… is online here. (The page is the start of stuff on bruma). This French dictionary looks very useful, and the referencing to ancient sources isn’t bad either.
Thanks to Bill Thayer for pointing me at this one!
Authorities for the Julian year
A search on Google books produced an elderly reference, Wm Ramsay, Ovid: selections for the use of schools (1868) discussing how the Julian year worked (p.333). But as with so many of these old sources, the referencing to ancient texts is really quite good.
In giving an account of the Roman Calendar, it will be convenient first to explain that portion of the subject concerning which our information is full and complete; and then to pass on to the consideration of those points which are comparatively doubtful and obscure. According to this plan, we shall commence at once with an account of the constitution of the Julian Year [1]. …
[1] The principal authorities are Plutarch, Vit. Caes. 59, Dion Cassius 43. 26, Appian. B.C. II, Ovid Fast. 3. 155, Sueton. Jul. 40, Plin. H.N. 18. 25, Censorinus 20, Macrob. S. I. 14, Ammian. Marcell. 26. 1.
Which gives us something to work with. It will be interesting to see what Ramsay says…
From my diary
Another chunk of the Selecta in Ezechielem — the remains in Greek of material by Origen on Ezechiel, as printed by Migne — has arrived, leaving only another 11 pages of Migne to go. I’m told that these chunks of catenas tend to be corrupt and awkward; but sometimes the thought is considerably simpler than it is in Origen.
All this means that Origen on Ezechiel is drawing to an end, and will probably be complete sometime in the new year. After that, of course, I will have to print it and sell it. I’m thinking that it might be prudent to hire someone to edit it, design the book, any artwork, etc, rather than try to do it myself.
It’s like websites; anyone can put something together, but to get a professional appearance requires expertise. I saw an example website that someone was having designed, for a relatively small sum, and it was far better than anything I could do in any reasonable time. I don’t have any time, anyway; I’ve started a new job, and it means a daily commute which leaves very little time left at the end of the day. Nor can I do much during the day. Better to use a professional, perhaps, both from a time and quality point of view. I wonder where such might be found?
The translator of the Selecta has indicated willingness to have a go at some of John the Lydian. I think we’ll do this. The whole of De mensibus is doubtless interesting, but it’s also long. I think I’d like to see some return on existing investments of cash in translations before I commission something that costs another $4,000 or so. It would be prudent, I think.
So we’ll try doing December from book 4 of De mensibus. This gives, day by day, a list of what Romans got up to at that time of the month. It’s only 8 pages, so I’ll just give that away online.
“Killer” Carlson unmasks another fraud
This article came through from CLASSICS-L:
Science Daily 12/15/09:
Ancient Book of Mark Found Not So Ancient After All”
A biblical expert at the University of Chicago, Margaret M. Mitchell, together with experts in micro-chemical analysis and medieval bookmaking, has concluded that one of the University Library’s most enigmatic possessions is a forgery. The book, a copy of the Gospel of Mark, will remain in the collection as a study document for scholars studying the authenticity of ancient books.
Scholars have argued for nearly 70 years over the provenance of what’s called the Archaic Mark, a 44-page miniature book, known as a ‘codex,’ which contains the complete 16-chapter text of the Gospel of Mark in minuscule handwritten text. The manuscript, which also includes 16 colorful illustrations, has long been believed to be either an important witness to the early text of the gospel or a modern forgery, said Mitchell, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature.” …
Mitchell completed the analysis with a study of the textual edition the forger had used. She confirmed and refined Stephen C. Carlson’s proposal that the modern edition from which the forger copied the text was the 1860 edition of the Greek New Testament by Philipp Buttmann. Mitchell identified telltale readings in the Archaic Mark that arose from the original 1856 edition of Buttmann’s critical text, reproducing errors later corrected in the flurry of collations of the famous manuscript Vaticanus between 1857 and 1867.
There was a famous forger of the period, Constantine Simonides, who mingled scraps of genuinely old material with fakes of his own composition. I wonder if this is another of his creations?
Simonides was unmasked by the famous Tischendorff, who had discovered the Codex Sinaiticus. Simonides took his revenge by claiming that Simonides himself had written the Sinaiticus, although disclaiming writing any other texts. There was a lengthy discussion in the Guardian, reprinted in the Journal of Sacred Literature, in which Simonides claims were gradually but relentlessly revealed to be mendacious.
The copyright status of Liddell and Scott
This Spanish post discusses issues around the electronic XML version of Liddell and Scott.
Ancient medicine online
AWOL notes that a French site has a massive collection of ancient medical writers online here. Not that any of us want recipes for colds from that source, but the incidental information about ancient society is worth looking at.
Origen on Ezekiel; update
Roman calendars online
A 7th century Syriac mathematician
Before the first world war there was a flourishing of interest in Syriac studies among oriental Christians. Patriarch Aphram I Barsoum wrote in Arabic a patrology of their works, referenced mainly from manuscripts then existing in Eastern libraries. This was published but inaccessible by reason of language. However a few years ago the excellent Matti Moosa translated it into English, and it is available from Gorgias Press under the title of The scattered pearls. For people interested in Syriac, it is a wonderful resource. I went and bought a copy, which says something.
