies the connection with Phoenicia and Cyprus.

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More on the scholia on Aristophanes

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still looking for a scholion on Aristophanes which gives real extra information on the festival of Adonis, the Adonia.

The Koster volumes mentioned by Eleanor Dickey in the previous post turn out to be Scholia in Aristophanem, Groningen 1960.  I doubt I can access this.

But I find a bibliography (with horrible pop-ups etc) of Aristophanes material here.  In the section on the scholia I find this:

Scoli:

  • W.Dindorf  Aristophanis comoediae IV/1-3: Scholia Graeca ex codicibus aucta et emendata, Oxford, 1838
  • F.Dübner Scholia Graeca in Aristophanem, cum prolegomenis grammaticorum Parigi, 1842 (1877²) -si rifa per buona parte a Dind.-
  • solo Ravennate: W.G.Rutherford  Scholia Aristophanica I-II London 1896 (il III: A Chapter in the History of Annotation, being Scholia Aristophanica, vol III, 1905) 
  • cfr. anche lo studio di G.Zuntz Die Aristophanes-Scholien der Papyri, Berlin, 1975²

W.J.W Koster – D.Holwerda (dal 1974 o 5? a c.di) Scholia in Aristophanem, Groningen 1960-

PARS I
W.J.W. Koster  1A Prolegomena de Comoedia, Groningen, 1975
N.G.Wilson 1B Scholia in Aristophanis Acharnenses, Groningen, 1975
D.Mervyn Jones 2 Scholia vetera in Aristophanis Equites et N.G.Wilson Scholia Tricliniana in Aristophanis.Equites, Groningen, 1969
D.Holwerda 3,1 Scholia vetera in Nubes et W.J.W.Koster Scholia scholiorumque partes editionis Aldinae propria Groningen, 1977
W.J.W.Koster 3,2 Scholia recentiora in Nubes, Groningen, 1974

PARS II (Scholia in Vespas, Pacem Aves et Lysistrata)
W.J.W.Koster 1 Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Vespas, Groningen, 1978
D.Holwerda  2 Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Pacem, Groningen, 1982
D.Holwerda  3 Scholia vetera et recentiora in Aristophanis Aves, Groningen, 1991
J.Hangard  4  Scholia in Aristophanis Lysistratam, Groningen, 1996

PARS III (Scholia in Thesmophoriazusas; Ranas; Ecclesiazusas et Plutum)
M.Chantry IVa  Scholia vetera in Aristophanis Plutum, Groningen, 1994
M.Chantry  IVb  Scholia recentiora in Aristophanis Plutum, Groningen, 1996 (-5?)
Mancano tuttora gli scoli a Thesm. (1), Ran. (2), Eccl. (3)

PARS IV (Ioannis Tzetzae commentarii), 1960-64, 4 voll. (l’ultimo di indici)
L.Massa Positano 1. Prolegomena et commentarium in Plutum, Groningen, 1960
D.Holwerda  2. Commentarium in Nubes, Groningen, 1960
W.J.W Koster  3. Comm. in Ranas et in Aves, Argumentum Equitum Groningen, 1964 (-2?)

That gives a lot more information (in Italian) on what and when are where. 

The first couple of these should be accessible, I would have thought.  And so it proves: the 1846 edition of Dindorf is indeed online: vol. 4 pt1 is here, pt 2 is here, pt 3 here.  But one problem with these volumes is the lack of a table of contents.  I was obliged to look through the PDF’s by reducing the magnification to “fit the page”, then skimming down with the scroll page at 100 page intervals looking at the titles.  The scholia in pacem — we’re looking for a scholion on Peace, 412, for stuff about the Adonia — is in vol.4, pt3, and 412 is on p.56 of the printed text (p.61 of the PDF). 

However the scholion did not seem to be what we are looking for.  It is very common to find that obscure references are inaccurate, precisely because few have the opportunity to verify them!  Here it is anyway:

Transcription:

412.  ἵνα τὰς τελετὰς αὐτοὶ λάβοιεν : Ἡμῶν ἀπολλυμένων καὶ τῶν βαρβάρων αὐτοῖς θυόντων.   παρατηρητέον δὲ ὅτι ἀντὶ τοῦ τὰς θυσίας κεῖται τὸ τελετάς.

Would someone with better Greek than me care to translate?

In the mean time I’m going to OCR the PDF using language = Greek, and see if a search will bring up anything on “Adon”!  I do believe a scholion is there somewhere.

UPDATE: Just scrolling down the page, 419 is it!  (link here)

Transcription: 

419.  τὰ Διπόλεια : Τὰ Διπόλεια τῷ Διὶ, τὰ Ἀδώνια τῷ Ἀδώνιδι καὶ τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ.

419.  The Dipoleia: the Dipoleia of Zeus, the Adonia of Adonis and Aphrodite.

Which doesn’t give us much.  Hmm.

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The scholia on Aristophanes

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Since I discovered yesterday that a scholion on Aristophanes Peace 412 was an important source for information on the Adonia, I have been trying to find the text.  A search today led me to here.  This is a Google books preview of Eleanor Dickey’s Ancient Greek Scholarship: a guide to finding, reading, and understanding scholia, commentaries, lexica, and grammatical treatises, from their beginnings to the Byzantine period, Oxford University Press 2007.  Don’t bother clicking on the link unless you are American — the preview is for the US only (and what a wretched business it is, this new trick of keeping the previews hidden from non-US readers!)  But the book looks like a gem, on a subject which few know anything about.

Pages 28-31 contain the following interesting remarks:

The scholia to Aristophanes are among the most important sets of scholia, in part because they provide historical background without which many of the jokes and allusions in the comedies would be incomprehensible. They are relatively well preserved, and most of them can be found in a sound and reliable modern edition, making them easier to use than many scholia.

Most Aristophanes scholia fall into one of four groups: the old scholia, Tzetzes’ scholia, Thomas Magister’s scholia, and Demetrius Triclinius’ scholia. Scholarly attention tends to focus on the old scholia, which are the most useful in terms of the information they provide on Aristophanes, but the later annotations preserve some old material and are interesting in their own right because of the perspective they offer on Byzantine scholarship.

The old scholia to Aristophanes are derived from a variety of sources going back to the beginning of Alexandrian scholarship. Callimachus, Eratosthenes, and Lycophron (a contemporary of Zenodotus) all worked on Aristophanes to some extent, and the first continuous commentary on his plays was produced by Euphronius, the teacher of Aristophanes of Byzantium. Aristophanes of Byzantium himself produced an edition of the plays, providing an introduction to each (the extant verse hypotheses of the plays are thought to be distant descendants of these introductions) and may also have written a commentary; Callistratus and Aristarchus probably wrote commentaries on the plays, and Timachidas of Rhodes wrote one on the Frogs.

The work of these and other scholars was combined into a single commentary by Didymus in the late first century BC or early first century AD, and sometime in the first two centuries AD Symmachus compiled another commentary, using Didymus as his main source but also consulting other works. At a later date Symmachus’ commentary or one of its descendants, along with some other material, was copied into the generous margins of a book of the plays of Aristophanes and formed the archetype of our extant scholia.

Perhaps the most important of the additional sources of our scholia is the metrical commentary on Aristophanes written by Heliodorus around AD 100. This commentary is often studied apart from the other scholia, for it is crucial for our understanding of ancient metrical theory but of limited use in understanding Aristophanes. Heliodorus’ work has been preserved to varying extents for the different plays; one can reconstruct from the scholia nearly all of it for the Peace, as well as substantial sections of it for the Acharnians and Knights and some fragments for the Clouds and Wasps, but little else.

In addition to the direct tradition of the scholia, which is well attested in several manuscripts, there is an indirect tradition via the Suda, whose writer had access to the same body of material when it was more complete and therefore often preserves scholia that did not survive in the direct tradition. There are also a number of papyri and ancient parchment fragments with commentaries or scholia on Aristophanes; on the whole, those of the fourth century and later seem to reflect a body of material very similar to the ancestor of our scholia (though in some places more complete), while the earlier ones, which are much rarer, apparently belong to different traditions.