It seems that a doctoral student really is going to have a go at some of the works of Severus Sebokht. This made me look up the entry in Barsoum’s work. It’s quite impressive, and accessible to few. This is what Barsoum has to say:
94. Severus Sabukht (d. 667)
Severus was a skillful and famous doctor, a mathematician, a philosopher, nay the first scholar of the church who explored the obscurities of astronomical and natural sciences. He was born at Nisibin in the last quarter of the seventh century, became a monk and was educated in the Monastery of Qenneshrin, where he also acquired that knowledge of Greek and Syriac language and literature and of the Persian language, which made him the goal of seekers of knowledge. He was one of the prominent scholars who was graduated from this famous school, in which he also spent his life teaching philosophy, theology and mathematics, besides the writings of all the Syrian scholars. He was most prominent in astronomy and even excelled the Greeks in this field.1 Many pupils studied under him, the most famous of whom were the Patriarch Athanasius II and Jacob of Edessa. In 638, Severus was consecrated a bishop of the city of Qenneshrin, or, as it was said, of his monastery. He died in 667 at an advanced age. He was assigned the twentieth of July (or according to another calendar the eleventh of September) as the festival day of his commemoration. In the latter calendar, he was called “Severus the Mathematician.”
From the writings of Severus, which cover the fields of theology, philosophy and mathematics, very few have come down to us.
Of his theological writings the following survive:
1. a treatise on the weeks of Daniel;
2. an extract on the date of the birth of Our Lord in flesh and in what Greek year he was born;
3. two letters in seven pages to Sergius, abbot of the Monastery of Khanushia in Sinjar, containing a commentary on the two discourses of Gregory Nazianzen on the Son and the Holy Spirit. In these letters, the name of the author (Severus) was ascribed to his native home Nisibin, which misled Chabot, who thought they belonged to a bishop of Nisibin who was Severus’ namesake.2
His philosophical writings are:
4. a short treatise on the Analytica Posteriora of Aristotle written in 638 of which only three pages remain;3
5. extracts in three chapters from his treatise on Hermeneutics,
6. a letter to his friend Jonas the periodeutes (visiting cleric), explaining some points in the Rhetorica of Aristotle;4
1 Baumstark, p. 246.
2 See the three folios in the Brit. Mus. MS. 14547, ninth century.
3 Brit. Mus. MSS. 17156 and 14460. Also, the Chaldean Library in Mosul MS. 35, sixteenth century, and Cambridge MS. 3287, eighteenth century.
4 Brit. Mus. MS. 17156, Cambridge MS. 2812, nineteenth century, Dayr al-Sayyida MS. 50.
7. a treatise he wrote for some of those who love knowledge, explaining some logical points which had been mentioned in his former letter to Jonas to whom he sent a copy of this treatise;
8. a letter to the priest Ithalaha, who became a bishop of Nineveh on certain terms in the treatise, De Interpretatione and on arithmetic, surveying, astronomy and music, making the remark that he had written to him a year ago, explaining some canons of the saintly fathers and also praising him because he had sent him copies of the letters of Gregory and Basilius.1
Of his astronomical works we have:
9. a magnificent treatise on the astrolabe in fifty-two pages, translated into French and published by Nau in 1899;2
10. a treatise on the signs of the Zodiac, which he wrote in the year 659 or 660, of which only eighteen chapters remain. These chapters were published by Sachau in 1870.3 A few samples of these works exist in a manuscript at the British Museum, such as the habitable and inhabitable portions of the earth, the condition of those living in all its sphere—above and below the measurement of the heaven and the earth and the space between them—and whether the sun moves under or over the earth in the celestial sphere. To this treatise he added in the year 665 from nineteen to twenty-seven answers to astronomical, mathematical and cosmographical questions at the request of the periodeutes Basil of Cyprus.4 This is probably the same treatise which Bar Hebraeus alluded to in his book, Ascent of the Mind;
11. a letter in eighteen pages addressed to the same Basil on the fourteenth of the lunar month of April 556, about fixing the exact date of Easter;5
1 Brit. Mus. MS. 14660, ninth-tenth centuries, and Mosul MS. 35.
2 Paris MS. 346 dated 1309 in the handwriting of the priest Yeshu` Kilo; Berlin MS. 186 in the handwriting of the metropolitan Moses of Tyre dated 1556. For the French translation of Sabukht’s treatise on the astrolabe see F. Nau, “Le traite sur l’astrolabe plan de Severe Sabokt,” Journal Asiatique IX serie, t. XIII, 1899: 56-101 and 238-303. (tr.)
3 Sachau, Inedita Syriaca, 127-134.
4 Brit. Mus. MS. 14538, tenth century, and Paris MS. 346.
5 Berlin MS. 186. [The date 556 should be 665. (tr.)]12. three letters, also to Basil, on the science of history, contained in the British Museum manuscript;1
13. he translated from the Persian into Syriac an abridged exposition of Aristotle’s Interpretatione which had been translated from the original Greek to Persian by Paul the Persian for King Khosrau I,2 to which the monk Severus added the fifth treatise of Aristotle on logic;
14. the translation of Ptolemy’s Tetrapillon on the composition of mathematical speech as is confirmed by an established historical tradition.3
Both Wright and Duval, quoting Assemani, who quoted al-Duwayhi, have erroneously ascribed to him a liturgy in the name of Severus of Qenneshrin, which, in fact, belongs to Severus, bishop of Samosata and abbot of Qenneshrin as has been already mentioned.4
1 Brit. Mus. MS. 17156.
2 Dayr al-Sayyida MS. 50.
3 Paris MS. 346.
4 Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature, p. 139, citing Assemani B. O., 2: 463. (tr.)
Someone to work on Severus Sebokht?
The 7th century Syriac father Severus Sebokht has left several scientific and philosophical works behind. I grew interested in him, enough to acquire a PDF of the main manuscript of his mostly unpublished works, but other things supervened and I never pursued the matter. There are several unpublished letters in the ms. (BNF Syriac 346), one of which is the earliest mention of what we now call Arabic numbers in the west. The letter has never been translated, tho.
David Bertaina has posted on the Hugoye list a query about him. Apparently he has a post-grad. student who read mathematics, and is interested in having a go at his works. This is very good news, if so, and I have written to encourage him and offer support.