There is then a discussion of the Tzetzes scholia, and then the hard data:

The best edition of the scholia is a multivolume work edited first by W. J. W. Koster and later by D. Holwerda (1960– =TLG), which includes both old and Byzantine scholia, usually in separate volumes. The volumes containing the Thesmophoriazusae and Ecclesiazusae have not yet appeared, so for those plays the standard text of the scholia is still that of Dübner (1842 =TLG). While the Koster–Holwerda edition is unquestionably the best in terms of completeness and quality of the text presented, a number of older ones are still useful for specific purposes. Rutherford’s edition (1896) of the scholia in the Ravenna manuscript provides translations and commentary in English. White’s edition of the Heliodorus fragments (1912: 384–421) extracts all the Heliodorus fragments from the scholia, groups them together, and provides an excellent introduction (in English) with explanation of Heliodorus’ Greek. Jorsal et al. (1970) collect the Byzantine metrical scholia to the Frogs. White’s edition of the Birds scholia (1914) has much more detailed indices than the new edition, and Koster (1927) provides an important supplement for Plutus and Clouds.

Papyri with Aristophanes commentaries or scholia are not uncommon, and are conveniently collected with German translation and excellent discussion by Trojahn (2002). In addition, most of those relating to extant plays are included in the Koster–Holwerda edition, and those relating to lost plays can be found in Austin (1973).

Discussions of the Aristophanes scholia are numerous, lengthy, and extremely varied in character and conclusions. The best overview in English is still White’s exceptionally lucid introduction to his edition of the Birds scholia (1914), which covers the entire history of the creation and transmission of the scholia and includes detailed information on Didymus and Symmachus; this work is, however, out of date in places and is concerned almost exclusively with the old scholia. Dunbar’s introduction (1995: 31–49) is briefer but up to date and covers all types of scholarship. Rutherford (1905) offers a detailed and highly informative examination of the nature and contents of the old scholia, but many of his views are no longer accepted, and the author’s evident grumpiness can make the book difficult to read. Additional discussions of textual history can be found in Koster (1985), Hangard (1983, 1985), and the prefaces to the individual volumes of the Koster–Holwerda edition (particularly volumes i.i a, i.iii.i, and ii.i). Montana (1996) discusses the information the old scholia provide on the Αθηναίων πολιτεία. 

The papyrus scholia and commentaries are particularly interesting for the question of the dating of the transition from self-standing commentary to marginal scholia, as the marginal commentaries in Aristophanes papyri of the fourth century and later tend to resemble the medieval scholia more than is the case with other authors. Discussions of this and other issues relating to the papyri can be found in Trojahn (2002), Zuntz (1975), H. Maehler (1994: 124–6), Luppe (1978, 1982), and McNamee (1977: 175–96, 356; forthcoming). The best sources for discussion of Heliodorus are White (1912: 384–95) and Holwerda (1964, 1967). For the scholia recentiora one can consult N. Wilson (1962), O. L. Smith (1976b), Koster (1964), Koster and Holwerda (1954), Holzinger (1930), and the prefaces to volumes i.iii.ii, iii.iv b, and iv.i of the Koster–Holwerda edition. For examples of the way scholars use the Aristophanes scholia for historical information on the plays and on Athenian history and culture, see Carawan (1990), Lavelle (1989), Sutton (1980), Bicknell (1975), and Holwerda (1958).

I think the only possible comment on that is “wow”. 

I deeply approve of this book.  In fact I’ve got to buy a copy of it.  I’ve managed to find a bootleg PDF of it, but you can’t read a book like this on-screen!

The author knew what she was doing.  In the preface she tells us that scholars are increasingly making use of the ancient Greek scholarly tradition, while finding it very difficult to access.  Her book, therefore, is intended to facilitate access.  Well done!

It is a pity that Oxford University Press did not see facilitating access in the same way.

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The Project Hindsight translations of ancient astrological texts

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A few weeks ago I wrote of my discovery that a bunch of ancient astrological texts existed in an largely unknown English translation by Robert Schmidt of Project Hindsight.  These can be obtained by emailing the site and sending money by Paypal (a price list is here, but prices are actually more flexible than the flat $45 per booklet).  A table of contents for each volume is on the site (e.g. Antiochus of Athens is here).

These translations have remained unknown.  I cannot check l’Année Philologique, but I don’t know that they have ever received an academic review.  COPAC, the UK union catalogue for research libraries, did not reveal a single copy in any of them.   They were originally sold on a subscription basis to interested people in the astrological community, and so did not circulate more widely.

The Project Hindsight early translations of Hellenistic textsNow I’m not very interested in ancient astrological texts.  The existence of astrology and astrologers in our own times is something of a curiosity.  I have found those I have dealt with to be rather civilised folk, somewhat gun-shy and afraid of being taken for cranks and cultists when they write.  

It was important to get rid of astrology so that astronomy could be born.  But since they are so harmless, we may see these people, and their interest in the astrological tradition, as a genuine survival from ancient times.  It’s a part of our own day that would be thoroughly comprehensible to a Roman.  It’s as if the worship of Apollo lingered in some mountain fastness; wrong, no doubt, but of great historical interest.  This has led me to take an interest in the matter, and perhaps to write more than I might otherwise have done.

I believe that all ancient literature should be accessible to anyone who wants to click on a link.  At the very least, it should be easy for people to find out about them!  So I invested some of my own money and obtained three volumes from the series; Antiochus of Athens, The Thesaurus; and Hephaistio of Thebes, Apotelesmatics vols.1 and 2.  I was warned that these were not of professional quality, that they were reprints, perhaps even photocopies, and that this was why they are not widely advertised.

A package arrived this morning from the US.  On opening it, I found three A5 booklets, a card cover, bound as a single-quire with two staples in the spine holding the quire together.  My first impression was positive.  The text is typeset professionally, the tone is calm and sensible, and the introduction by Robert Schmidt a model of professionalism. 

An opening of the Antiochus of Athens booklet from Project HindsightI attach a couple of photographs.  You should be able to click through on these to the full-size images.  Unfortunately it is rather dim here today, and I am never that handy with a camera taking images of pages anyway.

The volumes, as far as book production is concerned, seem to me to be perfectly acceptable and nothing to be ashamed of.  A few of the pages betray the odd mark indicating that a photocopier has been involved — the odd dust speck, the odd hair.  But all of us have photocopies of that kind!  The text is always perfectly clear and readable with none of the blodges that you get from photocopying old paper.

The prices are rather high, it must be said at once.  But you can haggle.  The team at Project Hindsight have reprints on the shelf of some of the volumes, which they are willing to let go at a discount.

The introduction to the Antiochus by Robert Schmidt is a model of how this should be done.  He indicates his sources, he states what text he is translating, and he gives an appendix indicating how he has translated specific technical terms.  The additional editorial work and notes by Robert Hand also look good.

This issue of technical terminology is a real one, which must obstruct all progress in this field until a specialist lexicon is compiled.   Mark Riley, while working on Vettius Valens, did start compiling such a lexicon, and he has placed his notes online.  It is interesting that Robert Schmidt has found the same need, and I could wish that the Project should place online a digest of how these terms were rendered.  In fact Dr Schmidt might be well advised to publish an article in some technical journal on this very subject. 

A number of volumes of Vettius Valens are in the Project Hindsight list.  It seems that Dr Riley and Dr Schmidt worked independently, neither aware of the other.  But the result is probably of benefit to everyone.

Robert Schmidt is now reworking his translations, with the benefit of 17 years experience, into a new series of hardbacks, again to be sold on subscription.  We must all wish this enterprise well, and I hope  that the translator reaps a handsome financial reward, for his efforts have benefitted mankind to an extraordinary degree.

I wish I knew how to get some of the major libraries here to subscribe, for it is clear to me that these volumes need to be held in research libraries, and will otherwise be very hard of access.  Anyone any ideas?

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The Realencyclopadie on the festival of the Adonia

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A commenter asked about the date of the Adonia.  I confess I had never considered the matter, and posted the German text of the Realencyclopadie entry in the comments.  Here is a translation. 

Adonia. The feast of Adonis, celebrated in midsummer festival, whose main component is the lament for the death of Adonis who was represented by wooden dolls. The festival, of uncertain origin, is certainly an ancient one on the soil of Greece, Asia Minor and Syria, first mentioned at Athens under the name A)dwnia (Aristophanes Peace 419. Plutarch Nicias 13; Alcibiades 18) on the occasion of the Sicilian expedition as a private celebration for women.  In the 4th century B.C., the comic writers several times refer to it as for courtesans. So in Diphilus, fragment 43, 39 (II 554 K., ibid. 557; in the Theseus of Diphilus, the courtesans gave each other obscene riddles at the Adonia).

An honorary decree of the Thiasotai of Aphrodite for their leaders from the year 302 (Dittenberger Syll. 427) sets out his services in the πομπή (solemn procession) of the Adonia, which must therefore have been a major festival.

There is a portrayal of a splendid celebration of the Adonia in Alexandria, favored by Ptolemy Philadelphus, in Theocritus, 15th Idyll; a description of the celebration in Byblos, probably from the 1st century A.D., in [Lucian] de dea Syria 6ff; in Antioch in 362 AD (Ammianus Marcellinus XXII 9, 15) the festival was still celebrated annually. For the history of the god and its importance see Adonis.

The opening of the 15th idyll of Theocritus, and a link to the full English version, is in the post referenced above.  The hymn that is sung refers to Adonis receiving all the fruits — late summer, perhaps? — while another bit refers to “Oh dear, oh dear, Gorgo! my summer cloak’s torn right in two”, and the footnote suggests that it may have been held on the longest day.

Of course this is Ptolemaic Alexandria.  We need not suppose the festival was held on the same day everywhere.  Indeed in the Greek world, where each city could have different months, where the year started at different times, and there was no agreement on any universal chronology, it would be quite difficult to hold a festival on the same day throughout the Greek world, except by tying it to the solstice or some other astronomical event. 

We’re used to the Christian chronology, which is universal.  But that was a product of late antiquity, of the labours of Eusebius of Caesarea.  It did not exist in the classical Greek period.

UPDATE: Aristophanes, Peace, is here:

HERMES: Is it then for this reason that these untrustworthy charioteers have for so long been defrauding us, one of them robbing us of daylight and the other nibbling away at the other’s disk?

TRYGAES: Yes, certainly. So therefore, Hermes, my friend, help us with your whole heart to find and deliver the captive and we will celebrate the great Panathenaea in your honour as well as all the festivals of the other gods; for Hermes shall be the Mysteries, the Dipolia, the Adonia; everywhere the towns, freed from their miseries, will sacrifice to Hermes the Liberator; you will be loaded with benefits of every kind, and to start with, I offer you this cup for libations as your first present.

Plutarch, Alcibiades, is here.  The time is the arguments at Athens over sending the disastrous expedition to Syracuse.

After the people had adopted this motion and all things were made ready for the departure of the fleet, there were some unpropitious signs and portents, especially in connection with the festival, namely, the Adonia. 3 This fell at that time, and little images like dead folk carried forth to burial were in many places exposed to view by the women, who mimicked burial rites, beat their breasts, and sang dirges.

 Plutarch, Nicias, here refers to the same events:

7. Not a few also were somewhat disconcerted by the character of the days in the midst of which they dispatched their armament. The women were celebrating at that time the festival of Adonis, and in many places throughout the city little images of the god were laid our for burial, and funeral rites were held about them, with wailing cries of women, so that those who cared anything for such matters were distressed, and feared lest that powerful armament, with all the splendour and vigour which were so manifest in it, should speedily wither away and come to naught.

These last two come from Lacus Curtius, the splendid site created by Bill Thayer.  Here the Adonia is being celebrated at Athens when the expedition is despatched — but when was this, I wonder?

Bill has linked ‘adonia’ in the Alcibiades to a dictionary article that he has digitised, here.

ADOʹNIA (Ἀδώνια), a festival celebrated in honour of Aphrodite and Adonis in most of the Grecian cities, as well as in numerous places in the East. It lasted two days, and was celebrated by women exclusively. On the first day they brought into the streets statues of Adonis, which were laid out as corpses; and they observed all the rites customary at funerals, beating themselves and uttering lamentations. The second day was spent in merriment and feasting; because Adonis was allowed to return to life, and spend half of the year with Aphrodite. (Aristoph. Pax, 412, Schol. ad loc.; Plut. Alcib. 18, Nic. 13). For fuller particulars respecting the worship and festivals of Adonis, see Dict. of Biogr. s.v. Adonis.a

And Bill  has added his own note:

a For a different set of references altogether, see Prof. Crosby’s note on the 62d Discourse of Dio Chrysostom.

But Dio reads:

On the contrary, it was his custom to slip away into the women’s quarters in his palace and there sit with legs drawn up on a golden couch, sheltered by purple bed-hangings, just like the Adonis who is lamented by the women [5],…

and the note is:

5. As early as the fifth century Athenian women honoured him with a two-day festival in which the lament was prominent; cf. Aristophanes, Lysistrata 389.  A celebration in Alexandria forms the background of Theocritus’ fifteenth idyl; cf. also Bion’s Lament in Edmonds, Greek Bucolic Poets (L. C. L.), pp386‑395.

Few sites indeed, other than Lacus Curtius, would give us so much for a few clicks. 

Aristophanes, Lysistrata is here:

MAGISTRATE: Have the luxurious rites of the women glittered
Their libertine show, their drumming tapped out crowds,
The Sabazian Mysteries summoned their mob,
Adonis been wept to death on the terraces,
As I could hear the last day in the Assembly?
For Demostratus–let bad luck befoul him–
Was roaring, “We must sail for Sicily,”
While a woman, throwing herself about in a dance
Lopsided with drink, was shrilling out “Adonis,
Woe for Adonis.” Then Demostratus shouted,
“We must levy hoplites at Zacynthus,”
And there the woman, up to the ears in wine,
Was screaming “Weep for Adonis” on the house-top,
The scoundrelly politician, that lunatic ox,
Bellowing bad advice through tipsy shrieks:
Such are the follies wantoning in them.

MEN: O if you knew their full effrontery!
All of the insults they’ve done, besides sousing us
With water from their pots to our public disgrace
For we stand here wringing our clothes like grown-up infants.

This gives us little new information, tho.

Bion’s Lament for Adonis is here.  However, while it makes clear that the festival was annual, it gives no indication as to when it took place.

The only remaining reference in that lot is the scholia on the passage in Aristophanes.  I’m not at all sure, tho, where these might be found.

Next a search in Google books, which gave me Matthew Dillon, Girls and women in classical Greek religion.  Page 164-5 talk of Menander’s Samia, much of which was recovered in 1907 from papyri, and more in 1959 in the Bodmer papyrus, giving us four out of five sections.  This does not seem to be accessible online, however.  Dillon tells us that the festival was not a state event, but conducted in private houses, a women-only event, including both respectable women and prostitutes involved,  and he gives the Samia as his reference for this.   But he also tells us that Photius mentions the Adonia (unfortunately I cannot see the footnote 155), as coming to the Greeks from Cyprus and Phoenicia.  Interestingly he also says:

But Adonis was in no sense an eastern dying and reborn vegetation god.  The Adonis images laid out as in death, and the seed garden that never bear fruit, honour him once each year.  After the Adonia, he will not make an appearance until the next celebration of the festival (i.e. his death is commemorated each year; only late sources mention a resurrection).[156]

On p.167-8 Dillon adds that the date of the festival is disputed.  The Sicilian expedition referenced in Aristophanes was in early Spring in 415, but Plutarch gives the Adonia happening in the middle of a whole series of ill-omens before the expedition, all taking place in mid-summer.  Two passages of Theophrastus say that the Gardens of Adonis were sown in the Spring.  On p.168 he refers to, not one, but three decrees of the thiasotai (members of the thiasos), found at Piraeus.

All this is interesting.  I wish I could see the references.  The mention of Photius is perhaps a reference to the Lexicon, rather than the Bibliotheca.

There is also an entry in the Suda, although the online site doesn’t seem to allow us to link to articles.  But it gives us nothing useful.

All of which is very inconclusive.  I think we have to say, in truth, that we do not know for certain when the Adonia was celebrated.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I find it convenient to use Google mail for my email, mainly because of its excellent spam filtering.  But it is also an advantage that it is online wherever I am.  However I do want to hold a local copy which I can backup, and I have recently installed Mozilla Thunderbird for this purpose.  It required quite a bit of setup to get it to store its files in the place where I could copy them.

One advantage of this is that, when I download messages received and sent since the last download, I get an idea of how busy I am.  Today I sent or received 43 emails at that account.

No wonder I never have any time.

I wonder how many of us made new year’s resolutions.  I seem to have forgotten to.  Instead I’ve been too busy scrabbling to earn a living.  But our lives are very short.  5% of the year 2011 is already gone. 

I need to schedule some things which store up sunshine and happiness in my soul.  It is so fatally easy to march from one urgency to another!

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The review of the four letters of Isidore of Pelusium that I commissioned from a new translator has come back, generally positively.  But I haven’t had a chance yet to examine this in detail.

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Has Markus Vinzent been abducted by aliens?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email draws attention to some remarks, supposedly by Markus Vinzent, here.

… let me just mention, that Marcion could take the place that was previously given to Q, yes, but Marcion provides, of course, not just a sayings source, but a Gospel that includes narratives. Moreover, he seems not only to have cooined the terms ‘Gospel’, as suggested by H. Koester, and ‘New Testament’, suggested by W. Kinzig, but has oriented Christianity towards a literature based new religion. In addition, I suggest that we have to revise our understanding of 2nd century school relations. Instead of reckoning with antagonistic schools, divided along the divides between orthodoxy and heresy, it seems that the various school teachers were more closely related than later apologetic literature wants to have it.

Considering that Tertullian has Marcion’s works before him, and works about Marcion before him, and lives within half a century of the time when the heretic got the bum’s rush from the Roman church, this is all rather cute.  It can only be advanced by ignoring the data in the historical record — selectively, of course — in order to fabricate a fairy-story.

But Dr Vinzent is someone I have met (a rare event).  That Dr Vinzent is a very capable patristic scholar, doing much excellent work, including getting Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum, into a critical edition and modern languages.  It’s hard to imagine such a man peddling such stale old revisionism.   After all, we’ve all seen this kind of trick before, haven’t we? 

It’s always done in the same tired old way.  You take whatever the historical record says, imagine the opposite, then find excuses to selectively ignore the record until you create a vacuum on the subject you want to fake, and then proclaim that the vacuum proves that Jesus was an astronaut (or whatever).  Of course it isn’t very honest, but the faker often hides this from himself by various excuses.  It also tends to bring the humanities into disrepute. 

Can anyone even find this trick interesting these days?  Haven’t we seen it so many times before? 

So I have a theory.  Clearly Markus Vinzent has been abducted by aliens, and replaced with a clone.  The pseudo-Markus is vainly attempting to establish his place as a scholar, but has not realised that revisionism is now old hat.  And obviously we must now all campaign to have the real Markus Vinzent back. 

Some may protest that there is no actual evidence of abduction, and this is true.  But then, it’s more evidence than there is for a first century Marcion!

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